alienvillan

Winston Bogarde.

Why is this a 1pm kick off?

Not really my business but according to Blackburn OS "The early kick-off is due to both Aston Villa and Birmingham City being at home in the competition on the same day."

Friedel

Walker---Cuellar---Dunne---Baker

Reo-Coker---Petrov---Downing

A Young---Heskey---Agbonlahor

Marshall, Clark, Makoun, Bannan, Albrighton, Delfouneso

Exciting game!

... not to mention losing Milner and trying to change our style of play (from dull to more entertaining). With limited funding - until signing Makoun and Bent.

It's not perfect, far from it, but we are improving.

A couple of good posts:

I back Houllier because I still like the way the team plays. However the players haven't been there. O'Neill gave us a great base to build from, I won't deny that.

A lot of our key players got 1 year older.

Alot of our key players have been injured and our depth was massively exposed.

You can't judge Houllier until he has a full season or two under his belt. I also like that he has international/french ties, which allowed us to get a guy like Makoun who otherwise would not even consider a team like us.

from another thread (Is anyone else just really happy?)

I have been very impressed with how as a club we have finally grown a pair of b***s! It's about time we stopped being bullied around & give a bit back! It's probably the 1st time we have been taken more seriously as a club since 1981 for goodness sake!

So yeah i am very happy with RL, GH & darren Bent for having the trust to come to us considering our precarious league position.

Was the 1st half of the season GH's fault...NO he inherited a squad & gave them all a chance but got the tail end of MON's "bad bits" so to speak. Then with fires springing up all around him which he boldly confronted head on incidently, he had the most horrendous run of injuries i can remember in a Villa squad so we played most of that half of the season with a very young, inexperienced, unbalanced & ever changing side so surely it was inevitable we would struggle?!

Also as our 1st choice players recovered (severeley lacking in match sharpness don't forget) we started to hit a run of very difficult fixtures.. still we got a fantastic draw at Stamford Bridge & a good point at Sha mixed with a rather unfortunate defeat at home to Sunderland when Heskey got his red of course...

So yeah.. I am happy. I feel we are now for the 1st time seeing what GH & RL are truly made of & WOW! Keep it up guys please

I think Houllier has done fantastic job.

ooh la la. kj?!wbf#wh1-0 and cheers! MOM Petrov. Bent thakk you. Mancini, upyours. A happy man. Over and out!

Best performance from Petrov I have ever seen.

Stan the maestro.

Bent does nothing but score winning goals

**** Awesome

I think this is very wrong. Bent is like Peter Withe. A clever player and he will be doing more than just scoring goals. I just hope our creative players will be on the same wavelength ... and have the same work rate.

Villa, Villa, Villaa .... I wish I was there!

This headless chicken stuff and nervousness is not winning mentality nor is it mental strength. I'm not happy with this.

Welcome to Villa...

Well, I know why I'm a villa fan!

UTV

WTF, Petrov the maestro out. OMG

This headless chicken stuff and nervousness is not winning mentality nor is it mental strength. I'm not happy with this.

Thank God for VillaTalk, I can't watch this game ... without commenting.

We can't play football when we are in one goal lead. I hope ManC will not score and Mancini goes berserk.

Adam Johnson will do it. little shit.

And ****, now he is in.

This is headless chicken stuff again. But if it works today so be it.

Observation:

- Bent scored

- We scored too early. We can't defend one goal lead ... or maybe we can but we can't play our own game.

- Gabby is no winger

rather score early than not at all though. I think the half time team talk is important. we need to spread the play quicker out to gabby and Marc. If we are to pass it around then we need to keep it safe.

It's clear Young, Bent and Cuellar are the best of the three tonight.

We are always in trouble when we score the first goal. We start sitting back and don't know what to do with the ball. Lack of mental strength IMO.

No matter what the score is, we should always play like it was 0-0. Scoring the first goal makes us panic, in going forward.

Glad we're leading. Think this game could go either way still though.

Is it me or is there something seriously wrong with Gabby? Literally been walking around the pitch off the ball with his hands on his hips. Either he isn't happy or he isn't fit.

HE IS NOT A WINGER!

Observation:

- Bent scored

- We scored too early. We can't defend one goal lead ... or maybe we can but we can't play our own game.

- Gabby is no winger

Downing was Barry's replacement. It must be Downing vs. Barry in midfield. We are going to win today! No balls to Yaya, please.

I'm sure Dunne will give 100% today (as usual) but no calamities, please.

Cuellar vs. Silva is better for us than Walker vs. Silva.

I can see a win. And no Gabbies on the flanks, thanks.

It's already a bad day for the second city, Manure are leading 5-0. Of course it's perfect for the Villa but I don't like Manchester clubs. It's a must win. I feel like a winner today!

(But I'm not going to moan if we lose).

(Unless we lose the same way we did last time.)

Great result, but if we hadn't of sat back and bottled it we would have been coming away with 3 points...

I agree with this. The first half and the beginning of the second was fantastic, real fighting spirit. After Heskey scored it was mayday, mayday, mayday for the next 40 mins, headless chicken stuff. But Friedel was amazing. Of course Chelsea scored, eventually, twice. Disappointed once again. But then the fighting spirit came back. Where the hell was it from 48th to 91st minute? We still have a huge problem there.

Three games in one. Happy and angry.