Rating and Reactions: Villa 0-0 Stoke

[villa_shere]

Stoke were in fine form coming into this game, always was going to be difficult to win this one. Thought they would get their chances from set pieces but we delt with them well. Good to see another clean sheet for our young defence.

Stoke zapped the life out of that game, not much could be done to break them down and iwouldnt blame Lambert for any tactical wrong doings. Only thing which could have been changed is Bannans inclusion into the starting XI.

The irony of watching the highlights on 101 greatgoals too!

[CI]

Benteke had the only real clear chances, one was blocked by Shawcross and more disappointingly the 2nd was a very poor weak place when he should have put his laces through the ball. That was a clear chance one on one from about 12 yards and he really should be burying those.

[rjw63]

Dire, totally dire. Stoke are terrible, they are a disgrace to football. Dirty rough house talentless pricks..

This.

can't believe it took that ref so **** long to get the cards out. Huth the squarehead and Jones the jizz should have been off.

Defence were excellent.

Ireland and Bent were a waste of time coming off the bench.

New signings needed desperately

[Ghost]

This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. I'll leave you to decide who is who.

... Also, Stoke are dicks.

[CI]

I'd like to hear post match thoughts from the posters who were predicting comfortable 3, maybe 4-0 home win.

[VillaCas]

how so? the system change and the subs did kill the momentum. Even the commentary team said the same thing. it went flat

Ahhh....You don't attend the game and you're making your informed and incisive comments on the basis of the commentary! That figures. I can now make sense of the absolute garbage you've been spouting all year

[VillaCas]

I'd like to hear post match thoughts from the posters who were predicting comfortable 3, maybe 4-0 home win.

I thought we would win but never predicted 3 or 4-0....but of course that's how football works, you can be the better team and deserve to win but not always do so.

I'm happy to extend our unbeaten run and continue our progression. A few more siginings in January and we can start looking up the table

Well done Lambert and his young team

[rjw63]

Yeah the 6% better pass rate makes all the difference.

Westwood had another great game and was one of our best players but Bannan still had a good, solid game.

Villa fans always seem to find the need to have a scapegoat, and Bannan is currently filling that role for a lot of people who attend the game.

I was astounded when people stood up and cheered when he got subbed, unreal.

[JulieB]

Cancelled each other out both sides playing same system, but Stoke's "anti-football" doesn't make any better viewing - awful!

Least we won the football passing battle & at times made them look static and ordinary, which playing the supposed "in form" team in the league ain't bad going IMHO.

Ashley Westwood shaded MOTM for me over Mattie Lowton, who is seeing a new freedom under 3-5-2 system to bomb forward.

Be interesting to see what Joe Bennett does under this system too, when he can play.

Definite progress and you can see a plan coming together under Lambert - just MF hasn't caught on that if you're going to score goals you need to get in the mix guys!

ie perhaps the reason why we were after Dempsey, as someone tweeted. Oh for another box to box Ian Taylor!

[Mantis]

I'd like to hear post match thoughts from the posters who were predicting comfortable 3, maybe 4-0 home win.

I only recall one person saying that, and even then it was probably a joke.

I'd like to hear post match thoughts from the posters who were predicting a comfortable win for Stoke.

[CI]

Well I predicted a draw and last on MOTD so pretty much spot on.

[Mantis]

Congratulations.

[Ulver]

Guzan 6 pretty much had nothing to do like their keeper

Lowton 6 didnt really do the wing back role

Lichaj 5 ditto

Clark 7 excellent

Baker 7 excellent

Herd 6 very good

Westwood 8 excellent

Bannan 7 very good in the main

Holman 5 poor. all the effort in the world but let down by lack of quality with the ball and positional sense

Benteke 6 not a great performance from the big man, very slack i thought

Gabby 6 typical Gabby, ran about but didn't add much to the game

Subs :

Ireland 4 terrible, lost ball numerous times

Bent ? hard to give a mark as we simply didn't use him

Delph 4 just can't see it. he must drive his car in reverse

Lambert 4. playing Stoke at home and not testing their keeper is not what I pay good money to watch. should've kept Gabby on at the expense of a defender and gone 4-3-3 and tried to win it

PS : I predicted a 0-0 snoozefest

[tinker]

No runners and no through balls. Maybe its down to the fact we havent played togethor for very long, hopefully we will start to take chances in this area of the field soon. You could see Bannan looking for the through ball but with no runners it was pointless, far to many passes going sideways with no forward options. Pressures going to be on us over Xmas now. UTV

[magnkarl]

Stoke are an absolute pile of excrement, how can a manager be proud of fielding a rugby team that has no technical ability? They were lucky to not have 6-7 yellow cards, and the refs need to stop giving them special treatment for their shitty physical ways. Jones litterally jumped onto our keeper, and Huth showed studs and came off the ground against Westwood. What a dick. MoM for me was Baker, handled Stoke easily considering dead balls are all they can do.

[mjmooney]

Villa fans always seem to find the need to have a scapegoat, and Bannan is currently filling that role for a lot of people who attend the game.

I was astounded when people stood up and cheered when he got subbed, unreal.

Well said, Rob, 100% agreed.

[LockStockVilla]

Villa fans always seem to find the need to have a scapegoat, and Bannan is currently filling that role for a lot of people who attend the game.

I was astounded when people stood up and cheered when he got subbed, unreal.

Spot on. Apparently people do not realize sometimes that football is actually a team game requiring 11 people. Apparently if Villa do not score goals, the fault lies with Barry Bannan though. Except he put in a decent shift yesterday. If I remember correctly one of our best chances came from a diagonal ball he played to Benteke who nodded it down for somebody, but the shot was blocked near the top of the box. And at the end of the day, if people think Bannan is the weakest link, well cheering the fact that he is subbed off does nothing to help the team. Lambert clearly fancies playing him so do you want to destroy the confidence of one of your starting players.?

[CI]

I like Bannan, he's one of the only players who gets his head up and looks to pass the ball forwards

He's often got no options though due to lack of movement so has to check back

[BleedClaretAndBlue]

Who voted Bent MOTM lol

[TRO]

Interesting how some of the prickly questions are starting to surface like:

Interviewer to O'Neill asking if he has ever doubted his belief....or words to that effect.

interviewer to Lambert asking if he feels one goal in 12 months from Gabby is ok

some things only go under the radar for so long.