Championship round-up: In-form Villa striker tops the midweek player ratings
So that was an eventful Wednesday night in the Championship, wasn’t it? Eager not to let the Champions League hog the spotlight, Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest played out a 10-goal thriller at Villa park in a 5-5 draw in the Midlands. Three times Villa had to come from behind against Forest and after moving into a 5-4 lead, must’ve thought they’d done enough to win, only for Lewis Grabban to score a late equaliser as the spoils were shared.
It was, then, an evening of mixed emotions for Villa striker Tammy Abraham, who landed a perfect 10 in the stalemate. Landing the man of the match award, Abraham netted four times in the draw, with his four goals coming from eight shots. In addition, the on-loan forward won four aerial duels and made two key passes for the Villans to cap off a stunning goalscoring display from the 21-year-old.
Abraham wasn’t the only player to star in the entertaining match at Villa Park as Forest ace Joe Lolley also got in on the act in fine fashion. Lolley has had a direct hand in 12 league goals this season, five of which came on Wednesday night, as the 26-year-old chipped in with four assists and one goal, a feat matched by no player in a Championship match since WhoScored started collecting data for the league in the 2013/14 season. His goal came from two shots and four assists from four key passes, while two successful dribbles saw the attacker return a WhoScored rating of 9.81.
Oliver Norwood rounds off the top three top performing players from the midweek games after a man of the match display in Sheffield United’s 3-2 win at Brentford. The creative Blades star bagged just his second league goal of the season in the victory, that coming from one of three shots, while returns of five tackles, three interceptions, three key passes and two successful dribbles capped off a fine all-action display, that enough the land a WhoScored rating of 9.14.
At the other end of the scale, it was a week to quickly move on from for Ipswich number one Bartosz Bialkowski. The Tractor Boys goalkeeper conceded three times in the 3-2 home loss to Bristol City, with the away side’s first goal coming as a direct result of the Pole's mistake, which in turn led to his own goal. He made just two saves despite facing only four shots on target and it culminated in a WhoScored rating of 4.76, the lowest in the Championship in gameweek 19.
