sonic_bouma Posted August 13, 2011 Share Posted August 13, 2011 A committed bunch of chaps trying hard. Which is an improvement on the majority of last season, so onwards and upwards. yeah thats a fair point.... we didnt see this typw of performance hardly last year... everyone pulling in the same direction finally is a real positive... we just need our flair back! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrackpotForeigner Posted August 13, 2011 Share Posted August 13, 2011 You can't give someone a turd and bread and expect them to serve up anything other than a shit sandwich. Just a slica bread for me please. Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dudevillaisnice Posted August 13, 2011 Share Posted August 13, 2011 What's with the "bluenose" stuff? they are right, we lacked any sort of creativity to create chances.. and 1 attempt on target is embarassing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryanvilla_1994 Posted August 13, 2011 Share Posted August 13, 2011 A committed bunch of chaps trying hard. Which is an improvement on the majority of last season, so onwards and upwards. Very true Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallam Posted August 13, 2011 Share Posted August 13, 2011 Point at Fulham at Birmingham looking very poor against a terrible Cov side, pleasant evening coming up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macandally Posted August 13, 2011 Share Posted August 13, 2011 Thought it was a very unambitious performance against a mid table side, it looks like we have decided that Fulham and the like is our level and we dont want to lose to those around us. Given - 8/10 - Exactly as expected, excellent shot stopper but means we HAVE to play Dunne/Collins as he will not come for crosses. Warnock - 7/10 - Had a good game with some good vision and passing. Had to use the long ball to often due to no shorter option Dunne - 7/10 - Good game, did his job. Collins - 6/10 - Too Hollywood, goes diving in where he doesnt need to and puts pressure on rest of defence. Young - 7/10 - Good going forward without compromising his defensive duties. Agbonlahor - 6/10 - Out of position and wasted. Square peg in round hole springs to mind. Petrov - 6/10 - OK when we controlled posession, disappeared when we didnt. Needs replacing ASAP. Delph - 7/10 - Playmaker who could be the complete midfielder, instead he is shackled due to Petrovs inadequacies. NZogbia - 6/10 - Clearly not match fit, some promising crosses but at moment looks like small fish in big pond. Heskey - 6/10 - Arial prescence who tracks back. Needs replacing as not what we need. Bent - 5/10 - His movement is too good for our team. That is a shocking indictment. Needs providers. Gonna be a long season and I have to ask what McLeish has been up to over pre season. Formation is poor, conditioning looked poor, game plan looked poor, team looks poor and most importantly, showed no desire to go the extra yard to win the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaAlex Posted August 13, 2011 Share Posted August 13, 2011 What's with the "bluenose" stuff? they are right, we lacked any sort of creativity to create chances.. and 1 attempt on target is embarassing. What did you expect today btw? We're not Real Madrid. Did you not think a draw was a good result? The performance doesn't matter if it improves next week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andym Posted August 13, 2011 Share Posted August 13, 2011 performance wasnt amazing but was nowhere near as bad as some are saying. we were away to a team who are probably fitter and more match sharp than us. we were better first half, they were better 2nd half. i thought we attempted to at least play it on the floor into feet, as well as looking to quickly move it on the break. we need to mix it up like this. and yes we went long ball at times, as all teams do, but people saying it was all just hoof, hoof hoof cannot have watched the game. every player also showed good commitment which was missing last season given had to make some good saves, but we had good chances. just because we didnt test the keeper from them doesnt mean they were not great chances to score. heskey and collins both had free headers 8 yards out which they both messed up. both should have been at least on target. heskey had a chance in the 2nd half, 18 yards out in the middle of the goal, and chose to pass it out wide. nzogbia and albrighton both had excellent setups to shoot from - on their stronger foot, no pressure from defenders and time to set themselves. both were put wide when again, they should have at least been on target. not much the manager can do when individual players mess up infront of goal. i thought delph was good, actually moves forward with the ball and off the ball moves into a position to get it. i like petrov, but he takes far too long on the ball and plays it too safe all the time. he also doesnt move enough to give other players options. watch how many times he goes and stands next to opposition players. heskey is a strange player. in terms of workrate and playing with his back to goal he is very very good. but as soon as he is facing goal and god forbid has to shoot, its like a completely different player. disapointingly the defence and in particular dunne once again couldnt go 1 game without completely stupid, needless fouls. they also got caught out of position too often. collins and warnock need to realise they have nowhere near the ability to play the long passes they think they can. the amount of times collins just smashes it out of play is infuriating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JulieB Posted August 13, 2011 Share Posted August 13, 2011 Villa fans were phenomenal again today. Only heard Fulham singing once. Villa fans were singing their heads off all afternoon. Fabulous support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dudevillaisnice Posted August 13, 2011 Share Posted August 13, 2011 What's with the "bluenose" stuff? they are right, we lacked any sort of creativity to create chances.. and 1 attempt on target is embarassing. What did you expect today btw? We're not Real Madrid. Did you not think a draw was a good result? The performance doesn't matter if it improves next week. I expected more chances to be created atleast.. I expected us to pass it around instead of Collins hoofing it up.. I'm happy with the point (even though I might not sound like it) but that was painful to watch at times. I expected Petrov to be subbed off earlier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted August 13, 2011 Share Posted August 13, 2011 a point more than expected Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrackpotForeigner Posted August 13, 2011 Share Posted August 13, 2011 What's with the "bluenose" stuff? they are right, we lacked any sort of creativity to create chances.. and 1 attempt on target is embarassing. At least one of them is a nose as far as I can see, and I'm glad someone has the guts to out him. Edit: Correction, they ARE both noses, or at least such miserable sods as makes no difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaAlex Posted August 13, 2011 Share Posted August 13, 2011 What's with the "bluenose" stuff? they