Ratings and Reactions: Blackburn 2-0 Villa

[AVFC-Prideofbrum]

Yeah I thought Dunne was better today and Luke Young didn't have a good game. Looked off the pace. I think he struggles a little when player cut inside, naturally too because he is right footed.

[cheltenham_villa]

main issue for me was Dunne and Clarke always looking to go long. Even Friedel had the message, always looking to throw the ball out wide and retain possession. Dunne and Clarke wasted a lot for me. Other than that it was about not taking chances, a good away performance, created lots but didnt score. Blackburn took their chances.

[paulanddonya]

I will tell you why its the boards fault shall i. Coz Mon quit on Aug 5th. Everyone with any sense said on here at the time, an appointment wouldnt be made until it was too late for any transfers, and guess what happened. So don't slag off injuries, their short sightedness and the infamous sell to buy policy has now come home to roost. WE ARE ONE LOSS FROM THE RELEGATIO ZONE - FOR F SAKE WAKE UP AND REALISE IT AND STOP COMING OUT WITH THIS THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT CRAP

Listen, i didnt expect miracles from houllier but i certainly didnt expect this. Oh and by the way, apparently we are missing cueller who played right back last season when no one could see why, nrc who never played last season, delph ditto, heskey ditto, sidwell ditto, etc... The only players who played a significant part in he last few seasons were petrov, carew and gabby. Put those with milner in that side AND THAT WAS LAST YEARS FIRST CHOICE SIDE so dont start this crap that we are crippled

[maqroll]

Not like you to state how long you been a supporter before, how the owners are doing are secretly against Villa and how bad we are doing Paulandonya.

Inept, Disgraceful performance, yet, more possesion, more corners, more shots on targets, more shots on goal than the opposition.

Good old yankee spin? When you have a new manager and 1/2 your first team out, your not exactly going to be pushing forward are you.

O'Neill sold Cahill.

O'Neill sold Barry.

O'Neill sold Milner.

They also ALL wanted to leave. How is that the Owners fault? what do you want them to do? Lock them in a cupboard so they can't sign for anyone else?

YANKS OUT!

[Gringo]

O'Neill sold Cahill.

O'Neill sold Barry.

O'Neill sold Milner.

You make it sound like paulanddonya was MONs biggest fan.

[villadude]

L Young, Downing, Bannan and occasionally Ash all had ok games, the rest were gash!

[Genie]

Bannan will be a special player, reminds me very much of a young Steven gerrard ,he just needs to go easy on the Hollywood passes.

[villanfromluton]

I thought L Young was very average. thought Bannan was average, Downing was a 7 IMHO, but should have switched wings (not his decision I know) to stretch the defence, I thought hogg did ok and so did the centre backs

[VillaAndLoyal]

Back from the game and this used to be one of my favourite away days but today was utterly, utterly shite in every single way. Shit attendance from our fans, shit atmosphere from our fans (we got outsung by **** Blackburn) and a woeful performance on the pitch. Added to that, after the police tightening up the Fernhurst has gone from one of the best away pubs to just another boring one now - the management staff even set the fire alarm off at 13:05 just to get every Villa fan out of the pub :| Nice touch!

This was quite possibly the worst performance since Newcastle - we were easily beaten by a very poor Blackburn side, they should have had five goals in the end. Did we create one clear cut chance all game? No. We had a few scruffy half-chances and that was it. Woeful.

Brad Friedel - why the **** does he ALWAYS (okay, nearly always) hoof the ball straight up the pitch so we lose it again? For someone so experienced this is a major flaw in his game, he can't have much intelligence. Just hold on to it for **** sake and play it out from the back! His positioning for the first goal was also awful and for such a big chap his handling in the air is also very hit and miss.

Stephen Ireland - the fact he got booed off by sections of today's support says all you need to know really. I never want to see him in an Aston Villa shirt again. End of.

Ashley Young - I've never believed the hype around this guy and I still don't. When does he ever single handedly change the game himself? He doesn't, because he can't. He's simply not good enough. He's a decent player, yes. But the best at AVFC? No way. If he wants another contract he better start working for it because personally I'd take the money and run.

Gabby - clearly wasn't fit, so why did he start?

I thought Downing was our best attacking threat, I wish he would just shoot more because he has a good shot on him. That said, he did do some very sloppy stuff as well.

We missed Marc Albrighton more than any other supposed senior player today - that much is certain. We are not the same side without him in it.

Hugely disappointing day, performance and result. We never looked like we would get anything from the game - their first goal was coming for most of the first half. Oh and why did we resort to long ball because of our opponents? Gabby, despite not being fit, never had a chance of getting into the game anyway with all those aimless punts forward.

