Aston Villa v Liverpool Post-Match Thread

[Chipsticks]

Best game on the Holte for me for many a year - cracking atmosphere and really eases the many pains of this season. Then again - ask me about the game and I probably couldn't tell you about it, spent more time watching the big screen

Terrific post match as well, and my dad shed tears and depicted it as "like the good ol' days". I don't care if it makes me sound small-time, but I'm absolutely ecstatic that Blues have got relegated, and thoroughly chuffed we've finished top half.

Great performance, and really glad to end the season on a high.

[nodge]

Just watching MOTD and didn't realise how bad it was for Wolves.  I just kept seeing the scores on the screen and thought as Wigan were winning and the rags were drawing, that was it.

[Greg N'Ash]

well considering the turmoil we suffered with a disloyal turncoat walking out at the start of the season, unfit and troublesome players, and technically 4 different managers in charge i'd say 9th is pretty par for the course. Here's to a summer of stability, a thorough  jettisoning of the last clown's transfers mistakes and a few more arriving like Bent

[andym]

If we're going to use the "the final table doesn't lie" to appraise our 2011-12 season, it is also worth noting that 48 is the worst points haul for 5 seasons and 16 down on last year (and conceding an extra 20 goals in the process).  In my opinion, those figures are of as much, if not more, relevance than a league placing when it comes to an analysis of what has been a twelve months best forgotten. 

surely league placing is the only thing that matters in the end?  man u came 2nd with 85 points last season. this season they got less points (80) and won the league.  last season 39 points would see you finish 14th. this year blues and blackpool got relegated with that total. 62 points would have got us 5th this season, a place higher than last. yet because we would have had 2 points less than last season it wouldnt have been as good?.   this season there has been less disparity between the top and bottom.  the top teams have finished with less points than last season, the bottom teams with more than last season.  it has been a closer league, points have been harder to get.   

anyway excellent results the last 2 games, nice to beat liverpool at VP for the first time in a while.  get some good players in over the summer (hopefully not waiting till the last few weeks of the window as we did under the previous manager) and we can get back up there next season.

[eamonn]

That two point difference between the two managers first seasons is quite interesting - it's not much, is it?

Well actually there is. Not a MON fan myself BUT he took a shambles of a team  and got 50 points. Houllier took  a near CL  team and gave us a miserable season. In short O'Neill over delivered in his first season Houllier has under delivered by  keeping us in relegation mire in his first season up to the last but one game.

A big difference.

This old chestnut...O'Neill took over a small but decent squad who O'Dreary had horribly managed in his final year, added Petrov and got half a season of Young and Carew. We were still close to the relegation zone in April in 2007, we finished 11th in the end. ''Over achieved'' is being very generous to Saint Martin. Midtable would have been a realistic, modest ambition for his first season when he arrived, given his reputation and the under-performing of our players under Dolly.

Nevertheless, this season, has indeed been a wasted opportunity. Everton are probably kicking themselves more. I don't think they'd have got fourth...though with Arsenal's wobbles who knows, but they are more than a match for Spurs and Liverpool. Their annual awful starts fuck them up completely.

Watching the game today, our football is still very much a halfway-house between MON's breakneck counter attacking and Houllier's desire for patient passing. We just don't seem to have the personnel for the latter. With our pace and power (which was noticeably racheted up when Gabby came on) we are a threat but the movement and touch that Suarez and to a lesser extent Meireles had for Liverpool, is something we lack too often. If Makoun and Delph are our centre-mids next season we need to spend big to get someone in there with them who can pass and move quickly and dictate possession. Well either that or hope Gary Gardner is as good as we hope him to be.

Still not sure what to make of the defence. A tweak or an overhaul? Dunne and Collins both make the same types of mistake - lumbering, too slow to turn, shanked clearances etc. It's all a bit too last-ditch at times so maybe someone more agile and quicker in there.

Great to see Friedel keep a clean sheet on his 400th appearance. He's done really well in the last two games, and been noticeably more commanding in his box. But if someone like Foster is available on the cheap I think it would be time for Brad to step aside.

A curious end to a rather curios season then.

[Chipsticks]

Spot on eamonn

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Good post, Eamonn. I though Big Brad was MOTM. The big difference today and against Arsenal is when we go a goal up and need to defend it, we look a lot more comfortable. Neither game saw us desperately defending too much. Still lots of room for improvement though but overall another good performance, even if today we were a bit slow to get started.

[Muscle-Dolphin]

Where would we be without Darren Bent?  Houllier won't be back for a variety of reasons.  If someone told me three weeks ago that we would end up 9th, I would of asked them for some of the stuff that they were smoking.

[luke25]

That last 15 minutes will live with me for ever, when Blues equalised and Wigan scored nobody around me had a clue what it meant, there was people frantically trying to listen to radio's, people desperately trying to get a connection on their phones and people looking at the league table in the programme, everybody then come up with different answers, so bloody funny.

[placeforparks]

That last 15 minutes will live with me for ever, when Blues equalised and Wigan scored nobody around me had a clue what it meant, there was people frantically trying to listen to radio's, people desperately trying to get a connection on their phones and people looking at the league table in the programme, everybody then come up with different answers, so bloody funny.

i watched the blues match, and when wolves got that 2nd goal back, obviously no one on the blues bench realised they were going down. there was 2 minutes or so when they were just playing keep-ball with no sense of urgency at all. brilliant. what an utter shower.

[*shellac*]

3 points.  Clean sheet.  9th.  Top Midlands team.  Blues relegated.

An above average season.

[Matt Collins]

The table dosent lie, it shows how ordinary or worse the teams outside the top 6 are.
Walking to the ground today, i was thinking that VP has everything that a top team should have.
Great atmosphere, a full stadium, passionate fans. Its time to get the set up right on the pitch.

Wasn't this our first sell out of the season, I heard?

[Hookeysmith]

Yep - sad really isnt it?

[nick harper]

Good post, Eamonn. I though Big Brad was MOTM. The big difference today and against Arsenal is when we go a goal up and need to defend it, we look a lot more comfortable. Neither game saw us desperately defending too much. Still lots of room for improvement though but overall another good performance, even if today we were a bit slow to get started.

Downing was the best player on the pitch. He is the player to build the side around next season. You can see why clubs are eyeing him as much as Young.

Great to see Villa Park full and rocking. A pretty perfect afternoon for us.

[martyn ellis]

McAllister deserves credit for the way he has stepped in, kept everything ticking over and noticeably grown in confidence in his ability to get tactics right. Won 2, Drawn 2 and lost unnecessarily against the Baggies is not a bad record when you are shoved into the front line unexpectedly, so well done to him. His tactics at the Arsenal and Liverpool games were spot on, although I did wonder why he subbed NRC who was holding the midefield together with Gabby, but even that one worked out.