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Ratings and Reactions: Villa 4-1 Blackburn


limpid

Who was your man of the match?  

163 members have voted

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

    • Friedel
      0
    • Dunne
      0
    • Clark
      1
    • Baker
      0
    • Walker
      7
    • Downing
      34
    • A Young
      53
    • Pirès
      48
    • Albrighton
      7
    • Reo-Coker
      9
    • Bent
      0
    • Delph (for Baker 36)
      3
    • Petrov (for Pires 70)
      1
    • Heskey (for Bent 83)
      0


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Just got in from a day on the lash.

Brad - 7 - Deflected goalnot his fault.Great save at 0-0

Walker - 8 - What a RB! cant defend as long as he has a hole in his arse, but goes forward like a man utd player..... LOVE HIM!

Baker - 6 - Shame about his injury

Clark - 7 - Like a rock

Dunne - 7 - Scares me. legend.

Albi - 7 - Brilliant

Downing - 8 - Brillianter

NRC - 7 - Rock

Pires - 8 - Where did that come from!!!

Young, A. -9- MOM, and im a critic, but he was worldclass today.

Bent - 5 - In the side to score goals........

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Completely disagree with the bad reviews Bent is getting today, young didnt get a pass to him properly all game really.. kept over hitting them and Bent got the blame. Guarantee that if Young hadn't scored 2wice he would get the blame for it.. as a team if young hadn't overhit those passes all the time it wouldve been 6,7,8-1 not 4-1.

He was in the right position everytime, could have easily scored 2wice at end of first half if it wasnt for Pederson and Robinson, was robbed both times and very unfortunate not to hve the ball fall to him. both times, other than those - for me atleast - Young gets the blame as he just could not give him the ball at the right pace, position and thoughts were perfect every single time, but the paces was always wrong. Had Young been better at his through balls today Bent would almost definitely have scored. 4 atleast brilliant chance just from overhit passes, 6 if we include those where he was unlucky

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A much better performance. We ran rings round a very poor Blackburn side.

Agree with most of the ratings given so far, except the Pires ones. He was OK - certainly his best game for us, but only because he's been so invisible up to now. Yes he had a couple of shots on goal, but he still goes missing for long periods, gets caught in possession, and looks wearied from the start.

And Ashley Young's set pieces... hmm.

Oh well, that didn't matter today because we pressed and got the goals. Only a fluke goal stopped us getting a clean sheet.

EDIT: Agreed about Bent. I thought he got into excellent positions again and again, but was let down by overhit passes. He did fluff a one-on-one with the keeper, though.

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The reason he swapped both albrighton and downing onto their "wrong" flanks is that both were being played into dead ends by their full backs and not getting crosses in. While it can be frustrating when it doesn't work, arguably Downing is a greater goal threat cutting in from the right and Albrighton's crossing is far more dangerous coming in from the edge of the square, as two of our goals today demonstrated - so I think Houllier got it right today.

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Can we all now please agree that Downing is an exceptional player on his day, who we're lucky to have playing for us?

(And get off his back a little? A song? Or is that asking too much?)

Had to watch the game on a stream, but as far as I could see Downing was 10/10, and he's nearly always a 7 or above.

Pires was very good, but I can't help thinking the people who say he was MOTM are doing so just out of sheer surprise at seeing him play well.

Agree that Bent would have scored a couple but for Ashley Young overhitting passes. Then again another player might not even have made those passes in the first place. Hope AY ditches the snood for good (as we know he should).

And so good to see Albrighton doing well.

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The thing that helped was having defenders who were not prepared to launch it, they played it patiently . As for Bent he's a nightmare for defenders to deal with constantly moving, running between the lines which helps create space for the 3 behind him.

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Just my luck, on holiday so I miss Villa scoring 4 goals at VP. Worse still I had planned to be back on Saturday morning to get to the game. Duh!!

A lot of people posting on here are saying Blackburn played poorly so presumably that's why we won so well. I think that is missing the point completely. Villa played very very well and buried a poor Blackburn side like any good side should have done. Added to that how many times in recent seasons have we seen poor sides come to VP and Villa not break them down and they leave with at least a point?

A much needed result that showed the strength of the squad we have and are building.

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Great stuff in the second half after Rovers had to open it up.