[AVFC-Prideofbrum]

I will tell you why its the boards fault shall i. Coz Mon quit on Aug 5th. Everyone with any sense said on here at the time, an appointment wouldnt be made until it was too late for any transfers, and guess what happened. So don't slag off injuries, their short sightedness and the infamous sell to buy policy has now come home to roost. WE ARE ONE LOSS FROM THE RELEGATIO ZONE - FOR F SAKE WAKE UP AND REALISE IT AND STOP COMING OUT WITH THIS THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT CRAP

Listen, i didnt expect miracles from houllier but i certainly didnt expect this. Oh and by the way, apparently we are missing cueller who played right back last season when no one could see why, nrc who never played last season, delph ditto, heskey ditto, sidwell ditto, etc... The only players who played a significant part in he last few seasons were petrov, carew and gabby. Put those with milner in that side AND THAT WAS LAST YEARS FIRST CHOICE SIDE so dont start this crap that we are crippled

Paulandondya, You are right, O'Neill left on August 5th which meant by that time, all teams like Fulham who needed a new manager, had found their manager, Hughes. There was little options with who we got in as manager, do you honestly believe rushing into appointing a manager just so they could spend this summer EVEN THOUGH they might not be good enough for long term was the right thing to do? Remember, MON Resigned. It wasn't expected, we wouldn't of had people drawn up to replace him then, there was not many options.

Sell to buy policy, well we've spent £100 million net since they've been here so it's a nice sell to buy policy isn't it.

Heskey started something like 20 games in the Premiership last year, that is hardly featured. Sidwell started around 15 games.

Last year, we played, Petrov, Milner, Carew/Heskey and then Collins CB.

So there was 4 definite players missing, Chelsea don't have Lampard, Essien, Terry....look how much they are struggling.

Agbonlahor has been out 90% of the season, our best striker.

We are crippled. :?

Last year....if we didn't have Milner, we wouldn't of finished 6th, if we didn't have Petrov, Sidwell, Reo-Coker out for periods of the season, I doubt we'd of finished even top 7/8.

How can you see we aren't crippled? Yes, Sidwell, Coker, Delph, didn't play loads but that's because we NEVER HAD ANY INJURIES!!!!!!!

Your arguement makes no sense whatsoever.

[AVFC-Prideofbrum]

Did we create one clear cut chance all game? No. We had a few scruffy half-chances and that was it. Woeful.

We created more than them.

Downing's shot, Young's header off the bar, Young shots in the first half, Downing and Young long range shots saved. Herd header cleared close to the line.

[QuintonK6]

Friedel - 5

At fault for the first goal and didn't really do a lot else.

Luke Young - 0

Atrocious all game. He kept losing his man in open play, wasn't marking properly at any set pieces and couldn't control the ball or pass well enough to help Downing get forward. I don't think I've ever seen him play worse for Villa

Stephen Warnock - 3

He was actually playing really well for about 40 minutes, and then the silly challenges started again

Richard Dunne - 6

Better than I've seen him play in a while, probably because the rest of the defence was so bad...

Ciaran Clark - 4

He's still learning, but he got taught a lesson by Roberts in the second half.

Stewart Downing - 5

Very average. He hasn't played that poorly for us for a while, and just shouldn't be on the right-wing

Ashley Young - 0

All of a sudden he seems to think that if he doesn't want to play where the manager tells him to he can just ignore instruction. In the end he just got in Agbonlahor's way, making Ireland's life difficult and effectively ruined most of our first half chances in particular by spoiling our shape.

Jonathan Hogg - 6

Can't compete in the air, but made very few mistakes compared to our other midfielders and got stuck in. I think he's underrated by our fans.

Barry Bannan - 5

Started very well, and when the team is going forward he looks dangerous. Inexperience started to creep into his game in the second half however, and he started to make bad decisions

Stephen Ireland - 5

Needs to take more responsibility to win back possession, but he actually looks like he could create good opportunities in front of goal for us. Not helped by Ashley being a prima donna or Gabby's shocking performance

Gabby Agbonlahor - 2

Probably wasn't fit, but really shouldn't have bothered if that was all he had to offer.

**** me mate - Did you go or watch on sky ?? I was there and disagree with every mark.

Ireland better than Ashley and Warnock better than Young ??????

I'm gobsmacked !!!

[cbr600rr]

i thought we lacked imagination,you could see how the game was going when blackburn took the lead, why is it we we look jet lagged? & you see teams like stoke giving everything for 90 mins..sorry but the league does not lie,we are where we are for our performances this year, its bloody worrying.

[VillaAndLoyal]

Did we create one clear cut chance all game? No. We had a few scruffy half-chances and that was it. Woeful.

