Ratings & Reactions: Villa v Norwich

[jackdaww]

1 hour ago, Mantis said:

Good result but unfortunately the season will probably finish just a bit too early for us.

or -- we took too long to get going .

[TRO]

It was a fabulous result and on the back of a resilient run, thats building confidence nicely.

There are no buts from me......simply because we are not the finished article by any stretch of the imagination.

Steve Bruce and his coaches must be very proud of the miserly offerings his team are presenting to the opposition( I am).We are now making teams work for any sniffs they get

Ron Saundersesque.

Well done lads.

 

[romavillan]

Saying that we have got the defensive side right isn't the whole truth though, on the radio they were getting very worried about how deep we were playing and they had lots of threatening moments. This has been true for some of the other wins in this great run. Fine lines, but we've not commanded a game once yet, or played well for two halves of a game. Bruce has undeniably managed to make us harder to beat again, like when he first came, but I'd say performances are a concern. Nothing more than that though, it's only concerning, whilst we're winning credit should go to Bruce just as when we had the horror run the blame was laid at his door.

Confidence from this run should give Bruce more authority and leeway to try and get some better performances out of this side. He has said as much himself, being very critical of how poor we have been even in winning games. So he knows it, we know it, but another 3 massive points and long may it continue. win 5 of the next 7 and who knows.

[TRO]

1 hour ago, LakotaDakota said:

Not too often a keeper gets an assist.

Awful from Norwich for the 2nd goal.

I remember a goal like that against us......Les Ferdinand scored it for Newcastle, direct from the goal keepers kick.

I was pissed off, the bar codes were delighted.

So tonight, its my turn, to be delighted.

and I am

Well done Kodg and ably assisted by Sammy Boy.

Edited April 1, 2017 by TRO

[darrenm]

Without Neil Taylor's block at the end that would have been 2 1 to them

Edited April 1, 2017 by darrenm
Oops

[Daniel]

i couldn't believe there were so many people sitting near me that were moaning about the style of football/ being boring. Tbh, i couldn't give a ****, this is a results game. Give me wins over entertaining football any day of the week.

[romavillan]

1 minute ago, Daniel said:

i couldn't believe there were so many people sitting near me that were moaning about the style of football/ being boring. Tbh, i couldn't give a ****, this is a results game. Give me wins over entertaining football any day of the week.

In our current situation, and in general, yes I sort of agree. Ideal world we would be playing better football though.

[TRO]

11 minutes ago, romavillan said:

Saying that we have got the defensive side right isn't the whole truth though, on the radio they were getting very worried about how deep we were playing and they had lots of threatening moments. This has been true for some of the other wins in this great run. Fine lines, but we've not commanded a game once yet, or played well for two halves of a game. Bruce has undeniably managed to make us harder to beat again, like when he first came, but I'd say performances are a concern. Nothing more than that though, it's only concerning, whilst we're winning credit should go to Bruce just as when we had the horror run the blame was laid at his door.

Confidence from this run should give Bruce more authority and leeway to try and get some better performances out of this side. He has said as much himself, being very critical of how poor we have been even in winning games. So he knows it, we know it, but another 3 massive points and long may it continue. win 5 of the next 7 and who knows.

In my opinion.....you are spot on.

The defence individually is not great, which sounds paradoxical on the back of so many clean sheets and indeed it's not meant to sound ungrateful on the contrary i am very pleased......but your point highlighted, is what he has done and it had to be done.....its early days in the rebuild.

In doing so, he has had to sacrifice a bit of the nicer side of the game and that has affected players further forward.

equally JK has had to play "Lone wolf" and catch them on the counter......but its a start, until we get better.

[TRO]

16 minutes ago, darrenm said:

Without Neil Taylor's block at the end that would have been 2 1 to them

If my Auntie had wotsits........

[OutByEaster?]

As a drunk bloke used to tell me at lunchtime; it's a funny old game.

