Matt Maher gives take on Aston Villa's pre-season defeat at Walsall

Matt Maher gives his analysis of Villa's defeat in pre-season at Walsall.

Transcript

00:00Good evening from Bescott Stadium where Villa have been beaten in their opening pre-season friendly

00:08against Walsall. 1-0, goal by Harrison Burke, eight minutes before half-time here.

00:18What can we take from this game from a Villa perspective? Well, not much really, to be honest.

00:23I mean, the players involved tonight, the senior players involved, they'd only been back in training for a week.

00:28The season's still four and a half weeks away. Walsall's is two and a half weeks away, so you'd imagine them to be much sharper at this stage.

00:36And the teams that Villa named for the first half and the second half both included a smattering of senior players

00:42and quite a few younger players, quite a few academy players.

00:46So a good run out for the academy players, some good minutes in the legs for the senior players.

00:51The only real incident of note was Joe Gauchy going off injured in the first half.

00:57His start of the game was replaced by Philippe Marchal in goal after about half an hour.

01:03But obviously Joe Gauchy, third-choice Villa, goalkeeper, didn't look like it was too serious.

01:08It looked like it was probably taken off more as a precaution than anything else.

01:11Villa next at Hansa Rostock on Saturday when perhaps we'll see a few more of the senior players.

01:18But obviously with most, the majority of them have only been back in training, what, 48 hours.

01:22They were never going to be here tonight.

01:23The likes of Emi Martin is, Oli Watkins, Morgan Rodgers.

01:27The list is endless, really.

01:29Bubakar Kamara, I have to say, still looked excellent in the second half,

01:33despite having only been back in training a week.

01:35He's probably the one player out of these entire two teams who's guaranteed to be starting the opening game

01:40against Newcastle if it's going to be one of Ty Remmings or Pau Torres who took it in turn tonight at centre-back.

01:47But otherwise, good run out for Villa.

01:51Read nothing in it of the results pre-season.

01:53And there we are.