We created more than them.

Downing's shot, Young's header off the bar, Young shots in the first half, Downing and Young long range shots saved. Herd header cleared close to the line.

I'll repeat my sentence again. We didn't create one clear-cut chance all game.

And they could have had five goals second half on the counter attack when our defence was at sixes and sevens. They should have mullered us.

[villadale]

**** me mate - Did you go or watch on sky ?? I was there and disagree with every mark.

Ireland better than Ashley and Warnock better than Young ??????

I'm gobsmacked !!!

I only watched on Sky and yet I also disagree with that. luke Young I thought played well. Got stuck in and got forward 2nd half, a 0???? If any **** is in need of a 0 it's Ireland, unfortunately if they all played like him we would have lost 10. The man is a tart. and unfortunately is not talented enough to be in a free role. Ireland! wake up time mate! You are shit so u had better start grafting.

[AVFC-Prideofbrum]

Did we create one clear cut chance all game? No. We had a few scruffy half-chances and that was it. Woeful.

We created more than them.

Downing's shot, Young's header off the bar, Young shots in the first half, Downing and Young long range shots saved. Herd header cleared close to the line.

I'll repeat my sentence again. We didn't create one clear-cut chance all game.

And they could have had five goals second half on the counter attack when our defence was at sixes and sevens. They should have mullered us.

Downing chance was a definite clear cut chance. :?

They didn't create that many chances....What game were you watching? they caught us on the break a few times towards the end of the game and miss 1/2 decent chances but five goals? be serious.

Giving away a couple of chances was to be expected to be honest when your pushing for goals. Just like when we played Fulham, before they equalized, we had 2/3 good chances but didn't take them, Fulham equalized.

We had more possesion, more shots on target, more shots in general, more corners. More play in their half, our two central midfielders made 15 more passes than their whole 5 man midfield put together.

We could of easily won that game today, I can't understand the negativity myself. Result isn't good, I accept that, performance was okay, Blackburn away, hard to expect to dominate a team, yet for 60/70 minutes, we had control of the game. I've seen us play alot worse than that and win games both under Houllier (Wolves), Kev Mac (Everton) and O'Neill! (numerous)

[paddy]

Can someone tell me what Hogg's best position is? Is he just filling in there as Clark was or is that his strongest position. Sorry if someone nswered this earlier, I had a look for a reply but couldn't see one.

[AVFC-Prideofbrum]

He is a natural central midfield.

I really have no clue in what other position he could play.

[VillaAndLoyal]

Did we create one clear cut chance all game? No. We had a few scruffy half-chances and that was it. Woeful.

We created more than them.

Downing's shot, Young's header off the bar, Young shots in the first half, Downing and Young long range shots saved. Herd header cleared close to the line.

I'll repeat my sentence again. We didn't create one clear-cut chance all game.

And they could have had five goals second half on the counter attack when our defence was at sixes and sevens. They should have mullered us.

Downing chance was a definite clear cut chance. :?

They didn't create that many chances....What game were you watching? they caught us on the break a few times towards the end of the game and miss 1/2 decent chances but five goals? be serious.

Giving away a couple of chances was to be expected to be honest when your pushing for goals. Just like when we played Fulham, before they equalized, we had 2/3 good chances but didn't take them, Fulham equalized.

We had more possesion, more shots on target, more shots in general, more corners. More play in their half, our two central midfielders made 15 more passes than their whole 5 man midfield put together.

We could have easily won that game today, I can't understand the negativity myself. Result isn't good, I accept that, performance was okay, Blackburn away, hard to expect to dominate a team, yet for 60/70 minutes, we had control of the game. I've seen us play alot worse than that and win games both under Houllier (Wolves), Kev Mac (Everton) and O'Neill! (numerous)

What game was I watching? Are you being serious? I was AT the game mate, not stuck to my keyboard posting on here straight after it with all your facts and figures (which, by the way, differ from site to site).

A shot from the edge of the box with Blackburn defenders diving in to stop it, is NOT a clear-cut chance, quite obviously. The only chances we created were half-chances at best, unlike Diouf's chance second half when he went through one-on-one with Friedel. They also had at least two others second half - as well as a number of chances in the first half. So if their finishing was better they could have easily scored five, easily.

If you think the performance was 'okay' and that we had control of the game for 70 **** minutes (you're joking, surely? ) then I suggest you re-watch it on Sky.

[QuintonK6]

He is a natural central midfield.

I really have no clue in what other position he could play.

I like the look of Clarke in midfield. No disrespect to Hogg as he's a young man thrown in at the deep end but I hope Clarke takes his position in the side once Carlos and Collins are back.

I think Clarkes going to become an Iconic player for us for many years to come.