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Ratings and Reactions: Blackburn 2-0 Villa


limpid

Who was your man of the match?  

130 members have voted

  1. 1. Who was your man of the match?

    • Friedel
      0
    • L Young
      13
    • Warnock
      4
    • Dunne
      12
    • Clark
      1
    • Downing
      34
    • A Young
      16
    • Ireland
      2
    • Bannan
      32
    • Hogg
      9
    • Agbonlahor
      0
    • Pires (for Ireland 69)
      2
    • Delfouneso (for Agbonlahor 78)
      1
    • Herd (for Hogg 81)
      4


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Interesting results for MOTM so far. I thought Bannan improved second half but his passing in the first half was terrible and couldn't get into it. I thought Downing had a poor game as well considering his recent form. He also gave the ball away far too many times to count.

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Hard to pick a MOTM for this one.

A couple of observations:

- Blackburn were always only going to score off set plays. It's all Allardyces' teams can do.

- They sat back on the box and defended the zone. With a non-match fit Agbonlahor as our only forward it was all too easy

- Ireland, Agbon, Young, Downing, Bannan. You're not going to win headers with those so don't bother trying. Keep it on the deck all the time.

- Clark makes Dunne look like Usain Bolt. He's a good prospect, but has zero pace.

- We passed the ball around really well at times - especially in the second half - but had zero penetration in their penalty area. We really need a striker. Badly.

- Maybe it was me, but it seemed we had Bannan, Agbonlahor and even Hogg out wide left more often than Young. With Ireland and Bannan in central midfield, Young should have stayed glued to the left.

- I'm not a big fan of Warnock. He justified my opinion of him today.

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I've had plenty of time to let this sink in now. Its not great but Blackburn on their own turf are a hard team to beat, saying that however;

Our main problem today was finding the central midfield players from the full back positions. The CM's did not work hard enough to go an support them and act as an anchor for the base of any attacks we may have had.

There were many times today when i was screaming out to either bannan, ash or ireland to go and help out the fullbacks.. and time and time again they didnt. It really wasnt good enough.

villag.jpg

This is what I mean. Villa are Claret and Blue and the Blackburn markers are in blue and white and Im assuming they were pressing high up - which they appeared to during the game. In this scenario Warnock has the ball. Today he could only put it up the line to Downing.. Literally, if you watch the game, there are about 3 times the CM goes and helps out the FB to make a triangle and give him 2 options.. This is simple football pattern tactics. If we had stuck to this principle, we would have held possession much, much better.

I think Bannan was anominous throughout the game until the last 5 minutes when we camped on the edge of their box. 6/10

Ash ran alot but his passing and some of his runs were aimless. 6/10

Richard Dunne was absolutely diabolical..he gave the ball away, did risky manuvers when he was the last man on the edge of our box and he never won a header against Samba on any of our 5/6 corners.. I'd give him 2/10

Nothing came for Ireland today, he didnt even appear to try hard. 4/10

Clark did quite well in the game I think, he tried to get it on the floor and pass it about from deep.. but the lack of movement from anyone further forward than fullback didnt help anyone 6/10

Gabby really struggled today, he didnt have any support which I thought was the main problem. He held the ball up a few times and laid it off nicely but he didnt threaten once. 5/10

Friedel didnt have one of his better games. The one time he needed to be at full concentration (about 46:45) he wasnt. If he had caught that the team talk would have been totally different.

Hogg did what was expected of him I suppose, hassled and harried people on the ball and kept things simple by passing to the people who probably should have been doing more to help him. 6/10

Downing was very quiet today, made some very good runs in the 1st half but as we went narrow in the 2nd half his effectivness wore off. Some great control and clever passes shined this slightly below average score 6/10

Warnock was good today I thought and he was visibly annoyed by some of his team mates desicions. Made a great (albeit) last ditch tackle near the 6 yard box to save what probably would have been a goal. On the whole I was pleased with him, which im not usually 7/10

Luke Young is my MOTM. He desperately tried to get forward in the 2nd half and really worked hard at getting up to help Downing. He also made a great challenge where he ran 15 yards in field to block a shot. 8/10

On the whole, it was a very poor game. And if you analyse the goals we conceded, it was a scrappy corner which fell nicely to their player and a free kick which 9/10 wouldnt beat Friedel.

My main worry was the lack of chances we created.

I also thought it was funny in the concourse at half time grown men of all ages were shouting '**** off' to everything.. Its football, the other team are allowed to score too, dickhead.

