---
title: "Our man of the match: Aston Villa (H)"
canonical: "https://readnorwich.com/2016/12/13/our-man-of-the-match-aston-villa-h/"
type: "post"
language: "en-GB"
author: "Daniel Emery"
section: "Articles"
published: "2016-12-13T22:11:41Z"
modified: "2016-12-13T22:11:41Z"
---

# Our man of the match: Aston Villa (H)

Norwich City bounced back from their weekend failure against Barnsley with a 1-0 win against Aston Villa tonight.

This was Norwich’s second win in three matches and their second clean sheet. This comes after no clean sheets in their previous 15 Championship matches before the win over Brentford.

Aston Villa came into the match having won just once away from home in 2016, with that dismal record continuing for Steve Bruce’s side.

John Ruddy was untroubled all night, with Villa failing to muster any meaningful chances in the match.

Instead, it was Norwich who carved open Villa’s vulnerable defence. First, Robbie Brady missed a glorious chance in the penalty area after a slide-roll pass from Jonny Howson.

The match was then decided by a moment of magic from Nelson Oliveira. The forward fired a strike into the bottom corner from 25-yards to hand Norwich the three points.

There were plenty of good performers tonight for City, with Youssouf Mulumbu, Graham Dorrans and Ivo Pinto all impressing.

However, I have to go with Oliveira as my man of the match.

The striker scored his third goal in as many matches for the Canaries – his second from distance in the space of four days.

He created numerous chances for himself and his teammates with some excellent skill and determination. He showed class in front of goal – something that Cameron Jerome just does not offer.