darrenm

Very good display. Wigan were really up for this and it was their 'bounce back' game. We played a great counter-attacking, well-defended away game.

Actually I thought the win against Brighton was excellent. Albrighton tore them apart until he had to go off, Delph looked superb, Milner and Downing were a different class.

I think you're spot on.

Agreed. Something like: Guzan Beye Davies Cuellar Bouma Albrighton Sidwell Salifou Delph Delfouneso Carew I know it's the FAC but we're in a cup final 4 days later and we look a different side when fresh.

Wasn't too worried at any time, we were always going to win. But I'm really disappointed with Carlos for the final goal, he had the ball and Milner I think was calling for the ball but Carlos tried to do the standard long pass that everyone in the ground could see he was going to do and they got the ball with room to quickly counter. I was screaming at the TV when he did it and it's a prime example of our major problem - poor decision making. We are like England before Capello, always looking for the killer ball before we need to and it means we lose possession too easily and sometimes in dangerous areas. If we could be a bit more patient with keeping possession, build up a bit more and then quickly play through the right areas (like in the 2nd half today) we would be devastating. I look forward to the team settling enough to do that. Come on Wigan.

The Exeo is effectively the old style Audi A4. yeah it is but with the new engine not the old one. the chasis is the old audi A4, but starts at £18.5k not £28.5k. Exeos are really nice cars. The 170PD Sport for 19k is probably the best value for money car out there at the moment.

Probably. VW in Primark clothes, but even they are starting to shift up now to looking like good cars. The current Superb is meant to be the dogs bollocks. Sadly they don't really make a people carrier (yet). The VW thing isn't a myth - they really are bomb proof. They do tend to be slightly more expensive for parts/repairs and have an added cost to buy but they will rarely let you down in the experience my family's had. My dad's best mate is a VW specialist and he's always said the same thing. The only thing he doesn't like about them is half the time they're put together so well he spends far too long trying to take them apart. Pretty much anything in the VW group will do you well (includes Seat and so on). Japanese isn't a bad route to go down either as again, they tend to be reliable and fairly cheap as well. Not sure exactly what you'd go for as a option against a Scenic for instance, probably a Toyota whos name escapes me. Just make sure the thing stops . Got a VW Passat 1.8T and a SEAT Ibiza Cupra TDI and both are excellent. After being used to working on Vauxhalls for a number of years the Passat was brilliant to work on. All SEAT, Skoda, Audi and VW share the same engines and chassis. SEAT - More sporty version of VW but interior build quality not quite VW standard. VW - Good all round quality. Larger VW's are the best value for money as Polos and Golfs hold their price. Audi - Sometimes overlooked as people think they are expensive but sometimes cheaper than the VW version. Skoda - Slightly cheaper than VW for the same cars. Polo = Ibiza = Fabia = A1 Golf = Leon = Octavia = A3 Passat = Exeo = Superb = A4 etc. (Sorry, I'm a bit of a VAG evangelist these days.)

Mom's got a Scenic. Cam belt just broke and did all the valves in, 500 quid job. Horrid cars. Avoid both. Can't go wrong with VAG.

You mean Jim Beglin? Sounds a lot like Trevor Francis.

Ratings first: Friedel - 8 - Controlled the back 4 excellently. Assured and experienced. Hope Guzan can emulate him. Cuellar - 8 - Very, very good as a right-back. One of his best games for us, really getting his passing down and looking solid. Reminds me of Mellberg near the end. Collins - 7 - Super, committed performance as always. Dunne - 8 - 1 more than Collins because of that run at the end. Campbell did clip his heel. Young - 7 - Quieter game at LB than he used to have. Still dedicated and committed to everything though. Young - 9 - Was everywhere and scared the living shit out of them. Keep it up Ash but stay on your feet. Watch Arshavin. Petrov - 8 - Great performance from the skipper. Didn't seem to tire too much. I think he's the best interceptor of the ball in the PL and is the heartbeat of the side. Milner - 6.5 - Still very good but maybe a few wrong decisions where we had the advantage. Downing - 5 - Shouldn't have played tonight. Was knackered right from the start. Still dangerous and it's good that he got in those positions to be able to miss the chances. Waiting for him to hit his Boro form and then we'll be shit-hot from the wings. Heskey - 8.5 - Excellent control and hold-up play. At his Wigan best. Agbonlahor - 10 - A lesson in how to hold-up the ball. Not one wasted piece of possession, beat every Arsenal defender to chases and used his strength excellently. We didn't manage to get him away enough but maybe was onside when clear. Delph - 7 - When he came on I thought 'he's either going to win or lose this for us.'. When he gave away the free-kick I thought we'd lost it. But he looked lively but seemed instructed to sit deep and break up Arsenal's play, which he did well. We had a good few chances and an another day would have put them away. I'd like us to be more direct and try and go through the centre a bit more. Commit defenders, force them to make a choice. I'd also like Stan to try a few from outside the box. Finally, I'd like us to rest most of the first team before the CC final.

Yanited in the final then.

I think Downing was knackered tonight. Another night either of his should score chances would have gone in.

Gabby utterly superb.

