Aston Villa v Newcastle United Post-Match Thread

[madirishvillain]

thank you Villa

dont care about the performance, or how who played etc etc

3 points

now beat west ham next weekend and job done


then the summer comes and we will see what happens

[Matt Collins]

Friedel - highly competent, 7

Walker - shaky and poor positioning - 5. I'd play Cuellar at West Ham.
Collins - struggled to begin with as he and Walker got pulled around. But got a lot better as the game went on - 6.
Dunne - very good I thought - , but Ranger was poor - 7.
L Young - thought he played well, with some poor distribution in the first half - 7.

Downing - very good in patches, player of the season by a mile - 7.
Petrov - back to his best, worth keeping on that form - 8.
Makoun - a few good moments, but looked quite lost and sloppy on the ball. Has quite a 'soft' way of passing the ball which can be frustrating - 5.
Young - not at his best, but dangerous still - 6.5.

Bent - lively - 6.
Agbonlahor - caused quite a few problems, especialy when pulling left. Really poor touch though on several occasions. 7 for effort.

All in all, I found it a horrible game to watch, but an interesting one to draw conclusions from:

- I've seen us pass the ball and look more creative a number of times this season, and get nil points.
- the shift to 4-4-2 and a more direct style made us look more like the MON side, with all its strengths and weaknesses.
- sloppy in possession at times and quite a few hoof balls.
- but created a number of chances and having two strikers meant we had more people in the box and thus created chances.
- we still look at our most dangerous playing on the break.

[JJ-AV]

Cracking win. Dunne and Petrov were great.

Gabby had a fantastic second half.

Collins had a 'mare until he scored, seemed to pick up in confidence after that. Fingers crossed he can keep that up until the end of the season now.

Haven't seen it back but the Bent goal didn't look off, and Makoun played a lovely ball into Bent didn't he?

[Cuz]

shocking game, Makoun oh dear!! game was screaming for Albrighton so he puts on Pires, but 3pts happy days   

[PaulWinch again]

Cracking win. Dunne and Petrov were great.

Gabby had a fantastic second half.

Collins had a 'mare until he scored, seemed to pick up in confidence after that. Fingers crossed he can keep that up until the end of the season now.

Haven't seen it back but the Bent goal didn't look off, and Makoun played a lovely ball into Bent didn't he?

He wasn't off, it was a great ball.

[brian green]

Just got home from the match.   I agreed with pretty much everything the posters on here who really want us to survive have said.   The three points are what we needed and the ability to keep a clean sheet and win ugly.

I was impressed with Gabby's hard work and rated him a bigger threat than Bent.   Dunne looked slimmer and more committed than for a long while.   Kyle Walker oozes talent but not as a full back he looked a natural, very quick hard shooting wide player.   A quicker more athletic version of Kenny Swain.

Nigel Reo-Coker as ever stuggles to ping the ball once he has won it.


The bells tapes were ridiculous.   When we used to sing the bells are ringing for the claret and blue it was upbeat and slightly effeminately daft but it worked.   Whatever that was it was not the bells are ringing, more like a stunt to publicize Pires next paid employment as the Phantom of The Opera at the Hippodrome.

Nice day, nice result.   I will take an imperfect win and sleep soundly tonight.

[PaulWinch again]

shocking game, Makoun oh dear!! game was screaming for Albrighton so he puts on Pires, but 3pts happy days   

I'm not sure the game was screaming for Albrighton with about 4 minutes to go.

[Lizz]

I thought Friedel had one of his better games. Haven't read all of this thread, but I enjoyed the game. Listening to Alan Green on Radio 5 on the way to the game made me realise it's actually him that increases my dislike of Newcastle fans. He was going on about the season before when they were relegated at Villa Park and how some Newcastle fans still hold a grudge about some Villa fans' comments on that day.

[Shrek]

Cracking win, Brad actually left his line for some crosses today.

Petrov was outstanding, a real captains performance.

I'd drop Makoun for NRC next week, we people up for the fight and John is too Berbatov esk.

[swiss1968]

Thought we lacked a bit going foward today , god job the barcodes were crap,3 point's thank's

[Cuz]

if he'd have put him on after 70mins i believe we'd have scored a couple more, Pires offers nothing and did nothing 

shocking game, Makoun oh dear!! game was screaming for Albrighton so he puts on Pires, but 3pts happy days   

I'm not sure the game was screaming for Albrighton with about 4 minutes to go.

[WikiVilla]

Petrov was superb

[the-farmer]

Friedel - better than recently but only what you should expect
Walker - good going forward but poor defending and he's supposed to be a full-back
L Young - good game
Dunne - solid good tackle on Barton
Collins - shaky but improved after the goal
Downing - ave, have seen much better of him
A Young - ave, refs will always think he is diving
Makoun - seemed to like passing to white shirts
Petrov - my M of M, I liked the revenge tackle that got him booked
Gabby - Best I have seen him for ages
Bent - Why the long ball up to him, play Heskey and let him feed off him in a Withe/Shaw fashion
Reo-Coker - Improvement on Makoun
Cuellar - Improvement on Walker
Pires - Running or Ministry of silly walks 
Funeral bells - well say no more,

[madirishvillain]

that bells thing being played on the tannoy

please stop it


we thought there was a body being brought to our local chapel overnight

[villan1975]

Poor performance but who gives a flying f**k?
Quite agree on the Pires front,why why why bring him on?
We can leave the recriminations til the summer though.