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Several Aston Villa players performed during the International Break, but how exactly did they get on?
Words by Harry Trend (@HazaTrand)
Seven senior Aston Villa players featured in the latest instalment of the international break – a rarity for a Championship side – here’s how they got on;
For Wales, Neil Taylor wasn’t in the 23-man squad to face the Republic of Ireland and Denmark. However, James Chester was, and he played a full ninety minutes in their 2-0 defeat to the Danes. It remains to be seen whether manager Ryan Giggs will make Chester one of the first names on the team sheet like Chris Coleman did.
Conor Hourihane was on the receiving end of the 4-1 thrashing against Wales for the Republic of Ireland. Hourihane played nearly an hour of the game before coming off for Shaun Williams.
Elsewhere in the United Kingdom, John McGinn was the WhoScored man of the match as Scotland beat Albania Monday night with a rating of 7.92 out of 10. McGinn also played 73 minutes in Friday’s 4-0 loss to Belgium.
Birkir Bjarnson’s Iceland had a torrid time during the international break. The Nordic nation lost 6-0 to Switzerland then were thrashed 3-0 on their home turf by Belgium three days later. Bjarnason played in both games.
Talking of Nordic nations, Orjan Nyland’s Norway beat Cyprus 2-0 before losing 1-0 to Bulgaria. However, Nyland sat on the bench throughout the break, which will perhaps fuel him to improve his form at Aston Villa.
New loan signing Tammy Abraham played 14 minutes for the England U21 side against Netherlands, before completing a full 90 against Latvia’s U21 side and scoring England’s equalising goal.
Aston Villa’s African internationals were in action too. Ahmed Elmohamady captained Egypt to a 6-0 win over Niger. Finally, Johnathan Kodjia scored the opening goal in Ivory Coast’s 2-1 win against Rwanda. The Ivorian closed down a dawdling Olivier Kwizera to poke in his fifth goal for the Elephants.
So overall, a relatively mixed bag of results for the Aston Villa boys.
