taktical

We seem to be playing a lot of long balls forward to no-one. It's pretty comfortable for them. The overall standard of football in this game is terrible.

I hope RDM told them the match lasts 90 mins. No point playing well at the start if you stop after 45

Despite being played out of position he stuck to his task and stayed out wide, linked up well with de Laet and most of our attacking threat in the first half was down the right. Unfortunately he faded in the second half with the rest of them. As our most accomplished forward he should really be leading the line upfront with Gestede relegated to the bench.

We will come across weaker teams who will probably sit back and defend at Villa Park. In those cases we may need to go for a more attacking line-up to win 3 points in the push for promotion. It's a risk but we won't get out of the Championship with a load of 0-0 draws.

Ignoring exactly how much money he has or has access to, it does appear that the good doctor has some serious business acumen. Makes a nice change..

In recent games he has looked very lightweight. But far better yesterday, much stronger and held the ball up well.

That is a good point that we don't really have much choice. I just get the feeling none of those on the bench could change much by coming on. I'm hoping Sinclair or Gestede will come on and prove me wrong by scoring the winner.

Obvious and correct decision to stick with the team from the last game. The bench doesn't look great though. It's nice to feel some positivity and the feeling we might get something from this one.

Kozak may be slow, but at least he shows some movement. He also gets into scoring positions and can score with his feet. Hope he can re-establish himself. Knowing our luck he will get injured and Gestede will come straight on.

Really poor defending for their first goal. If you watch a replay you can see that the glances to the right before the cross comes in. So either he knew Howson was there but decided to move towards the ball or he looked over but didn't see Howson. Either way not good enough for this level. If Lescott and Okore are working well together as a unit they need to be back for the next game.

Shame Okore can't play. Settling in well and hasn't made any major errors recently - no reason for him to be dropped. Injured or just tired? Really hope Sinclair turns up today, haven't seen him do anything of note for ages. Sometimes I forget he's even on the pitch. He's brilliant when he actually plays.

No idea where this came from, looked like a completely different player. Great skills, destroyed their fullback on multiple occasions, always looked like he was going to make things happen. For me, his performance was the biggest positive from today, Enough to suggest if his confidence is built slowly he will be a useful player. Big decision now is whether or not to start him next time. I think he has done enough for a starting spot.

First half was terrible, the only reason we were still in it was because their forwards' finishing was beyond awful. I can see the idea of playing Clark as defensive mid, but it doesn't work if you have Westwood and Veretout who don't make any forward runs. Jack changed this making the midfield more dynamic. Movement was a real problem in the first half – there wasn't any. Time and time again someone would have the ball and no-one would move towards them, show for the ball or make a run. Changed in the second half, attacking in pairs and groups works much better. Taking off Gabby and brining on Ayew brought balance to the side. Gabby was playing too far forward and not creating anything, Ayew dropped deeper to receive the ball so was more effective. A very mixed performance with some positives. Anyway got the result we need, roll on 4th round!

He's almost too quick. Defensively he needs to slow things down, stay composed, not dive in too much. He's young, still learning but there's enough talent to suggest he can be a formidable player in the future.

So we have Gana out, he seems to do the most work in midfield and his replacement is? We now have 2 men doing three people's work. Deceptive because they did quite well in the first half. 2 Leicester subs later we lost midfield completely. I'd like to think this was Tim being out-thought by a more experienced manager, but all of us could see it quite easily. We just don't know to control games. 2-0 up, Leicester completely flat, good teams know how to build on that position. Do we have anyone who can tell the players to calm down, relax, keep the ball? The manager? The captain? I was shouting it at the screen. We were panicking, being sloppy and giving the ball away cheaply, all of which encouraged Leicester to win the 50:50s and take back control. This happens season after season after season. It is getting beyond a joke.