BUT...the game only opened up because a boneheaded defender gifted us a penalty. Before that I think Blackburn clearly recognized what so many teams have this season:

1. Pack the midfield and park the bus and Villa aren't much of a threat to create anything in the final third.

2. Villa are unlikely to keep a clean sheet so you just might sneak a win with a bit of luck or one brilliant attack or counter.

They were actually pretty successful at it in the 1st half, save a few terrible individual errors. If Blackburn hadn't been the worst side we faced this season since West Ham it could well have turned out very different. As it was, they were so poor it's impossible to know if our defence could have kept a real team from scoring before us. I was afraid it was going to pay off even for them when I saw Jones closing in on Freidel's goal. Had he put that chance away it would have been a completely different 2nd half.

The second half really did show what the lads can do when a game is more open and it was a pleasure to watch. I agree with those who say Bent is being slated unfairly. He made great runs and the best service he got came from Pedersen. I think the others just need to get used to having a teammate in position to score.

And please, do not let Ash take any more set pieces. Can't get the ball beyond the first defender to save his life (except when he sends a free kick into the top row).

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I disagree, the goal was coming. What surprised me is we hit quickly afterwards TWICE. At 3-1 I thought , oh dear, please don't do this Villa, and we hit back half a minute later. What killed the game off was that brilliant counter by Ash who laid off the ball beautifully to DJ who sprinted 40 yards and buried it. The only reasons that game finished only 4-1 was a) Robinson who was outstanding for the first half b ) the referee who denied us what I thought we three clear penalties first half and c) ashs heavy slide rule passes. I think he still thinks Gabby is in front of him. Bent isn't as fast!

Special mention to Delph, to play in an alien position for that long and to be excellent is a very very good job. Also people saying Walker cannot defend, I cannot remember one defensive error from him yesterday. In fact he made a brilliant defensive challenge at one point.

No bad performers yesterday.

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I thought Bent's movement was very good, but it was his first touch not the pace of the passes that lead to him not being able to control through balls during the game. As a footballer, he's dog average, as a scorer of goals he's absolutely top drawer - I can live with that.

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While Kalinic was always going to score against us what I really likes was that we didn't sit back after scoring the first one, even two. It has been a long time since we have stepped on the opposition's throat like we did yesterday.

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I thought Bent's movement was very good, but it was his first touch not the pace of the passes that lead to him not being able to control through balls during the game. As a footballer, he's dog average, as a scorer of goals he's absolutely top drawer - I can live with that.

Couldn't disagree more, was sat practically in line with him second half and atleast 3 or 4 times he really had to stretch out a leg to try and get hold of the ball, he quite simply could not get a first touch for some of those passes.

Not dissing either player but I think if the pace of the passes was better we'd have been 3-0 up a lot sooner and been somehwere near 6-1

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Watch him control it when it's fed up to him, it bounces off him more than Gabby! If you offer nothing but goals, you have to score a lot. He's shown he can in the past, just needs to continue his good start for us.

He was poor yesterday, inexcusable for him to fluff that one at the end of the first half. What the hell was he doing turning back into a defender?

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While Kalinic was always going to score against us what I really likes was that we didn't sit back after scoring the first one, even two. It has been a long time since we have stepped on the opposition's throat like we did yesterday.

Said this many times yesterday, under MON we would have parked the bus and started hoofing it wildly up-field after going 1-0 up.

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Blackburn were a tad lucky as it could have easily been more than 4-1. I think 6-0 or so would have been a more accurate depiction of how the match went and it wouldn't be flattering us!

The ref was blind first half and for Darren Bent supposedly does nothing but score he really should have gotten at least 1. Still, he would have gotten an assist by winning a penalty if not for the ref.

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Match of the Day highlights of the game.

Hansen was criticising Blackburn for having a soft underbelly, which is probably valid as they were poor yesterday. He had a right pop at the defender (Grant Hanley, who is 19 years old) over the goal.

t0bI4.jpg

He states that Hanley should have closed down Downing (highlighted in claret) more quickly than he did, as Downing was the player who eventually scores. They freeze the video here, just as Ashley Young (highlighted yellow) has been taken out.

I'm not sure what Hanley could have done that he didnt do here. The only way this wasnt going to be a goal is if the referee blows for the foul, if Hanley closes down Stuart Downing, who isnt his man, then Downing passes the ball to Bent (highlighted green) and its 3-0. He cant leave Bent, can he? Its down to the other defenders chasing Downing to win the race for the ball.

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