Dynamo Dresden 1 – 2 Aston Villa: The Grass is Green

Aston Villa beat German second division side Dynamo Dresden after a quick two-minute double by Andre Green.

Words by Regan Foy (@FindFoy) // Follow us on Twitter (@claretandview)

Aston Villa flew to Dresden yesterday for a pre-season game against German second division side Dynamo Dresden – with Villa playing in their brand new home kit and Dresden stepping out in a yellow-y gold.

Early on Aston Villa looked nervy – with James Chester sending a poor back pass towards goalkeeper Jed Steer – leaving him in no mans land and forcing him to rush forwards against the oncoming Dresden forward.

Just before the ten minute mark, Birkir Bjarnason and Jack Grealish tried to link up with an exquisite one-two, but they weren’t on the same page and the attack came to nothing. Birkir Bjarnason looked bright during this half, always attempting to find space and open up the pitch a little more.

Jack Grealish however, was being knocked from pillar to post by the German side. He didn’t really complain, but the referee didn’t really do anything about it either. For the first twenty minutes, and in honesty the rest of the half, Jack was only able to go on a few of his trademark runs.

Just before the half hour, Jed Steer made a catastrophic error – waiting for an oncoming ball on the edge of the box, to enter his area so he could pick it up. He stepped just outside the box to pick it up – which would have been a foul anyway – but Dresden forward Moussa Kone took the chance he’d been gifted and dispossessed Steer before slotting the ball into an open goal. New goalkeeper André Moreira was at the game looking on.

There were issues with the officiating in the game at times. Albert Adomah was flagged offside whilst Aston Villa were countering, which was 110% an obvious mistake, causing Villa to lose their momentum.

Dresden nearly made it two before the break with a one-on-one, but the ball narrowly sailed past Jed Steer’s right hand post.

The second half, Aston Villa looked a little more energetic – winning a free-kick early on that Adomah fired just over the bar.

Just four minutes into the second half, Jack Grealish received a yellow card after a  bust up near the corner flag with a Dresden player. Neil Taylor was involved too, but avoided being carded.

From then on, any time that Jack got the ball, the Dresden fans gave him a tough time. He was already being thrown around like a rag doll – and the ref continued to do nothing to stop it.

Around the 60 minute mark, Aston Villa levelled as Jack Grealish whipped in a corner that was headed away – falling perfectly for Andre Green who scored a Norwich-esque goal, side-footing it into the top right corner with his right foot.

Just a minute later, Aston Villa went ahead, with that man Andre Green again – grabbing his third in two games. Alan Hutton broke forward with an exciting run before crossing in a perfectly weighted pass to Green, who headed home.

Five minutes after that Green could have quite easily scored Aston Villa’s second hat-trick of pre-season after another starring Alan Hutton run put him through – but the ball was just too weighted.

Just after the 70 minute mark, Ritchie de Laet came on for Andre Green, leaving Albert Adomah to star up front. Hourihane came on for Glenn Whelan.

A few minutes later Harvey Knibbs, Gary Gardner, Henri Lansbury and James Bree all came on for Grealish, Elmohamady, Bjarnason and Hutton.

Dresden were looking to get back into the game and nearly did in the 77th minute, with Ritchie De Laet clearning off the line after a decent attempt from the Germans.

You can view events as they unfolded via our first ever Live Blog – which unfortunately does have some wrong times due to the lack of clock on the live stream provided.