Barkley and Bailey lift Aston Villa to extend Leicester’s Christmas nightmare
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Villa Park was quiet, underwhelmed, frustrations boiling in freezing weather, as Leicester repeatedly broke down the flow of Aston Villa attacks. Ross Barkley’s opener had been cancelled out by a counterattack strike all part of Ruud van Nistelrooy’s plan.
![[Aston Villa’s Ross Barkley opens the scoring.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/c12a24c7c3537b449fdddb7218e4e5d7a66da415/34_0_1887_1132/master/1887.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
An improved, dogged Leicester, better organised, more disciplined, as they sought to make up for a ruin of a Christmas, ended up rueing two more very preventable goals. Just as Barkley’s strike followed Jannik Vestergaard’s misdirected header, for the winner Jordan Ayew was robbed by Ian Maatsen, and after a quick exchange with fellow sub Emi Buendía, Leon Bailey was supplied a redemptive goal.
In such moments was an effective gameplan squandered. Having been beside Erik ten Hag and then briefly succeeded him at Manchester United, Van Nistelrooy’s Leicester have inherited his former manager’s habit of having shots rain down on his goalkeeper, conceding an average of more than 19 per game. Van Nistelrooy’s inheritance from the deposed Steve Cooper was a team out of the bottom three. There has been little Ruud manager bounce, his opening win over West Ham, a fading memory in the face of four straight defeats over Christmas.
In defeat were signs of a learning experience from someone with still few miles on his managerial clock. At a stadium he once richly enjoyed himself as a striker he had tightened his team’s defending. The plan was to see what might follow from there, Jamie Vardy foraging up front, waiting for his moment to arrive as it duly did.
