Ratings & Reactions

[VillanousOne]

We were hoofing long balls to Ashely Young, and Gabby was crossing balls from the left to him in the centre??? It wasn't Young's fault but we can't play him as a centre forward. He needs to be back on the wing or even behind Carew, but he can't play that far forward.

I would have even put him on the left and tucked Downing inside and left Gabby as a lone CF, but time and time again McDonald has picked the wrong team and wrong formation, although contrastingly we actually pass and keep possession much better than we did with O'Neill but we aren't playing to our strengths.

Also I am sick of Petrov, everyone defends our captain and says how good he is and he works hard, but he doesn't do anything to change games, he passes backwards or sideways, he offers little defensive options, in my opinion he gives 100% but that 100% is very very average. He and Warnock are just not playing well and defensively Dunne and Collins is not always the great answer we think it is, Cuellar and Dunne was far more convincing.

Ireland and NRC would be my midfield pairing of choice, but i would go 5 man midfield and one up front until we stop making the stupid defensive mistakes.

[Pricey_1984]

i cannot understand some of the stick petrov gets, yes he passes backwards and sideways sometimes but he also passes forward as well and its called keeping possession or do you just want him to go the stoke route, lump it forward and lose the ball.

[NorthEastVillan]

Sad to say but what we missed yesterday was a high energy 90 minute player who'd run his socks off to the final whistle but still has the forsight to run for the corners and keep the ball... sound familiar.

Send your answers on a post card to:

I don't want to dwell on the past but we really could have used him yesterday

PO BOX 556

Pissed off Lane

:oops:

[lexicon]

i cannot understand some of the stick petrov gets, yes he passes backwards and sideways sometimes but he also passes forward as well and its called keeping possession or do you just want him to go the stoke route, lump it forward and lose the ball.

This. 100%. You don't have to skin the entire opposition before hurtling in a 30 yarder to be a great player. Petrov is all about winning the ball, retaining it and playing a good pass to someone to make sure we keep possession. It allows us to take shape and start an attack and provides balance and calm in the team. People who can't see this, don't understand football.

[Doug]

I'm still raging with anger at how we constantly keep losing games with practically the last kick of the ball. Why is it we rarely score a winning goal with the last kick of the match?

Just ******* unbelievable! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarghhhhhhh!!!

[CrackpotForeigner]

defensively Dunne and Collins is not always the great answer we think it is, Cuellar and Dunne was far more convincing.

Cuellar and last year's Dunne was far more convincing, when Collins was injured.

This year our two best CD's are "I'm on the Right" by Carlos Cuellar and the Coconuts and "I'm the Baldie on the Left" by James Collins and the Ginger Nuts.

Imo.

[the_eristic]

If we were planning on holding out for the 1-0 against a team like stoke, somebody (probably Albrighton) needed to come off for Cuellar in the last 20 minutes or so.

Also, the wide-right set piece strikes again. I'm convinced there must be something wrong with how the boys are being trained, as it seems like we concede from free kicks originating in that area of the pitch once every three games or so.

[claret75]

i cannot understand some of the stick petrov gets, yes he passes backwards and sideways sometimes but he also passes forward as well and its called keeping possession or do you just want him to go the stoke route, lump it forward and lose the ball.

This. 100%. You don't have to skin the entire opposition before hurtling in a 30 yarder to be a great player. Petrov is all about winning the ball, retaining it and playing a good pass to someone to make sure we keep possession. It allows us to take shape and start an attack and provides balance and calm in the team. People who can't see this, don't understand football.

I understand football and I don't think Petrov has ever been good enough for a club pushing for CL. He's the best we've got in that position, but that's a reflection of how poor we are now in that area.

I don't think Petrov's a bad player, just not good enough for us.

Every team needs a player that can win the ball, slow it down, keep possession, clam it down and Petrov can do that at times. The thing is though, Petrov's too slow and not mobile enough to do a good enough job. He's good with 5 across the middle, but not great in a 4-4-2, when he has to work.

Another thing I get annoyed about when watching Villa is the poor positions we take up in CM from corners/set pieces. We sit too deep and don't anticipate where the knock down is going, it's just a simple case of reading where the ball is going to end up. Too many times we let opponents win the 2nd ball from clearances and let them off the hook.

