Ratings and Reactions: Sunderland 1-0 Villa

[Cracker1234]

I'm not worried either, but no blame can go on Houllier, these are the players he has to work with, let him bring in some players then Judge him...Although no one is blaming him thus far.

Once he made the changes we were a lot better, the players on the pitch at the time should have done a lot better in the first half than they did.

Silly goal done us.

[AndyClarke]

We didn't do a great deal wrong against another bang average side very similar to us. We're never going to get very far if we miss the sort of chances we have been missing this season, Heskey did well at times but until we had Young around him we never really looked like doing a great deal.

Disappointed with Ireland again, Dunne was hit and miss but certainly not as bad as some of the disgraceful posts aimed in his direction would have you believe. Warnock is a problem and we look very very ordinary when we don't have our top players on the field and with a bit of form.

[theunderstudy]

cant see the point in moaning about the ref - its not because of him that we lost.

first 45 we were dire, 2nd half was better, but why does no-one want to attack the goal??? albrighton came on and was more direct in his first five minutes than the whole team had been in the rest of the game.

most of us said that a point would be a good result today so it doesnt feel like a disasterous result to lose 1-0 but we cant expect to get anything from matches if we are only going to play for one half of them.

No, nothing to blame the ref for... apart from 2 stonewall pens not given, giving every 50-50 to Sunderland and generally being shit, I suppose Halsey didn't affect the result.

[Mantis]

I'm not too worried. The season is still young yet and if we win our next two league games we'll probably be up in the top 6/7. Look at Everton. Right down the bottom and now that they've won two and drawn one they're 10th.

[rjshare]

...didn't look like scoring till Dunne put them ahead. Lack of communication between him and Collins for that goal.

no, kids of 8 or 9 years old know that "if in doubt, put it out" not "if in doubt, stick it in the bottom corner"

it was a terrible mistake from a player who shouldnt be getting picked at the moment and has cost us a minimum of 1 point.

[dudevillaisnice]

Ratings :

Friedel 8 - made some good saves, couldn't do much about that dunne goal.

Sidwell 7 - Came on and i thought was good, did make some really good tackles but also some bad tackles

Warnock 6 - started off really terrible, came into the game a bit at the end

Ireland 6 - was dissapointed to be honest, do have high hopes for him but i dont know..

Reo Coker 8 - was probably the best player on the pitch today

Ashley Young 6 - Fairly quiet, poor free kicks/corners wasn't his fault was marked like mad

Heskey 7 - tried hard, thought he'll do well with someone partnering up with him.. doesn't work well alone.

Petrov 5 - was decent whilst he was on.. didn't do anything out the ordinary.

Albrighton 7 - joint with NRC performance for me.

Purposely left Dunne out, made that good block at the end according to the match thread never saw it myself as i had switched it off already, but that own goal did blow the tactics and players mentality out the water. We need a top striker and for the love of god need to win that league cup match. Personally i wish Fonz was on the bench and would've bought him on second half - Fonz and Heskey probably would've worked imo who knows.

[pacbuddies]

Yet again we have lost to a very average side. If Houllier does not address our attack in January then we are in for a very mediocre season. There is no point having the majority of possession if you don't do anything with it.

So much for progress over the last few seasons. We are no better now than we were a few years ago and a top 6 finish is looking unlikely.

[bose]

Heskey MOTM for me, should have scored from Downing's cross though but maybe there was a touch on the ball beforehand. Both subs were good IMO and probably the best game Sidwell has had for Villa.

It's clear to me that Ireland needs time, just like Downing and Petrov did and to a lesser extent Milner as well. Hopefully we'll see his real ability in the new year.

Good game from Reo-Coker again and Beye kept up his level of performance from the Chelsea game. Poor first half though and a dreadful mistake from Dunne who has been poor all season. In fact the entire left side of our defense looked very shaky.

Friedel - 7 - Made a couple of good saves.

Beye - 7 - Very assured at right back.

Warnock - 5 - Looked uncomfortable in the first half but was better in the second.

