Aston Villa v Bolton Wanderers Post-Match Thread

[PaulWinch again]

Got to agree with a lot of that Paulie. Richard Dunne when fit is an excellent player, but he is in despicable shape. Petrov is over the hill and simply not good enough now. Gabby I'm not sure on to be honest, I thought the service he received today was atrocious. However we need a massive kick up the arse. Downing showed why he can be good today. In the first 20 mins we showed we can be good, but we need to pull our socks up. Houllier needs to stamp down his authority quickly and say to the players you're either in or you're out, no middle ground.

[vilan461]

No organisation
No leadership
No desire

Without all 3 of those, you might as well wave the white flag at Molineux next week.
 Have to agree 100%---i,m afraid to say,also like to add----no direction,no penetration,no passion and no f*****g Idea!!!

A shambles today.

[WALTERS WARRIORS]

Downing: lost and ineffective.

Ireland: Out of position. Gotta play behind the forward.

Warnock: Slow to the tackle and should of been a penalty.

Petrov. Just turned up.

Only Friedel done his job today.

Houllier has got some serious work to do on a team lacking any shape and direction ..........

[PaulWinch again]

Harsh on Downing Walters, I thought he did well.

[Shrek]

I cannot believe we finished with one midfielder on the pitch, that being the total and utter shite Petrov.

We were class for 15 mins then it was unbelievable, we kept playing long balls up to Gabby who was being marked by Knight, WTF?

[nigelavilla]

Lots of concerns, it will need some serious beer goggles to suffer the next few months, with our midfield being so overun the defence will always struggle

Thank God Friedel was well on the button today

Gabby looks like he is heading the same way as the Moore brothers, so much pace but lacks a football brain.

Dunne clearly has an injury and is playing well below the standard he was last year, Warnock is looking worse every game I see him

As for Mike Dean , yet another inept Ref

[BannedUserIAT]

Only Friedel done his job today.

Rubbish!
Albrighton, when on the right, was having a great game.
Luke Young was epic.
Collins had to cater for the fact that Dunne is so fat he can't cover his area of responsibility.
Downing, as much as I just don't rate him, had a good game (until Albrighton came over to his side and then they both went missing).

Everything that was bad today was the fault of the manager. End of. you can't play those players together in that formation. Yes, Warnock seems to have lost the plot somewhat, yes Dunne is in shocking shape but against a team like Bolton, neither should have had a great deal to do defensively. With the talent we have, this should have been a slaughter! A SLAUGHTER!

After the first 20 mins, Bolton realised that we were massively soft in the middle and took advantage.
They adapted. Something Villa teams of the last 12 months can't seem to do.

[taylorsworkrate]

Stringing Petrov and bursting forward in the same sentence takes some doing.  It is official, he is undroppable.  If Houllier doesn't make that his first major decision I will be amazed.

I've said it before, and I think I will be saying it again, this is going to be a long, hard season.

And I asked earlier to someone else. Who should play in his place? Sidwell? Osbourne?

Midfield of A.Young Downing NRC Albrighton

Easy. Petrov can fuck off.

And congratulations, we have now been overrun and lost our passing as well.

Bar the West Ham game, we have been badly overrun by everyone anyway. 

[tonyh]

Oh Dear Oh Dear

A poor performance but an expected poor performance

Petrov was excruciatingly Bad. He is an awful captain too. I would imagine he is waiting for MON to pop up somewhere and give him his next job.

I do not like Warnock he is always out of position and as for Dunne, I think his shirt would fit me.

At last Cuellar was Centre Half and won a few balls in the air, he should be a permanent fixture in the side.

Ashley young in that role is wasted he does not have an intelligent footballing brain, he needs to be on the wings running at defenders and crossing to the strikers.

See above for Agbonlahor but even he does not have the winger ability in his locker.

We are in a mess and this season is virtually over for us.

[PeterWithe]

I'm going to buck the trend here and say that although the result is disappointing I thought it was a good game, we played some great football in patches and deserved to go in to half time a few goals up. Albrighton was very good and there were some fine battles going on between him and Robinson, Zat & Gabby and Davies and Cullear, incidently has Davies ever had a bad game against us in all the years he's been there?

Minus points were that we didn't make nearly enough clear chances considering we had all of of our creative players on the field, Gabby played great with his back to goal but a little lacking in movement and Ireland was anonymous, he seemed to be playing in a positional straightjacket and didn't have any influence on the play. There is lot to come from him if GH can work out a way of accommodating him without getting overrun.

Fair play to Bolton, they did very well and Zat played out of his pie crust.

[Chris Smith]

I think it is wrong to blame the players too much for that yesterday. The way we set up the side is asking for trouble. Albrighton needs to be rested, Young put back out wide and Sidwell or Reo Coker bought in to support Ireland.

The substitution yesterday was about the most inane I have ever seen, it caused us to spend the last part of the game hanging on and but for Brad Freidel (who I keep reading on here isn't all that good) again keeping us in it we'd have lost

[tonyh]

I think it is wrong to blame the players too much for that yesterday.

I have to disagree they are highly paid professionals. I'll scapegoat Petrov if you like.. Explain why he was not to blame for continually passing backwards, slowing down the play, not passing to our own players and giving it away.

Also Richard Dunne is not fit enough to play.

Agbonlahor did not have the intelligence to "lose" Knight

[PeterWithe]

The substitution yesterday was about the most inane I have ever seen, it caused us to spend the last part of the game hanging on and but for Brad Freidel (who I keep reading on here isn't all that good) again keeping us in it we'd have lost

Notwithstanding the suspicion that it was done to appease a restless crowd, I thought Carew did well and certainly gave them some problems. Ireland looked very, very rusty and the introduction of NRC would have reeked of settling for a point.

One of the other issues of that starting XI is that it leaves you with no-one creative on the bench.

[Chris Smith]

The substitution yesterday was about the most inane I have ever seen, it caused us to spend the last part of the game hanging on and but for Brad Freidel (who I keep reading on here isn't all that good) again keeping us in it we'd have lost

Notwithstanding the suspicion that it was done to appease a restless crowd, I thought Carew did well and certainly gave them some problems. Ireland looked very, very rusty and the introduction of NRC would have reeked of settling for a point.

One of the other issues of that starting XI is that it leaves you with no-one creative on the bench.

No problem with putting Carew on, although like you I did think it was done to appease the crowd, but to leave us with a central midfield pair of Petrov and Young was ridiculous.

[Chris Smith]

I think it is wrong to blame the players too much for that yesterday.

I have to disagree they are highly paid professionals. I'll scapegoat Petrov if you like.. Explain why he was not to blame for continually passing backwards, slowing down the play, not passing to our own players and giving it away.

Also Richard Dunne is not fit enough to play.

Agbonlahor did not have the intelligence to "lose" Knight

What has how much they are paid got to do with it? If it was a one-off then you might have a point but we've tried that system several times now and it just isn't working with the players we have. It looks nice at times when we move the ball around but it's just too easy to play against.

I'd be extremely surprised if Houllier is as naive in his selections and formations.