Game #4749
Sunday, 2 February 2003
Attendance: 29,171
Won
Premier League
11th (+1)
Blackburn Rovers
Last 5: 🟥 🟨 🟥 🟩 🟩
Villa Park
Villa record successive wins for the second time this season and the second time in a month to make it ten wins in twenty six Premier League games under Graham Taylor as they climb to 11th in the table.
Aston Villa
3-0
Blackburn Rovers
Assist(s) | Joey Guðjónsson | 2’ | Gareth Barry | 40’ | Ulises de la Cruz | 81’ |
KEY MAN
Dion Dublin celebrates his brace against Blackburn to secure consecutive wins and make it ten wins in twenty six Premier League games under Graham Taylor, Sunday, 2 February 2003.
PREVIOUS MATCH
NEXT MATCH
MATCH TIMELINE
⚽ | 2’ Goal, 1-0, Dion Dublin, Assist by Joey Guðjónsson
🟨 | 34’ Booking, Gareth Barry
⚽ | 40’ Goal, 2-0, Dion Dublin, Assist by Gareth Barry
🕒 | HT Aston Villa 2-0 Blackburn Rovers
🔁 | 79’ Sub off, Stefan Moore, Sub on, Ulises de la Cruz
⚽ | 81’ Goal, 3-0, Gareth Barry, Assist by Ulises de la Cruz
🔁 | 84’ Sub off, Mark Delaney, Sub on, Steve Staunton
🔁 | 89’ Sub off, Joey Guðjónsson, Sub on, Lee Hendrie
🕒 | FT Aston Villa 3-0 Blackburn Rovers
ON THIS DAY
Less than a month after being humiliated by the same opposition at home, Villa, apparently rejuvenated, put Blackburn to the sword to record successive victories and climb to 11th in the table.
Aston Villa
European Cup / Champions League: 🏆
League Champions: 🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆 🏆🏆
FA Cup Winners: 🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆 🏆🏆
League Cup Winners: 🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆
Last Trophy: 1995-96
Blackburn Rovers
European Cup / Champions League: ❌
League Champions: 🏆🏆🏆
FA Cup Winners: 🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆 🏆
League Cup Winners: 🏆
Last Trophy: 2001-02
FIXTURE HISTORY
Blackburn Rovers
Previous 5 vs. Blackburn: 🟥 🟩 🟥 🟨 🟥
FIXTURE DETAILS
Season | 2002-03 |
Matchday | #35 |
League Game | #26 |
Manager Game | #48 |
Sunday, 2 February 2003
MATCH SUMMARY
Manager: Graham Taylor | 🏴 | Worksop, 1987-1990
Referee: Mike Dean | 🏴 | Wirral, 1997-2022
Kick off: 4.05pm
HT Score: 🟩 2-0
FT Score: 🟩 3-0
FT Result: 🟩 Won
Last 5: 🟥 🟨 🟥 🟩 🟩
MATCH OFFICIALS
Referee: Mike Dean | 🏴 | Wirral, 1997-2022
Previous 5: 🟩 🟨 🟩 🟨 🟩
Last Match: 🟩 14 Dec 02, Villa 2-1 Albion (h)
Cards: 🟨 🟨 🟨 🟨 🟨 🟨
CARDS
TEAM NEWS
Graham Taylor names an unchanged line up.
TEAM STATS
Starting XI Average Age
| 25.00 |
Oldest Player |
CF Dion Dublin | 🏴 | 33.81 |
Youngest Player |
F Stefan Moore | 🏴 | 19.36 |
MANAGER
MANAGER
Graham Taylor | 🏴 |
Graeme Souness | 🏴 | (🤡)
Aston Villa
GK Peter Enckelman | 🇫🇮 |
CB Olof Mellberg | 🇸🇪 |
CB Ronny Johnsen | 🇳🇴 |
RB Mark Delaney | 🏴 | 🔁 |
RB Jlloyd Samuel | 🏴 |
M Gareth Barry | 🏴 | 🟨 | 🔥 | ⚽ |
M Joey Guðjónsson | 🇮🇸 | 🔥 | 🔁 |
M Thomas Hitzlsperger | 🇩🇪 |
CF Dion Dublin | 🏴 | ⚽ | ⚽ |
CF Stefan Moore | 🏴 | 🔁 |
CF Darius Vassell | 🏴 |
Blackburn Rovers
GK Brad Friedel | 🇺🇸 |
LB Nils-Eric Johansson | 🇸🇪 | 🟨 |
LB Vratislav Greško | 🇸🇰 | 🔁 |
CB Martin Taylor | 🏴 | 🟨 |
CB Jay McEveley | 🏴 | 🟨 |
RB John Curtis | 🏴 | 🔁 |
M Tugay Kerimoğlu | 🇹🇷 |
M Garry Flitcroft | 🏴 |
M David Thompson | 🏴 | 🟨 | 🔁 |
CF Andrew Cole | 🏴 |
F Dwight Yorke (ex) | 🇹🇹 |
SUBSTITUTES
🔁 RB Ulises de la Cruz | 🇪🇨 | for CF Stefan Moore | 🏴 | 79’ |
🔁 LB Steve Staunton | 🇮🇪 | for RB Mark Delaney | 🏴 | 84’ |
🔁 M Lee Hendrie | 🏴 | for M Joey Guðjónsson | 🇮🇸 | 89’ |
SUBSTITUTES
🔁 | LB Vratislav Greško | 🇸🇰 | (CF Matt Jansen | 🏴 |)
🔁 | RB John Curtis | 🏴 | (CF Egil Østenstad | 🇳🇴 |)
🔁 | M David Thompson | 🏴 | (W Keith Gillespie | 🇬🇧 |)
UNUSED SUBSTITUTES
GK Stefan Postma | 🇳🇱 |
CF Peter Crouch | 🏴 |
UNUSED SUBSTITUTES
GK Alan Kelly | 🇮🇪 |
M Jonathon Douglas | 🇮🇪 |
SQUAD STATS
1st XI:
Home Nation 🏴 🏴 🏴 🇬🇧 : 6/11
Homegrown: 5/11
Squad:
Home Nation 🏴 🏴 🏴 🇬🇧 : 8/16
Homegrown: 6/16
MATCHDAY SQUAD
SQUAD STATS
1st XI:
Home Nation 🏴 🏴 🏴 🇬🇧 : 6/11
Squad:
Home Nation 🏴 🏴 🏴 🇬🇧 : 8/16
MATCHDAY SQUAD
UNAVAILABLE
Not reported
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 reported
TABLE

PROGRAMME



MATCHDAY QUOTES
"It's been a great week. One of our problems is we've not been able to get successive wins.