Collins - 6 - Solid enough

Dunne - 4 - Dreadful mistake and very poor performance in the first half. Looked better after half time.

Petrov - 6 - Injured early on. Could have done better in the build up to their goal.

Reo Coker - 7 - Solid game and some good runs and passes.

A.Young - 6 - The first half passed him by but when he played behind Heskey in the second half he was much better, always looking for space to get the ball.

Ireland - 5 - Did nothing all game. Will come good in time... hopefully.

Downing - 7 - Another good game from Downing, one of the better performers this season.

Heskey - 7 - Won every header in the first half and some excellent link up play. Should have scored in the second half and his confidence dropped after that. Didn't help him that Ireland didn't show up. Needs a player like Young playing in the hole to be of proper use.

Sidwell - 7 - Best game in a Villa shirt.

Albrighton - 7 - Lively yet again.

[Rob182]

Houllier is yet to make this his team.

At the moment we are a Martin O'Neill team without the best player. Houllier is making changes, which I like, but hopefully we'll start to see a few changes in personnel in January and the Summer.

If we get rid of Sidders and Davies, bring in a central midfielder and a striker AND manage to hang onto Ash; we'll have a decent squad and can hopefully start playing how Houllier wants us to.

At the moment we have a hard working team who fail to take their chances. We did the same under O'Neill and it's because we don't have many natural finishers. (The few that we do have are either not in the team or are seemingly out of form - Ireland/ Carew etc).

I'm not worried.

In Houllier we trust!!!

[the_eristic]

If you look at the Guardian Chalkboards, the only players we had winning "midfield" aerial 50/50s in any significant proportion were our central defenders pushing up. That's a rather dangerous game, as it either requires a higher line than we can play at the moment (imo, anyway) or a centre back out of position, meaning someone has to cover or we leave a gap in behind. We need some height in midfield to take on that responsibility and alleviate early pressure on our defense.

[Rob182]

Ratings :

Friedel 8 - made some good saves, couldn't do much about that dunne goal.

Sidwell 7 - Came on and i thought was good, did make some really good tackles but also some bad tackles

Warnock 6 - started off really terrible, came into the game a bit at the end

Ireland 6 - was dissapointed to be honest, do have high hopes for him but i dont know..

Reo Coker 8 - was probably the best player on the pitch today

Ashley Young 6 - Fairly quiet, poor free kicks/corners wasn't his fault was marked like mad

Heskey 7 - tried hard, thought he'll do well with someone partnering up with him.. doesn't work well alone.

Petrov 5 - was decent whilst he was on.. didn't do anything out the ordinary.

Albrighton 7 - joint with NRC performance for me.

Purposely left Dunne out, made that good block at the end according to the match thread never saw it myself as i had switched it off already, but that own goal did blow the tactics and players mentality out the water. We need a top striker and for the love of god need to win that league cup match. Personally i wish Fonz was on the bench and would've bought him on second half - Fonz and Heskey probably would've worked imo who knows.

Did you purposely leave Downing out? :winkold:

[rjshare]

cant see the point in moaning about the ref - its not because of him that we lost.

first 45 we were dire, 2nd half was better, but why does no-one want to attack the goal??? albrighton came on and was more direct in his first five minutes than the whole team had been in the rest of the game.

most of us said that a point would be a good result today so it doesnt feel like a disasterous result to lose 1-0 but we cant expect to get anything from matches if we are only going to play for one half of them.

No, nothing to blame the ref for... apart from 2 stonewall pens not given, giving every 50-50 to Sunderland and generally being shit, I suppose Halsey didn't affect the result.

i have never seen us lose a game without someone on here saying the ref was dire.

how many shots did we have in the game?

none of those stone wall penalties were pens - the commentators all said so too.

[rjshare]

Ratings :

Friedel 8 - made some good saves, couldn't do much about that dunne goal.

Sidwell 7 - Came on and i thought was good, did make some really good tackles but also some bad tackles

Warnock 6 - started off really terrible, came into the game a bit at the end

Ireland 6 - was dissapointed to be honest, do have high hopes for him but i dont know..

