Ponky

I would think any interest in stockpiling England stars for the future went out at Citeh when Hughes was sacked. I suspect they will be aiming higher than Milner, to be honest.

I thought the players really seemed to lack effort, desire & belief today, which was pretty disappointing. I thought Ashley and Downing were pretty good with the ball but the crossing was abysmal. And how many times did Warnock give it back to the opposition? Defence looked like Swiss Cheese at times. James was in superhuman-against-Villa mode again and saved at least 3 from point-blank and one penalty, albeit he was very lucky to not concede one and earn a red card. Really super pleased for Delfouneso for his first League goal and credit where it's due Heskey played well today and worked hard. And it's starting to get very hard not to believe there is some sort of anti-Villa conspiracy among the refs at the moment. We have been on the rough end of the stick on too many occasions since the Carling Cup final.

For what it's worth I thought we were unlucky rather than lucky. Howard made several excellent saves and we created plenty of chances in the first half that didn't quite pay off. In the end our defending let us down. It was a good point but, alas, not what we needed.

THIS THIS THIS.... Everyone can see this apart from one stubborn git... Make that two stubborn gits.... I just don't agree that tiredness is the issue. Sorry to spoil your illusion that it's obvious to all. Agreed - MON's next move in such circumstances is usually to take off a defender and push Milner into a wing-back type role and bring in Sidwell - not sure how that would have prevented Chelseas scoring two late goals against us on the break.

I just watched Arn: the Knight Templar on Bluray, based on the trilogy by Jan Guillou. I quite enjoyed it. Especially the final battle where Arn (Joakim Natterqvist) is leading his people into battle and he has a full beard, looking like a certain Olof Mellberg in full flight. Made me want to grab my sword and jump into the telly, following Ollie into battle

**** you Terry **** you Webb

I guess Graham Poll will come up with a convincing reason why the penalty wasn't a penalty.

In the unlikely event that we go the distance and are even after ET what would be the chance of MON subbing Friedel for Guzan?

Have any of our Kiwi friends voted yet? I don't see "sheep" in the poll, so I am wondering if they are in the "none of your business" category.

Thought Delph was very solid but played very conservatively with neat, short passes - nothing too creative. Made several telling tackles in the second half. All of them completely upright, restrained and textbook!

Even more :shock:

It was an encouraging win especially given the amount of pressure both players and manager have been under this week. Bolton were game but only really threatened IMO when Klasnic came on for Elmander. I thought Ashley just snuck in for MOM over Petrov. Delph really showed some nice touches and I thought his positioning was much improved today - AND no yellow card for Mr Delph! I thought Downing, Carew and Gabby were all a bit lacklustre today and Collins frustrated me with playing stupid over-ambitious passes that gave the ball away too easily. The Spurs loss gave us a foot back in the door today. Hopefully the boys can capitalize on it in coming weeks.

Well then Terry's full of shit. It was about the 50th minute we capitulated.

What did Terry actually say - I can't find any reference to it.

I thought Milner got "worked over" by the Chelsea players in a physical sense today. He seemed to be carrying quite a few scratches and bruises on him (and probably a crushed windpipe) by the end of the match. It's unfortunate but this is something Milner needs to work out if he wants to take his game to the next level. At this point in time he struggles a bit when starved for space. That said he is still our best CM option and hopefully this year is a massive learning curve for him.

I agree Delfouneso showed a bit of quality - especially with that run from the centre to their box. Pretty much the only positive we can take from this.

And then along comes the prick who quotes the original post...

Vere Gordon Childe, one of the founders of modern archaeology was fired from his post at Sydney University in 1918 for publicly endorsing pacifism. His work on the Aryan civilization was hijacked by the Nazi party propaganda machine and he was later accused of being a communist. He committed suicide in 1957, jumping off a cliff in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales.

I used to enjoy MON's post match interviews but I am getting a bit tired with the same old rhetoric. Nearly as predictable as O'Dreary's old drivel. I know - it can be tiresome having people come out with the same old drivel week in week out can't it?

Well I was very disappointed. In the first 20 it looked like we would rip them apart then some rubbish defending and they are going in at the break a goal up. Young was great, Carew played with some fir in his belly, but there were too many players phoning it in today. Unfortunately for Albrighton I would say it might be a while before he gets another run in the first team.

If he has it would be a pulled groin muscle without a doubt.

And the winner is...

May be just a little paranoid on my part but has anyone else got the impression that there has been a sudden decrease in referee decisions in our favour and increase in yellow cards for our players since the fall-out from the Dowd performance? The bloke last week seemed happy for Stoke to hack away and today I initially though Bennett was being his usual prick self but there were some decisions tonight that just seemed crooked. Anyway, just a conspiracy theory I'm putting out there for you all.

So one of the referees he looks upto, Jack Taylor, also once famously bowed to the pressure of the 'bigger' team during a cup final, not just any cup final, the 1974 World Cup final. Beckenbauer accused him of being biased towards the Netherlands and so he swung the game Germanys way. And Graham Poll speaks for himself really, a man who had to retire from refereeing because he was too incompetant, books a guy 3 times, booked another player for telling him that the guy who recieved 3 yellows already had one and should be sent off and missed a Rugby tackle that any Rugby player would be proud of, all in the same match. Not to mention calling time just as the Aussies were putting the winning goal into the net.

It was clear that the windy conditions were playing havoc with the players' passes and crosses. That said, there was no real plan b and some poor decision making from Downing and Milner in particular. The back 4 dealt with the Delap threat very well but - and I am not a big criticizer of Cuellar at RB - Carlos was utter garbage tonight. Got pulled out of position way too easily, especially in the last 20 minutes. Surely Luke Young's heading is better than Carlos' positional sense? All in all this was a potential away loss for us. We could/should have won it but it is probably the toughest venue to win at outside the Big 4 stadiums and a point is acceptible IMO.