PL: West Ham h Ratings & Reactions

[chads]

It was a frustrating game, but I can't understand all the negativity personally. If Gabby's finishing was on form we would have won comfortably. As it was, he missed a few glorious chances and West Ham had something to hold onto. We created enough chances to win that game, but we didn't.

We lacked invention, but West Ham did 'park the bus', even the 'big' teams struggle against such tactics sometimes.

I read all this 'We've no chance of the top 4 because of this result' as an overreaction. Plenty of teams have dropped points this weekend and will do as the season continues.

I felt the overall performance was decent, I must be in the minority on here.

Richard Dunne for president.

In order to understand it mate, you must realise that 90% of people on internet message boards like these havent got the first clue about what they're talking about.

Good summary Pompey.

[slowandlow]

if i was luke young i would want out of the club now. cant believe he was dropped for this game (i could understand the blackburn game). seems he is not one of MONs favourites

we need a goalscorer next to gabby - he is not a goalscorer although i fell MON thinks he is/can be

[Chindie]

It was a frustrating game, but I can't understand all the negativity personally. If Gabby's finishing was on form we would have won comfortably. As it was, he missed a few glorious chances and West Ham had something to hold onto. We created enough chances to win that game, but we didn't.

We lacked invention, but West Ham did 'park the bus', even the 'big' teams struggle against such tactics sometimes.

I read all this 'We've no chance of the top 4 because of this result' as an overreaction. Plenty of teams have dropped points this weekend and will do as the season continues.

I felt the overall performance was decent, I must be in the minority on here.

Richard Dunne for president.

More or less what I got from the commentary and how I felt. A bit lacking but not an horrific performance. Just frustrating.

I had this feeling about 50mins in that this was one of those games that we could play all night and not score, unless someone pulled something spectacular out individually.

[billy_loes]

Teams that sit deep against us always stand a chance of getting a result. The Ironworks did a good job today and Upson played well at the back.

Strike a light we need a striker!!

[slowandlow]

darren bent would have been perfect - out and out goalscorer, let gabby do the donkey work as he will never be an out and out goalscorer imo

downing was comfortably our best player imo, faster than i thought he was

[villadale]

I'm glad some sense is being spoken on this thread now. The first few comments were unbelivable, albiet were posted early so might suggest they were not at the game and just judged the result.

However what I will say is on the negative was that the atmosphere was crap today and was against liverpool altough it was bloody freezing that night. Lets get Villa Park rocking! That might have given us an extar push today when they boys ran out of ideas last 20 mins

[VillaAndLoyal]

Right, first of all, I cannot get my head around the fact we played the exact SAME ten outfield players as Thursday. We have had a good couple of weeks rest, so tiredness SHOULDN'T be an issue at this moment in time, however, with two such important games in the League Cup, this was a perfect chance to make a few changes. Especially given the fact that West Ham had no recognised striker up front and it was blindingly obvious they were coming for a point. I am assuming that Cuellar was moved to right back on Thursday to counter Blackburn's attacking presence, and I am expecting a similar set-up for the return match, so surely Luke Young would be back in the line-up today? But no, same back four which seems very unfair on Young. Heskey is in better form than Carew at the moment, so will probably start on Wednesday, so today was a brilliant chance to hand Big John a start and say "prove to me you deserve to be in the team" but yet again, Carew has to settle for a cameo appearance. Reo-Coker has played brilliantly in his last two games, today against his old club was a great chance to play him instead of Petrov who gets easily worn out, again, nothing? Not even on the bench? If Nigel has any sense he will be looking for the fastest ticket out of here, because he'll never get a fair crack of the whip under O'Neill at Villa, that much is obvious.