I thought we were poor for long periods, really poor (I've also discovered I can't type poor, really poor without hearing Martin O'Neill's voice) we don't pass the ball well and we're not actually great at winning it back - we're a strange team, we'll beat you by luck or by individual brilliance and we have a growing confidence that means anything that happens in between doesn't bother us a bit.

We scored the only two goals we could score today - a piece of brilliant dribbling from Kodjia with a lovely individual finish and a toe on the end of a hopeful long punt - that's us in a nutshell. In between we more often than not looked the poorer of the two sides and couldn't pass a parcel.

There's a confidence though, a confidence that when the opposition have chances they'll miss them, a confidence that sooner of later one of these hopeful punts over the top will come off, a confidence that we'll win no matter what happens. You know that bit in the Matrix where Neo finally figures it out and he's parrying the blows of the chap in the suit with a sort of disinterested nonchalance? That's how we played the first half. We were second best to everything and went in one nil up. Second half we sometimes looked a bit more like we were trying, but it was pretty much the same story.

There's something about the mentality of this team that suggests that if you'd sent them out blindfold today they'd have expected to beat Norwich 2-0. There's also something about watching this team that makes you occasionally feel the need to check they're not blindfold.

This team isn't good enough to go on the sort of run where you win six out of seven games and barely concede a goal - keep thatt to yourself though; I'm pretty sure they don't know.

 

Johnstone (7) - looked solid, confident and none too shabby today - handling was good, came and got what he needed to and earned the bit of luck he got with the save he made with the back of his head. Looked a bit like that promising young keeper Steve Bruce was talking about a little while back.

Hutton (6) - Norwich came up with some sort of plan to keep Hutton back today - he was a lot less cavalier, more conservative, a slightly lesser presence - it's a compliment to him that this should be something other teams have to think about.

Chester (7) - rock solid again. He's a good defender in a team that defends - in some ways it's hard not to look good in that situation, but he continues to look rock solid.

Baker (6) - a little less combative than Chester, in an uncharacteristically diffident performance - with another clean sheet.

Taylor (6) - I guess we shouldn't have worried, the type of unspectacular, solid, quiet performance that I've a feeling he's been putting in for years - good block at the end and looked largely unruffled by any of the weeks commotion.

Jedinak (6) - Lost a few in the air against Jerome. The fact that's a surprise to me probably tells us something about our expectations of him. He did a decent job of protecting the back four and didn't do anything calamitous.

Hourihane (4) - We'd have had to put bandages on him to notice him, he has games like this it would appear - the invisible man act made another appearance today. He's a player that needs to be involved to be productive and today the game largely passed him by. The header against the bar was the exception to todays anonymous rule.

Lansbury (5) - I think it was his seventh pass of the game that first found a Villa player - we rely on Lansbury and Hourihane for our football and today neither of them produced - Lansbury gets a little less criticism because he put a shift in defensively, particularly in the second half where he chased and harried and worked hard.

Adomah (7) - busy, busy, busy - a great outlet today and the man who carried the fight to them in the first half - if Hourihane was missing, Adomah was everything but the ball. If he could add that final ball to his game he'd be superb.

Kodjia (8) - There's lots of stuff he doesn't do all that well, and he makes some odd decisions at times - but when he's right, he's right. I liked both goals - the first because it told you all about his individual quality and the second because it shows a player who can sniff out a chance at just about any time. He's in form and perfect for the way we play.

Hogan (6) - looked sharp and rusty at the same time - the turn and shot that forced a really good save out of Norwich's keeper was top drawer - hopefully he's not too broken.

subs

Amavi (8) - for me, the best of our outfield players today - in the second half, pretty much all of what we did came on the break and those breaks were largely lead by this fella. For a defender, he made a very good left midfielder today. it was no surprise when they resorted to kicking him and the second yellow was a card waiting to happen. Late on, you got the feeling he knew he was playing well and that confidence lead him to taking up positions up front at times, from where he looked over eager and underprepared - down the left today though, he was excellent.

