We're not a very good team. We've got some very good players. We've got a pretty decent manager.
At the moment, very good players will occasionally do enough to win a game, today that's what happened, quality individuals had moments of quality and we won. Some of these player are good enough that e can do that quite often. If we had a good team, we could do it pretty much all the time, and I don't think we're missing all that much.
Bunn - 7 - I don't like him, he's too small, he looks awkward when he kicks the ball. He's kept a clean sheet, he's made a great reaction save at the end to preserve the win and played well throughout. Bunn 1 OBE 0 and congratulations to him on his victory.
Hutton - 6 - He was Alan Hutton all day, committed, strong, occasionally absent, occasionally wayward with passing - he only came out of character a couple of times when he put in a couple of very good crosses - crafty.
Chester - 7 - If he was a coal miner, he'd just be a blummin' good coal miner, on time, job done, no troubles. If he was a milkman, you'd always have what you expected, on time, every day, no troubles. You don't get tricks with a canary, you don't get whistling. I like this.
Baker - 7 - Lie a great big dog, he occasionally looks like he might trip over himself running around corners, but he's enthusiastic, he's strong and he's surprisingly quick. He's also rapidly becoming a really important player to this team.
Amavi - 6 - He was solid defensively, he got forward well, he was a bundle of energy, his passing was poor.
Gardner - 4 - Positionally not quite right, passing was passable, energy was lacking a little - didn't get forward enough. Didn't get forward at all.
Jedinak - 3 - Dire. This man is currently in the side because he's big. 70% of his game is heading the ball forward from just in front of the centre halves, in fairness, he's good at that - however, the centre halves are also good at it. The rest of his game involves passing the ball and not only is he atrocious at it, he seems to actively dislike doing it - there were times today when he chose to head it rather than bring it down, even in a lot of space - the rest of the time, he kicked it in the air and waited. He's immobile, he can't pass and the thing he is good at is largely unnecessary.
Both the central midfielders do a strange (and bad) thing and it was particularly clear in our first goal - when we have the ball, our back four push out, to about five or ten yards outside our box. Our midfield do nothing, which means they're far too often stood on the toes of the central defenders rather than getting involved in play - this means we struggle to keep the ball, because it means Adomah and Bacuna have four men to play against, with just McCormack for occasional help. You'd think that would mean that we'd be very difficult to break down though at least, I mean it's pretty much a six man back line. The problem is, when we give away the ball (which we do. A lot) the back four drop to the edge of the box, or where necessary deeper still - our midfield do nothing. Which means when crosse come in, like the one for today's equaliser, they're not involved. They do a great job of protecting our back four when we have the ball and a great job of supporting our midfield when we don't have the ball. That's dumber than a christmas pudding.
Adomah - 6 - Busy, industrious, keen. Not from the very top drawer, but will never let you down. I like this about him. I don't like his corners. His corners are the worst I've seen in the last four or five years of following the Villa. Think on that.
Bacuna - 7 - This fella got booed all last season. Some of the worst booing of a player I've ever seen. What's to his credit is that he's come back and just got on with it, he's got his head down, tried to forget about it and won back a good chunk of the support through a stoic effort. It can't have been easy and by heck he enjoyed his goal; he started the move himself and finished it with a perfectly timed header on the run. I thought he was generally quite good - he's forced inside a lot because he's a right sided player at left midfield, but there's plenty of room there as our central midfield players are elsewhere, eating grass or something. He's working hard and doing okay. Today was a good day in the Bacuna household.
McCormack - 6 - and two of those are for the goal. It's not that he's poor, he's not, he's got a good touch, he knows what's happening around him and he sneaks into good positions. He's just not a good fit for this team at the moment. He's not enough of a midfielder to play the really deep role well and he's not the right sort of partner for Kodjia up top. He always look a little more comfortable when Grealish is on with him and it'll be interesting to see if he benefits if/when we strengthen the midfield.
Kodjia - 5 - He's one selfish shellfish. It's hard to criticise him too much for that, he does have a habit of whacking the ball into the big net thing. Today it didn't quite come off. I think he frustrate McCormack in that he's not someone who wants a clever partner and he's unlikely to return the ball to his partner if he thinks he can get a shot away. He's big, but he's not a "big man up top" I actually think he'd do better with Gestede - he plays more like the small man in a partnership than the big man. He's a big small man, that's what he is. A talented one too.
Subs:
Grealish - 7 - Revolutionised the play when he came on by first passing the ball to other people in the same coloured shirt as him and second managing to touch it more than once without letting one of the chaps in yellow touch it. He should be starting.
Ayew - 7 - changed the game with his energy, determination and the little bit of quality that set up the goal. He worked very hard in defence too, with one exceptional challenge late on. He also gave away the free kick at the end that Bunn tipped over - just to remind you that he's still him.
Gabby - 6 - "Go out there and chase things for 5 minutes" - job done.
We have better players than Burton, they're better balanced than we are, and they're more of a team than we are, but we have better players, we were able to bring on Ayew and Grealish, they're better players than Burton will ever have. They looked solid and well drilled and they'll have a good go at staying up, but sometimes a quality individual or two wins you games.
Sometimes it doesn't - and when we play teams with good players, even players that aren't quite as good as ours - that ability to be a team will give them a very decent chance of beating us. The window opens in a week and I expect Mr Bruce to fix that, two central midfielders would put us into the play offs. In the meantime, the three points from today will do very nicely thank you very much.