On to the game, people who are saying "we played **** shite, absolute dire all game" stop talking out of your arses. We came up against a very poor, negative West Ham side and spent practically the whole game camped in their half trying to break them down. When an away team comes with such obvious intentions (to see out a 0-0 draw for a point) it is bound to dictate the pattern of the game. However, I thought despite the wrong line-up starting the game, once we woke up after 15 minutes we completely dominated the match and it is one reason and one reason alone we didn't win the game: our strikeforce/finishing. We had 16 corners, which are supposedly a strength of ours, yet nothing came of them. Around half were shit deliveries and the other half were either not attacked or wasted (Dunne and Collins both wasted good headed chances in the second half). Milner was brilliant in the first half. The amount of times he darted into brilliant channels and pointed where he wanted the ball, but the rest of our team are on a completely different wavelength to Jimmy; he is far too quick-thinking compared to the rest of the team. By the time the player with the ball noticed him, it was either too late or Milner had been closed down. Granted, in the second half, Milner tired badly which probably isn't surprising given the fact he's still only just recovered from an injury and the amount of running he did in the first 45 was bordering on insane. Stuart Downing, who I have been quite critical of recently, was by and away the best player on that pitch today, by a country mile. Anyone who says different is talking rubbish. He showed energy in beating players through the centre as well as round the outside, he switched play with pinpoint passes (using both feet) which were Beckham-esque, he set up Gabby with a brilliant chance in the second half as well as Milner's chance which hit the post, if Carew had stayed onside it was his right-foot shot which would have led to the winning goal, and he EVEN made a couple of decent tackles. Not to mention his on the ground passing which is, on the whole, very good.

Agbonlahor worries me. He has the potential to be a very decent player, and I like him; when he's on form he's brilliant. And it's an obvious problem for goalscorer's that when a barren spell occurs, it is quite easy to lose that bit of confidence. However, with Gabby it just seems to be an extreme form of that very common scenario. When he's in form, fine. But as soon as he goes just a couple of games without a goal, and say he misses a couple of chances, you visibly start to see him wilt. He had at least four cracking chances today, all in different areas of the pitch. He had the turn and shot in the first half, which was very well brought down, but then he should be firing them low into the net. Anywhere above waist height is always going to give the keeper a chance, and it was indeed saved. Second, Downing's ball into the penalty box, he's only a few yards out but yet again his first touch let's him down and another brilliant chance is wasted. Third, Green gets caught knapping by Carew, ball lands at Gabby's feet with Green out of goal, in short- BLOODY SHOOT. But instead he wants too much time and looks scared of having a go. And lastly, the one-on-one, supposedly the kind of chance Gabby thrives on. And the thing is, the ball was already running towards the goal (there was no need for a heavy touch) a striker should instinctively know how far out he is, all it needed was a slight touch to knock it onto his right foot and then BANG. But again, he seems nervous as hell. For someone who talks about bulking up over the summer he should forget the muscles and focus on growing a pair of bollocks, because a striker who seems too scared to shoot is never a good thing. If he shoots and misses, then at least he's had a go, which is why i'm not too critical of his first chance which was saved, at least he got that one on target. The rest? No excuse, he should be better than that. Much better.

Finally, when I started reading this thread I read what was a tongue-in-cheek comment made by 'Villianusa' about Martin O'Neill blaming tiredness for today's two dropped points. I had a little chuckle to myself because I tried to visualise MON actually coming out and using that age old O'Neill excuse after his decision to play the same team, and then only using one substitution. I was obviously unsure whether I was dreaming or not when I then clicked onto Skysports of my own accord to find that O'Neill HAD made that exact excuse :? It just completely beggars belief, I had to blink twice as I thought it was a joke! The journalist even asked him if he felt like that, then why did he only make one substitution? And the answer was just completely side-stepped by Martin. How can he possibly even begin to try and defend himself when he makes these decisions, and then says we were tired? It's just utter, utter lunacy. He's a good manager, but it seems like he is just far too stubbon to ever learn from his mistakes. I just want to slap him and say "MARTIN, how can you possibly blame today on tiredness when this was the first League game in 2010 for most of our first team? Plus, you now have a squad, one that you always harp on about having, yet you're seemingly still seem reluctant to use it? Christ, wake up man!"

[paulanddonya]

I've read in loads of threads about the lack of Subs for todays game.

I gotta say, I can't see what else could have been done.

MON did the one that was needed, taking Heskey off as he was offering about as much as a blind man driving a grand prix car.

And to me, the defence did what they should do - keep the ball out.

The midfield did what they needed to do, keep the pressure off the defence and create chances - and I call over 30 chances creative !

The problem is - we have absolutely SOD ALL as an attacking force. He did what he could- bring Carew on.

