Ratings and Reactions: Stoke 0-1 Villa

[coda]

Pleased and surprised with the win against those cloggers. Effective counter attacking which is great away from home had better not be our aim against Newcastle.

[The_Steve]

Stoke only lost 3 home games last season. To go there and win is a great achievement.

Edited August 17, 2014 by The_Steve

[NoelVilla]

Referee very poor? What are you guys gonna vote when we have a bad decision against us?

[TreeVillan]

Referee very poor? What are you guys gonna vote when we have a bad decision against us?

 

Can only really remember when Hutton made two really good successful challenges only to be penalised for it cause the Stoke player screamed.

Edited August 17, 2014 by TreeVillan

[PaulC]

Weimanns touch was so awful when i was watching the live stream i was screaming at him and then celebrating in the same breath. Was poor again though, Gabby did better second half. Cant wait for Tekkers to get back..

 

Yes his touch was very bad but you have to give him credit for the way he reacted and finished with his right foot. I think he would do better up front where Gabby played. 

[Bunnski]

Guzan           -   7

Hutton           -   8

Senderos      -   9 (motm)

Vlaar             -   9

Cissokho       -   9

Westwood     -   7

Delph            -   8

Richardson   -   8

N'zogbia        -   7

Weimann      -   8

Gabby          -   7

 

 

Lambert       -   9

[Oaks]

The referee was awful. Gave almost every 50/50 to Stoke. Luckily he never really had any big decisions.

[packoman]

Also, where did the 5 mins of injury time come from?

[Mantis]

The referee was awful. Gave almost every 50/50 to Stoke. Luckily he never really had any big decisions.

 

I think every referee does that. I always found it very ironic when Pulis was there how he used to moan about referees all the time despite the fact that Stoke have always been one of the worst teams in the league for getting decisions going their way.

[VillaChris]

Also, where did the 5 mins of injury time come from?

 

No complaints from me this time, Guzan was taking his usual minute to take goal kicks when we're winning and there were 4 subs.

[pacbuddies]

Well done Villa, great away win and a clean sheet. Hopefully the defence has finally got some attention.

[villa_shere]

Great to beat Stoke, Also nice to see the new players and bomb squad players contributing to the win.

 

My only concern is our tactics are the same and I hope we don't play like that at home as others have echoed.

 

Missed Weinmanns crazy gun/finger pointing celebration too :-(

[JohnStortford]

Whoever wanted to watch the game: http://livefootballvideo.com/fullmatch/england/premier-league/stoke-city-vs-aston-villa

[Raver50032]

In truth a fantastic result - and that's what it was, a result. 3 points less for us to hunt for come Spring 2015.

 

Well done then Villa... Difficult place to go away to (2nd season running on opening day I might add) and to come away with all three points was magic. I'll ignore the potentially biased MOTD coverage that reflected a game that Stoke were likely victims of a mugging and the BBC Sport website possession statistics.

 

An interesting goal in terms of how it ended up in the net. I thought the chance had gone, and so did the keeper I suspect. But credit to Weimann. Power and placement, results in keeper red face.

 

Paul is off to the good stat he needed for the bumpy period to come next month or so. Yay...

[The_Steve]

The Guardian pointed out the poor refereeing:

 

Referees will not give 50/50 decisions against Villa lightly. Every one that went Stoke’s way on Saturday – and there were a few 40/60s as well – Lambert, no shrinking violet himself, and Keane were out into their technical area (what a misnomer that is, by the way – it is more a shouting cage), asking Anthony Taylor to think carefully about repeating such folly. Then the fourth official would get a glare for good measure on their way back.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/aug/18/premier-league-ten-talking-points

[heid3ster]

Yeah, I liked that from the Guardian. Somehow I don't think they were saying "Hey, think carefully about repeating such folly, ref."

[tomaspg]

bit late to the show, but great game! guzan had a couple of below par moments but im sure he will get into it fairly quickly again. Gabby probably could have done a bit better.

aly and vlaar both had cracking games, and i didnt end up cursing hutton after the game had finished.

good stuff!

[samjp26]

Just watching the first half back as never got to see it, Cissokho looks like a tank!