Ratings and reactions: Wolves 2-3 Villa

[parisvilla]

Fair play to Warnock, seemed determined and focused when he came on and really ended their threat down the right hand side.

Bent looks as though he might have lost a couple of pounds over the last two or three weeks and seems a lot sharper as a result.

Important win.

[kurtsimonw]

Warnock was superb when he came on. The first 5 mins showed a real strength of character to me, he wasn't just scared shitless or lacking belief. He was throwing himself in at things, fairly, and winning them. I've been a critic of his lately, but fair play to him.

Would like to see Gabby rested/dropped next game. Would be interesting to see how Bent/Keane/Albrighton/Ireland would do together, far more intelligent footballers than Gabby.

[Ponky]

He could have brought bannan on for Gabby at the half but choose to bring in Warnock and to me that means credit to the manager because Warnock nullified their main attacking threat and I also think Clark to midfield was a massive difference because after Frimpong went off I thought Clark was the best midfielder on the park.

[privateer]

Marc also did well and seemed to be spurred on by the booing, which is a good sign.

I noticed that as well, he showed some stones there.

[holtelower]

Surprised by mom result. I mean I know Keanes two wonder goals won it but for an overall performance it bought Gardner was superb. If I am being ultra harsh he was done like a kipper for the first goal but that was his only mistake all game, very impressed.

The match, I crapped myself for ninety minutes !. Very open from two sides that knew it was win at all costs. Personally, I'll take that win lose or draw this season, we will get nough points to be comfortable n give the kids half a season to mature good result after poor first half, b minus.

[CI]

Best derby since the 5-1

Absolute classic

Loving the kids starting for us, Keanes 2nd wow

Still worrying the goals conceded, Kightly went through too easily and another corner, two unchallenged headers ?

[Morpheus]

Don't really care how we got the three points, as long as we got them. Creeping ever closer to the 40 point mark which will hopefully keep us up and then in the summer a massive cull at Villa Park with better players proud to wear the shirt replacing those that have bled the club dry.

[Nigel]

Yeah spot on The Steve - I forgot to say Warnock takes a huge amount of unsung credit for shackling Kightly down the LH side when he came on.

He was all over us first half.

Agreed, he has taken some stick recently so its only fair to highlight the positive side of his game too.

Credit must also go to our manager for the change too, if it had not worked out he would have been slaughtered!

bollocks does mcleish take credit, if gabby had not being feeling unwell at half time the exact same team would have come out.

credit goes to gabby for being poorly.

mcleish needs to to take the blame for a suicidal satrting line up, he totally unbalanced the team with having a centre forward on the left wing again and then to totally ruin the left hand side he drops warnock and plays a very slow centre half in clark against one of the fastest wingers in the premiership. yet again he picked hutton over cuellar and hutton was beaten every time by jarvis but luckily for us collins got his head on almost everything.

mcleish cost us this game from the begining and just got lucky as gabby was ill at half time and then karl henry decided to be a cock.

the thing that annoys me as well is that if gabby was ill last night and not feeling great then what was the point in starting him in the first place.

also with a few mins left when we knew wolves would be pumping balls in the box he brings on the smallest man in the world barry bannan

mcleish is tactically useless and I have no idea what goes through his mind

Jesus, what would you be like if we had lost!

He changed to game with a substitution and tactical reshuffle and you are still trying to find a stick to beat him with. Be fair to the bloke.

it was forced on him. he would have put the same 11 out if gabby was not ill

How do you know?

The answer is you dont.

[AValon]

Thought Albrighton worked his socks off yesterday, even if his final touch is still lacking. It had the desired effect of pulling Wolves all over the place, so his contribution was definitely worth a mention.

Bent looked a lot more mobile and interested, which may or may not have been due to Keane and I really thought he might get his 100 up. And Keane himself covered himself in glory with a couple of top drawer strikes which probably paid for his loan deal in one fell swoop. Even Warnock has to take credit for snuffing out the threat down their right.

But for MOTM I go for young Gardner. Totally unfazed, commanding where he needed to be and got himself in positions to score a couple of times. The boy will be some player for us, if we can keep him, because he will be hot property before too long.

[morgoth]

McLeish OUT

1st half was disaster and what a fool line up the team with Clark and Gardner in the line against Kightly.

Warnock saved the game, because he stooped Kightly and Clark in midfield was much much better.

Keane was poor most fo the game but he can shoot and he is MotM. Weimann and Albrighton must learn how to shoot from our 20.

[blandy]

Just a thought, Warnock playing like a drain recently, because it seemed to him, perhaps that his place was guaranteed, he gets dropped and suddenly pulls out an extra 30% to his game. More ofthat kind of management is needed. No-one should be in the position where they think they are automatic picks and so can just stroll about.

