Before this season, the Swede had managed just two goals in domestic football but after eight games of the new campaign, the Villa captain has already more than doubled that to ease himself alongside Mark Viduka, Alan Shearer and club teammate Juan Pablo Angel in the Premiership scoring charts.
Like his previous two goals, yesterday’s strike came from a corner. With Villa 2-1 down and less than ten minutes remaining, McCann delivered to Mark Delaney at the back-post, and the Welshman headed down to his central defensive partner who swept the ball past Brad Friedel in the Blackburn Rovers goal. It was little more than the visitors deserved though and but for a combination of Friedel excellence and Villa’s profligacy, David O’Leary’s side would have taken all three points.
With Hendrie given another chance in the side at the expense of Thomas Hitzlsperger, and Carlton Cole replacing Darius Vassell, Villa started the livelier of the two sides and on 25 minutes Angel broke the deadlock. After good interplay on the right between Nolberto Solano, Cole and Ulises De La Cruz, the Ecuadorian fed the Villa striker as the Blackburn defence, possibly wary of leaving the newly sowed grass seed beneath them to the whim of the waiting crows, stood still and the Colombian slid the ball past Friedel.
But as seems to be the case with O’Leary’s side this year, when one part appears of the team is working, the other stutters and stalls. Watching Villa is like watching the Chuckle brothers in a house with two doorways and one door; when O’Leary addresses one flaw, the other inevitably reopens, but rather than adopting a new method, he endlessly scurries from one to the other. And so, no sooner had Villa’s attackers grabbed only their second goal in four games, their defence gifted Blackburn an equaliser.
Paul Dickov was allowed to work his way to the right byline and put in a cross that Barry Ferguson, arriving unmarked at the near post, was able to touch past Thomas Sørenson. The visitors responded immediately though, and Friedel was forced to tip over Solano’s free-kick and then saving well from Cole’s skimming effort. The England Under-21 international posed much more of a threat than his senior colleague Vassell, and O’Leary might be inclined to play the latter on the left in place of Gareth Barry in the future.
After the interval, Villa continued to press. Hendrie hit the post with a long-range effort and Angel rightly had a goal disallowed for offside, before the inevitable happened and Mark Hughes’ side took the lead. With the Villa defence displaying an accomplished disappearing act that would have left David Copperfield scratching his head, debutante Youri Djorkaeff played a lovely pass through to Brett Emerton to score with a neat prod.
Angel twice went close and Cole was unlucky to find the American Friedel on such good form, before captain Mellberg’s timely intervention gave Villa their fourth successive draw.