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Interesting Lapal and something I've noticed (not with these two) before, especially against Bolton at home when the lack of movement was dire. By the time Houllier had time to change it second half, where we clearly came out a lot better, we were 1-0 down and having to break a team down and leave ourselves open.

I have noticed that our second halves under Houllier especially right at the start have been quite bright like United, Blackpool, Blackburn (cup), in fact every game, we start the first 0-20 well, and then start the 45-65 quite well. Not in between.

Maybe it's a little laziness, players start showing for the ball but then as the game grows on, slowly stop for whatever reason, if you look at say Arsenal, Barca etc...they are constantly moving, never stopping to get on the ball.

It makes you easier to defend to against of course too. If the midfielder comes deep, the opposition man will usually go near him, creating space for a ball into the free man (3rd midfielder) and even if he is being picked up, the central midfielder who comes short can protect the ball, or clip it around the corner as shown in your picture or switch the ball to the opposite CB who will most likely be free if the opposition is playing 3 in midfield and then you go the other way and the defender than needs to use the space to go into and at least commit a player within 6-7 yards before releasing the ball.

Whenever you have the ball if you play a 4-4-1-1 or similar formation, you will always have a man extra, if the opposition play 4-4-2, man extra midfield or 4-5-1...a man extra at the back. You need to take advantage of that, if you can expose a team through the middle with clever passes, then the opposition would have no option but to push higher in order to stop the amount of balls being played through them, which is where Gabby comes into play into the channels and over the top.....or the opposition can decide to let you have the ball and mark more zonally to stop you playing through them which again, at least gives you control of the match.

Our midfield today however passed the ball more times today than any other game this year so there is improvement there and hopefully Houllier, G Mac and Cowans work on this so we can play through teams as well as around using Albrighton and Downing.

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Have to face facts Bickster, we lost fair and square. Do you honestly think MGP would go off when he had a hat trick in sight, me neither. They are physical, but you sound like Wenger there

I didn't say we didn't deserve to lose, far from it, we were shit and didn't deserve to scrape the piss off the nettles that grow in the gutters of Blackburn.

Also doesn't hide the fact that every single one of Fat Sam's teams do the same thing, it's predictable, it's horrible to watch and they cheat, they con the referee. It's what I've always called anti-football.

MGP wil do as he's told by the manager

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As long as we don't have a prolific goal scorer, these types of results will happen with some frequency, especially now that Milner's gone, Ireland can't be bothered, and everyone else is either underperforming or still in puberty.

Same old Villa, I'm afraid. No steel to the side, and can't score.

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Our issue with a lack of movement for the ball has been going on for some time now. It's shocking how static our team is in most games.

When it comes to the result yesterday we simply weren't good enough. Our midfield was too weak for such a physical game. I'm sure we would have coped much better if the likes of NRC and Heskey or Carew had been fit. We just lacked the strength to counter Blackburn.

Friedel should have saved that first goal and there can be no excuses. However, we should have scored anyway. Once again though the problems arise in the final third. The football on display was good at times, when it came to the passing. Yet, once we get into the final third there seems to be a distinct lack of ideas.

Well done to Young, Bannan and Downing though. They at least managed to play rather well. Special mention to Dunne too who was much better than in recent games.

Gutted with the defeat, however we will bounce back. UTV.

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My opinion:

we were terrible yesterday. Not sure if it was the fact I was really tired and hungover but I just thought we lacked pretty much everything that you need to win a football match. Voted Young MOTM because he at least seemed to be trying to make something happen. Downing looked alright but not as good as recent weeks. Ireland was poor. We really missed Albrighton. Thought Clark and Dunne did fine. It was just one of those days where you can't get the bloody thing in the net but all in all I thought it was a depressingly abject performance. Bring on Arsenal.

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Dissapointed and a poor performance

Ireland was just poor

Wtf for the 1st goal Brad should do better thats hisarea but overal 1 of his worst games fr us

Did beter 2nd half but didnt deserve anythin

Fair few of us mde the trip and were in good voice

I wanna go home i wanna go hooooooome Blakburn's a s**ti wanna go home. Just 1 of the songs we sang

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I wanna go home i wanna go hooooooome Blakburn's a s**ti wanna go home. Just 1 of the songs we sang

You could hear that one quite clearly on the TV, and then you could also quite clearly hear all the Blackburn fans having a good chuckle at it.

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