Football Features

“Welcome to the jungle” – Twitter reacts to Amadou Onana’s dramatic debut as Everton lose to Aston Villa

By Muhammad Butt

Published: 15:02, 13 August 2022

In a sweltering afternoon, Aston Villa clung on to beat Everton 2-1 in a match that turned on one moment.

It’s the 90th minute at a sweltering Villa Park and Anthony Gordon has devastated Matty Cash on the right side of the Villa defence, getting a shot off that Emi Martinez has only managed to palm back out into the danger zone.

Salomon Rondon has reacted first and is about to tap home a dramatic late equaliser for Everton when Tyrone Mings reacts, going body-to-body with Rondon and putting the Venezuelan off enough that his shot is muddled and the ball bobbles safely back to Martinez.

The match ended 2-1.

That wasn’t actually the end of the drama as Amadou Onana had a chance late on thanks to a Calum Chambers mistake but was denied by a Calum Chambers block as the Englishman made up for his error.

And, indeed, before that Mings moment we had Everton’s new signing Amadou Onana go through his own horror to joy transition within a minute. First he tried to dribble through the middle of the park and got caught out the Aston Villa press, allowing Steven Gerrard’s men to break quickly, moving the ball to Ollie Watkins before he laid on his second assist of the day for Emi Buendia (his first was another cross from the right for Danny Ings – albeit the striker had more work to do in that instance).

Then almost instantly Onana was determined to make up for the mistake and, after picking up the ball off the edge of the area, he drove through the Villa defence then squared the ball brutally across the box, leading to a Lucas Digne own goal.

Unsurprisingly, Twitter had something to say about Onana’s remarkable 14 minute debut.

https://twitter.com/RHv2i/status/1558443120618004480

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