Richard Dunne made his old club pay, but in the end neither Dunne's Aston Villa or opponent Manchester City could take all three points on Monday.
Craig Bellamy's second-half equalizer made the final score 1-1 in an entertaining Monday fixture at Villa Park. Dunne gave Aston Villa a first-half lead on a header scored over former Villa midfielder Gareth Barry, but Bellamy continued his recent run of hot form by netting an equalizer off an Emmanuel Adebayor pass.
Brad Friedel made three saves for Aston Villa.
Here are some other stories to wrap up a busy Monday:
WICKS GETS FIVE-GAME BAN FOR OPEN CUP STOMP
D.C. United goalkeeper Josh Wicks won't be playing in the U.S. Open Cup for a very long time.
U.S. Soccer handed down a five-match suspension of Wicks for his actions in the U.S. Open Cup Final, a D.C. loss to the Seattle Sounders. Wicks stomped on Sounders forward Fredy Montero, then had a verbal altercation with match officials following his red card ejection.
RED BULL NAME SOCCER DIRECTOR
The New York Red Bulls still don't know who will be running on-field soccer matters in 2010, but a hire was made that will likely impact those highers. Former Hamburg sporting director Dietmar Beiersdorfer was named sporting director for the football division of Red Bull, meaning he will oversee the operations for all of the soft drink company's soccer teams, including clubs in New York, Salzburg and Leipzig, Germany.
In other Red Bull-related news, defender Kevin Goldthwaite and forward John Wolyniec will miss the remainder of the season as they prepare to undergoing surgeries this week. Wolyniec will have surgery to remove bone spurs in his left ankle while Goldthwaite will have hip surgery on Wednesday.
FREE KICKS
Portsmouth takeover nearly complete
Alberto Gilardino has Champions League ban reduced
Alex Ferguson asked to explain his recent ref bashing
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What do you think of these developments? Can you see Man City or Aston Villa posing a serious threat to the Big Four in England? Think Wicks' punishment was fair? Wondering who the Red Bulls will turn to in their attempt to rebuild the club?
Share your thoughts below.
I’m with DC Josh. I’ll watch all of the Monday night ESPN HD games. The quality of picture is amazing.
Ives – do you know how the ESPN/Setanta thing finally sorted out? How is it that FSC and ESPN have Premiership games? Why isn’t ESPN broadcasting more games? Again, love the HD, especially under the lights for a night game.
will Wicks even have a team to play for next year?
Not only did I enjoy the Villa match yesterday, I actually enjoyed the coverage — top notch in every way. Well done, ESPN.
I don’t see Wicks play often but from what little I’ve seen I think he’s a punk and I’m glad he finally has to pay for it.
I saw him attack his own defender once then try to stomp on a player on the ground. Five games is great but the bad news is that nobody really cares about the open cup.
he has to calm down before somebody calms him down … during the run of play of course
All I have to say is ESPN’s UK feed for those games is amazing. I can’t get enough of it.
It will definitely be interesting to see how Hughes works out his team selection once everyone is healthy. With Bellamy playing so well I think Tevez might be riding the pine (which would be hilarious), especially once Robinho comes back, and that’s not even considering Santa Cruz. And of course they still have to figure out the midfield with Petrov, Ireland, Barry, De Jong and Wright-Phillips all via for spots. It will be very tricky and I think they’ll run into some trouble keeping everyone happy. They are playing well, but they don’t look that great once they play true quality teams, especially away from home. If they didn’t have Given they’d have dropped even more points already…
Man City have agood squad this year but they are still not fully jelling . There are too many big names in the side and they all came at the same time
I really wish MON wouldn’t have pulled back after they scored the goal against city. It was only a matter of time until they would break through. Dunne scoring over Barry was a thing of beauty. I’ve never been so happy to be a Villa fan and get two years of frustration over Barry out. Villa desperately need a new MC with Reo Coker out of favor and possibly moving to Boro. We have no commanding MC, and Downing will only do so much.
Good to see some real punishment for the Raging Rabbit.
wicks is an idiot.
villa-city game was fantastic! EPL games are truly entertaining. worth mentioning that Friedel did a solid job; not much he could do about Bellamy’s blast.
the announcers were great too. anyone know their names?
Keep kicking wicks while hes down. I love it
Schiess HSV.
He’ll do fine finding players… For Salzburg and Leipzig.
Hire Stanislawski.
Highers?
How about Moreno from Columbus? Montero gets fouled a ton, and while I think he was diving at the beginning of the year he isn’t dong it as much now. If you think he was faking in the Wicks incident you only needed to hear proof from the Sounders beat writer that he had boot marks on his side. Wicks is a dummy that has been doing that kind of stuff since his Portland days.
On a side note nice job Timbers living down to your usual standards.
i wish montero and alvarez would get a ban on diving at least once. there diving is disgraceful, not as bad as a stomp but a couple of dives here and there would make yourself a target for this kind of a retelation
Glad to see some justice served against Wicks. Can’t stand that guy.
As a Hamburg fan, Red Bull got a high-quality man in Biersdorfer…he did quite well in building the team they currently have (who are in 1st place in the Bundesliga and challenged most of the year last year for the title). He is good at identifying talent, especially potential in youngsters that turn out to be stars. Just take a look at the young talent Hamburg has (pretty much all of them were brought in by Didi).
Even though I don’t like both teams (As an Arsenal fan I don’t like the comments Martin O’neil said about the Gunners last year being a little too big for his britches) This game was crackin! so open and exciting… Villa were playing risky after they went up a goal…trying to hold the lead against a team with that much attacking talent is just stupid… but over good game!
That was probably one of the most entertaining 1-1 draws I’ve seen in a couple of years. Gareth Barry’s return and Dunne’s goal as revenge.
Bellamy has been one of my favorites since his NewCastle days too. He’s a hothead but the guy can play.