“Dion has always been a leader and his attitude has been first class. I can’t see Sven picking him but if he has a problem on the left-hand side, which everyone keeps telling him he has, then I think Gareth is well worth a look.”
Graham Taylor.
*The Guardian*
Monday, 3 February, 2003
*Evergreen Dublin defies the doubters*
Dion Dublin was so out of favour towards the end of last season that Aston Villa’s manager Graham Taylor sent the striker out on loan to Millwall in the hope that he would like life with the Lions so much that they would be daft enough to take him off the Villa Park wage bill.
But after two goals here swelled Dublin’s Premiership haul to nine in 12 matches, he might feel justified in sitting close to his phone on Saturday night in the expectation that Sven-Goran Eriksson will offer him a recall to the England side.
Eriksson, who was here to monitor the progress of Gareth Barry and Darius Vassell, might even have taken the opportunity to have a word with Dublin, who won the last of his four caps against the Czech Republic three years ago
With his 34th birthday approaching, he might be a bit long in the tooth for Eriksson’s kindergarten squad. But apart from James Beattie and Alan Shearer, who has retired from the international scene, there is no English-born striker in such a rich vein of scoring form.
Eriksson was just settling into his seat when Dublin rose to head home a free-kick from Joey Gudjonsson 90 seconds into the game. Just to prove that his threat is not all aerial, as some people might have thought, he cushioned a pass from Barry five minutes from half-time before drilling it past Blackburn’s goalkeeper Brad Friedel.
Taylor said: “Dion has always been a leader and his attitude has been first class. I can’t see Sven picking him but if he has a problem on the left-hand side, which everyone keeps telling him he has, then I think Gareth is well worth a look.”
If Taylor can feel a certain smugness at getting what almost amounts to a new striker for nothing in Dublin, the feeling will be balanced by the embarrassment of paying £5m to replace him with the now out-of-favour Peter Crouch, who looks as though he was born to play in the NBA.
Dublin’s form apart, you would have thought that the socially active Eriksson would have better things to occupy his Sunday afternoons. The supporters of both sides certainly did, with Villa announcing a crowd of 29,171, their second-lowest attendance in the Premiership this season.
A big reason for that was doubtless the fact that fans could sit at home and watch the match on television, with the added bonus, given the quality of much of the play, of switching channels.
Even so, it is a worrying trend, suggesting that fans are beginning to adjust to the idea of football as a fireside game, freeing them from the trouble and expense of actually leaving home to support their team. Blackburn, admittedly shorn of many of their more exciting players, were a pale shadow of the side that won here 4-1 in the third round of the FA Cup last month, Barry completing their misery with a neatly taken goal that will have done nothing to harm his England chances.
Afterwards Graeme Souness, the Blackburn manager, said: “We weren’t at the races today. It was a miserable day for us but I was angry that Ronnie Johnsen tried to get our young defender James McEveley sent off. I thought he was a proper player but now he’s just another Johnny Foreigner, like so many of them.”
---
*The Guardian*
Tuesday, 4 February, 2003
*Souness faces FA rap after blast at Johnsen*
The Blackburn Rovers manager Graeme Souness could find himself in trouble with the Football Association following his verbal blast at Aston Villa defender Ronny Johnsen.
Souness has already requested a personal FA hearing after being charged following an altercation with the fourth official Matt Messias during Rovers’ Worthington Cup quarter-final win at Wigan in December which ended with the fiery Scot being sent from the dugout.
The former Liverpool manager did not hold back yesterday as he accused former Manchester United and Norway centre-back Johnsen of trying to get Rovers defender James McEveley sent off during his side’s 3-0 defeat at Villa Park.
McEveley was involved in a heavy challenge with the Villa full-back Mark Delaney, which forced the Wales international to be substituted with an ankle problem 10 minutes from time. But Souness’s wrath was directed at Johnsen after he protested about the challenge by McEveley to referee Mike Dean.
“I’m extremely upset with Johnsen,” said Souness. “I thought he was a proper player, but he wanted our young player [McEveley] to be sent off. It was two young lads going for the ball and Johnsen raced over to the ref to tell him to send our player off.
“I always thought he was a proper player, but now to me he’s just another Johnny Foreigner - and there are a few of those around.”