MatG87

Love the way he played that touch with the outside of this foot to Benteke, then the way he span and ran into space was class, showed purpose and that he really wanted the goal. More of that in the league please!

Thought Gabby, The Beast, Delph, KEA and Okore were great. It's nice to see our midfield trio getting the ball on the half turn and looking for a forward ball, shows how much confidence Lambert has instilled in the team since he arrived here, you would never see that under McTit. Good performance, bring on Newcastle. I know it's late in the window but I think we will be a very competitive side with an AM who can play with both feet to help break teams down at home, even if on loan.

Good work from Helenius on a couple of occasions, Tonev has been a bit meh - looks to lack an end product.

The beast never went away!! :-) Very Good performance last night!

lol

Im glad he's gonna be off soon, championship is probably his level.I just hope he grows up a bit and takes some responsibility for his actions off the pitch. Sad thing is, even though he is shit he will still end up earning more money than I ever will :-P

A loan move might not be such a bad idea. If he plays well and bangs them in at newcastle we may get a better price for him when he eventually sell him.

we didn't, he was a free transfer after his contract ran out at AZ. I wish the guy good luck, he was a low risk signing, didnt work out and the club has done what is best for both parties by letting him go now.

Sylla is the poor man's NRC who is actually better than NRC. I like him, will be a pretty handy player. I would like to see an experienced mid come in but I'm at a loss to who I would drop as all three look good in the current formation.

Special mentions in this match to the midfield three, they were all brilliant. Especially Sylla who is starting to look a bit more adventurous going forward. As for Benteke. It was a yellow card for sure. He was lucky after using his elbows in the first half, could of been a straight red. The annoying thing with this was that we were a man up, there was no need to go in for challenges like that, we had an extra man in midfield to steal possession so who cares if chelsea won the aerial ball? If he would of stayed on the pitch we could of picked up 3 points quite easily. Anyway, on to Wigan. I think without Benteke we have the firepower to beat them with an on form Gabby, Andi can always pop up with a goal too. I would like to see N'zogbia come in for the last match.

GABBY GABBY GABBY!! That should of been Norwich's, so so lucky but who cares!!

Will be interesting which Villa come out in 15 minutes. Let's hope it's the one that played Monday night. We've done well to keep this to 0-0, need to control midfield more to stop Norwich getting the ball out wide.

Case and Point. He's shit.

I wouldn't rely on stats like that, football stats are often wrong for a whole host of reasons. For one, you're looking at a very small sample size of 18 games. Any proper statistical test would probably show that you can make no hypothesis based on this. Based on 100 or so games I might believe you. This thing is heavily skewed to all sorts of stuff, have you weighted the statistics based on the quality of the opposition? No. So there's a flaw straight off. Other stuff. Tactics play a part, the oppositions tactics play a part. Who else was injured or fit when we won with Bannan? All of this stuff matters a lot and you have taken none of into consideration. So to just go around quoting percentages means absolutely nothing.

I feared at first he'd be another Shorey, but he's looking half decent at the moment. I hope he adapts more to the physical side of the game though, he is quite lightweight for a fullback.

Look. The guy is cack, in every possible way. I hope we sell him just so I can see the end of this thread!

I didn't say it was an aspiration. As I said, we should at least be on a par with them. You can't look at 'history', if we did we would be entitled to be above Man City, Everton, Spurs etc. The fact is, looking at the club, today, we are not and in the short/medium term we have to aim to be better than the teams who are finishing above us, ie. Fulham. This 'bigger' club thing is a load of crap, league points govern where we are in the pecking order, its what the team is measured on. I think sometimes fans forget that there are other teams who are constantly looking to improve and that we can't just expect to leapfrog every other team because 'we are bigger than'. Moving onto aspiration. I don't doubt our aspiration is European Football and some good cup runs, I don't doubt that Fulham's is the same. So I would say aiming to be better than them is part of that. As for mediocre. Stoke are mediocre, Sunderland are mediocre, Wigan are mediocre. Villa for the three seasons have been mostly 'mediocre' let's not kid ourselves. As I said, I think we are a couple of first team signings (a defender and a midfielder) from a real good team.

If we stay up I think we will easily be on a par with Fulham next season at least. A couple of signings away from being as good as any team under MON.

I wonder if he would be any good as an option at CM. Seems to have the attributes.

ooooh, 2-2 at the DW, come on Spuds! One more!

good half, shame we havent put at least one away yet. Lets hope they keep it up after the break!!

NRC's passing used to make me want to cry hysterically In fairness to NRC , his passing did dramatically improve under Houllier and he was one of our better players. I think we should of got him back on reduced wages but thats the past.... As for the future, I think Yac has fitted in pretty well. Looks like a tidy footballer and dare I say similar sort of ilk to Makoun? Tidy passer, pretty combative as a ball winner but obviously has something extra as Jean II would still be here. I think he will be good next season, major respect to him considering if was from the second division of a foreign league. How many players playing in the top flight in different countries do we see struggle in their first season in the prem!

They'll want to take a look at him so I think he'll get a call up over the summer, if there are any friendly fixtures around then. There wouldn't be many alternatives to Johnson and Walker so I think its well within his reach, certainly in the next couple of seasons as Glen gets older. I think Lowton has been a solid signing, really consistent, has a good shot on him which he shown before now. Also he can cross very well from deep (Gabby's sitter last week). I think he will be a reliable fullback for seasons to come, miles better than Lichaj who we all thought was the answer a couple of seasons ago.

I like El ahmadi's attempt to track bucktooth's run....

check the space on that replay. awful.....