Postpublished at 50 mins

50 mins

Wolves 0-0 Aston Villa

Conor Coady has taken a blow to the nose. He's gonna need some patching up. And a new shirt, which has a nasty streak of red down it now. Looks like the ball was to blame, smashing into his face as he rose to head away. Nothing a couple of balled up bits of tissue paper won't solve.

Ready for more? If Mike Dean carries on this half as he did during the first he's gonna get ref's elbow from reaching into his pocket so often.

Opta tell me that Conor Coady recorded his first ever shot in a Premier League game in the first half during that 45 minutes against Aston Villa, in what is his 88th appearance in the competition.

John Jensen would be proud.

It's the Manchester derby later. To get you in the mood, why not have a crack at our quiz? Basically, all you have to is name every player that has managed to find the net in the fixture during the Premier League era.

To give you an idea of what you're taking on, the first Manchester derby in the Premier League took place on 6 December 1992 and the teams have met 45 times since in the competition.

You can find the quiz here.

Opta with some stats on that half...

Three of the four Premier Leagues games to see four yellow cards in the first half this season have involved Aston Villa.

Matty Cash has received more yellow cards than any other Premier League player this season (5).

It threatened to get lively at points and then opted against it.

There won't be many halves of football in the Premier League this season that include as many whistle blows from the ref as this.

Fabio Silva is a few yards away from his first Premier League goal as he rises to flick a header wide from a free-kick into the box.

Tom Sharpe: The lack of consistency of the ref today is astounding. Wolves getting fouls for small nicks and villa players getting booked for them, yet when the opposite happens there's nothing

Mings backheels the ball into the net. He was just the 12 yards or so offside, though. Apparently, VAR still needed to check it.

Grealish is down again, this time in the box. Did he get an arm in the back? Didn't look like it to me.

Mike Dean is into his pocket again, booking Traore for a foul on McGinn. Grealish immediately charges in and sparks a bit of squaring up. I mean, it's all for show. Traore would eviscerate Grealish in an actual brawl.

Game is stretched, resulting in a few decent chances. Watkins drives into Wolves territory before finding Grealish, who sets up McGinn for a blocked drive.

Wolves break and Dendocker is set up for a shot that Martinez saves but can't hold. Mings dives in to prevent the follow-up.

Sods law that this is livening up just ahead of the half-time whistle.

Podence is warming to this. A little drop of the shoulder sends a Villa player off towards Walsall and gives the Wolves man space and time to fire a low shot that Martinez has to dive to save.

A promising Wolves move sees Pedro Neto set up Daniel Podence in the box but his low shot is deflected wide off a Villa player.

The resulting corner is swung in towards the rising Dendocker but he is well marshalled and the ball is cleared.

Grealish looks to make something happen as he finds a yard or two of space in the Wolves box. His drive is deflected away from goal, though.

Soon after, a long throw is launched into the home box and headed just wide by Ezri Konsa. That, as tame as it was, is probably the closest we have come to a goal.

Another yellow. This one to Matty Cash, who sends Neto spinning to the turf.

Do you ever wonder to yourself just how much of your life you've spent watching slightly dull football?

Hang on... another yellow. Podence is felled by John McGinn, who goes into the book.

Jacob Ramsey's off target effort in the 23rd minute is the first shot in the match so far.

Grealish is caught as Leander Dendoncker goes up for a header and appears to land on the Villa man's ankle. Here comes another free-kick into the box from the left...

Decent delivery, but Wolves do well to repel the initial cross and then a follow-up one.

We're averaging a penalty shout every other attack at the moment. The latest, which sees a Villa man go down in the Wolves box wasn't a spot-kick either.

Image source, Getty Images

Three man job, minimum. Like watching Ross, Chandler and Rachel trying to get that sofa up the stairs in Friends. Pivot!