villafan306 Posted September 23, 2007 Share Posted September 23, 2007 An unchanged Villa side for the third Premiership game in a row picked up all 3 points on a comfortable afternoon at B6. This was my first trip to Villa Park since the Inter Milan friendly and just like that day I left the ground with an upbeat outlook on the season ahead. As my match preview said, I expected us to pick up a win and thought Carew would play a big role for us today. But I didn't expect to be attacked by a balloon... The Goals: Carew bagged his first goal of the season thanks to some poor Everton defending. Bouma swung a teasing ball into the box and it took two defenders to clear the ball. When they did clear the ball it went straight to John Carew standing around ten yards out and it would be a brave man to bet against him from that range. Scott Carson picked up an assist for Villa by thumping a second half ball upfield into the path of Agbonlahor who controlled the ball perfectly then slotted it home with perfect placement. Gabby showed with that gol that he is a striker, not a winger and hopefully MON will play him accordingly. Performance To go back to my inference about Carew earlier, every time Carew had the ball he did something to further our cause, but he just didn't look 100% fit and quite predictably left the field through injury in the second half. Luke Moore (his partner up front) was again uninspired but seemed to come alive when Gabby was thrown up beside him. The midfield were solid throughout. Gareth Barry seemed to have the ball glued to his feet at times and Reo-Coker put in another energetic display. Young played well but seemed to lack pace a little today, while Gabby made a few good runs down the right. The defence was also solid. Laursen and Knight did their jobs well enough while Mellberg and Bouma went forward quite a lot but also did their defensive duties well. Carson dealt with everything he had to perfectly, catching every ball that went near him. The most impressive thing for me though was that he came out around 5 minutes before any other player to get a bit more shot stopping practice in during the half time break. That's the mark of a class act. As for the manager, today his gameplan worked. Getting at Everton was the right way to go and I think our possession was much more effective today. My one question though was why bring on Gardner to play right wing? Surely Maloney was the obvious choice? But he sees a lot more of the players in training than I do (at least I'd hope he does otherwise we are in trouble!) and to be fair Gardner always seems to play well wherever he is. The referee performed adequately. I didn't see a single yellow card brandished so fair play to him on that one. Positives - 3 points - Carew scored - A win in a game that last season we woudl have most likely drawn Negatives - No real complaints. It was a game that was more or less one sided and after 10 mins you knew who was going to win. Tottenham away next, with the Spurs struggling could we put the final nail in the Jol managerial coffin? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted September 23, 2007 VT Supporter Share Posted September 23, 2007 The referee performed adequately. I didn't see a single yellow card brandished so fair play to him on that one I believe Gabby was booked for his goal celebration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villafan306 Posted September 23, 2007 Author Share Posted September 23, 2007 I figured he might be but I didn't see it as I was celebrating Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted September 23, 2007 Moderator Share Posted September 23, 2007 I thought the ref was pretty pants in terms of not seeing a lot of foul play, and then blowing for innocuous stuff. Some things he did well, but he didn't seem quite at ease with the game, somehow. Not completely on top of the pace and power of it. There were a couple of verton tackles in particular that really should have been bookings. Villa were decent, Everton had possession but did now't with it and made a couple of mistakes. Decent day out again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted September 23, 2007 Moderator Share Posted September 23, 2007 The referee was an incompetant buffoon to be perfectly honest, he got more decisions wrong than right and his evening up of mistakes was hilarious He missed blatant assaults on players (ash was elbowed in the head under his nose - nothing given), he missed obvious fouled and then semed to try to even it up with blowing for a non foul shocking shocking shockingly bad ref imo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colples Posted September 24, 2007 Share Posted September 24, 2007 I thought NRC looked jaded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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