It's his fault we are in that position - only Martin ONeil knows why he is the only person in Great Britain who believes our forwards are good enough - but for today (bearing in mind NRC was injured - hmmmm ?) I can't see what substitution was going to make a difference

[mykeyb]

Phew normal service has been resumed - the Villa tinted glasses of BJ are firmly in place.

But he didn't score those 3 (?) chance BJ, nor did we look to have alternatives. It was a very one dimensional Villa today and after the efforts of Thursday, the argument for use of the squad system are very much there to be asked? MON's tactics and team played to type today and there was no freshness about it. Despite what you say there are a lot of very valid comments in this thread, on the whole sensible frustrations that come from watching a case of 2 points dropped rather than 1 point gained.

Teams that typically qualify for the champs league have that strength in depth across al areas. For us it seems that the one are specifically where we lack that is up front. Maybe this transfer window should get interesting after all?

Totally agree Drat.

Cannot believe he started with the 10 outfield player who started on Thursday. Just what is the point of having a bigger squad if you only use it when injuries intervene. ?

Our strikers have got some stick in this thread some of which is a bit harsh. The team seem to play better when Heskey plays as he liks the midfield and attack better than Carew does however a lot of his work is done near the centre circle and so is not in the box when the crosses come in. Similarly Gabby works the channels and works hard but again he is not in the box often enough when the ball comes in.

Someone like NRC or maybe even Delph would have worked better today. The wingers can then work the wings and get further forward as they can to a certain extent forgo their defensive duties.

Lack of any other substitutions today is a puts a big question mark over MONs tactical abilities again

[markavfc40]

Thought we played well and on another day would have run out comfortable winners.

Petrov was immense, Downing had a very good game and carried the ball and passed it well. I also thought Heskey had a good game and was far more involved than Carew who did **** all when he came on. Gabby should have had at least one goal today and his failings in front of goal cost us.

Everyone gave 100% again.

Overall disappointed with the result but pleased with the performance.

[villadale]

I gotta say, I can't see what else could have been done

fresh legs in midfield. Delph or Sidwell for petrov who played well but tired. Or as we were camped in their half I would sacrificed Carlos, Shift Milner to rB to help Ashley and get Sidwell in the midfield with Petrov.

[VillaGoMarching]

Thought we played well and on another day would have run out comfortable winners.

Petrov was immense, Downing had a very good game and carried the ball and passed it well. I also thought Heskey had a good game and was far more involved than Carew who did **** all when he came on. Gabby should have had at least one goal today and his failings in front of goal cost us.

Everyone gave 100% again.

Overall disappointed with the result but pleased with the performance.

great to see some sense being spoken.

[rjw63]

Anyone who says different is talking rubbish.

You ruined an excellent post by adding this sentence

[paulanddonya]

I gotta say, I can't see what else could have been done

fresh legs in midfield. Delph or Sidwell for petrov who played well but tired. Or as we were camped in their half I would sacrificed Carlos, Shift Milner to rB to help Ashley and get Sidwell in the midfield with Petrov.

I honestly dont think we needed fresh legs, we created chances right up until the last second.

We had over 30 chances today - 15 shots , 15 corners (plus all the superb crosses that were being reigned in only to find the nearest Villa player to the box was Andy Gray in the commentery booth.

The fact is simple - we have a problem of having no striker.

It wasn't Milners fault, it wasn't Youngs fault, it wasn't Downings fault, it wasn't Petrov's fault.

Blame the 3 idiots who are paid multi million pounds to do one job - and can't !

Sorry, just cant understand some of this. If we didnt create anything, I'd blame the midfield, but when the likes of Dunne , Collins and Cueller look the most likely to score - you have to ask questions !

[Gringo]

It was a frustrating game, but I can't understand all the negativity personally. If Gabby's finishing was on form we would have won comfortably. As it was, he missed a few glorious chances and West Ham had something to hold onto. We created enough chances to win that game, but we didn't.

We lacked invention, but West Ham did 'park the bus', even the 'big' teams struggle against such tactics sometimes.

I read all this 'We've no chance of the top 4 because of this result' as an overreaction. Plenty of teams have dropped points this weekend and will do as the season continues.

I felt the overall performance was decent, I must be in the minority on here.

