PL: Chelsea a Ratings & Reactions

[shambles]

Time to move on and forget this one!

And quickly!

Theres no forgetting a drubbing like that. Hopefully MON will use it as his teamtalk before the FA cup semi.

[sellyoakvilla]

I can handle a 2 or 3-0 defeat from them but 7? Just takes the piss really...so many fickle fans coming out the woodwork saying sack O'Neill all over my facebook. Seems some people have a short memory of improvement at the club. I was going to post a piece I have written on improvement over the past 8 years but i don't think I will now as everyone will just bring up today's result.

[villatillidie1980]

unbelievable, we'll struggle to finish 7th at this rate!

[Ponky]

I thought Milner got "worked over" by the Chelsea players in a physical sense today. He seemed to be carrying quite a few scratches and bruises on him (and probably a crushed windpipe) by the end of the match. It's unfortunate but this is something Milner needs to work out if he wants to take his game to the next level. At this point in time he struggles a bit when starved for space. That said he is still our best CM option and hopefully this year is a massive learning curve for him.

[SilverPeacock]

MON will destroy Milners world cup dream - coz his body cannot take this - believe me !

That's rubbish. Milner declares himself fit, how is MON to know? It will be Milner who destroys his own 'WC dream' if he is playing when injured. I see MON taking a lot of critiscism on here and some of it deserved but that really is ludicrous.

Players will always declare themselves fit and want to play. Many ex-professionals and commented on that. The manager (in this case MON) is normally (and in any case should be) aware of any niggles. It's known Milner has a problem with his achilles yet he still started today's game.

In response to someone mentioning all the players with knocks, you could have brought Cuellar in for an injured Dunne and left Downing on and taken Milner out of the side with regards to the midfield. I'm not saying he should have done this but if he is serious about protecting our players you would like to think it would be serious considered - particularly when he took Cuellar and Downing out the team to throw two others in anyway. To be honest I'm not sure it's something he should have done today but more something that should have been considered in the home games to keep the players going.

On the match as others have stated this was shambolic, the net amount spent on our squad over thelast few seasons means at any level we shouldn't be on the recieving end of these sorts of scorelines. Not only is it our worst defeat in 24(?) years but when was the last time you saw one of the other established premier league sides take this sort of hammering. I thought we would probably lose but there are no excuses for this sort of result.

I feel sorry for whoever actually spent a lot of money going to our last 3 games, whilst Sunderland was a decent performance, today and Wolves people certainly wasted their money in my opinion.

[thomb2233]

If we aren't going to man mark, and are content to sit deep on the edge of our box teams like Chelsea will destroy us every time. Where is our ambition?

[DeepDish]

Part of the reason for the demolition is that MON kept trying to get something from the game when it was obviously not our day. - we were 4 -1 before he made a sub, and then he brings on 2 attacking players, one of them substituting our holding midfielder. Did he really think we could get back to 4-4 today? If so, he's more deluded than anyone suspected.

I thought the subbing of Carew and Petrov was a "game over, now I want to save two important players until the Bolton match" sub.

[The_Steve]

Deco's foul on Milner was very bad.

[shambles]

Luckily I've been at Drayton Manor theme park today so I haven't seen the game today and therefore can't give ratings. All I'll say is that I cannot believe how bad some of MONs decisions have been during the last month or so. Ironic that the one game he rotates the team slightly is against Chelsea! I just wonder what sort of effect this will have on the teams psyche.

[AVFC-Prideofbrum]

The only positives where Sidwell and Delfouneso.

[Stockport_Villain]

Embarrassing

[momo]

hahahahaha!!!! wow....this never happened under DOL!

[Vojskovoda]

oh deary me... I really wasn't that bothered today and knew we'd probably get beaten so didn't really keep track of the match until we got level at 1-1. Pathetic to go on from then and concede 6 more goals... indescribable really how we did it and the blindman needs to understand you won't get much success at Chavski playing freely with a 4-4-2... only God knows why he didn't go 4-5-1 playing for the draw which would of been more intelligent. I just don't understand why our players or manager don't seem motivated at the prize of playing Champions League football. We would only be 2 points off spuds if we won those two easy home games (and still losing to chelsea); why do we **** bottle it?! if we don't beat Bolton (ANOTHER shit team we'll probably drop points to) I think I will lose all hope of 4th and will start questioning what the hell MON is doing. oh well... as I said before "It can't get any worse". sort it out o'neill.

You shouldn't comment on formations if you weren't watching the match, should you?

We started with 4-5-1. We started the 2nd half, trailing 2-1, and switched to 4-4-2 in an attempt to get a point, or more.

Now whats that you said about intelligent?

Yeah... exactly, we went 4-4-2 after half-time and looked what happened? 4-5-1 was working ok so switching to 4-4-2 was a bad idea because we then went on to concede 6 goals. you kinda defeated your own purpose of making a point...

[Malachite]

Fact is and said earlier this week....Sunderland and Wolves should have been 6pts in anticipation of this, we must have looked at our run in at some stage and realised which games where for the taking and which games we could take a loss from, common sense.

What MON has to do now is get everybody focused, the next game has to be a solid victory, players must show there spirit and tenacity and hit back and get our minds right for Chelsea at Wembley IMO.

[momo]

hahahahaha!!!! wow....this never happened under Dr. Jozef Vengloš!

[ChrisVillan]

Got home about 45 minutes ago and it smarts like hell. We were really let down today. When all the lads from Birmingham get home, they'll all be posting about how great the support was in the second half. Such a shame that's all we had to hold on to at the end.

[Brumstopdogs]

The worst performance I've seen from a Villa side in my life!

A defence that looked all over the place and not comfortable with the ball and a midfield bybassed so easily with no general ball winner in the team.

We're predicatable to watch (get the ball wide and put the ball in the box in hope)

No way near enough quality for the money we've spent.

End of the road for O'Neill for me!

[CrackpotForeigner]

1. We have played a million games in the last few weeks.

2. No manager can pull quality players out of his arse. We had two realistic options for rotating the squad in midfield: Sidwell played, and Delph was injured. What more could MON or any manager do?

3. The defence was made to look poor, but Dunne and Collins have been two of our best players this season. Were we going to leave them out of the game against Chelsea???

4. The critics of MON have FINALLY got their wish to see Luke Young at RB at the expense of Cuellar. So what's your verdict there?

5. Chelsea scored from just about every chance they created. "On another night"...we would still have lost, but more like a 3-1. You don't win at SB these days unless you are well-rested and in top form. We were neither and that is NOT the fault of the manager, or anyone except the Financial Engineering billionairs and glory-hunting fans around the world who keep buying tickets and merchandise from the winning clubs.

6. We are a very long shot for 4th place, but still not out of it.

7. We finally have a week's rest.

8. We will be the team who WANTS to win at Wembley.

Other than that, shit-a-rama

[trevor]

hahahahaha!!!! wow....this never happened under DOL!

irrelevant

I can still accept this better than that defeat under DOL at Doncaster

[Tomaszk]

I thought up until their 3rd our performance was miles better than Wolves and Sunderland games. Even then afterwards we still got forward a few times. It was the defence and the organisation of central midfield.