Gardner (6) - continued where Lansbury and Hourihane had left off with a performance of nearly passes and almost runs -the extra energy helped us though.

Green (-) only on for a mo.

 

Second best; Comfortable winners. I look forward to more of the same.

[alreadyexists]

Anyone there today? Are you in this shot... the chances are slim I guess.

 

 

[TRO]

35 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

As a drunk bloke used to tell me at lunchtime; it's a funny old game.

I thought we were poor for long periods, really poor (I've also discovered I can't type poor, really poor without hearing Martin O'Neill's voice) we don't pass the ball well and we're not actually great at winning it back - we're a strange team, we'll beat you by luck or by individual brilliance and we have a growing confidence that means anything that happens in between doesn't bother us a bit.

We scored the only two goals we could score today - a piece of brilliant dribbling from Kodjia with a lovely individual finish and a toe on the end of a hopeful long punt - that's us in a nutshell. In between we more often than not looked the poorer of the two sides and couldn't pass a parcel.

There's a confidence though, a confidence that when the opposition have chances they'll miss them, a confidence that sooner of later one of these hopeful punts over the top will come off, a confidence that we'll win no matter what happens. You know that bit in the Matrix where Neo finally figures it out and he's parrying the blows of the chap in the suit with a sort of disinterested nonchalance? That's how we played the first half. We were second best to everything and went in one nil up. Second half we sometimes looked a bit more like we were trying, but it was pretty much the same story.

There's something about the mentality of this team that suggests that if you'd sent them out blindfold today they'd have expected to beat Norwich 2-0. There's also something about watching this team that makes you occasionally feel the need to check they're not blindfold.

This team isn't good enough to go on the sort of run where you win six out of seven games and barely concede a goal - keep thatt to yourself though; I'm pretty sure they don't know.

 

Johnstone (7) - looked solid, confident and none too shabby today - handling was good, came and got what he needed to and earned the bit of luck he got with the save he made with the back of his head. Looked a bit like that promising young keeper Steve Bruce was talking about a little while back.

Hutton (6) - Norwich came up with some sort of plan to keep Hutton back today - he was a lot less cavalier, more conservative, a slightly lesser presence - it's a compliment to him that this should be something other teams have to think about.

Chester (7) - rock solid again. He's a good defender in a team that defends - in some ways it's hard not to look good in that situation, but he continues to look rock solid.

Baker (6) - a little less combative than Chester, in an uncharacteristically diffident performance - with another clean sheet.

Taylor (6) - I guess we shouldn't have worried, the type of unspectacular, solid, quiet performance that I've a feeling he's been putting in for years - good block at the end and looked largely unruffled by any of the weeks commotion.

Jedinak (6) - Lost a few in the air against Jerome. The fact that's a surprise to me probably tells us something about our expectations of him. He did a decent job of protecting the back four and didn't do anything calamitous.

Hourihane (4) - We'd have had to put bandages on him to notice him, he has games like this it would appear - the invisible man act made another appearance today. He's a player that needs to be involved to be productive and today the game largely passed him by. The header against the bar was the exception to todays anonymous rule.

Lansbury (5) - I think it was his seventh pass of the game that first found a Villa player - we rely on Lansbury and Hourihane for our football and today neither of them produced - Lansbury gets a little less criticism because he put a shift in defensively, particularly in the second half where he chased and harried and worked hard.

Adomah (7) - busy, busy, busy - a great outlet today and the man who carried the fight to them in the first half - if Hourihane was missing, Adomah was everything but the ball. If he could add that final ball to his game he'd be superb.

Kodjia (8) - There's lots of stuff he doesn't do all that well, and he makes some odd decisions at times - but when he's right, he's right. I liked both goals - the first because it told you all about his individual quality and the second because it shows a player who can sniff out a chance at just about any time. He's in form and perfect for the way we play.

