Ponky

Fulham were down a bit but credit for that should go to our forwards and midfielders who harried them every step of the way and pressured them into errors.

Gabby cops a lot of shit on this site for being lazy and, well, "shit" but tonight he was the opposite of both of those things. It was such a beautiful goal - are we sure he isn't a left footer? - it was sort of performance that could really kick-start his confidence and send him on a scoring spree.

Magnificent performance by the back four as well. Cuellar was just clinical and Clark flung himself at everything and was lucky not to cop a broken jaw getting in the way of one ball.

Nicky Shorey was also very good and it's clear the arrival of Warnock will push him out of his comfort zone.

Very happy with the performance, ecstatic with the 3 points.

Delph is probably our best passer already on last night's evidence. I think he just needs to get used to the players around him and understand what they expect of him. That will come in time. I'd like to see him partner up with NRC for a game to see how he goes.

Beye is the one who worries me a bit. I think he pushes too far up and leaves us exposed, with many counter attacks so far this season coming from over the top passes down that flank, leaving Cuellar in a footrace with the opposition winger or striker.

**** gutted.

Too much giving it away in midfield.

Reckon MON might have sent a rocket up john's arse at HT!

Milner & Delph excellent, defence decent, strikers absent.

both very soft pens IMO

THAT's how you take 'em

Big John's getting killed by the ref

Young's too predictable witrh his pens - it's too 50/50

why short corners??

451 or 433 is not too much of a difference as long as your wingers are tracking back. The absolute key is having three men in central midfield.

I would start Young on the bench even if he is fit - we don't want to be pushing our luck. Milner left, Albrighton right, gabby up front and maybe Delph in for Sidwell, although I'd be tempted to keep the Liverpool three intact to get a really strong partnership going.

Can someone please confirm the start time - I have seen it variously as 1815 and 2000 - I want to know if I need to stay up late or wake up early

Going into half time with a 2 goal lead I would have happily taken a point - and the fact that they goal back but we still had a clear 2 goal margin at the end suggests very strongly that the boys are getting their mojo back.

Too many times last year - think the Man Utd game especially, we'd have given up the lead and possibly even gone on to lose.

Make no mistake, this match will be massive in terms of boosting confidence and self-belief.

Davies, Friedel and NRC all deserve an equal share of the kudos.

I thought Petrov and Beye were also ver influential early as well.

Hopefully this will carry on into Thursday and the boys can dish out some more against Rapid.

4-5-1 looked far sharper but would have been better with Gabby up front rather than Heskey.

I was encouraged by Ashley Young's performance - he looked to have a bit of variation in him today.

The main issue we seem to have is we don't really play as a cohesive unit. They seem to be 11 individuals just making it up as they go along rather than a team. I suspect one reason for this is the extra time off certain members of the squad were given - thay have only really been training together for a couple of weeks.

I think we will see Milner start on the left and Albrighton on the right, with AY either floating in midfield or on the bench. I think Gardner, Gabby and Milner will all start because they are underdone and need to get match fit.

Defence is a worry (duh) and I would think there is a chance that MON will chooses Clark and Cuellar as he did for the Fiorentina match.

I voted Stay... I was frustrated to read on BBC sport this morning that in a post match interview that MON felt we looked "tired." How can they be bastard tired? To be fair, I did turn round to my Holte End colleagues after the 2nd goal went in and said, "do you think the excuse will be that they are tired?" People looked at me knowing that I was joking... Obviously, MON thought I was serious!!!

That was a frustrating match to watch - and it isn't often I applaud an opponent's goal. But their opener was top drawer, whether Brad was out of position or not.

What I would say is that on current showing, we will be out of Europe before our 2nd leg and all of a sudden, the Fulham game (Liverpool away is a home banker in my opinion, so don't even worry about it) is a massive, massive 6-pointer against surely one of our rivals for this season.

I can do without greying hair this year Villa. Come on...

Martin was not using tiredness as an excuse - he was saying the fact that we looked tired was inexcusable! This is the exact quote from the Mail's report:

“After the initial 15 minutes we were second best all afternoon.

“You can analyse anything really, but at the end of it all I thought we looked tired, which was a wee bit of a surprise considering that we’ve had a pretty decent pre-season.

“But that sounds as if I’m looking for excuses, I’m not, we were beaten, we should have been ready to go and it was very disappointing indeed.

“It’s my responsibility, it’s as simple as that. If you pay your money you can criticise how you see fit.”

So essentially he is not making any excuses and is taking responsibility for the poor performance.

Stay. He should get one more season to show he has the ability to take us forward. After that, if the cupboard is still bare, I'd be surprised if there wasn't a parting of ways.

That said, I reckon there will be some serious money spent in the next 2 weeks.

Very disappointing. We started brightly enough but we got crucified through the midfield. It's easy to say in hindsight playing Delph was a mistake but there was only one way to find out how he would go...

To me I though Petrov might have been a bit underdone as well but in the end too many balls went past him and the defence held up pretty well to start but they kept getting hung out to dry by poor ball retention upfield.

Ashley Young was breathtakingly selfish today. Seems to have forgotten that he has teammates to pass to and he sure as hell has forgotten to cross. Even getting triple teamed he tried to finesse his way through rather than pass to space. And what is the point of getting Heskey to make runs to the near post if the selfish git is too busy playing FIFA street?

We looked far better when Sidwell came on but unfortunately Sidders left his scoring boots at home. Missed two very regulation chances.

To me the none of the players can say they had a good game. Only Beye, Milner, Sidwell and probably Heskey could say they had a decent game.

MON has some soul searching to do now and I think Randy probably needs to have a look under his couch cushions for some spare change because we need some urgent action in the transfer market.

Distin

Wheater

Dunne

Campbell

In that order. I'd be content enough with the first 3 but Campbell would be pointless.

Surely MON's going to bring Downing on for a run?

I notice Guzan's gone nude nut too!

nice one stream is workin for me now cheers lads..

What stream the ustream one? Can't get more than a second at a time with that one.

What time is the match starting? Is it an afternoon or evening kickoff?

A few VERY simple ones:

"Habib, Hooray!!!"

or

"Oh Habib Beye, Oh Habib Beye" to the tune of Oh Happy Day.

I reckon we would see 60 mins from Gabby, Jimmy & Gardner, to be replaced by Delf, Delph & Marky Mark.

Pretty sure Mikaelsson's gone too. I'd say Vital Oxford have jumped the gun and simply put together whatever they can get their hands on