FAC; Reading a Ratings & Reactions

[Ponky]

I've heard numerous pundits say John Carew is unplayable when he's on top form, and today just proved that! He was absolute class, world class in fact. His hold up play, his touch, his positioning for his 1st 2 goals. Fantastic!!

Not only that but he was running past players with the ball at his feet on a string.

If this performance can inspire John into a bit of form there is every chance that he could be the wildcard that plays us into 4th spot.

But I guess it's up to both MON and John as to whether that happens.

[tommo]

That was the biggest pile of steaming delightful golden shit I've ever seen. Our passing was appalling and clinical, our movement non-existent and a joy to watch, our forwards uselessly wonderful waste of **** spaces with magical touch and creativity. Our defending was heroic, mindless and overall, Martin O'Neill proved he is a naive, stubborn genius, lacking in tactical nous and peerless in enthusiasm; he should definitely be sacked because he's taking us nowhere - except Wembley for the second time this season. What utter magnificent garbage.

Sums it up perfectly.

My Ratings-

Friedel 6- didn't look comfortable in the first half

Cuellar 6- from a defensive point of view, fine, but we run the risk of the best two right backs at the club wanting out if this continues, which could cost us next season

Dunne 7.5- solid as usual

Collins 5.5- since returning from injury he has looked shaky

Warnock 6- after a poor first half he overlapped well for the third and generally improved defensively

Young 7- a livewire and had a good 2nd half

Petrov 5.5- was never really in the game, but at least put a shift in during the 2nd half. Needs more support in the centre

Milner 5.5- ditto petrov

Downing 5.5- picked up where he left off, utterly dire, until a great cross for the equaliser

Heskey 5- an improved second half, but poor on the whole

Carew 8.5*- three excellently taken goals put paid to theory that he should have been withdrawn at half time.

Sidwell- didn't touch the ball during his familiar and utterly pointless 2 minute run out.

In general, I don't know what to say. I have eaten humble pie.

I disagreed entirely with his team selection, and all the faults that were likely to be apparent were there... Useless hoofball tactics, Milner running on empty, Stan anonymous, Downing shite, 2 lumps up front, Cuellar not being a right back, Collins a shadow of his early season self.

He didn't change it at half time, which was infuriating. Fonz, Delph and Luke Young being our only hope of any salvation.

But one thing you cannot knock with MoN, despite his constant and obvious faults, is his motivation and passion for the game, and this is the reason imo, we are where we are in the league and have made it to wembley twice.

[Chindie]

Pretty horrible first half but I remained confident that we'd step up a gear. We did.

The match thread is horrendous, we're far too reactionary and fly off the handle too easily. Calling for a sacking on the back of a bad half is ludicrous.

Anyway.

Second half actually frustrated me, because Carew showed us what he can do then. First half he really was doing his usually meandering, not trying, barely getting out a jog, barely challenging schtick. Second half after his first he looked hungry and was chasing down and challenging like we know he can. The cliche is true - he can be utterly unplayable. Just wish he could show it more often. I was hoping he'd start the match and show what he can do and thankfully he eventually did.

[Hereford-Villan]

Been to the match, what a second half! Never felt so deflated at half time but then what a second half! Still buzzing and the beer goes down nice with everyone else in the three guineas! Carew mom for me. He held it up well, downing was terrible and collins shaky.

[Si.]

Awesome 2nd half!

[YLN]

I didn't realise carew was booked for celebrating with the Villa fans. What a legend.

He's up there with my favourite players now alongside Carbone and Merson

[Ponky]

Did Young get a yellow for gobbing off at the ref?

[starsailor9774]

Just not good enough in my book........ it shouldn't have even been at the stage where we we 2 down against a struggling championship team.

Yes, 12 manic minutes got us the upper hand, but what happened then, once we had a goal lead? We sat bank again and encouraged Reading to take the game to us again, without offering much in way of reply.

Overall performance 5/10. Lets not get blinded by the fact we came from behind, we should never have let it get to that situation.

[AVFC-Prideofbrum]

No we shouldn't have let to get to that stage and I was annoyed as anyone (check my comments!) but it's all about doing enough to win matches and however that came, we did that against an in-form team.

we showed character when many others would have died. Even Aston Villa of last year for me would have collapsed.

[Genie]

Did Young get a yellow for gobbing off at the ref?

Yes, ref said to Warnock it was the 3rd time he'd abused him

[ED]

Anyone else struggle to see what was happening in our box the 2nd half due to the cameraman not being able to deal with light/shadow contrast?

[TheSufferingVilla]

Just read the match thread, **** hilarious.

[Philosopher]

Right, shows how much I know.

However, I think any criticism at half time was more than deserved - they were an utter disgrace.

Totally agree

Obviously Carew is the contender for MotM, however, I'm giving it to Young as he was the only consistent performer in both halves.

A hattrick can't ignored, plus Youngs delivery stank in the first half

Carews first half display was an utter disgrace

.

Agreed

The worrying for me.

Collins has looked shaky at best since coming back

Cueller is more of a Doctor of Philosophy, than a right back.

Cuellar has done well at right back, and a beard doesn't qualify one for a Philosophy doctorate. Collins has been OK, every player makes mistakes every now and then, and I personally think Dunne was slightly at fault for the first goal today, as he should have been on Shane Long, but instead joined Cuellar, Heskey and Collins in trying to win the header ingmarson flicked on for Long. Collins reads the game well and tend to stop things before they become a problem, Dunne however is a stopper in the truest sense of the word. He positions himself to stop anything thrown at him. So the too compliment each other well.

Drop Collins , get Young in and put Cueller back to CB.