[Harry]

I have to say at half time I thought we were dead and buried and we would concede a couple more in the second half. But fair play to both the players and the manager, for that matter, we ground out a result.

Its makes me laugh though some posters criticising the performance. We won and that is all that matters in the short term. I thought we played really well against Arsenal in December but we lost. Its all about results at the moment.

As for MOTM it has to be Keane, he still knows where the goal is and I suspect will prove to be well worth the £400k it is costing us.

[CI]

Can't knock McLeish, he shuffled the pack several times, went with a good line up, dropped Warnock which was the correct call & whatever he said at HT it worked

[KHV]

Yeah spot on The Steve - I forgot to say Warnock takes a huge amount of unsung credit for shackling Kightly down the LH side when he came on.

He was all over us first half.

Agreed, he has taken some stick recently so its only fair to highlight the positive side of his game too.

Credit must also go to our manager for the change too, if it had not worked out he would have been slaughtered!

bollocks does mcleish take credit, if gabby had not being feeling unwell at half time the exact same team would have come out.

credit goes to gabby for being poorly.

mcleish needs to to take the blame for a suicidal satrting line up, he totally unbalanced the team with having a centre forward on the left wing again and then to totally ruin the left hand side he drops warnock and plays a very slow centre half in clark against one of the fastest wingers in the premiership. yet again he picked hutton over cuellar and hutton was beaten every time by jarvis but luckily for us collins got his head on almost everything.

mcleish cost us this game from the begining and just got lucky as gabby was ill at half time and then karl henry decided to be a cock.

the thing that annoys me as well is that if gabby was ill last night and not feeling great then what was the point in starting him in the first place.

also with a few mins left when we knew wolves would be pumping balls in the box he brings on the smallest man in the world barry bannan

mcleish is tactically useless and I have no idea what goes through his mind

Jesus, what would you be like if we had lost!

He changed to game with a substitution and tactical reshuffle and you are still trying to find a stick to beat him with. Be fair to the bloke.

it was forced on him. he would have put the same 11 out if gabby was not ill

How do you know?

The answer is you dont.

the answer is gabby was too ill to play the 2nd half, therefore he had to make a change

[El_Hierro]

I was one of those critical on the match thread and still am. Lets make no bones about it, we were lucky today. Two quality strikes from outside the box and the sending off changed the game in our favour but dont let that paper over the cracks.

First half we started well but as soon as Wolves woke up we were overpowered in the middle. We were lucky to not be 3 or 4 down at half time and if we played any decent side and gave them that much ground and possession, we would have been.

Second half we started brightly, bear in mind we had hardly seen keane link a pass for 50 minutes when he popped up to score with a quality strike. We then went on the offensive a little but far to readily conceded ground when Wolves had possession. Dunne and Collins seem to drop to the edge of their own box at the first signs of danger and that leaves a huge gap between front and back for the midfield to cover.

After the sending off I was livid. Instead of seeing that as a trigger to go and win the game, we slowed the pace of the game right down. Unbelieveable, I couldnt believe it. I think I said in the match thread, if you dont try and win a game you are waiting to lose it. I was desperate for some attacking intent via a substitution but none came. Then, again, another quality strike from Keane put us ahead.

Happy days, now we just have to see out the game. What does McLeish do, he brings off Petrovs legs (Gardener) and brings on Bannan who is not known for his physical presence and defensive ability. It was asking for trouble and we subsequently got it for the last 9-10 minutes as we were under the cosh.

I am not trying to piss on anyones bonfire, but as much as I welcome the win, I cant help thinking its despite McLeish rather than because of. We are playing like a team in mid to low table, the way we are set up, our attitude to games, mentally we have lost the desire and confidence to win games and buying one or two players does not bring that back.

Some decent points, but all in all quite an inaccurate and negative summary of the game if you ask me.

First of all we had started taking over the game long before the sending off. The injury to Frimpong certainly helped, but we started the second half brightly, started to string some passes together, creating some half chances, the Ward/Hennessey/Gardner incident, the Albrighton run and shot. Whatever McLeish said to the lads at half-time it seemed to work.

Moving on towards the end, in my opinion bringing on Bannan was EXACTLY the right thing to do knowing Wolves would throw everything forward hoping to get the equaliser.

Imagine us bringing on another defender, we'd be almost certain to drop deeper and invite them into our box. Now THAT would really have been asking for trouble, especially for a team like ourselves who, as history has shown us several times, simply don't do "seeing out games" very well, it's not our style. Can you imagine the uproar on this site if we'd brought on Cuellar and they'd equalised because we'd been sitting to deep. McLeish would have been lambasted for such a negative change when we were 11 men against 10 and Wolves was there for the taking on the counter-attack. And I think I know who'd been first in line to criticise.