Hogan (6) - looked sharp and rusty at the same time - the turn and shot that forced a really good save out of Norwich's keeper was top drawer - hopefully he's not too broken.

subs

Amavi (8) - for me, the best of our outfield players today - in the second half, pretty much all of what we did came on the break and those breaks were largely lead by this fella. For a defender, he made a very good left midfielder today. it was no surprise when they resorted to kicking him and the second yellow was a card waiting to happen. Late on, you got the feeling he knew he was playing well and that confidence lead him to taking up positions up front at times, from where he looked over eager and underprepared - down the left today though, he was excellent.

Gardner (6) - continued where Lansbury and Hourihane had left off with a performance of nearly passes and almost runs -the extra energy helped us though.

Green (-) only on for a mo.

 

Second best; Comfortable winners. I look forward to more of the same.

Good round up OBE

Just a point....highlighted

a confidence that when the opposition have chances (We'll MAKE them) they'll miss them,

I think some credit for what the coaches  have instilled in us of late, is in order.

Its the oppositions job to convert their possession and opportunities and for us to make it difficult for them......I think we are now, doing that.

This team will in time metamorphose in to what we want it to be......but in the meantime WIP

 

[sheepyvillian]

Who questioned wins ? It's the possession stats I have issue with , like I said ,when playing at home we should be having at least 50% possession.,regardless of the result.  Fast.,we're the biggest team in the league,and Imo we should be playing like it .

[darrenm]

Norwich were playing a lot of possession football but did nothing with it. Every time we got the ball we were playing it up quickly. Most of the time it didn't work but on 1 occasion a ball to Hogan gets knocked into the path of the run of the best forward in the league and he buries it. The next time it rolls past a defender and that dangerous striker is on it again slotting past the keeper.

Johnstone didn't have a lot to do because while they had possession they couldn't make it count. The hobbits in the middle were very tidy, finding space constantly but the back 4 was up to everything.

[sidcow]

I was not sure it was a convincing win but just looking at the Sky Highlight on their website they only showed the Jerome chance for them.  Even though it was a bad miss he did still actually have to beat the keeper and there were 2 defenders on the line.  I don't think it was a gimme. 

We had 2 goals, header off the bar, amazing save from Hogans turn and shot and Kodjia scuffed shot which he really should have buried. 

They didn't show the Norwich attempt with the double save (or was it save then getting hit by the ball?)  but then they didn't show our early headed chance (hogan?) who put it well wide when again it wasn't a hard chance, he was unmarked and should have buried it. 

A neutral watching those highlights might have thought we should have won handsomely. 

[midian]

Got to say Johnstone was good today especially the 1 save after the dived at the bLl and saved it with what look like to me a scorpion kick,getting better each game.

[dappadan]

1 hour ago, sheepyvillian said:

Who questioned wins ? It's the possession stats I have issue with , like I said ,when playing at home we should be having at least 50% possession.,regardless of the result.  Fast.,we're the biggest team in the league,and Imo we should be playing like it .

Can I just ask why we should be having at least 50% possession? 

[Xela]

Another 3 points 

[Villan_of_oz]

2 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

As a drunk bloke used to tell me at lunchtime; it's a funny old game.

I thought we were poor for long periods, really poor (I've also discovered I can't type poor, really poor without hearing Martin O'Neill's voice) we don't pass the ball well and we're not actually great at winning it back - we're a strange team, we'll beat you by luck or by individual brilliance and we have a growing confidence that means anything that happens in between doesn't bother us a bit.

We scored the only two goals we could score today - a piece of brilliant dribbling from Kodjia with a lovely individual finish and a toe on the end of a hopeful long punt - that's us in a nutshell. In between we more often than not looked the poorer of the two sides and couldn't pass a parcel.

There's a confidence though, a confidence that when the opposition have chances they'll miss them, a confidence that sooner of later one of these hopeful punts over the top will come off, a confidence that we'll win no matter what happens. You know that bit in the Matrix where Neo finally figures it out and he's parrying the blows of the chap in the suit with a sort of disinterested nonchalance? That's how we played the first half. We were second best to everything and went in one nil up. Second half we sometimes looked a bit more like we were trying, but it was pretty much the same story.