I agree to an extent. Collin or Cuellar are on a similar level to me, Young is a better RB than Cuellar but sometimes its necessary to play Cuellar at RB. If we played Stoke, Blackburn or similar team with one of Carew or Heskey upfront with Gabby, we need Cuellars height in defense as take out the too CB's, and the big man upfront, only gabby is anywhere near 6 foot. Plus Cuellar provides an extra aerial threat on set pieces and crosses. Also L.Young is not actually that great when it comes to distribution and crossing, and only a little better than Cuellar, if Beye could defend then he would easily be our first choice RB.

Warnock to me has looked average for about 3 motnhs now and is always at fault for a goal a game. Just think some people over hype him. The fact Capello buts him 4th choice LB when there are only 4 choices I think says a lot.

Warnock was injured for a month and before his injury looked like the second best LB in the country. He has made a few mistakes since coming back in and was caught out of position for Readings second goal. But that don't mean he has all of a sudden become a bad player.

Downing , his delivery is excellent, but he is just too bloody slow. For every one good move that goes through him, 5 are wasted by him wanting too much time on the ball - but as I said, his delivery is excellent so he is worth a punt in the team.

Me thinks you are blind. Downing has pace he just doesn't have Gabby or Young's explosive acceleration. Speed wise he is on par with Milner and is a strong runner with the ball from deep. The thing today was that Reading played 5 across midfield and didn't allow Downing or Milner for that matter find to any openings to run through. Because of Downing slightly above average acceleration he struggle to go past the full back. But that's not what MON signed him to do.

We would be far too open if we had two wingers playing high up the pitch along with 2 strikers. The idea is that Ash pushes up to A, provide an extra outlet, and B to be another pace player trying to get in behind (Gabby to get in behind the defense and Young to get in behind the midfield and run at the defense). Downing's role is to play deeper and carry the ball out of his own half and use his excellent passing in the build up. He doesn't need to beat the fullback because A he can cross from in front of the fullback and B can use the overlapping fullback to get in behind. Our problem is that we lack a RB with a decent cross and pass that can also defend.

Heskey - what a donkey. He was the only one not to raise his game second half and if you can't even manage to raise it from 0 what is the point. The one on one was laughable. has to be shipped out. That just sums the two up perfectly today. Carew is lazy and dire, but still wins us the game - can anyone tell me when Heskey won us a game.

Heskey came and showed he intent right away with a more aggressive approach, also Heskey was the one that brought the down, held it up and laid the ball off in the build up to two of our goals. Heskey's work goes un-noticed to most as what he does so well and is so important for us is simple stuff. Come deep to provide the midfielders with a short forward passing option, hold the ball up lay it off. That's what Heskey does better than any big man in the league and why he is Cappello's preferred partner for Rooney. Heskey upfront and on song means that Milner, Downing and A.Young see more of the ball. In the first half Heskey was too easily beaten to the ball and when he did get the ball gave it away, just like Carew. In the second half the both improved in their hold up play.

As for Heskey's one on one, he did very well to burst between two defenders and then out pace them, the problem was a couple of bad bobbles on a pitch that made Wembley look like the red carpet meant he never had the ball under control and in the end was a little too close to the keeper when he tried to lift the ball over him. He actually did everything right. The only criticism you can maybe accuse him of during that one on one is that he should have lifted the ball a bit higher then it might have gone in. But that would be harsh.

Carew seemed to re-discover his touch in the second half (which had been missing since last year), which is why he did so well.

[starsailor9774]

I can't actually believe people think this is acceptable............ if we turn up for the semi final with the same attitude we had for 75% of this game we are going to get massacred.

Playing for 25% of the game just isn't going to get us Champions League football, it's not even going to get us Europa League, the team aren't putting in a full shift, yet people are happy to accept it because we won.

[Coops_AVFC]

Can someone post the pictures up from the OS? Have no idea how to do it cos there's not the right click option. I'm a complete computer noob! Only bring it up though because I want the picture of Carew, 3rd from the bottom, arms wide open and eyes closed in front of the Villa faithful.

[Philosopher]

I can't actually believe people think this is acceptable............ if we turn up for the semi final with the same attitude we had for 75% of this game we are going to get massacred.

Playing for 25% of the game just isn't going to get us Champions League football, it's not even going to get us Europa League, the team aren't putting in a full shift, yet people are happy to accept it because we won.

Well considering most of the lads that played today have played in the majority of our games this season and all of them had to overcome the demoralising effect that only defeat at Wembley can provide I am just happy that we won and showed real guts to come back from 2 goals down. This is the type of result that can instill a lot of belief in players. Comeback wins are a massive boost in confidence. Man U of the nineties specialised in being average for over 45 minutes in matches against teams there where expected to beat easily but coming back to win.

I am more worried by the fact that the players have looked to be tiring in the final 30 minutes of matches consistently for the last 6 weeks.

[snowychap]

it shouldn't have even been at the stage where we we 2 down against a struggling championship team

We probably shouldn't have got to that stage but this was a cup game and I'm not so sure that the championship team in question is struggling as much as it was when they put Liverpool out, for instance.

Having said that we shouldn't have got to that stage, we did and we found something extra and we came back to win the game. We did the same kind of thing in the second leg of the CC semi.

I'm not going to kid myself that we were great but I'm not going to fool myself into thinking that coming out in the second half and showing what we were made of (with some pretty good football, too) is not something to applaud.

[Philosopher]

Well we have to beat Chelsea in the semi's.

[darthdc]

Any highlights on tv tonight/tomorrow?

[Shillzz]

Well done villa, great character shown today.

Not impressed with my seat next to the Reading fans tho. Pikey Gits at best. Altho some of ours are little better.