McLeish happy with lead from the front

Aston Villa manager Alex McLeish praised his front men for their work rate in Villa’s 2-0 win over Wigan on Saturday.

Goals from Gabriel Agbonlahor and Darren Bent were enough to secure the Villains’ second win of the English Premier League season and ease pressure on their manager after a run of successive draws.

McLeish described his delight with the performances of his attacking players, saying that they had finally delivered for him when it was needed.

“I thought it was a good performance. At last we had some big levels from our creative players,” the former Birmingham boss said.

“I think that’s probably what’s been missing in the past few games, because we have had an awful lot of opportunities without executing the final ball and for me that’s happened in a lot of games.”

“Charles (N’Zogbia) is finding his feet, (Darren) Bent’s been injured, Barry (Bannan) coming in and starting to look pretty impressive.”

“And Stevey Ireland I thought, when he got settled into the game, had some great touches, some clever, some ingenuity and that’s what makes the difference.”

McLeish said that he was just glad to see the return of Bent and Emile Heskey from injury and he hoped that the added competition for places would help his side push on in the future.

“I think we’ve been a little bit unlucky and a little bit careless with a couple of goals that we’ve conceded, but it’s a work in progress. We’ve got a lot of kids coming through because we’ve lost a lot of experienced players,” he said.

“It was great to get the injured players back today and it gave us great competition and it was good to look at the bench and say, ‘There’s some great experience there’.”

Out of all the strikers who featured in the match, McLeish singled out Agbonlahor for his performance after the England man scored one and set up another with a terrific display.

“Agbonlahor, his pace today was frightening. I would have hated to play against him in his current form,” he added.

“We’re a wee bit worried about him, he’s struggling with a back injury.”

“I took him off, partly for the standing ovation that he got but also because he’s struggling with his back, it’s getting stiffer as each day passes.”

Wigan boss Roberto Martinez said although his side had enough possession in their forward half, their ordinary skills meant they did not deserve a result.

“Well no, not really (we didn’t deserve a point). We started the game really brightly and after getting a succession of corners, we really found space well and I thought we were going forward really, really well,” Martinez told Sky Sports.

“We played in the possession and in the way that we want to move the ball. And today we gave the ball away too cheaply a couple of times.”

“In two incidents we didn’t look after the ball as well as we do and we were heavily punished.”

“Their goals really changed the dynamics of the game, it was very, very difficult.”

“It’s a real shame because when you go away from home and you get 10 corners or you get more corners than the home side, that is a real attacking intent.”