There's something about the mentality of this team that suggests that if you'd sent them out blindfold today they'd have expected to beat Norwich 2-0. There's also something about watching this team that makes you occasionally feel the need to check they're not blindfold.

This team isn't good enough to go on the sort of run where you win six out of seven games and barely concede a goal - keep thatt to yourself though; I'm pretty sure they don't know.

 

Johnstone (7) - looked solid, confident and none too shabby today - handling was good, came and got what he needed to and earned the bit of luck he got with the save he made with the back of his head. Looked a bit like that promising young keeper Steve Bruce was talking about a little while back.

Hutton (6) - Norwich came up with some sort of plan to keep Hutton back today - he was a lot less cavalier, more conservative, a slightly lesser presence - it's a compliment to him that this should be something other teams have to think about.

Chester (7) - rock solid again. He's a good defender in a team that defends - in some ways it's hard not to look good in that situation, but he continues to look rock solid.

Baker (6) - a little less combative than Chester, in an uncharacteristically diffident performance - with another clean sheet.

Taylor (6) - I guess we shouldn't have worried, the type of unspectacular, solid, quiet performance that I've a feeling he's been putting in for years - good block at the end and looked largely unruffled by any of the weeks commotion.

Jedinak (6) - Lost a few in the air against Jerome. The fact that's a surprise to me probably tells us something about our expectations of him. He did a decent job of protecting the back four and didn't do anything calamitous.

Hourihane (4) - We'd have had to put bandages on him to notice him, he has games like this it would appear - the invisible man act made another appearance today. He's a player that needs to be involved to be productive and today the game largely passed him by. The header against the bar was the exception to todays anonymous rule.

Lansbury (5) - I think it was his seventh pass of the game that first found a Villa player - we rely on Lansbury and Hourihane for our football and today neither of them produced - Lansbury gets a little less criticism because he put a shift in defensively, particularly in the second half where he chased and harried and worked hard.

Adomah (7) - busy, busy, busy - a great outlet today and the man who carried the fight to them in the first half - if Hourihane was missing, Adomah was everything but the ball. If he could add that final ball to his game he'd be superb.

Kodjia (8) - There's lots of stuff he doesn't do all that well, and he makes some odd decisions at times - but when he's right, he's right. I liked both goals - the first because it told you all about his individual quality and the second because it shows a player who can sniff out a chance at just about any time. He's in form and perfect for the way we play.

Hogan (6) - looked sharp and rusty at the same time - the turn and shot that forced a really good save out of Norwich's keeper was top drawer - hopefully he's not too broken.

subs

Amavi (8) - for me, the best of our outfield players today - in the second half, pretty much all of what we did came on the break and those breaks were largely lead by this fella. For a defender, he made a very good left midfielder today. it was no surprise when they resorted to kicking him and the second yellow was a card waiting to happen. Late on, you got the feeling he knew he was playing well and that confidence lead him to taking up positions up front at times, from where he looked over eager and underprepared - down the left today though, he was excellent.

Gardner (6) - continued where Lansbury and Hourihane had left off with a performance of nearly passes and almost runs -the extra energy helped us though.

Green (-) only on for a mo.

 

Second best; Comfortable winners. I look forward to more of the same.

Post of the day! Well written and making reference to the Matrix too. Well played, well played indeed.

[robby b]

Today's a special day because, if I've worked this out correctly, today's result means that not a single team will have doubled us this season!!!!!!! Not one! Hoorah!  I mean, when did we last manage that?! Maybe about 25 years ago or longer, I'd guess.

Well done lads. But there are still my other two hopes, that we won't concede more than three goals in a game in an entire season and that we won't lose by more than three in a game in an entire season... . That can't have happened for many years either! Come on Villa, you can do it! Nearly there now!

Edited April 1, 2017 by robby b