I wouldn't. A draw would arguably have been a fair reflection of the match. But if any team deserved to win it, we did. We clearly dominated the first half, with at least three large scoring chances, the second was more or less even.
I don't see in which sense AVL was supposed to have dominated that game. They didn't have the ball much, and didn't create many chances either. Just like last time we played them, Villa did an excellent job closing things down in their own box - blocking shots, winning crosses, cutting off passes. Only this time they had three CBs doing that job rather than two. And with us missing a bit of coherence in our attacking, we were also less effective dealing with that.
"When teams go to Chelsea, Liverpool, City they are scared, they are starved of the ball, they struggle to get a foot hold in the game."
That's not really entirely true though, is it. At least it's not as straightforward as that - they struggle sometimes, just like we do (and after all, these were actually the first points we dropped on home turf this season). One problem with these discussions is that the view a lot of people take of the other top teams is more a function of a point they're making about United than anything else. If the issue is tactics, then they're absolute machines. If the issue is squad quality, then they're no better than we are. What I see when I watch them, which I do as frequently as I can, is not 3 teams who always roll over weaker opponents, or always rack up many more or better scoring chances than United does. Its pluses and minuses, for all of them.
Chelsea play a strong control game and are very coherent and have the ball a lot - pluses - but as a matter of fact, generate less in the way of scoring chances than we do. That was true last season under Tuchel, and it's true this season as well. Minuses. Spurs gave them one very difficult half, Villa did too. That game was much closer than the scoreline suggests. Palace and Arsenal didn't have a chance, but this doesn't happen every game.
How often don't you see City passing the ball around for 60-70% of 90 minutes, but only create 1 or 2 real scoring chances? Usually that's enough, but not always (as in the 0-0 home draw against Southampton). Or in the 0-1 away loss away to Tottenham. The Leicester game I didn't watch, but that was a narrow win - and the only goal City scored in those three matches. Norwich and Arsenal they blew away, of course. But as with Chelsea that doesn't happen every game, and it happens for us pretty frequently too.
Liverpool have generally looked deadly efficient against weaker opponents so far (both from what I've seen and on the basis of the scores), but that came to an end this weekend, with the 3-3 draw against Brentford.
They're all great teams of course, and on the whole they've looked a good deal more solid than we have so far this year. My point is just that people talk as if they're all absolute machines, and we're all shite, and that's just not how it is. They all have their weak points. And when we drop points to weaker opponents, people talk as if this was some unheard of travesty that can only be due to the incompetence of the coaching. They point to drawing against West Brom and Fulham, or losing against Villa, as if it was something that doesn't happen to (implied better-coached) top teams, and wouldn't happen to us if we had a more renowned coach. But it does. Tuchel last season lost to Villa too, in their last game. He also drew against Brighton , Leeds and Southampton and lost to West Brom and Arsenal. In fact, he dropped points against lower half sides (not all of the aforementioned fall into that category) more frequently than OGS did. To say nothing of Liverpool, who dropped nearly twice as many points to such sides as we did. True, they were ravaged by injuries, but that was a side coming off a campaign in which they amassed 33 more points than United, so it's not like they were fielding a much weaker side than we were, on the whole.