Should have won this easily. We have a team that can win, they just don't know how to. We should have crushed them easily in the first half, but unfortunately didn't and allowed them back into it in the second. Good to see us having the confidence to have lots of shots from far out, shame the execution wasn't good enough. I'm going to give Richards MOTM for his defensive performance which was excellent, showed everyone how it should be done - calm and composed. The only errors he made were at the other end of the pitch. Clark was very unconvincing. Amavi made some critical errors, needs to cut them out. Sanchez played well again, with Westwood and Gana we had a solid centre midfield. I would say Gana was a bit disappointing, thought he would impose himself on the game a bit more. Attacking wise Sinclair has great movement so is in the right position at the right time to score easy tap-ins. Gestede was OK, but most of his flick-ons didn't work, he didn't seem particularly effective, improved a little in the second half. Bacuna was a waste of time in that position. Hutton had so much space down the right in the first half, it was a shame his crossing wasn't great. If he had someone better in front of him we may have been able to capitalise on this. Gil picked up from where he left off on Tuesday, we need him or Grealish in the side. All in all it was encouraging but frustrating

I can see Sinclair on the left drifting inside more, Amavi to overlap putting crosses in. Bacuna staying wider as Hutton will be more defensive Bacuna struggles to beat his man at the best of times, hope he's in the mood to put in some killer crosses

I like this guy, so was happy to see him do well at CB. I can see the thinking behind trying this - he does well when asked to a simple job e.g. in the Copa America when he marked messi and neymar out of games. Last night he played his usual game, tackling, making interceptions and clearing headers. His job was to mark their centre forward and he did well. In the second half there were times he had to shift across to the right to nullify a threat when Hutton had gone AWOL up the pitch. I only saw one major mistake when one of his headers went backwards into the box into a dangerous area. Could he be a backup at CB in a worse case scenario? Yes Long term CB - no way. I don't think he would manage a more mobile forward line. He is good at heading, but I'm not sure how good he is at defending set pieces and overall his height is a limitation. Hopefully this was just an experiment and he can slot back into central midfield.

The media would have loved it if Bournemouth had beaten us, would have completed their story perfectly. Unfortunately for them we ruined the party and it was ironic that it was an ex-Championship player that beat them in the end Very promising performance, some brilliant individual play from Amavi and Gana in particular. They are still getting used to each other so sometimes not quite linking up, but the new boys look very technically proficient so I don't think this will be a problem. Good performance for the first game of the season and exciting times ahead.

Like others I feel physically sick seeing him in front of that gigantic logo wearing that horrible red rag. Yes his overall play can be inconsistent sometimes, but he has scored almost 1 in 2 for a poor Villa side and is still underrated. They paid more for Andy Carroll ffs He won't win anything at Liverpool anyway, they are complete crud. I hope he leaves for a 'real' big club soon. Rant over. He was the most talented striker at Villa for a long time and I will still enjoy watching videos of his goals, despite feeling sad everytime I see one.

Didn't like what he did on the corner - decided to come out for the ball, hesitated and changed his mind. If he'd stayed he would have been more central to have a chance of saving it.

I don't think he was particularly poor, just not up to the standard of a few games ago Unlike other teams, Arsenal were very careful not to foul him, the times they were able to contain him they had boxed him in with two or three around him, so he was rendered ineffectual on many occasions.

Westwood, Delph and Cleverley have played well, we strung some wins together, saving ourselves from the drop. Unfortunately they are now completely knackered and have been for the past 3 games. I don't think they could last an entire season playing this high tempo system. When it works it's great but when your players are tired you need to try something different. I hope Tim has some ideas of how to do this.

I couldn't sleep until 3am. I reckon I woke up five times last night. But I have a good feeling today, I'm not sure if it's because I'm going to my first final or what. This is not like 2000. We will give them a game. As I speak I'm zooming down the train tracks to our destiny. This is our time. Come on you Villa boys!

Win against an in-form Everton was an excellent result. Scoreline flatters them really because they were pretty poor and we dominated the game. Only downside was the scrappy goals conceded an our inability to keep the ball in the dying stages of a game It's clear that everyone is enjoying playing in this system and we won at home for once