Bolton Wanderers v Aston Villa Post-Match Thread

[Rip Van We Go Again]

Anyone thinking we might go down after watching that is foolish in my eyes. We'll easily win games playing like that.

Not if we keep leaking 2 to 3 goals a game.
I can't see how the defence is going to suddenly improve, as if by magic.

[taylorsworkrate]

Anyone thinking we might go down after watching that is foolish in my eyes. We'll easily win games playing like that.

Not if we keep leaking 2 to 3 goals a game.
I can't see how the defence is going to suddenly improve, as if by magic.

Yep agreed.  We are not 3 points off the relegation zone with only 9 games to go by coincidence.

We are there because performances, on the whole, have been poor. 

We may have played ok yesterday.  However, if you can't take your chances and defend poorly then you deserve nothing.

[DB]

Exactly, no good playing well if you can't defend (not just yesterday but all season). Every game we look like conceding, and often do.

[WikiVilla]

It's about time we rotated the keeper in my humble opinion, he was awful yesterday and I'd go with Marshall v wolves

[Chris Smith]

Anyone thinking we might go down after watching that is foolish in my eyes. We'll easily win games playing like that.

Not if we keep leaking 2 to 3 goals a game.
I can't see how the defence is going to suddenly improve, as if by magic.

I think the defence had improved before this latest batch of injuries, it wasn't perfect but it was more like 1 to 2 goals a game we were giving away. All we can hope is that we get them back before too long. I still think that we'll probably stay up but it's by no means certain.

[JJ-AV]

Atleast Ash will be off penalties now.

[brian green]

The well connected bloke in front of us on the Holte says Ferguson is after Clark as a replacement for Ferdinand.

Of the two I think Clark appears to have a better temperament than Cahill.   If the fans' chant that Cahill hates Villa is true, is this the same Gary Cahill we raised the roof for with There's only one Gary Cahill as he walked off the field having played his last game for us.   He has no cause to hate us.   MON certainly.   Villa fans no.

[WikiVilla]

Re the Cahill chants it was probably just the Bolton lot on the wind up, he did celebrate his goals though and cupped his ear to the villa fans for the first

[peter w]

Anyone thinking we might go down after watching that is foolish in my eyes. We'll easily win games playing like that.

Not if we keep leaking 2 to 3 goals a game.
I can't see how the defence is going to suddenly improve, as if by magic.

I think the defence had improved before this latest batch of injuries, it wasn't perfect but it was more like 1 to 2 goals a game we were giving away. All we can hope is that we get them back before too long. I still think that we'll probably stay up but it's by no means certain.

Agreed that in recent matches we have started to look more solid. The answer seemed wholly to be because of the return of Richard Dunne and him playing more to last seasons level. maybe we were being too harsh on him during his spat with Houllier. perhaps he knew he was not playing well and reacted for what he wanted to see in training to help him back into some sort of form. But, that's another point.

I don't put it down to poor managing or coaching as I'm sure they're all at a loss as to why a defence that was so good last season are so poor this. When i heard Dunne was out I feared for the side because he was the one player capable of holding the defence together - especially at a place where winning headers is vital. Without him we looked how we have looked before our mini-revival.

So, Wolves is crucial. We need either Cuellar or Collins back as he need someone with experience at the heart of the defence now Dunne  is out.

[littlevillain]

Re the Cahill chants it was probably just the Bolton lot on the wind up, he did celebrate his goals though and cupped his ear to the villa fans for the first

yes the cupping the ear to our lot was disappointing, I met cahill in the us on the villa tour a few yrs back and had a nice chat with him. He said how much he loved the villa and was looking forward to the future .  He probably felt that he was pushed out . Big loss in my opinion.

[WikiVilla]

MON pushed him out, frankly a big loss to us, MON doesn't know his arse from his elbow when it comes to defenders

[Rip Van We Go Again]

Anyone thinking we might go down after watching that is foolish in my eyes. We'll easily win games playing like that.

Not if we keep leaking 2 to 3 goals a game.
I can't see how the defence is going to suddenly improve, as if by magic.

I think the defence had improved before this latest batch of injuries, it wasn't perfect but it was more like 1 to 2 goals a game we were giving away. All we can hope is that we get them back before too long. I still think that we'll probably stay up but it's by no means certain.

It's something like 1 clean sheet in 23 games Chris, there will be no improvement until we can get a few clean sheets, it's putting too much pressure on the forwards.
It's like we're playing with a permanent handicap.

it wasn't perfect but it was more like 1 to 2 goals a game we were giving away.

We can't afford 1 or 2 per game anymore, we've let 13 in during the last 6 games.

[ktvillan]

Ciaran Clark will be top top class, no doubt.

agree, another Gary Cahill in the making

He's a better footballer than Cahill. He's played at full back and in midfield for us and there's no way that Cahill could do that.

Can't agree, Cahill has excellent ball skills for a CB and you only have to see his goal against Blues to see he's a much better footballer than most CBs.  Cahill wouldn't work at FB as I don't think he's quick enough.  But then for me Clark didn't work at fullback either, he was exposed badly several times in the away game at Chelsea and in at least one other game.   I like Clarke but I''m not convinced I see the superstar others are seeing, he lacks a bit of pace and sometimes gets bullied too easily.  I thought Cahill was better at similar stage of his career when he played for us.

[Pete3206]

Would also like to mention, great positive support yesterday, not one anti Houllier song, we did leave when the 3 rd went in though, not sure if it got ugly after that ?

Well you missed the "you're getting sacked in the morning" routine then from some of our so called "supporters".

I think it's a bit disrespectful to put the quote marks around supporters. Despite a shit filled, write off of a season, fans are still travelling in large numbers, spending a not too small amount of cash.

[Brian Taylor]

and we are out of the fFA Cup ffs...
You can discuss tactics until you are blue in the face but this was a corporate decision to blow it for no good reason bar money bourne out of US superbowl-style understanding of sporting ambition. Now I can only hope that vicarious grasp on strategy can save us going down the toilet bowl.
I am sure Randy has Titanic ambitions but keeping his fans happy doesn't appear to be one of them.
Football has sunk in someone's estimation when the FA cup is no longer considered worth competing for especially to 'save' a team for a league game!