Blackpool v Aston Villa Post-Match Thread

[lordmcgrath5]

Oh, and I still can't stand Ashley Young, never have done, never will. At least more people are starting to see through him also.

Even when he was scoring and creating bucketloads of goals and winning the Young Player of the Year award?

Good question. Here'a another - even when he was banging swerving, bullet-like crosses onto Gabby's head with pin-point accuracy? Would love to know why he doesn't do that anymore, but at one time he certainly did.

[Phil from the upper holte]

Kyle Walker is too good for us and there isn't a chance he will sign for us (great pity)

What a load of old bollocks

[darren woolley]

FFS i wan't Gabby back in the middle and Ashley out wide please change it around and where is Marc Albrighton?

[Chris Smith]

FFS i wan't Gabby back in the middle and Ashley out wide please change it around and where is Marc Albrighton?

Albrighton was playing poorly and needed a rest and reverting to a predictable 442 would be asking for trouble.

[villa1]

Just seen Makoun's red card. No complaints from me.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

FFS i wan't Gabby back in the middle and Ashley out wide please change it around and where is Marc Albrighton?

Albrighton was playing poorly and needed a rest and reverting to a predictable 442 would be asking for trouble.

He wasn't playing poorly, it was a case of not seeing the ball as everything goes through Downing. Gabby could claim the same. I'd like to see Downing and Albrighton rotating or give Albrighton the last 30 minutes. At least he can cross a ball.

[Lenny_AVFC]

To be fair, it's not Houlliers fault we couldn't convert a series of great chances. However he needs to sort the defence.

I'd say it is his fault.

His changed us to zonal marking at set pieces. We now keep conceding at set pieces.

He plays two defensive midfielders(whatever he may of said Makoun is not a box to box player, although he has impressed me mainly so far) against Blackpool, where's the ambition? Where was Bannan?

He plays a completely one left footed player who's best attribute used to be whipping the ball in on the RIGHT wing. He keeps our best right winger on the bench.

He plays our stiker, who holds the ball up well and for the last 3 years has been our best outlet when we need to get the ball forward on the left win.

He plays one of the best wingers in the country, who's best attribute is running at players when he has space in the centre, where there isn't a lot of space.

When we need a goal, he takes off our £24m striker (who admittedly hadn't done much but he is the type of player to do fuck all then pop up with a tap in) for heskey!

But most importantly, he seems to have ripped all the fighting spirit out of our team. His changed us from a team that I had confidence in to go and beat teams like West Ham and Wolves to being seriously worried we're going to lose both and get sucked into it, if his done that to me the players must be thinking it a bit too.

[Meanwood Villa]

Only seen MOTD but judging from a lot of the posts on here it appears to have been a poor performance. This corner we thought we'd turned a couple of weeks ago is turning out to be a lot more difficult to get round than we anticipated.
What I will say is we were never going to win all of the "easy" run of games that we've got and at least we didn't lose today. What it does mean is there is more pressure on us to start winning some of the winnable games, ie our next 5 at home.

[Chris Smith]

FFS i wan't Gabby back in the middle and Ashley out wide please change it around and where is Marc Albrighton?

Albrighton was playing poorly and needed a rest and reverting to a predictable 442 would be asking for trouble.

He wasn't playing poorly, it was a case of not seeing the ball as everything goes through Downing. Gabby could claim the same. I'd like to see Downing and Albrighton rotating or give Albrighton the last 30 minutes. At least he can cross a ball.

Disagree, Mark, he would still put in the odd decent cross but was looking jaded and making too many simple mistakes - Chelsea away summed it up. He's a great prospect but he needs to be handled properly and not have undue pressure heaped on him every week. Same is true of Bannan, who I think has the potential to be the better of the 2, he needs to learn the game by being around the first team squad before he's ready to be an automatic starter.

[pablopicasso_10]

im getting rather fcuked off with houllier insisting on keeping striker agbonlahor on the left wing, left winger downing on the right wing, and right winger young as a striker...

we have 3 players there who are tailor made for positions that we are shoehorning others into, and it is fcuking shit...

as for the game, players out of position again dont help, but we were the better side first half, they were second half... didnt help having a player get deservedly sent off, but even before that, we did what we usually do and sit back once taking a lead, inviting the opposition onto us and with our appalling defending, concede...

my only surprise is not conceding more against a side who work hard and attack until the end...

houllier has purchased some quality footballers, and he is trying to get us to play a more passing game, and slowly that is happening, but he is undoing it all by copying o'neills playing players out of position, and being negative when we are in a positive position...

not happy with him at the moment...

[barrysleftfoot]

   Some people keep banging on about playing players out of position, but lets look at it properly.

   Bent.......our main goal threat, does'nt play well with another striker, certainly not a gabby kind of striker.So lets not do that.

   Downing.....shit on the right?Could have sccored 3 goals yday, 1 he should have, 1 he hit the post, and 1 bloccked.ALL of our decent attacks have come down the right in the last 2/3 games.Much as i think Downing plays like a tart sometimes, i do think he is our most effective attacking source atm.

  Gabby.......regardless of where he is asked to play/should play/is playing, i expect effort.His movement/awareness/interest atm is almost non-existant.Watching the extended highlights last night, Varney plays the position far better than Gabby does, but is much an inferior player.I get the impression that Gabby has got a bit billy big time.Needs dropping.

   AYoung......the enigma.For me needs to be told it is not all about him, stop diving, and be that creative player he can be.If that means promising him he can move in the summer then so be it.As said on many occasions, i'm not sure we have'nt seen the best of AYoung.

[Percy McCarthy]

To be fair, it's not Houlliers fault we couldn't convert a series of great chances. However he needs to sort the defence.

I'd say it is his fault.

His changed us to zonal marking at set pieces. We now keep conceding at set pieces.

Actually, he's changed us from zonal marking. Second sentence correct.

[mrfuse]

Well Bents come here because he believes he will get better service and until we get players playing where they should that isint going to happen.

It seems were trying to fit to many players in, for me if we insist on 1 striker it should be : ash/downing left, Albrighton/Downing Rt, banan/ash behind Bent.

Which leaves out Gabby, even though Gabby scored yesterday and i can see the logic behind playing him on the left IE he can sometimes support Bent as a 2 man attack it might never work as it needs an intelligent player to do that role (Sorry Gabby)

[Monty]

To be fair, it's not Houlliers fault we couldn't convert a series of great chances. However he needs to sort the defence.

I'd say it is his fault.

His changed us to zonal marking at set pieces. We now keep conceding at set pieces.

Actually, he's changed us from zonal marking. Second sentence correct.

That's true. It's funny how people go on about zonal marking. Benitez's team was slated for it every time a goal went in from a set-piece, but Hodgson's equally if not more leaky man-to-man system wasn't picked up on.

[Clampy]

My main concern at the moment is the lack of service to Bent. He badly needs someone up alongside him and i don't think Ash is that man, he looked much more threatning when he went out wide yesterday. I think it's time for Heskey to be given a go alongside him, with Ash out wide.

As for the game, i'd have taken the point as soon as Makoun walked. A bit negative maybe, but it was one of those games where we were again struggling to kill it off and we had a referee who was'nt in the mood to give Ash or Heskey anything.