Sorry but that's an insult to English football.

I do wish people would stop going on about 4-5-1. It's not as simple as that, we pull players into various positions all match that means we could be playing 8-2-0, 2-2-6 or whatever. Heskey tends to drop back as a link-up midfielder anyway. It's nothing more than having the best 11 players on the pitch.

Hello General. Just reporting back my experience from the match against Brighton on Saturday, in case you can use anything from it. It was a case of 2 completely different experiences from 2 different areas of AVFC. Firstly, tickets: I managed to forget my tickets on the way to the ground and after finding out from someone in the Ticket Office at VV that I needed to go to the Holte TO I asked if they could re-print them. They did so easily and willingly just from my client reference. They even allowed the guy in front of me to sign in to his hotmail account on their computer to get details of the tickets which I thought was above and beyond. Very impressive. Secondly, catering: I was in the upper Trinity, block A1 and left 3 minutes before half-time to try to get a Balti Pie and other refreshments. I was halfway down the queue by the time the 2nd half kicked off. I managed to miss Ashley Young's goal and then when I reached the counter most of the food was gone. Surely the amount of people who want to get served vastly exceeds the capacity of the catering stalls as they currently are, and having half as much food as required amounts to lots of lost revenue? Hope you can push to get this sorted, I don't want to have to start queuing 10 mins before half-time just to be able to catch the start of the 2nd half. Thanks for reading.

I used get_iplayer and downloaded the whole MOTD programme. 850MB MPEG-4 and watched it all again today Their first goal from a corner, Guzan was obstructed. He was for almost every other corner and free kick they had. They got Nelsen to stand in front of him and stop him moving. It hit Gabby on the hip, not the arms for Milner's goal. MOTM overall was probably Olsson for them, he was magnificent. Nelsen is an absolute rocket polisher of the highest order, only matched by Fat Sam for delusion. If the coming together of Gabby and Nelsen for our first goal was a foul, then Shearer would have scored 2 goals in the whole of his career. Loads more.. but basically Blackburn were very good on the night, but the better team eventually came through.

I'd go with almost the same team as everyone else but just have the one winger: Guzan Beye Collins Clark Young NRC Sidwell Delph Albrighton Carew Delfouneso

I don't think they're at all similar. I said a while ago I expect Jimmy will ultimately be the England captain for some years. He really reminds me of Bryan Robson: physical, strong, great engine. Perfect all-round midfield player. Gerrard is a great forward midfielder in his own right though.

Cuellar at right-back was the right choice against teams like Blackburn. A tall winger is never going to try and take it around anyone so we needed to be taller at the back and be able to be a bit more narrow putting more bodies in the box for free-kicks. Although Cuellar was pretty shocking with his distribution and clearances so I think it's still worth putting Young back there for the 2nd leg so we can be dangerous from both wings. Milner was immense, the understanding he has with Ashley Young and now Downing makes us so dangerous and we played some really nice quick football tonight. I can't understand how we can be so unlucky with the amount of deflections, scuffed shots, bad reffing decisions etc. that stop us running up the score, it just seems we're waiting for it suddenly to click and we'll be scoring for fun. The defence is solid, the midfield is now superb and Gabby will start banging them in again soon. Nod to Heskey, I thought he was excellent tonight with his hold-up play. First to most balls and kept possession. As was Gabby. I don't think MON could have done much more tonight, Spot-on tactics. Reo-Coker wouldn't have done anything more, he's another Sidwell and would have done exactly the same job. Please stop going on about him, he's a good player but he's not god just because he's not in the first team at the moment. Guzan : 7 : Did most stuff well. Blackburn targetted him with everything so he did well to cope with all that. Did he have a single save to make? Cuellar : 5 : Probably worst I've seen Carlos play. But still solid-ish. Collins : 8 : Awesome as ever. Became more solid as the game progressed. Dunne : 8 : Still brilliant. Needs to be captain, de-shackle Petrov Warnock : 8 : I'm still convinced he's the best English LB. Others won't agree. Young : 7 : Much better. Some poor first touches and was a little wasteful but very positive at least. Milner : 9 : Wow. He is going to be England captain for some years to come. Petrov : 7 : Normal performance from Stan. Seemed to be set free a bit more tonight. Don't think being captain helps him and would be better without the extra responsibility. Downing : 8 : Great buy, really compliments our play and will only get better. Heskey : 7 : Very good hold up play. Bit wasteful. Gabby : 8 : Much better decision making tonight, normally hesitates too much with a lot of time, made up his mind quicker this time. Sidwell : 6 : Nothing wrong, did the job he needed to do which was to kill the game and close them down. Our final 10 mins of dominance shows he was doing a good job. Very pleased with the performance, never thought they were on top at any time. We were just both unlucky and wasteful, could have been a lot more.

Tactical discipline, biting tackle, simple efficient passing.

Are we talking about 6'4 Brad Guzan?

I think with all the skill in the world his height will cause him problems from time to time What you think he's too tall?

We need to appeal that one. It's not 100% that it should have been a penalty but it was never a dive.

Got a super stream on, mplayer set to always on top so I can see the 'net stuff too. Awesome. Come on Villa!