are right, we lacked any sort of creativity to create chances.. and 1 attempt on target is embarassing. What did you expect today btw? We're not Real Madrid. Did you not think a draw was a good result? The performance doesn't matter if it improves next week. I expected more chances to be created atleast.. I expected us to pass it around instead of Collins hoofing it up.. I'm happy with the point (even though I might not sound like it) but that was painful to watch at times. I expected Petrov to be subbed off earlier. Agreed about the hoofing but apart from the defenders we seemed to pass it about. Overall the game was rather drab but we still had chances. Warnocks cross was superbly gathered by Schwarzer else Bent would have tapped in. Petrov nearly scored. Collins had a header just wide. Heskey had two half chances. Albrighton just missed the post. Of course if we're at home we need to create a lot more than that though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVFC-Prideofbrum Posted August 13, 2011 Share Posted August 13, 2011 Only found out the result after the game and my natural reaction was a pumped fist, I was quite surprised I did it but it happened which says to me, a point is a very good result against a good fulham side who are in much better shape. Was surprised Makoun didn't start but nice to see Delph in there and apparently doing okay from reading comments on here. Little surprise about the apparent game itself, lack of chances etc...but as I didn't watch it, I'm not too bothered, more happy about a strong result. Now onto two very winnable games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cerberus Posted August 13, 2011 Share Posted August 13, 2011 When I saw the starting 11 I thought we were in for a loss for sure, so I was pleasantly surprised...particularly with the performance in the 1st half. I thought we held the ball very well. Yes, we're lacking service but there was one Bent/Zog linkup which may be a foretelling of a developing partnership...let's hope. I thought Ian Darke mentioned Makoun being unavailable due to an injury? Has anybody heard anything about that? Certainly needed some spark in the midfield in the 2nd half as Petrov's legs gave out, and as Delph, IMO, lost the thread of the game. I agree Ireland would have been better...anything to get it going. Thought Albrighton brought some energy and just missed on the outside post. Frankly, I think all this about McLeish going overly defensive and just hoofing is nonsense. He may not have the personnel right yet, but I thought we showed an attacking willingness throughout, and was happy we were still making some attempt to win in the last 10 minutes, when we could have just packed in for the point. I thought our whole team played heroic defense today, and actually finished the damn game. One thing that used to kill me under MoN was that no result ever seemed safe at the end of games...we were constantly giving away points at the end of matches. I saw no flagging effort today and thought the team worked like fiends. Yes, we need more creativity in the midfield and service for Bent. Hopefully it will come as the team works together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coda Posted August 13, 2011 Share Posted August 13, 2011 Predicted 0 - 0, braaap! Would've liked to see wee Barry for Petrov in the second half. A game McLeish could not afford to lose so I'm not despondant. The formation of the front four is going to cause problems all season. Given is an outstanding goalkeeper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shambles Posted August 13, 2011 Share Posted August 13, 2011 Quite happy with the point. First away clean sheet in over a year against a Fulham side who are well ahead of us match-fitness wise. Looking forward to Blackburn now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pilchard Posted August 13, 2011 Share Posted August 13, 2011 Much better than I expected, but worse than I hoped for. I hope that work out how to create chances though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dchitz Posted August 13, 2011 Share Posted August 13, 2011 When I saw the starting 11 I thought we were in for a loss for sure, so I was pleasantly surprised...particularly with the performance in the 1st half. I thought we held the ball very well. Yes, we're lacking service but there was one Bent/Zog linkup which may be a foretelling of a developing partnership...let's hope. I thought Ian Darke mentioned Makoun being unavailable due to an injury? Has anybody heard anything about that? Certainly needed some spark in the midfield in the 2nd half as Petrov's legs gave out, and as Delph, IMO, lost the thread of the game. I agree Ireland would have been better...anything to get it going. Thought Albrighton brought some energy and just missed on the outside post. Frankly, I think all this about McLeish going overly defensive and just hoofig is nonsense. He may not have the personnel right yet, but I thought we showed an attacking willingness throughout, and was happy we were still making some attempt to win in the last 10 minutes, when we could have just packed in for the point. I thought our whole team played heroic defense today, and actually finished the damn game. One thing that used to kill me under MoN was that no result ever seemed safe at the end of games...we were constantly giving away points at the end of matches. I saw no flagging effort today and thought the team worked like fiends. Yes, we need more creativity in the midfield and service for Bent. Hopefully it will come as the team works together. Completely agree, fact of the matter is delph was non existent in the second half and petrov was knackered after 40 mins, I wonder if delph had been a regular last year would everyone been that impressed with his performance. That said I would of liked to of seen warnock get forward a bit more and thought gabby really had lost interest in the second half, bent had no support there was one stage when we had a relatively slow build up and even with this there was no one on the pen spot when bent got to the byline, heskey needs to be looking at himself here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oaks Posted August 13, 2011 Share Posted August 13, 2011 Just got back in. I thought it was a good result against a team who have played 4 competitive games already. The first half i thought we were very good. Keeping the ball and pretty much dominating proceedings. I was very aware Fulhams fitness and sharpness would probably be the key in the second half, and that is what happened. McLeish has come into a club who had a poor season last season. Its ALWAYS the managers first job to make a team solid and go on from there. We looked pretty solid from front to back, without creating much(hey we just lost our 2 most creative players and N'Zog isn't yet 100% fit) I think this was a draw where the positives out way the negatives. Pluses Clean sheet. Given. Collins. Delph. Negatives. Not much created. To much long ball(but not as much as some has said i thought it was pretty mixed) Warnock(but he was better than last season) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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