Annoyman

Arguing about what club is bigger than other clubs is a bag of [unfunny word filter interjection excised], but I thought Sunderland fans were a bit too quick to class Villa as a step down just because we were having a shit season; it's not like they've finished above us recently, and the way things were in January it's a pretty big achievement that they're still not guaranteed to finish above us now. All hail Steve Bruce I guess

We should forgive the Sunderland fans though, they were shocked, it was the heat of the moment, their grief came out in strange ways Like us* when we waved fake money at Gareth Barry for making the 100% correct prediction that Man City had a better chance of getting Champions League football than Liverpool *not me

They win on attendance and stadium (in capacity terms), and they could still finish above us, but tbh I think a lot of their jealous lover indignation was based on the mistaken presumption that they'd already qualified for the Europa League in January and Bent was crazy for wanting to leave them - I can't imagine that if they now finish above us by a place they'll be bothered to relentlessly taunt DB over the extra £300,000-or-whatever prize money SAFC would get

Can I get a roll call of costumes witnessed here? Mario Bros, Pac Man, Spongebob, 2Pac, Osama, gimp/?Noob Saibot, Donkey, Bananaman, A Skellinton, Superman, ?Cesc Fabregas, various muppets Seem to recall a diminutive Russian impersonating a Premier League winger as well YAAAAAAAA

Think I let the "we're gonna lose both games 8-0 and get relegated" menks on here subconsciously bring me down a bit cos I went to this expecting to be sitting there grudgingly admiring Arsenal passing triangles in a hammering all day long then feel embarrassed on the Tube, but this was basically a big **** party to the point where it was a bit hard to follow the game Nice to see Osama, Pac-Man, Mario Bros. and 2Pac get a run-out

Petrov waiting to get fouled for a penalty, then nothing happens and he has to make a last ditch pass

NRC looks a bit leggy and off the pace, like he can normally use a burst of pace to get himself some space for a pass, but WBA are down his throat whenever he gets the ball and by the time he's made a little space he's only got a last ditch backwards/sideways pass to make Is Makoun injured/out of favour/wha? Wouldn't mind seeing Delph but think Reo's stodgy defensive qualities probably still important at this stage given how up for it WBA look Gabby's looking good

Yeah Bolton being a bit of a football team could make this a good match, we look light at the back but I am gagging for Delph to finally come out with some frightening 17-points-in-fantasy-league beast of a performance

Ayo is it Baker who's coming back from a concussion? The thinness of our defensive options is shitting me up a bit

Pires now level with Chris Sutton in the all time Villa scoring charts

Going into this I was a bit worried it'd be like when O'Neill signed Young and Carew, we beat West Ham then went to Newcastle midweek and had this false dawn wake-up call where we lost easily. It took a while for that team to start playing to its potential and I think after the season we've had it's fair enough to concede a late goal to a massive deflection and then panic a bit. Utd could go either way but hopefully after that they'll hit their stride etc and maybe rack up a couple of big wins at home to chip away at the GD in the last 1/3 of the season The bottom 3 only have one game in hand over us in total and we can't go back into the relegation zone on Saturday whatever the result, which is good

Yeah, Downing didn't do much of note but only because nothing quite came off for him from what I saw. If he'd dug his feet out properly for his outside of the foot cross in the second half he'd probably have set up one of our goals of the season for Bent

Mildly perturbed that most of the teams around us have a game in hand on us and we're going to OTrafford to take another potentially big hit to the goal difference, but the run of fixtures between that and the last two games of the season all look winnable

Makoun looks quite decisive on the ball, hopefully once he's fully at home in the team and the rest of the front players have got into more of a relentlessly Bent-assisting groove we'll be 3-0 up by the last ten minutes of games like this so I won't have to keep absolutely **** shitting myself

God, that's a hell of a save

That's pretty mild compared to the Blue Moon match thread for Saturday. It goes from polite predictions of a 3-0 win to searing hatred of Villa, City and eventually each other in the space of a couple of hours.

This Blues one fills me with a warm, fuzzy combination of schadenfreude, grudging respect and the scarcely perceptible nagging terror that he might be wrong

The Chelsea hijack rumour linked on BBC appears to be risible fanfic written by a teenager on noted source of credible investigative journalism "caughtoffside.com" That Sunderland thread is prob. basically identical to the x number of pages of "lol as if Barry would go to City" on here two summers ago, I feel a bit bad for them

Enh this is kinda small time though How's that small time?? I dunno it just reads like trying too hard to squeeze a moral victory out of a game you didn't win, I'd rather he said he'd take the point but was annoyed we didn't put the chances away rather than awarding himself a victory on points when they could equally have won it in stoppage time It ain't a huge deal, here's the full quote fwiw:

Enh this is kinda small time though

Gabby on the wing is frustrating, but he does seem like he's quite markedly improved his left footed crossing and general passing this season, so it's not all bad even though I wouldn't have shunted him out there for an important derby game he has a record of scoring in. But then, he should've scored anyway It's quite nice having a marauding pacy full-back for once, the novelty hasn't worn off enough to make me complain about the defensive lapses yet, frightening as some of Albrighton's resultant twitchy Scrappy Doo fouling gets Ain't really into Houllier but tbf this defence had clearly already mysteriously gone to shit before he inherited it, and they weren't too bad today

The inside story always seems to be that Delfouneso "doesn't have the hunger" to make it, but he always seems to be like singularly, rabidly obsessed with getting the ball into the net whenever he comes on for a cameo, it's weird

I resent the implication that Villa are going in hard on David Bentley like it's some sort of unsavoury tactical brutality, as opposed to a completely natural reaction to the sight of David Bentley

My recollection was that he tried to pull out of the tackle, immediately put his hand up to deny it was intentional and then belted the floor in anger when he saw the ref was walking over to book him, then stormed down the tunnel in frustration. Good to see Gabby's picked out a few sharp, sweeping passes in his last couple of games. Being able to pick a guy out over a bit of distance and take a few defenders out with it sidesteps the Carew Problem of holding the ball up really well, then pointlessly dribbling out to the wing to play a two yard pass to a winger, then ambling towards the penalty area to watch his cross sail harmlessly over the patch you should probably have been standing in.

That's enough, Gerard That's enough