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Ratings and reactions: Villa 1-1 Stoke


limpid

Who was your man of the match?  

110 members have voted

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

    • Friedel
      11
    • L Young
      12
    • Dunne
      4
    • Collins
      1
    • Walker
      17
    • Downing
      4
    • A Young
      1
    • Petrov
      15
    • Reo-Coker
      1
    • Heskey
      1
    • Bent
      40
    • Albrighton (for Downing 67)
      0
    • Agbonlahor (for Heskey 79)
      3


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Bents goal was great, but I gave MOTM to Friedel, 2 brilliant saves in first half or we would have been out of this one before it started.

Stoke should be demoted regardless of the table for the reason that they deliberately prevent every match from becoming a actual football experience. What sport is it they are trying at?

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I don't mind a team playing to their strengths and I can fully understand why Stoke would sit back and rely on set pieces and Delap's throw-ins (he can really throw the ball that Delap, can't he?). What I can't stand is all the time wasting and holding on set pieces. So frustrating and tedious to watch.

Takes them about 30 seconds per set piece. When you factor in all the long throws against Bolton the FA Cup it had wasted over 4 minutes.

Collins totally had his shirt pulled in the box in the second half.

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quiet game, that showed how frustrating it is that after so many years of not having a creative CM and 20+ goal Striker, then having then loosing Milner, and now having Bent, if we had both, how good we could be. Got the ball out wide a lot, lots of balls in, not all great. but when that is our only attacking move, its easy to defend against.

We should swap A Young for Milner in the summer!

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Well, that was dull. We didn't show a lot of creativity today, and whilst Stoke were well organised we got through them with through balls once or twice and I think we could have beaten them reasonably easily on another day. Still, it's another point on the board I suppose in difficult circumstances.

Friedel - 6 - Had barely anything to do all afternoon and the little that was asked of him he coped with well. He had no chance for their goal.

Walker - 7 - Good game today, outplaying Etherington and obviously had the assist for our goal. Good for him too, after a couple of ropey displays.

Collins - 6 - A tough day for him, given Stoke's physicality. He did ok.

Dunne - 6 - See my rating for Collins pretty much.

L. Young - 6 - Some good moments and some poor moments. Defensively he was good but he doesn't offer a lot going forward when he plays left back.

Downing - 6 - I thought he was better than Ashley today, although that isn't saying much.

Reo-Coker - 6 - Typical Reo-Coker performance. I don't think Stoke's central midfield is particularly good but they are quite resilient and Reo did look up for that challenge.

Petrov - 6 - Good first half I thought, although I didn't notice him after 60 minutes. I feel we could have brought Makoun on for him the second half because we were clearly on top and he would have offered a different threat.

A. Young - 5 - Played today, did he? Someone should have told him that even if he moves to Man Utd he'll still have to play Stoke twice a season. Delivered one good corner and one good freekick but was mostly anonymous in open play and also had a few poor crosses.

Heskey - 5 - Poor really. I think he tried hard but Stoke dealt with him well.

Bent - 7 - Very good again I though, except for that one slip late on. The only player on our team who looked like scoring.

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Well that was..... thoroughly depressing. For the entire game Heskey, Downing and Ash followed defenders around the pitch ensuring they were marked the entire time. I know we are absolutely hopeless when it comes to ideas and movement but today really was painful viewing.

Ash should never take a set piece ever again.

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We should have played tippy tappy through the middle today. We were using the wings too much but they had them sussed. Reo_cocker was always in endless space but we never passed to him, Ash would have been better in the middle. Hate Stoke though vile team. You'd think we were safe but still need a couple of points from the next two games to be sure. Arsenal and Liverpool will smash us.

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Some thoughts:

-You can't judge the performance / quality of our football on today - Stoke's gameplan is unique, defensive and direct, which really does a lot to stop their opposition's fluidity. We aren't the first decent team to look dreadful against them. Yes, there are some very fine teams who can still beat them and beat them well - but we looked average in that department today. Need far more movement and creativity in midfield, more drive and energy - never was James Milner missed more than today.

-Individuals did ok, Collins and Dunne did fine really considering the pressure that Jones puts on them with every clearance, long throw etc.

-Albrighton brought some much needed energy, would like to see Gabby start next time out at home too.

-Luke Young, while doing ok, is all right foot and that slowed any possibly pacey build up down the left with his constant cutting inside. No real running at the defence from Young either.

-Bent was the reason we didn't lose this game 1-0. We created almost nothing in 90 minutes and you couldn't even call his goal a chance. It was out of completely nothing and, in that sense, it's a point gained.

-In the context of other results today (which looked dodgy when Wolves and Wigan were ahead!), it's just one of those where you have to look forward to the next game, where West Brom will play football and so will we!

To sum up everyone's thoughts.......

MEH.

Just MEH.

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I think today offered further evidence why it will be in our best interest to sell Ashley Young in the summer. Very poor delivery throughout, both from open play and from set-pieces, but more alarmingly was his complete lack of positional discipline. He was sent out to play wide and he simply didn't provide the outlet for the team that he was supposed to, continually drifting inside, and on a number of occasions in the second half Luke Young was running the entire left flank without any support at all. Whether Houllier's absence had anything to do with it or not, it felt as though he was essentially doing whatever he pleased. Too often this season it has seemed that he is playing for himself first and the team second.

He still works hard and he's still capable of turning a match but we are accomodating him too much. He looks stale and has done for a long time. We finally have a truly special goalscorer leading the line and we should be setting ourselves up to maximise this; instead, it still seems like Young is wrongly seen as the pivotal figure.

Of course, it should be noted that Stoke's cynical tactics are hard for everyone to play against (though this hasn't stopped every home team that they've encountered since Boxing Day from beating them) and his service to the club should - and will - be applauded. However, a change will do both him and us good.

Bent gets MOTM for a brilliant finish that got us our equaliser. Otherwise, 90 minutes to forget.

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Awful game. Stoke set out to ruin and their tactics won out over ours - which disappointingly never changed, despite limited success. I thought the game was crying out for someone like Pires to try and play through the middle. Crossing from deep just played into their hands. It worked once for Bent's goal, but that was the only one that even resulted in an effort on target that I can remember. Mostly it was just comfortably for Huth and co. to head everything away.

Bent MOTM for the goal. Though it could've been Friedel for 2 fine saves. No-one else much stood out. Downing was poor, Young had lot of the ball but didn't cause enough threat, Heskey was anonymous and CM pair just did a solid, uninspiring job. Defence wasn't too bad - lost Jones for the goal but had previously stood up quite well to a string of corners. Bear in mind this is the league's foremost experts in set-piece power-plays.

2nd half was the most disappointing. Stoke had given up on attacking by this point, but we never had anything to put them under pressure. All attacks just petered out. Gabby should've been on for Heskey much earlier and as I said I'd also have liked to have seen Pires. Albrighton was fairly lively but didn't offer anything different from what Young and Downing had been doing and it wasn't working with them.

Basically our style is not effective against a side who are happy to sit deep and defend crosses. It's something we need to address next season - perhaps we already have answers with likes of Makoun, Delph, Bannan.

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Stoke is a horrible team, absolute anti football and constant time wasting from the first whistle.

But the worst thing about the game IMO is McAllister's decision to take Stewart Downing off. Can't believe Houllier was pleased with that. Some players you just don't take off and for us Downing is such a player.

He's constantly our most threatening player and all though he wasn't doing anything special most of our attacks came through him like always.

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Gutted a villa player kicked the ball in the holte at the end and it came straight to me, instead of catching it and taking home a nice souveneir I punched it back on the pitch!! Arghhhhhhhh

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