Skruff

Wilfred Bacuna, Bouma, Leandro what?

Is that a midfielder? No he's closing down their defenders and keepers putting pressure on them. He holds up the ball, plays for a foul. Tracks back. He's not being used to score goals, he's being used to hold on to a win or a draw.

If anything he's being deployed as a defensive forward, a job he's doing very.

I'd like to see him play further up the pitch, Think he could prove to be a real threat. Besides he looks like the only midfielder capable at creating something going forward at the moment. If not pushing him further up the pitch, give him the freedom to burst forward a lot more. Gabby - Benteke Delph KEA- Sylla Luna-Baker-Clark-Vlaar-Bacuna Is something I'd personally like to see being tried out, I'm sure you'll be able to find some weakness in this. I'm no tactician

Good

I think the fact that he's there only until january shows that there's plans for him in the first team in the second half of the season. Harden him in a lower league for half a season, then let him play in the premiership. Instead of throwing him directly into premier league in a side that might be paying under a lot of pressure. Hopefully the first team got a decent placement in the league by then and he'll be more ready to meet the physical challenge of the league.

I think it's a lot to do with looking for a player with the right skillset and atitude and look to develop them from there. Tonev got quick feet, two footed, a hard shot, able to take a player on, he shows glimpses of being a good passer of the ball as well. However he's not using the tools at his disposal very well at the moment. If he can learn to do that though he might turn into a handful. His first game were he played he looked absolutely horrible, running with his head down, refusing to release the ball to team mates and shooting blasting the ball 5-10 away from goal each time. The next game he featured he did ok, passing more to his team mates and shooting far less and the shots he did shoot were close to target or on target. Going from horrible to ok is not bad progress in just two matches, so he's all ready learning. Which he needs to do quickly if he wants to break into the team this season.

I would assume that he'll end up being a player other player fears getting in to duels with.

Brilliant picture Not only weimanns "I am villa" pose, but all those people celebrating, just look at them individually and not just as a crowd, Notice their expressions and how much it means to each single one of them. Some celebrating together, some alone, some smilng, laughing, shouting, screaming, jumping, taking pictures. Kids, adults, seniors, men, women. skinny, chubby, black, white, yellow. Everyone celebrating in their own way, but together. Just notice the girl Shillzz pointed out in above post being all cool as if she knew it was that goal was coming all along.I think it's a very intresting and entertaining picture to look at. However I think the graphics ruins that otherwise greatly captured atmosphere.

May I be so bold and suggest that's an idication of not only our young team but our young manager is devoloping and learning?

Think belgium will be the team that I'll be keeping an eye on in the upcoming world cup. I always find a team to root for seeing that Norway haven't qualified for anything in a while. Hoping for a final between Brazil and Belgium. Might be very entertaining.

Didn't he set up Bacuna quite well for the assist to KEA's goal? Surely a key pass. He's getting more and more adventurous while going forward. Confident he'll get a goal or an assist soon enough.

Loved watching him playing, such a shame. 88% pass success average in his two games and he passes a lot forward. Such an exciting center back amazing physique.

Think we'll see an increase in his form after that goal. Can't wait

I'm not quite sure how you could criticise either the manager or the players for the 1st half performance? We were playing one of the best teams in the world, they have the pick of players throughout the world and have an unlimited budget. The previous week, they had scored 4 against Man U & 5 against Wigan. We defended solidly & robustly & whilst we conceded possession, they were restricted to half chances & corners. We nearly got them in at half time at 0-0. I think you're making a good point, but I thought we looked extremely poor as soon as we were in possession of the ball that first half and I don't see why that should be justified because we played against Manchester city. Conceding goals against them is to be expected but not being able to string more then 4-5 passes together is just poor, no matter what team you're playing against. We barely made it past our own half before gifting them possession and our strikers had nothing to work with. I expected more, especially thinking about how well I've seen players string passes together before. We looked much sharper on the ball in second half especially after the second goal, I would assume that Lambert told the players to up their performance, which they did. I just felt as if it was all a bit of a jekyll and hyde performance. The defensive work probably deserves a lot more credit though, as you said. We don't seem to crumble under pressure in the same way as we used to do. Need to work on corners though, but the fact that city only created something from corners might be an indication of how good the other aspects of our defensive work was?

Arsenal is a club that deserves any success that comes their way. Impressed by how well that club is run.

I thought the first half against city was truly horrible and I couldn't see anything positive about it except for the strength the players showed while defending.Critizing the team and the manager for that is more then fair in my opinion. However, to come back from such a horrible preformance and turn it into a 3-2 win is absolutely amazing, and the player and manger deserves all the praise the can get from that. It speaks of great character.

One of the worst first halfs I've ever seen. AMAZING RESULT. No idea what happend in second half, but god I love it.

first half and second half twilight zone.

Holy shit what a goal!

We're playing against Man City! I actually think we've defended well but the goal was inevitable and I very much doubt we'll be scoring today. I really don't understand why people are going mad because we're losing 1-0 to MAN CITY... So you didn't understand why people wanted McLeish out either? Are you serious? I'm completely serious. Don't get me wrong, I'm not comparing McLeish to Lambert. But I'm comparing the preformance so far in the match to the sort of preformances we had under McLeish. Whole team defending. isolated strikers, not able to chain more then three passes together before they loose the ball. Don't create anything that's remotely close to a chance. If you cannot understand why people are unhappy with the preformance I'm asuming you'd have trouble seeing what's wrong with McLeish. That being said I'm not going mad at loosing towards City, they're a far better team. But the preformance pisses me off.

We're playing against Man City! I actually think we've defended well but the goal was inevitable and I very much doubt we'll be scoring today. I really don't understand why people are going mad because we're losing 1-0 to MAN CITY... So you didn't understand why people wanted McLeish out either?

This reminds me of the dark days.

It's time for pro evolution soccer to reclaim the throne!

I see that I've accidentally typed Sunderlandtalk.com