Reo Coker 8 - was probably the best player on the pitch today

Ashley Young 6 - Fairly quiet, poor free kicks/corners wasn't his fault was marked like mad

Heskey 7 - tried hard, thought he'll do well with someone partnering up with him.. doesn't work well alone.

Petrov 5 - was decent whilst he was on.. didn't do anything out the ordinary.

Albrighton 7 - joint with NRC performance for me.

Purposely left Dunne out, made that good block at the end according to the match thread never saw it myself as i had switched it off already, but that own goal did blow the tactics and players mentality out the water. We need a top striker and for the love of god need to win that league cup match. Personally i wish Fonz was on the bench and would've bought him on second half - Fonz and Heskey probably would've worked imo who knows.

Did you purposely leave Downing out? :winkold:

and beye...

[dudevillaisnice]

Did you purposely leave Downing out? :winkold:

Totally forget tbh

Downing 7 - made that excellent run in the penalty area and just hit the side netting i think it was, made some good runs and passes but was left rather alone again passing wise.. players just didnt move into free positions and just stood there marked, another key area which needs sorting.

Beye 7 - Very good i thought, didn't have any hope for him when the match started but went past a couple of the players and made some good passes and tackles.. perhaps he isnt as bad as people think (like i thought)

[theunderstudy]

cant see the point in moaning about the ref - its not because of him that we lost.

first 45 we were dire, 2nd half was better, but why does no-one want to attack the goal??? albrighton came on and was more direct in his first five minutes than the whole team had been in the rest of the game.

most of us said that a point would be a good result today so it doesnt feel like a disasterous result to lose 1-0 but we cant expect to get anything from matches if we are only going to play for one half of them.

No, nothing to blame the ref for... apart from 2 stonewall pens not given, giving every 50-50 to Sunderland and generally being shit, I suppose Halsey didn't affect the result.

i have never seen us lose a game without someone on here saying the ref was dire.

how many shots did we have in the game?

none of those stone wall penalties were pens - the commentators all said so too.

Spurs away the ref was okay. Newcastle away the ref was okay. MAinly because in certain games we've been mugged. (Stoke away, Sunderland away, Bolton home)

[smetrov]

Think we had 3 shots on target today - last week against chelsea we had 2 - it don't look good does it !

Yet GH was just muttering on the radio - our heads went down after the own goal......FFS there was over an hour left when that happened.

[pacbuddies]

Loads of possession, very few attempts on goal, no goals scored again. Yes, it doesn't look too good.

[Davies4England]

Think we had 3 shots on target today - last week against chelsea we had 2 - it don't look good does it !

Yet GH was just muttering on the radio - our heads went down after the own goal......FFS there was over an hour left when that happened.

Ahhh yes but we hit the post how many times v Chelsea?

We also had several clear cut chances today, Heskey's chance, Sidwell off the line and Downing hitting the post.

Utter pointless moan at our new manager too, of course our heads would go down, but we responded in the second half by dominating Sunderland for most of it.

The problem isn't creating the chances its that no-one is finishing them and I'm sure we will address that.

[steve-67]

A midfielder and a striker for Christmas please Santa. I promise not to open my presents til January 1st though.

[Ponky]

We would have had an extra 2 shots on goal had NRC and Downing not been fouled in the area :winkold:

While it was a shocking OG by Dunne it happens and unfortunately at the moment he is trying hard but just not quite right.

Beye was OK in the first half and very impressive in the 2nd. He put in a couple of good crosses and generally looked better defensively than Warnock.

Sidwell was our best today I thought and far from anonymous - just goes to show that playing a passing game that brings CMs into the game is beneficial to the overall performance of CMs.

Other than Dunne, and Ireland, who simply looks out of touch, I thought Ashley Young was our biggest worry - he struggled to beat players he would normally upend, and his delivery from crosses and set pieces was generally poor. Hopefully he can rectify this soon enough.