U23s: Aston Villa 1-4 Stoke City

Aston Villa lost out to Stoke City in an eventful Premier League 2 clash at Villa Park on Friday night.

The Potters made a fast start and led 2-0 at the 20-minute mark through an Adam Porter penalty and Abdallah Sima’s close-range finish.

The Young Lions contributed enormously to a frenetic match and a stunning strike from Indiana Vassilev gave them hope before half-time.

However, another spot kick, this time converted by Ibrahim Sy, ended any hopes of a comeback for Villa before Sima grabbed his second in the final minute of the match.

Better news came in the shape of Marvelous Nakamba’s return to the pitch, with the midfielder featuring for the first time since December.

Villa came into the game on the back of a 3-0 loss to Wolves last time out, and they were handed an early reprieve in B6.

Sima was in the right place to head home from close range after four minutes, but the linesman judged that he’d strayed narrowly offside when meeting a flick-on from a corner.

Nakamba did brilliantly to scramble another Stoke set-piece off the line, but the rebound fell to a green shirt, and the referee awarded a penalty as his piledriver cannoned for Jayden Barber’s hand.

Viljami Sinisalo guessed right, but Porter’s spot kick was well-placed to the goalkeeper’s left.

The hosts were struggling to contain City and the visitors grabbed a second after 20 minutes when Edward Jones pounced on a defensive lapse and crossed to the middle of the box where Sima buried a first-time shot.

Sinisalo made a sharp save with his feet to stop Villa from falling further behind, with the save sparking a counter-attack that ended with Brad Young seeing his shot saved by Tommy Simkin.

Villa needed something special to get back in the game and Vassilev duly delivered it when he picked the ball up on the edge of the box and worked a shot on his left foot, hammering the ball past the ‘keeper.

The end-to-end nature of the game continued immediately after the restart with Vassilev twice shooting wide for Villa and Jones missing the target when presented with a glorious opening for Stoke.

Tommi O’Reilly was next to go close, sitting down the ‘keeper before passing the ball into the side-netting, while Morgan Fox’s vicious half-volley was kept out by a stunning save from Sinisalo.

With Nakamba departing, Stoke sensed an opportunity to regain their two-goal advantage and they were awarded another penalty when Sy’s quick feet drew an erroneous slide tackle from Mungo Bridge.

The striker picked himself up and coolly sent Sinisalo the wrong way to make it 3-1.

Villa continued to push for a way back into the game, but were caught cold in the 90^th minute when Sima added gloss to the final score with a tap-in.