Aston Villa v Bolton Wanderers Post-Match Thread

[mr woo]

Its been evident in every game so far this season, we lack 'muscle' in midfield, and inventiveness up front.

How you put that right before January is the problem.

[PaulTheVillan]

Gabby is turning into Heskey.

His movement is shocking.

Young needs to look up more, Ireland made some brilliant runs and found some great space today but Young just never looked up to find him.

[Toronto Villa]

Ok, Mrs O. We'll be fighting relegation this season. I'll look forward to your revisionism in May.

ah the silly names again, brilliant.
I said it was a relegation style performance, OK.
I did not say we are relegation material, far from it, as my subsequent (look it up) comments highlighted.
I'm putting the onus for a very poor performance on to the manager KM, Not Houllier just in case you don't understand although why he didn't go down and sort the idiot out I know not

At least we managed a point in the fight for relegation

liar liar pants on fire. That's exactly what you said

[PaulTheVillan]

Knight was very heavy handed with Gabby today, but like my previous post... if Gabby actually just made runs across him or past him then Knight wouldn't stand a chance. Gabby just backed into him and never caused a threat.

[BannedUserIAT]

Surprised that Carew got a new top so quickly. Between Villa and Nike, I thought he'd be wearing threads into next month.

[TheSandman]

Fucks sake martians could tell you that midfield wasn't working and wouldn't work against a 5 man midfield. If Ged picks three wingers on Wednesday I think I might have an anuerism. Some of these players deserve a right bloody kick up the arse.

From what I can gather Ged is not the type to mince his words. Thank the fucking lord for that.

[Can Gana Be Bettered!?!?]

Yet again we look shit in the middle of the park. Petrov and Ireland were both shit and I put a whole heap of blame on them for how crap we were today.

Why was NRC dropped for Ireland? I heard some Man City (and Villa) fans saying we've got a player as good as Milner? When, in fact, it's been more like someone taking all your Clash CD's and giving you McFly instead. Milner shits all over him in terms of skill and determination, which he seems to lack any kind of.

Whoever said I don't know nothing about football because I said Petrov is shit needs to explain to me what it is I don't know. What a fucking dollop of a player he is. He does fuck all. He does it well though.

Thank goodness for Friedel (again).

I presume Dunne was taken off because he's fat?

Bring on Houllier!

[KRS]

Poor team selection, poor formation, poor tactics, poor display. Quite simple.

The crux of it for me is along the lines of...

The Keeper has less experience than Guzan, they had a replacement cb in who went off early, and was replaced by another who has yet to play in the PL this season, and they never do well against us at VP.

Once again we failed to create chances or test the keeper. Regardless of whether they are first team players or reserves, we should be creating chances at home and putting teams under pressure rather than sitting back holding on for a draw.

Hopefully GH will get the midfield organised and playing with fight, creativity, movement and desire as this is what has been lacking for a long while now. Doing it for 15-25 minutes per game with no end product is not good enough.

Very frustrating.

[Can Gana Be Bettered!?!?]

Positives - Downing played decent and went in for some tackles. Albrighton started well and Ireland showed glimpses when he was in correct positions. Biggest positive, thank fuck it's the end of the KMac era.

Negatives- Awful point and hanging on against Bolton at the end of the game is unacceptable. Dunne was in despicable shape and rightly hauled off. Petrov is over the hill full stop and should be dropped.

Ireland was a positive? Were you at the game? He was shit. 2 or 3 half-decent touches at most.

[Bad English]

Is Sid to be first team coach?That`ll sort the passing out.

And Robertson showed them all how to cross too, didn't he?

[BannedUserIAT]

Positives - Downing played decent and went in for some tackles. Albrighton started well and Ireland showed glimpses when he was in correct positions. Biggest positive, thank fuck it's the end of the KMac era.

Negatives- Awful point and hanging on against Bolton at the end of the game is unacceptable. Dunne was in despicable shape and rightly hauled off. Petrov is over the hill full stop and should be dropped.

Ireland was a positive? Were you at the game? He was shit. 2 or 3 half-decent touches at most.

He was very positive when he was in his natural position. Sadly, he'd clearly been given instructions to sit well back as cover for our three wingers.

[Can Gana Be Bettered!?!?]

Ireland has to be played in an advanced position. Petrov needs to be dropped, he is  just a passenger now.

Who would you put in for him though? Delph is injured. Reo? but then we lose the passing aspect and Petrov does more then most give him credit for. Just that without adequate help he gets overrun/ knackered out. First choice should be Reo / Petrov in partnership unless you want to play Osbourne or Salifou in there.

Petrov does nothing. Watch the game, then you will see he does nothing. Except go towards a player to tackle them, then decide against it and let them go past him. Oh, he can also pass the ball backwards. He's quite good at that.

[Somniloquism]

Ireland has to be played in an advanced position. Petrov needs to be dropped, he is  just a passenger now.

Who would you put in for him though? Delph is injured. Reo? but then we lose the passing aspect and Petrov does more then most give him credit for. Just that without adequate help he gets overrun/ knackered out. First choice should be Reo / Petrov in partnership unless you want to play Osbourne or Salifou in there.

Petrov does nothing. Watch the game, then you will see he does nothing. Except go towards a player to tackle them, then decide against it and let them go past him. Oh, he can also pass the ball backwards. He's quite good at that.

Funny, my stream kept on packing in but I at least saw a good deep cross that led to a knockdown that Gabby mis-controlled and some good play with him involved that lead to the Luke Young chance. Its amazing how my stream either only worked when Petrov was doing something good or you only concentrate on the bad stuff and forget the positives.

[lukey27]

Very disappointing. Agree with many on here, the formation didn't suit the personnel we had on the pitch. Ireland looked lost, perhaps the fact we had four creative midfielders on the pitch was a factor in this. Ashley Young had a dreadful second half, he's not a central midfield playmaker and the sooner he's back on the left hand side the better. If I was Houllier I would go all out to buy a ball winning midfield player in January, we're crying out for one.

[nick harper]

I thought we we were in trouble when I saw Ireland in for Reo-Coker. The decision to leave him out was simply unfathomable. Until Houllier has the opportunity to buy a quality holding midfield player, he has to play that role.

Very lucky point but thankfully the end of a caretaker who was totally out of his depth.