Having a player like Bannan, who can be very creative on the counter, able to find the right pass to finish the game off. In fact we came pretty close a coupler of times in the dying minutes.

Anyway, regardless of who came on (I may be interpreting this one wrong, and I'm sorry if I do), but when you make a point about bringing off Gardner (referring to 'Petrov's legs' which, to me at least, is a clear hint that you think it was the wrong player to take off), who'd been down with a cramp just minutes before, it seems you're desperately searching for sticks to beat the manager with.

[El_Hierro]

Yeah spot on The Steve - I forgot to say Warnock takes a huge amount of unsung credit for shackling Kightly down the LH side when he came on.

He was all over us first half.

Agreed, he has taken some stick recently so its only fair to highlight the positive side of his game too.

Credit must also go to our manager for the change too, if it had not worked out he would have been slaughtered!

bollocks does mcleish take credit, if gabby had not being feeling unwell at half time the exact same team would have come out.

credit goes to gabby for being poorly.

mcleish needs to to take the blame for a suicidal satrting line up, he totally unbalanced the team with having a centre forward on the left wing again and then to totally ruin the left hand side he drops warnock and plays a very slow centre half in clark against one of the fastest wingers in the premiership. yet again he picked hutton over cuellar and hutton was beaten every time by jarvis but luckily for us collins got his head on almost everything.

mcleish cost us this game from the begining and just got lucky as gabby was ill at half time and then karl henry decided to be a cock.

the thing that annoys me as well is that if gabby was ill last night and not feeling great then what was the point in starting him in the first place.

also with a few mins left when we knew wolves would be pumping balls in the box he brings on the smallest man in the world barry bannan

mcleish is tactically useless and I have no idea what goes through his mind

Jesus, what would you be like if we had lost!

He changed to game with a substitution and tactical reshuffle and you are still trying to find a stick to beat him with. Be fair to the bloke.

it was forced on him. he would have put the same 11 out if gabby was not ill

How do you know?

The answer is you dont.

the answer is gabby was too ill to play the 2nd half, therefore he had to make a change

And if Gabby hadn't been ill, why do you think he wouldn't have changed things around anyway as Clark at left back simply didn't work. Maybe he wouldn't have taken off Gabby (who probably would have played better without the illness), but how do you know he wouldn't have brought on Warnock for Clark as Clark was poor, or for Albrighton who had a poor first half, moving Clark to centre mid and Gardner to Albrighton's position.

How do you know?

Anyway, Gabby off might have been forced, but moving Clark to centre mid and bringing on Warnock certainly wasn't forced as he could easily have gone with several other possible options from the bench we had, Bannan for Gabby in a straight swap being one of them.

The key was not taking off Gabby, it was moving Clark away from the left back and into centre mid, where he was very good.

Warnock's introduction was a huge contribution to us turning it around, and Clark was the best midfielder on the pitch in the second half.

Good decisions all round. Credit where it's due.

[Laivasse]

And if Gabby hadn't been ill, why do you think he wouldn't have changed things around anyway as Clark at left back simply didn't work.

I think it's a fair guess. McLeish has failed to make HT changes in situations where we needed them even more than yesterday. In fact I can't recall a tactical HT change he's ever made for us, so it's my opinion also that his hand was forced. He's waited until the 80-85th minute to make (wrong) changes in games we've sorely needed subs before.

Warnock on was a good thing, but Eck didn't balance up Gabby's loss in any way. The second half was more even than some here are admitting. Keane's goals were unexpected blessings, the kind of get out jail cards we used to get occasionally from eg. Sidwell. I'm massively grateful for them, because without them it didn't look like we had what it took to equalise, let alone win.

[briny_ear]

I'm always happiest when the negative posting on here is of the "we won but we were crap" variety. I can live with that.

The reality is that we fought and won a really tough battle and should celebrate that.

I've wanted to see Robbie Keane in a Villa shirt for a long time now. It's very nearly too late in his career now but he made a fantastic first impact and was easily MOTM.

[villanfromluton]

Hopefully being dropped will be the kick up the backside that Warnock needs

[barry'sboots]

Lots of humble pie being eaten tonight the match thread was going MENTAL at Mcleish for subbing Warnock for Gabby.

In reality we were much better without Gabby.

No. In reality we were much better with a defensive CM'er! Stupid Eck went in with a CM pairing of Stan - who can't play in a two - and a young Gardner and they got owned first half.

By re-arranging the team he just did what any decent manager would have done from the off - gave the side some much needed balance. And he only did it because Gabby didn't feel well as I understand it!