Not far from where I am - we should have done better, if we had put something away in the first half we could have strolled to a victory - but as others have said - the finishing let us down.

sham changed it halfway through the second half with their subs and threatened for the first time, and we didn't respond which is dissappointing.

If we were to compare to other teams; we have spudz who failed to crack the nut like we did; or manure who looked lacking up front but then managed to find 3 goals to see off burnley. Spudz were denied by a great keeping display - we failed to work green half as hard.

Some work needed up front.

On a side note, is this milner's lowest motm poll score ever?

[VillaAndLoyal]

Anyone who says different is talking rubbish.

You ruined an excellent post by adding this sentence

Yeah, fair enough, everyone is entitled to an opinion. But i've read people on here giving him 3's out of 10 and saying he was one of our worst players, which is almost as silly as O'Neill using tiredness as an excuse for today.

[Undesirable]

Did I enjoy watching Villa today play some good football against West Ham? Yes I did.

hmmm, didn't see any myself

After the match Zola said that Villa played very well (he's a better judge of football than me), he was delighted with his players in being up for the fight. Sometimes I think that we let our natural disappointment with not getting three points spoil the enjoyment of supporting our team.

I really am enjoying supporting Villa at the moment probably because winning isn't the only important thing to me.

Same here mate, i think we do play some really good approach play at times, we actually dominate games for periods now as opposed to just hitting teams on the counter attack as well. We certainly aren't the finished article and we do need another striker and i'm sure if there was one of the right quality available than MON would sign him up but the reality is that world class goalscorers just don't tend to be available at the bets of times, let alone in January.

It's disappointing not to win today and it may well cost us come May but we've got the second leg of a cup semi-final on wednesday, it aint all bad!

[nnock1984]

I've read in loads of threads about the lack of Subs for todays game.

I gotta say, I can't see what else could have been done.

MON did the one that was needed, taking Heskey off as he was offering about as much as a blind man driving a grand prix car.

And to me, the defence did what they should do - keep the ball out.

The midfield did what they needed to do, keep the pressure off the defence and create chances - and I call over 30 chances creative !

The problem is - we have absolutely SOD ALL as an attacking force. He did what he could- bring Carew on.

It's his fault we are in that position - only Martin ONeil knows why he is the only person in Great Britain who believes our forwards are good enough - but for today (bearing in mind NRC was injured - hmmmm ?) I can't see what substitution was going to make a difference

I'd have brought Delph and Delfeuonso on for Petrov and Gabby with 20 minutes to go. Delfeuonso has a canny nack of scoring and we need to give him some prem minutes, and Delph would have added some much needed energy in the middle. Petrov can't play 90 mins every game.

I hope the reason NRC wasn't on the bench is because he is leaving. Sidwell and Gardner should be first.

[Carlos_The_Villain]

Downing worked his socks off, but we need a finisher badly.

[ClaretMahoney]

Right, first of all, I cannot get my head around the fact we played the exact SAME ten outfield players as Thursday. We have had a good couple of weeks rest, so tiredness SHOULDN'T be an issue at this moment in time, however, with two such important games in the League Cup, this was a perfect chance to make a few changes. Especially given the fact that West Ham had no recognised striker up front and it was blindingly obvious they were coming for a point. I am assuming that Cuellar was moved to right back on Thursday to counter Blackburn's attacking presence, and I am expecting a similar set-up for the return match, so surely Luke Young would be back in the line-up today? But no, same back four which seems very unfair on Young. Heskey is in better form than Carew at the moment, so will probably start on Wednesday, so today was a brilliant chance to hand Big John a start and say "prove to me you deserve to be in the team" but yet again, Carew has to settle for a cameo appearance. Reo-Coker has played brilliantly in his last two games, today against his old club was a great chance to play him instead of Petrov who gets easily worn out, again, nothing? Not even on the bench? If Nigel has any sense he will be looking for the fastest ticket out of here, because he'll never get a fair crack of the whip under O'Neill at Villa, that much is obvious.