[BrownhillsVillan]

Apologises if this has been mentioned already but how did Petrov foul Pennant in the build up to their second goal? he didnt even put his leg out so how on earth did he foul him.

[dalyvilla]

cant believe ireland didnt get a run our, cant believe ash missed that header, poor. taut him and gabby were good tonight. gabby's deliveries were class....

[NorthEastVillan]

cant believe ireland didnt get a run our, cant believe ash missed that header, poor. taut him and gabby were good tonight. gabby's deliveries were class....

Yeah, typical that our two best crosses of the night came from our lone striker pulling out wide. If only Ash had shown the finishing prowess of Downing with his header then this thread would make for much better reading. :cry:

[VillaChris]

There would be no free kick if we could actually keep the ball for two minute in injury time which isn't beyond most sides.

Poor.

[smetrov]

great post villaandloyal,i felt the same way about warnock,hes very poor in the air & this was highlighted again,your post summed him up,dunne has been getting worse & worse in every game,hes making basic mistakes game in game out,i love collins,he a rock in the defence for us,....so why do villa crumble so often? we carnt kill off a game! if we kept the ball stoke would not be winning free kick after free kick,we were the stronger team in the last 15mins of the 1st half & you just knew if we didnt score in our happy spell we would be in trouble in the second half,..what i find really hard to take is we have been beat againin the same manner,we havnt learnt from previous defeats in the same way.

I love Dunnes committed style. But he has always made a high proportion of mistakes - when we were playing well these were glossed over. But a slight dip in team form leaves 'Dunney' a bit exposed.

Can see him lasting long when GH takes charge TBH.

[claret75]

Apologises if this has been mentioned already but how did Petrov foul Pennant in the build up to their second goal? he didnt even put his leg out so how on earth did he foul him.

I'm not sure exactly what the ref was thinking, but looking at the replay, there was intent by Petrov, he was silly and Pennant made the most of it.

Petrov may not have made contact, but he kind of jumped at Pennant. (I think) that's a free kick.

[Villarocker]

I am gutted at losing in the way we did. Losing is always bad but to lose like that, when you know exactly what is coming, that always hurts the most for me. For me, we don't need Gerard Houllier to be at the game to sort them out. We have had a manager on the touchline for the last 4 years but the same thing keeps happening. We batter teams, fail to take the chances and then get punished at the end of the game because we are knackered. Let's face it, the same happened against Everton but they didn't have the luck that Stoke did, otherwise we could have been in real trouble now on 3 points with a really poor goal difference!

Houllier could call it from watching back at home, wherever that may be. He could have called KM on his mobile as I am sure the rest of us would have done had we had the power to do something about what we were witnessing last night! I am not saying he should have done, just venting my frustration at what is so clear to all but the man who calls the shots from the touchline for the Villa, whoever that may be.

I agree with those who say that Friedel's reactions were slow at times. He is a good shot-stopper but he was slow in making some decisions last night, especially coming off his line for through balls.

I thought Warnock looked dodgy at times too. His passing is sometimes erratic and he sometimes struggles to find his own player who is only 10 yards away!

Dunne has looked dodgy on a couple of occasions this season already. Collins has looked our best CB and I am hoping that GH can get them sorted out and playing like they did last season before too long.

Petrov was unlucky with a couple of decisions that went against him, especially the one at the end. There's no doubt he tires after an hour of games but it's hardly surprising as he does put in a shift for that first hour. We definitely need someone on the bench who can come on and replace him for the last half hour of games and we will have that when Delph comes back, although I would have him starting alongside Stan to be honest and have NRC on the bench. I like NRC but he lacks a pass too often and last night he was definitely at fault for the first Stoke goal.

I too couldn't understand why Albrighton didn't stay on the right and keep running at Collins. He had already been booked for hacking down MA so why keep swapping wings? It was the same lack of tactical awareness when we played Rapid Vienna. Albrighton put their left back on his arse in the first game but then a week later Kevin MacDonald didn't even pick Albrighton, which is ok just as long as you play somewhere there with a bit of trickery, but he didn't, he played NRC there instead! Same at Newcastle. Young gets Perch on a yellow first half and then doesn't go near him again for the rest of the match. We should be taking advantage of these kind of situations but we never seem to. We definitely lack a killer instinct.

