Ratings and Reactions

[brummybloke]

we cant play with albrighton if he wont cross the ball in, we cant play with downing if he is continually crap

i didnt even know steven ireland was playing until the 40th minute when there was a close up of him.

if we do have albrighton who i like and is an exciting young talent, than he must be told to get the ball into the box early rather than burst forwards and leave himself a 1 on 1 and then leisurly play the ball back losing any impetus we may have had.

get it in the box for god sake.

downing got a great goal the other day but boy, i would rather we were solid in the middle and as a team worked, we will get far better performances and results rather than the odd good goal.

we cant play with albrighton downing and young all at the same time unless we are chasing a game in the last 10 minutes because no can tackle and it leave the whole team exposed.

luke young is my man of the match for his last gasp delaney esq blocks, tackles charges up field and generally keeping ball unlike collins who seems to think he can produce a hollywood pass every time the ball is at his feet rather than push the ball to a player who can do something with it.

1st half the team gets a 7 seconds half the team gets a 3.

[AshVilla]

What faithful supporters we have.

For someone that has spent well over $3000 in travel and match tickets to watch the Villa I find it pretty embarrassing you can't finish a match. I can only guess what you will do when we go behind when Utd or Chelsea score in the first 15 minutes. (Touch wood.)

$3000? wow heres your blue peter badge

[Mantis]

Still unbeaten at home..

[PhilGibson]

So glad we never jumped at the west ham game and gave Kev Mac the job on a permanent basis, good bloke of that there is no doubt, but he is so far out of his depth at management level that its untrue, in his short tenure, we have played well against a very poor West Ham, then had a creditable draw in Vienna, been battered by newly promoted Newcastle 6-0, lose at home again in the Europa League to Vienna, backs to the wall 1-0 win against Everton, throw it away against Stoke when we should have won and then today been truly clueless against a very poor Bolton side.

Monday cannot come quick enough! Lets see if we can stay in a cup competition come Wednesday because it wont be an easy game against Blackburn in the Carling Cup.

[AshVilla]

So glad we never jumped at the west ham game and gave Kev Mac the job on a permanent basis, good bloke of that there is no doubt, but he is so far out of his depth at management level that its untrue, in his short tenure, we have played well against a very poor West Ham, then had a creditable draw in Vienna, been battered by newly promoted Newcastle 6-0, lose at home again in the Europa League to Vienna, backs to the wall 1-0 win against Everton, throw it away against Stoke when we should have won and then today been truly clueless against a very poor Bolton side.

Monday cannot come quick enough! Lets see if we can stay in a cup competition come Wednesday because it wont be an easy game against Blackburn in the Carling Cup.

NRC back in for the blackburn game please gerard....

[VillanousOne]

Friedel: 9 - Superb all round keeping display

Luke Young: 8 - Shows why he should never be dropped again, two important blocks and an excellent clearing header.

Collins: 5 - By no means bad but still exposed to often

Dunne: 6 - Looked ok until he went off injured and was missed in the second half

(sub) Cuellar: 5 - Didn't seem to bring any confidence to a a fairly awful defensive performance all round

Warnock: 4 - Utter rubbish, should have conceded a penalty

Downing: 4 - Just as bad, offered absolutely nothing

Ireland: 5 - What he did he did well but most of the time he was totally anonymous and didn't look match fit

(sub) Carew: 6 - Looked dangerous when he came on but the team round him had already given up the ghost by then

Petrov: 6 - Hard to fault him really but couldn't raise the team

Albrighton: 6 - Looked inspired for 20 mins and then could do very little to influence the game, totally pointless switching him to the left

Gabby: 4 - Awful first touch and offered very little threat despite his attacking running, made Zat Knight look like a world class defender!

Ash Young: 7 - Was everywhere and scored a great free kick but faded fast in the second half though

McDonald: 4 - Wrongly dropped NRC when we needed a strong midfield, brought Carew on far too late and once again persisted with Albrighton and Downing switching wings despite the fact it didn't and has never paid off.

[CVByrne]

Look time to start the season now. We get a trial run against Blackburn in the Carling.

[OutByEaster?]

Todays game in two points:

Firstly, early on in the game Mr Dean decided that grabbing a forward with both hands or grabbing his arms from behind wasn't a foul - this single act dominated the game.

It took Bolton about fifteen minutes to realise that, and once they did the game finished - until then we'd played some decent stuff and done alright, but as soon as Zat Knight realised he could grab hold of Gabby that stopped.

On another day another referee more familiar with the rules of the game would have given around thirty fouls against Knight in this game, he looked like he thought it was christmas.

It's hard to play pass and move football when the opposition can get away with not letting you move.

It meant that our attacking threat was immediately extinguished and it made the remainder of the game an awful spectacle, almost unwatchable at times. It was dour, dire and lacked any form of entertainment value at all. It stopped being a test of footballing ability and became something else.

That's bad - bad for us and bad for the game - so much so that there's a law against it, there's something referees are supposed to do to stop it happening. Mike Dean's incompetence ruined today completely - well done Mr Dean you are an utter cock.

Secondly, Bolton made an adjustment to the conditions - once they realised that this foul was being allowed to happen they changed how they played to take advantage of it - we never did.

