Ratings and Reactions - villa 1-2 spurs

[Harry]

Here's a question, give me a single example of when the Fonz made a difference in the match.

Blackpool at home

Says it all really we beat Blackpool's reserves...just. BTW that's not the Fonz's fault but its hardly the defining game for a player.

[Harry]

I think people keep forgetting we have another game on tuesday, hence Houlliers caution on giving our key midfielders too much game time today. Makes sense in my head.

And which was more winnable?

[YLN]

Delfouneso, Friedel, Albrighton and Lichaj were the only ones to come out of that game with any credit.

Delfouneso looked to run with the ball and lay off a pass every time he got the ball. Often it came off. On one occasion he took it past two players in the middle of the park and gave it to Downing as we broke, who turned around and gave it to Collins.

Friedel made a good save from Downing.

Albrighton was tenacious and ran all day. Looked dangerous. Scored a goal.

Lichaj made some great challenges and was the best of our defenders.

Cuellar made some great challenges, but his decision-making is lacking at times.

Gabby was not up to much. Warnock was shit.

Downing was poor

Hogg was a passenger. Delph played some nice passes, but lost possession too often.

Collins was **** awful.

Pires

Heskey

Petrov was competent.

[Willy_Evergo]

Changing the defensive formation from zonal has really hurt us and confused our established starters. Houllier needs to sort this out asap.

[ryanvilla_1994]

frenchman should do the decent thing and resign. he can save face by claiming "he was in the wrong place at the wrong time"

He's the new Dr No - Venglos.

Or the smug face of Faulkner can admit he's phucked up by pissing O'Neill off, grow a pair of stones and sack frenchman.

Either way this bullshit sexy football experiment has gone on too long.

we need the red adair of premiership football. Big Sam.

I'm no Houllier fan but are you serious when you say you want fat sam ?

[Brumerican]

No over re-action or self pity but we are genuinely shit and Lerner is to blame.

[WooJung]

Today GH was shit. Delph was out of condition, Hogg is poor, Collins should be tied up...

Why the fook didn't Clark play? And Bannan?

[GingerCollins29]

Can't believe the amount of morons here still supporting GH.

We were woeful today. Lichaj the exception. Stick with GH and we're going down. Chose to play a centre mid of Hogg (an average youngster) and Delph (a player with excellent potential, but NO match fitness - looked so off the pace all game). Reo-Coker and Petrov left on the bench? Idiocy.

Albrighton is class but stop saying he was great today, he wasn't. Nearly every one of his crosses failed to beat the first man.

Warnock is awful. Downing is a pussy.

Why are we playing so badly? We are a squad that minus 1 player finished 6th last year. We have injuries yes, but we still have a top 6 squad.

GH and Gmac are the ones to blame. The players don't like or respect them. They dropped Dunne because Dunne raised concerns about his training methods. Instead of working together GH is creating a dictatorship.

It's depressing, and GH is to blame. Get him out, now.

To those fans who come on here and proclaim that they're love of the club is the reason to get behind the gaffer - shut up. We are a great club, don't stand there and watch GH kill it by sending us into oblivion. Stand up and protest against what he's doing to us.

[paddy]

MOTM Lichaj. We needed Reo or Petrov in from the start really, even if they might not have lasted the whole game. I won my bet on correct score at 8/1 butthat's no consolation.

[Brumerican]

I wouldn't go as far as call other Villa fans morons but I agree that Houllier is killing us.

[Hanky]

Delph (a player with excellent potential, but NO match fitness - looked so off the pace all game).

This combined with the Pires substitution was absolute madness.

[chappy]

I must have been watching a different game to everyone else, I thought we actually put in an alright performance against a good side.

I thought Delph looked good, esp given he hasnt played in almost a year. I thought Heskey was very good whilst he was on and that Delf looked very lively when he came on. Albrighton was good again today, lots of comments all around the pub about how good he looks (I was the only Villa fan in there).

Nice to see Stan back too.

VDV is clearly a different class. What a great player, those two finishes were fantastic.

I wish Pires had nutted redknapp at the end.

[carew_villa]

Does anybody not think that Houllier didn't play Reo-Coker, Petrov, Clark and Bannan from the start because he's doing something called rotation. Something that MON could not do whatsoever. I think he'll these players against Man City and give Delph a rest for Chelsea.

[Hanky]

Well Petrov and Reo-Coker have been out a while and come back so they have not played (I would use the argument of match fitness but that didn't seem to apply to Delph). Clark and Bannan have not played since 11th December I believe.

[mattyburge]

i actually dont enjoy or get excited about watching us play!! normally ill get up at 2 or 3 in the morning to watch the games live and be so excited about it, now we are just boring dont even look like we are going to put one in!!!

[roonst83]

Does anybody not think that Houllier didn't play Reo-Coker, Petrov, Clark and Bannan from the start because he's doing something called rotation. Something that MON could not do whatsoever. I think he'll these players against Man City and give Delph a rest for Chelsea.

But MON could motivate and inspire his team to get back into games when we go behind. Im not sure why people keep using the fact that Spurs are a good team as just reason for not being able to get back into a game when we had and extra player! From what I can tell its almost irrelevant who our opponents were because we simply cannot break any team down - I fear for us in eahc and every game we play - against the good, the bad and the awful. We have no togetherness, unity or desire running through our team. Any rotation GH has adopted hasn't brought us results and we're on a slippery slope towards relegation. Not good enough. Sure MON left us just before the season started but we only lost Milner from that team yet we have sunk so far from top 4 chasers to relegation battlers its unreal. If Mourinho had taken over with the resources GH has we wouldn't be where we are - the appointment of GH is simply uninspiring and im not sure about anyone else but it feels like when we had GT and DOL at the helm.

As promising as our youngsters look, they are not experienced with a relegation scrap and games against West Ham and Wigan away will really test our mettle. Has GH got the ability to motivate us to win these games? Im not so sure. We're staring a scrap to the finish right in the face and im worried, especially with Citeh and Man City up next...both away.

Everyone keeps using the term "transitional" to describe our season, well that isn't a good enough excuse for GH to get us relegated, we only lost Milner from our squad that was pushing for 4th place right up until the end of last season!!

Something needs to change and fast before its too late.

[ONO]

Heard big Ron on the radio admit himself that unfortunately we are up shit creek. Broke my heart that.

[ONO]

No over re-action or self pity but we are genuinely shit and Lerner is to blame.

Never a truer word spoken.

[Gringo]

Does anybody not think that Houllier didn't play Reo-Coker, Petrov, Clark and Bannan from the start because he's doing something called rotation. Something that MON could not do whatsoever. I think he'll these players against Man City and give Delph a rest for Chelsea.

So we end up with nice rested players (and zero points probably), great.

[Maradona10]

Look MON has left and you know what apart from a freak result against Chelsea, our defence was not that bad towards the end of last season, this season they are shocking and only Houllier to blame, we cab sit here and say Spurs gave quality but they had 10 men!

How is Houllier to blame for a defence that MON signed that was in decline towards the end of last season and has been shit all season (yes, that includes the games pre-Houllier)?

Not to mention that dreadful newcastle result

Okay let's get something straight here, everyone keeps mentioning the big losses to try and enhance their point the defence is shit. The same defence that won at Old Trafford for the first time in 30 odd years, the same defence that had beat Chelsea, the same defence that held out at White Hart Lane. People keep saying the defence went shut but we had the 4th best defence? Which was due to a freak result at Chelsea. Let's take Arsenal, did you see a decline in their back 4 when Wenger took over, I'm on about Adams, Keown partnership. We have conceded the most from set pieces this season due to the managers incompetence of organising set piece training.