Aston Villa v Manchester City Post-Match Thread

[Dave]

I'm with Mr Smith on this one, I can't believe anyone would describe Downing's performance as 'woeful'! I thought he was absolutely superb yesterday, a vital part of our win.

I'm with these two.  It was a very mature performance from Downing.

[spangley1812]

Watching the highlights again it was good to see Ash so involved in such a direct manner (3 shots) and at his argumentative best with the corner kick appeal - he does appear to care!

Does he care enough to sign a new contract ?? or is it because he has seen a new midfielder join and thought......mmm I may have to try a bit harder 

[Shrek]

Watching the highlights again it was good to see Ash so involved in such a direct manner (3 shots) and at his argumentative best with the corner kick appeal - he does appear to care!

Does he care enough to sign a new contract ?? or is it because he has seen a new midfielder join and thought......mmm I may have to try a bit harder 

I'm not sure yet, but if he signs or not he is still our best player.


And Downing was brilliant with Ash an Petrov yesturday!

[TopDeck113]

Didn't get home until late last night.

My initial feelings are one of relief.

Relief, obviously, for the three points.

Relief that the record signing has got off to a scoring start.  Nothing would have been worse than the headlines "Bent has gone two/three/four/five..." without scoring.  I was also pleased in a way that it was a scrappy, but predatory strike; pouncing on the half chance.  We haven't been tucking those away for a long time.

And finally relief that the defence held firm.  Not pretty at times, and a certain amount of luck ridden, but the desire was there not to concede and get a result.  For that only, we deserved our good fortune.

Well done to everyone, both on and off the pitch.  Now for the same please on Tuesday.

[Simba]

Close run thing though wasn't it. Barry header, Tevez air shot, post etc. But if they had got one back I would STILL have been satisfied simply because there was a (surprising) game plan, and passion, in spades.

Hat's off to GH and everyone involved. I was a "sack him", not simply because of the shit results but the reason for them. No-one seemed to care. Well, they do now it seems. He lost them. He got them back. From teddy bears to Tigers. Can't help feeling that the comittment from RL in spending the cash was a catalyst for the senior players.

What a pity that the LCQF against SHA was when it was. Not only would we have been in the final I think we could have given Arsenal a bloody good fight.

[ozzjim]

Close run thing though wasn't it. Barry header, Tevez air shot, post etc. But if they had got one back I would STILL have been satisfied simply because there was a (surprising) game plan, and passion, in spades.

Hat's off to GH and everyone involved. I was a "sack him", not simply because of the shit results but the reason for them. No-one seemed to care. Well, they do now it seems. He lost them. He got them back. From teddy bears to Tigers. Can't help feeling that the comittment from RL in spending the cash was a catalyst for the senior players.

What a pity that the LCQF against SHA was when it was. Not only would we have been in the final I think we could have given Arsenal a bloody good fight.

The irony is we played pretty well that night and should have got a result. Bent would have made a huge difference in both those games.

[PeterWithe]

Well that was nervy, maybe a turning point as a few weeks ago we would have almost certainly conceded in the last few minutes. The defense was immense with Collins, Dunne and Cuellar having their best games in a very long time. The midfield looked very empty for large parts of the game despite all of them working very hard and I'm not sure I'd like to see Bent up on his own for large parts of the season, he is always on the defenders shoulder looking for the killer ball rather than showing to feet and that meant we squandered possession or had to go backward into more populated areas of the field.

A fantastic win but still much more to come.

[Lee]

Apart from Bent doing what he does best, the big plus for me was Collins and Dunne. They were back to their best yesterday. I can't understand what went so wrong, but more of the same please.

[Percy McCarthy]

I thought Petrov was brilliant. I have been, at times, in both pro and anti-Petrov camps, but his attitude this season has been exemplary, especially when you'd think he'd be the one senior pro to be most affected by MON's departure.

[Rip Van We Go Again]

Still on a high from it.

Bizarre but brave formation from Houllier, everybody worked their balls off and James Collins was a brick wall, as was Cuellar.

A good result against Wigan, a win in the FA cup and we'll be on a roll.

Bring it on.

[darren woolley]

I was pleased as punch after that win against Man Shitty i thought the defence where brilliant especially Collins who get's my motm award i think the lads put a shift in yesterday which was good to see if we can biuld on it against Wigan things will look a lot better for us.

[pablopicasso_10]

clean sheet, debut goal from a natural finisher, and a much needed win!

awesome stuff...

[alanclare]

Collins was like a different player and thoroughly deserved his man-of-the-match award.

[Lambert and Payne]

Brilliant win against a title chasing team. Great performance and a clean sheet, fantastic! Got to follow it up with a win on Tuesday, comfortable win aswell.

[Can Gana Be Bettered!?!?]

Maybe the few people around where I was saw it different then, but Downing gave it away a fair bit and just never seemed to bust a gut the way the others were. He is too much of a fairy to play central midfield.

And not skillful or fast enough to play wide.

To be fair, though he still bottled some tackles, at least he was making the effort to get in opponents ways.