I thought Gabby did well and I am sure we are seeing a player who is really developing. Those crosses and the awareness to play in NRC at the end were the marks of a player who has more than just scoring goals about his game. I think Gabby is underestimated and he has more to his all round game than he is given credit for. Hopefully he will be back to full fitness soon and we see him scoring more regularly.

Why though did we take Gabby off for Heskey with only 6 minutes left? Surely Gabby could have done more in those 6 minutes on a pair of crutches attached to a drip than Heskey did when he replaced him? How can you only have 1 touch in a game and that touch is an assist to the opponents' winner? I don't blame EH I really don't. He should never have been put on. I understand the need for fresh legs but why not replace Albrighton with Cuellar and try and defend the point for the last 5 or 6 minutes? At least CC might have actually cleared his own box from 10 yards rather than pass it straight to his nearest opponent!

Ash wasn't on top of his game last night but let's face it, he isn't made for that role. I much prefer to see him on the wing rather than behind Gabby. maybe Albrighton could have started on the bench and Ireland played in the hole behind Gabby? I still think we will be better when our team plays that way but only time will tell.

I have been a big critic of Downing's but fair is fair, he was on top of his game last night. His goal was brilliant and he played a blinder. Good to see him playing so well and let's hope it continues.

All in all I think we deserved something from the game but were unlucky with some bad finishing and some bad refereeing. Hopefully GH sorts it all out and we get a bit more look from now on.

[Pricey_1984]

so petrov's the new scapegoat now is he? was that because downing scored?

forget about whether hes good enough for a cl chasing side because were not going to be doing that this season and by the looks of things we havent got the money to afford a top class midfielder thats good enough for a champions league chasing side.

Its funny how people see players performances differently dont think petrov would of been brought up if we had won or got a point from the game.

and as for the pennant foul, he moved towards him yeh but he never touched him at all, so do refs start giving fouls for when theres no contact with a player now then?

[Harry]

OK there were some poor refereeing decisons but ultimately we were masters of our own downfall. We played much the better football in the first haalf and perhaps should have been 2-0 or even 3-0 up. Stoke regrouped at half time and were much better in the seond half. I could always see them getting a goal back. I think a draw was perhaps the fairest result but Stoke did a Stoke and won it at the death.

I'm pleased that KM is not going to be our manager as his tactics of lack of them in the second half were plain for all to see. Heskey was a laughable substitution and smacked of MON at his worst. Personally I would have brought Ireland on to inject some pace and attacking thrust perhaps leaving Gabby on and taking off Young.

I don't think Houllier can start quick enough for us as we need an injection of better tactics and frankly better management. The way we are playing at the moment suggsets to me that we will have a very tricky game against Bolton and anything less than 3 points is simply not good enough. So far we have beaten a very poor WHU and fluked a win against Everton. Beyond that we have either been outsmarted, out played or out thought. Mind you its not all KM's fault, the players have a lot to answer for in how they have performed in the last quarter of our games so far.

Whilst this season is far from a write off just yet we are rapidly becoming a laughing stock at least in my eyes.

[Nabby]

Just some observations

- Our ball retention is abysmal and has been for years now we simply continue to invite pressure on ourselves and rely on defenders chucking themselves in the way of the ball it's not good enough

- The switch of wings of Albrighton and Downing was a major error ,Albrighton's crossing is much better on the right and Huth just out muscled him everytime he tried to drobble past him

-We should have brought Ireland on and packed the midfield just to try and hold on to the ball ,Heskey coming on might have helped hold the ball up but he was brought on too late

- Our bench is woefully short at the moment

[colples]

Totally agree about our ball retention. Quite frankly most of the time watching Villa I'm just resigned to us giving the ball back to the opposition. I'm a bag of nerves watching us and after 65 minutes last night I expected to lose that game.

During O'Neills tenure ( and I'm an MON fan) we have never been able to keep the ball. I sincerely hope that under Houllier this will improve otherwise I will not be watching Villa for much longer. I'll have a heart attack!

[klvillian]

what is wrong with that bloody team, all the bloody time goals right at the end really p**s me of