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Game #3551

Saturday, 15 September 1979

Attendance: 28,156

Lost

Division One

19th (-2)

Crystal Palace

WDLLL

Selhurst Park

Villa's difficult start to the season on and off the pitch continues as they are beaten by Palace to leave them nineteenth in the table.

Crystal Palace

2-0

Aston Villa

Assist(s) | None |

KEY MAN

RELATED MATCHES

MATCH TIMELINE

42’ Goal, 0-1, (Crystal Palace), Murphy
HT Crystal Palace 1-0 Aston Villa
63’ Goal, 0-2, (Crystal Palace), Murphy
Sub off, Joe Ward FINAL, Sub on, Brendan Ormsby
FT Crystal Palace 2-0 Aston Villa

ON THIS DAY

Ron Saunders' Villa lose for the second successive game and fail to score for the third consecutive match to make it one win, two draws and three defeats in six League matches this season as they slump to 19th place in the early Division One table.

Meanwhile, Mike Pejic made his Villa debut aged 29 after moving from Everton for a fee of £225,000 earlier this month; whilst 24 year old forward Joe Ward made his third and final appearance for Villa before moving to Hibernian later this month in a swap deal that brought Des Bremner to the club.

Also saying goodbye was John Deehan, who made his shock final Villa appearance aged 22 before moving on to West Bromwich Albion later this month for a fee of £500,000. Deehan had played for Villa between 1975-76 and 1979-80 making 139 appearances and scoring 50 goals.

Aston Villa

Crystal Palace

League Champions: ❌
FA Cup Winners: ❌
League Cup Winners: ❌
Last Trophy: ❌

FIXTURE HISTORY

Previous 5 vs. Palace: | 🟨 | 🟩 | 🟨 | 🟨 | 🟩 |

FIXTURE DETAILS

Season | 1979-80 |
Matchday | #8 |
League Match | #6 |
Manager Game | #269 |
Saturday, 15 September 1979

MATCH SUMMARY

Manager | Ron Saunders |
Referee | Reg Robinson, Norwich |
FT Result | Lost |
FT Score | 0-2 |
Last 5 Games | WDLLL |

MATCH OFFICIALS

Referee: Reg Robinson | 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 | 1974-1980

CARDS

Villa

None

Crystal Palace

None

TEAM NEWS

Joe Ward and Mike Pejic (debut) replace Gary Shelton and Gary Shaw.

TEAM STATS

Starting XI Average Age
| 25.69 |

Oldest Player |
GK Jimmy Rimmer | 31.62 |

Youngest Player |
M Gordon Cowans | 20.90 |

MANAGER

Ron Saunders

MANAGER

Aston Villa

GK Jimmy Rimmer |
RB John Gidman |
RB Kenny Swain |
FB Mike Pejic |
CB Allan Evans |
CB Ken McNaught |
M Gordon Cowans |
W Tony Morley |
M Dennis Mortimer |
F John Deehan |
F Joe Ward |

Crystal Palace

Burridge (ex), Sansom, Hinshelwood, Cannon, Gilbert, Hilaire, Murphy (g) (g) (Walsh), Nicholas, Francis, Flanagan, Swindlehurst. Manager: Terry Venables.

SUBSTITUTES

CB Brendan Ormsby for F Joe Ward

SUBSTITUTES

UNUSED SUBSTITUTES

None

UNUSED SUBSTITUTES

SQUAD STATS

MATCHDAY SQUAD

SQUAD STATS

MATCHDAY SQUAD

UNAVAILABLE

Injury | 7 |
Alex Cropley |
Brian Little |
Gary Williams |
Colin Gibson |
Gary Shelton |
Gary Shaw |
Frank Carrodus |

UNAVAILABLE

Not Recorded

Player Abbreviations:

GK : Goalkeeper

LB, RB, FB : Left Back, Right Back, Full Back

CB, D : Centre Back, Defender

M, W : Midfielder. Winger

F, CF : Forward, Centre Forward

🟢 : Debut 🔴 : Final Game

Symbols:

⚽ | Goal
🔥 | Assist
🔁 | Substitution

🟨 | Booking

🟥 | Sending off

🆘 | Poor refereeing performance

DEBUT APPEARANCES

FINAL APPEARANCES

MATCH STATS

Not recorded

TABLE

2021-22 Matchweek 38.jpg

PROGRAMME

Quotation Marks.png

MATCHDAY QUOTES

*Birmingham Daily Post*
Monday, 17 September 1979

​While the skirmishing goes on in the background. Aston Villa inevitably. continue to lose their way as a plausible force on the field.

And another of the questions that has to be asked about the future of the club is whether Ron Sanders can at the same time defend his future in the boardroom and give his team the undivided attention they obviously need.

They were beaten 2-0 by Crystal Palace at Selhurst Part on Saturday and the sum of their efforts now is one win from their first six First Division matches and just four League points in all.

It is easy to become alarmist and fall into the trap of believing that all is lost.

At this early stage that is far from so but their inability to score goals - this was their third successive game without one - must give rise to more concern.

Uninterested

Far more important, less than half the team looked really interested, which suggests either that Saunders is finding himself unable to fire the players with commitment or that the team simply is not good enough.

Crystal Palace may still be unbeaten in the First Division but they are a newly-promoted side with glaring deficiencies particularly in the centre of their defence.

Goalkeeper Rimmer, who in general had a fine game and one of the players whose commitment was not in question, let a Murphy shot slip from his grasp in the 42nd minute to give Palace a deserved lead.

Another goal was inevitable and it arrived after 63 minutes from Murphy. who lifted a 23-yard shot over Rimmer's head for the best goal I have seen in many a long day.

---

Monday, 17 September 1979
*Birmingham Daily Post*

Villa split reaches a climax
By lAN WILLARS

Aston Villa's simmering over the future policy of the club and manager Ron Saunders is expected to come to a head at tonight's board meeting.

For the first time since the £1.2 million transfer of Andy Gray, it has been revealed that the board were split on the sale.

Director Doug Ellis said yesterday: "I confirm that I was the only one who formally opposed the sale of Gray and that gives me no satisfaction whatsoever."

Ellis, a former chairman. would make no further comment apart from refuting a suggestion that he always opposed his other four directors and Saunders.

"That is hogwash," he said.

But it is well known that there have been differences over the last few months between the board and the manager and the manager and the players.

Now the board, under chairman Mr. Harry Katz, has the opportunity to demonstrate that any split has been healed. They have already backed Saunders's judgment with the recent transfer purchases of full back Mike Pejic from Everton for £230.000 and striker David Geddis from Ipswich for £300,000.

The big question is whether they will sanction any further team building by their manager. They still have £650,000 remaining from the Gray transfer, although it is not dear whether all of that is going to be made available.

Difficult days

In view of recent results - Villa have lost their last three games - the board might decide to end Saunders's contract and find a new man. These are difficult days at Villa