On to the game, people who are saying "we played **** shite, absolute dire all game" stop talking out of your arses. We came up against a very poor, negative West Ham side and spent practically the whole game camped in their half trying to break them down. When an away team comes with such obvious intentions (to see out a 0-0 draw for a point) it is bound to dictate the pattern of the game. However, I thought despite the wrong line-up starting the game, once we woke up after 15 minutes we completely dominated the match and it is one reason and one reason alone we didn't win the game: our strikeforce/finishing. We had 16 corners, which are supposedly a strength of ours, yet nothing came of them. Around half were shit deliveries and the other half were either not attacked or wasted (Dunne and Collins both wasted good headed chances in the second half). Milner was brilliant in the first half. The amount of times he darted into brilliant channels and pointed where he wanted the ball, but the rest of our team are on a completely different wavelength to Jimmy; he is far too quick-thinking compared to the rest of the team. By the time the player with the ball noticed him, it was either too late or Milner had been closed down. Granted, in the second half, Milner tired badly which probably isn't surprising given the fact he's still only just recovered from an injury and the amount of running he did in the first 45 was bordering on insane. Stuart Downing, who I have been quite critical of recently, was by and away the best player on that pitch today, by a country mile. Anyone who says different is talking rubbish. He showed energy in beating players through the centre as well as round the outside, he switched play with pinpoint passes (using both feet) which were Beckham-esque, he set up Gabby with a brilliant chance in the second half as well as Milner's chance which hit the post, if Carew had stayed onside it was his right-foot shot which would have led to the winning goal, and he EVEN made a couple of decent tackles. Not to mention his on the ground passing which is, on the whole, very good.

Agbonlahor worries me. He has the potential to be a very decent player, and I like him; when he's on form he's brilliant. And it's an obvious problem for goalscorer's that when a barren spell occurs, it is quite easy to lose that bit of confidence. However, with Gabby it just seems to be an extreme form of that very common scenario. When he's in form, fine. But as soon as he goes just a couple of games without a goal, and say he misses a couple of chances, you visibly start to see him wilt. He had at least four cracking chances today, all in different areas of the pitch. He had the turn and shot in the first half, which was very well brought down, but then he should be firing them low into the net. Anywhere above waist height is always going to give the keeper a chance, and it was indeed saved. Second, Downing's ball into the penalty box, he's only a few yards out but yet again his first touch let's him down and another brilliant chance is wasted. Third, Green gets caught knapping by Carew, ball lands at Gabby's feet with Green out of goal, in short- BLOODY SHOOT. But instead he wants too much time and looks scared of having a go. And lastly, the one-on-one, supposedly the kind of chance Gabby thrives on. And the thing is, the ball was already running towards the goal (there was no need for a heavy touch) a striker should instinctively know how far out he is, all it needed was a slight touch to knock it onto his right foot and then BANG. But again, he seems nervous as hell. For someone who talks about bulking up over the summer he should forget the muscles and focus on growing a pair of bollocks, because a striker who seems too scared to shoot is never a good thing. If he shoots and misses, then at least he's had a go, which is why i'm not too critical of his first chance which was saved, at least he got that one on target. The rest? No excuse, he should be better than that. Much better.

Finally, when I started reading this thread I read what was a tongue-in-cheek comment made by 'Villianusa' about Martin O'Neill blaming tiredness for today's two dropped points. I had a little chuckle to myself because I tried to visualise MON actually coming out and using that age old O'Neill excuse after his decision to play the same team, and then only using one substitution. I was obviously unsure whether I was dreaming or not when I then clicked onto Skysports of my own accord to find that O'Neill HAD made that exact excuse :? It just completely beggars belief, I had to blink twice as I thought it was a joke! The journalist even asked him if he felt like that, then why did he only make one substitution? And the answer was just completely side-stepped by Martin. How can he possibly even begin to try and defend himself when he makes these decisions, and then says we were tired? It's just utter, utter lunacy. He's a good manager, but it seems like he is just far too stubbon to ever learn from his mistakes. I just want to slap him and say "MARTIN, how can you possibly blame today on tiredness when this was the first League game in 2010 for most of our first team? Plus, you now have a squad, one that you always harp on about having, yet you're seemingly still seem reluctant to use it? Christ, wake up man!"

Top post and I agree with you completely. He is a very stubborn man and should be using more of the squad. If I was NRC, Gardner, Delph or Albrighton I'd be pissed off.