We just kept trying to do the same thing and hoped that he'd wake up; it was clear after 60 minutes he wasn't going to.

So, we've got a game ruined by a referee that we didn't try to change.

It was frustrating, it was depressing, it was frankly awful - but we had an opportunity to do something about it.

Did the players as individuals play well? I don't know, often they didn't have a chance to - individual ratings for this one will be difficult.

Damp day, damp game and a moron in charge means a damp mood.

The club needs a spark.

[Ponky]

We have been like a rudderless ship - no real guidance or direction. Hopefully Houllier can steady the ship and get us playing with purpose again because that was so frustrating to watch us holding on grimly at home against Bolton.

One problem is having two wingers with no-one to cross the ball to. Gabby was so ordinary it's untrue today. We may as well play Heskey at the moment because Gabby seems slower than a wet week at the moment. Admittedly it didn't help that Knight was mauling him every time the ball came down but he just didn't seem to be interested all the same.

Ireland made several great runs today that were completely ignored because we were too busy passing backwards.

I thought Luke Young was very good today, probably our best & he along with Friedel saved our bacon several times.

[Ponky]

Agree about Dean OBE - 15 fouls to 6 - WTF?

And did you see what Knight did to Carew's shirt?

rocket polisher.

[DeepDish]

When the season started, I was hoping for a top 8-10 finish. I still think we are on track for that finish, but we play very badly, and that is a big worry.

[OutByEaster?]

And did you see what Knight did to Carew's shirt?

It was only what he'd been doing to Gabby for an hour, it's just that Carew had the strength to get away from him (albeit at the cost of a shirt).

Most refs would notice a shirt pull in open play that almost pulls the shirt into two pieces.

Last year he was briefly demoted to the Championship after two dreadful performances back to back - he should still be there.

[b6bloke]

we were shameful and hard to believe that they played like that with our new manager in the stand when supposed to impress

[Maradona10]

We just stopped after the goal, Ireland showed a bit of magic, but he needs to play behind the striker! Referee was shocking, Zat I know your a Villa fan and your just as angry about the shirts not available until November but to rip his shirt, he would have given it to you after! Cuellar did well when he came on!

[Ponky]

And did you see what Knight did to Carew's shirt?

It was only what he'd been doing to Gabby for an hour, it's just that Carew had the strength to get away from him (albeit at the cost of a shirt).

Most refs would notice a shirt pull in open play that almost pulls the shirt into two pieces.

Last year he was briefly demoted to the Championship after two dreadful performances back to back - he should still be there.

from the Telegraph report

Carew arrived for Ireland with 18 minutes left, and immediately caused problems. How his former team-mate Zat Knight managed to avoid being given a second yellow is anyone’s guess. Carew’s shirt didn’t rip itself wide open. Cue the traditional refrains about the referee.

[billy_loes]

OBE's post was spot on about the ref. Blimey we get bad refs or what?

Our midfield are getting flakier, by the second half some were hiding on the pitch and in turn the defence are are getting twitchy. Warnock played well.

[bromsgrove_avfc]

And did you see what Knight did to Carew's shirt?

That'll be the quality issues.

Back on topic:

Were very average aren't we. So boring to watch.

[barry'sboots]

Shocking performance driven by a very poor caretaker manager.

How he can go into a game against Bolton with Stan and SI in CM is beyond me. There is so little energy and impetus in there it is embarrassing. Great going forward BUT absolutely pants when we haven't got the ball.

I saw a post above that said that you can't really say Petrov did anything wrong today. That's probably true on the basis that he did nothing at all!! And he certainly is not a leader.

And then K-Mac goes down the MON bizarre tactical subbing route with his Carew for SI and a 4-1-5 and that 1 being the ever so energetic in the last 15 minutes Petrov. It really is laughable.

Bolton are crap and we made them look good today. Compare that to the stuffing that we gave them last year with NRC in CM and then tell me he shouldn't be starting at the minute. Its about balance and we haven't got it!

[o'lbs]

absolute garbage.

[Rob182]

We played well for the first 30 mins, then we seemed to lose our drive. I really wanted MacDonald to do well in his last game in charge but I feel like his tactics have let us down again. Stephen Ireland in a central midfield 2 could work but subbing him for Carew leaving us with 2 strikers, 3 wingers and 1 shattered Petrov will never work.

MOTM Brad! Some great saves from the big man!

I'm looking forward to Houllier taking control and pushing us on!

I left the match with 30 mins still on the clock couldnt sit there watching that utter drivel

I hate people like you.

Downing looks like he's retreated back into his shell again backing out of tackles left right and centre no bottle.

Oh, here we go again.. If only Downing was doing diving, two-footed challenges like all the other players out there yeah? :? FFS

Glad I didn't go, waste of money.

Last week I felt ashamed when some chap who went to the Stoke game was having a rant about us not selling out our away seats. Now I know I'm not one of the ones letting us down when I see comments like this.

ClaretMahoney, I agree with you. There are some pathetic "fans" around nowadays. I'm a season ticket holder but I'm not going to "get out of the rain and cold" when I could be cheering my team on.