Rapid Vienna 1 - 1 Aston Villa - Post Match Thread

[not3bad]

I said earlier today that resting people was a stupid idea and I was proved right.

If we win next week will you still have been proven right?

[berneboy]

There were some good performances tonight - Albrighton again, and Bannan worked very hard.

Lichaj looked a liability however and Guzan will never be good enough, despite his shot stopping.

We will need a stronger team next week to be sure of going through.

[Phil from the upper holte]

stevenjos, genuine question. Are you ever going to post anything positive related to Villa? You make it sound like everything's shit.

I posted positive things after the weekend. I said earlier today that resting people was a stupid idea and I was proved right.

How were you proved right? A 1-1 draw in an away leg of a European game is a good result. Sets us up nicely for the return. Are you new to football?

He must be Chris

Im happy

[nechells]

Warnock and Davis competed for the worst player on the pitch award today. Davis has stagnated behind belief and Warnock was  just about laziness itself. May be he thinks  as a first choice LB he should have been left at home?

Albrighton, Bannan had a very good game and  Hogg quite but effective. NRC  kept things together in midfield.

KM is lucky that he got away with  a draw despite poor selections. He needs to make sure we pick a decent  team next week to make sure we progress into the League stage.

I'm not a big fan of Davis & would add him to the list of players that MON paid way too much for.With Dunne suspended,changes to the centre of defence were unavoidable-I thought we looked shaky & rode our luck at times.

Heskey chipped in with his standard 3/10 performance which didn't help matters.

Positive notes have to be the result & also  further evidence of a group of players who seem to be enjoying their football coupled with a hunger to play for their manager.

[The Man With A Stick]

Can't moan at that, well played lads.  Just hope we throw a few older heads in next week without worrying about the Everton game.  We need to take this cup seriously.

stevenjos - have you been on the pipe or something?

[Mister E]

Good result. High points: - Albrighton, Bannan and Beye I thought played generally pretty well even though all 3 faded somewhat.
Low points: - disappointed with Guzan and Downing in particular. Downing did not lead as a senior player should; went missing when the team were under pressure. Guzan does not appear to have learned much from his experiences last season ab0ut defending set pieces.
We rode our luck a little but we could have been Further ahead in the 1st quarter and back in the lead during the 3rd quarter of the game.

Not bad for the K-Mac experiment.

[nechells]

There were some good performances tonight - Albrighton again, and Bannan worked very hard.

Lichaj looked a liability however and Guzan will never be good enough, despite his shot stopping.

We will need a stronger team next week to be sure of going through.

Some of the throw outs by Guzan tonight were suicidal & put us under unecassery pressure.

[Phil from the upper holte]

I don't think we'll take this cup seriously as such, I expect similar teams throughout

[eamonn]

Team that played away to this shower last year:

Aston Villa: Guzan, Shorey, Beye, Cuellar, Davies ( Lowry, 80 ) , Sidwell, Reo-Coker, Milner, Young, Gardner ( Agbonlahor, 55 ) , Heskey
Subs not used: Friedel, Petrov, Delph, Albrighton, Delfouneso

No arguably about it - this evening's was a far weaker team.

[bob]

stevenjos, genuine question. Are you ever going to post anything positive related to Villa? You make it sound like everything's shit.

I posted positive things after the weekend. I said earlier today that resting people was a stupid idea and I was proved right.

Obvious troll is obvious.

[Kingthing]

Albrighton is going to be awesome.

...and then we'll sell him.

[fredm]

I think what we must remember tonight is that it was Rapid's 9th competitive match this season.  How many matches have our players played?  The likes of Davies, Beye etc were getting their first run out so would probably not have been world beaters in their perormance.  When you also add in the fact that this team had never played together before and therefore were prone to misread each other (see Beye for the goal) then it is no wonder it was rather disjointed.

It showed KM that work is needed on the training ground particularly in taking free kicks/corner kicks and also defending them.  Let's hope they take notice and make the improvement.

[Phil from the upper holte]

Albrighton is going to be awesome.

...and then we'll sell him.

We'll be ok, Man City have a winger now

[hilts_coolerking]

Good result, given the team we put out.  I thought we looked really good until they equalised.  After that they were always going to put us under pressure and they missed a few chances but I'm confident we'll go through.

Some of our lot had very good games, others were mediocre, which led to a disjointed performance overall.  Albrighton stood out, as he always seems to, and Lichaj caught my eye with what can only be described as a combative performance.  I don't think we learned anything new about Davies, Reo-Coker or Heskey: not shite but not great either.

Away goal, didn't lose, several players rested, others given a run out = good evening's work. 

[paul_e]

To repeat from the match thread the bit of play from Albrighton for the goal was absolutely world class wing play.  Turned the defender inside out and then had the composure too look up and pick out his man in the box.  2 games in now and he's looked top class on both so far.

What a prospect.