Aston Villa v Newcastle United Post-Match Thread

[Vanilla]

The problem is, you can see a massive Ashley Young shaped hole in the midfield, and N'Zogbia just don't fill it up.

[Rigadon]

I said before the Fulham game that Petrov and Delph is a piss poor central midfield and if that was the best we had then we would struggle big time this season. Petrov is past it and Delph is shit.

Bollocks is Delph 'shit'.  He's a kid with bags of talent. 

Bags of talent my arse, in league one he had yes but he's not a Premier League player. He charges round like a headless chicken, he can't tackle and he gives the ball away more than anyone i've seen. Him and Petrov will get dominated in almost every game we play this season.

I disagree.  He's got everything the modern midfielder needs, the problem is that he's playing in a position where he is exposed which means a slightly ineffective game looks worse than say if he was out on the wing.  Younger players always have these games.  It's how they deal with them that determine if they stay at the top.   If Bannan has a poor spell will you be calling him shit too?  Because it will happen.

[TheSandman]

I said before the Fulham game that Petrov and Delph is a piss poor central midfield and if that was the best we had then we would struggle big time this season. Petrov is past it and Delph is shit.

Bollocks is Delph 'shit'.  He's a kid with bags of talent. 

Ignore him. He just repeats the same old shit, over and over, until someone bites.

[CJ]

Well that was pretty bland. Sat too deep and too narrow. No width and no flair at all, and consequently no quality for Bent to feed on, which is a worry for him staying long term at VP

On the radio on the way back someone suggested N'Zogbia looks poor because of the system McLeish plays - not sure how a system affects whether you lose the ball 9 times out of 10 - he's not half the player he seemed to be at Wigan.  The Petrov substitution was baffling at the time but post-match interview McLeish said he'd turned his ankle.

On the plus side Gabby is in the form of his life and worked really hard chasing back as well. And Given is keeping these draws from becoming defeats

[Rigadon]

I said before the Fulham game that Petrov and Delph is a piss poor central midfield and if that was the best we had then we would struggle big time this season. Petrov is past it and Delph is shit.

Bollocks is Delph 'shit'.  He's a kid with bags of talent. 

Ignore him. He just repeats the same old shit, over and over, until someone bites.

I see....

I actually think I might have sat next to him a few weeks ago (Blackburn).  If it wasn't him then they should get a room.  Anyway, too many draws but unbeaten. 

[Nelly]

My worry is that Heskey will come straight back into the first team when fit. I'd really love to see what Bannan could do behind Bent. Or even Ireland.

It all just feels so deflated at the minute. There's still that horrible 'transitional' feeling, where we haven't settled on a gameplan, no one really knows what the best XI is and we're just kinda muddling along. We've fallen such a long way from even two years ago.

[swiss1968]

Dull and uninspiring,i agree the midfield is lightweight and Nzog looked bloody awful as did Delph.Could be a long winter !!

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Newcastle are an average side at best.

Newcastle are unbeaten and currently fourth in the league.

Who have they played though?  A self destructing Arsenal team 1st game, then a crap Sunderland and a Fulham team who are notoriously bad after playing midweek.  Add to that a very mediocre villa side.  I wouldn't read too much into them being 4th.  They'll massively overachieve if they finish in the top half.

You can only beat those put in front of you. If you gave them a decent striker they'd be a very decent team, as you saw today, their midfield works as a unit.

[The Moose]

Two average teams playing an average Premier league game. Average crowd, average atmosphere.
Still unbeaten after five games, with QPR and Wigan up next. One draw and one win?
It would help if we didn't play a forward with an obvious injury for half an hour. If Delfouneso had come on after an hour, I think we would have won.

[eric woolban woolban]

John Collins - couldn't make a pass at Angelina Jolie - out of form - sell him please.

Brother of James? We're supposed to be offering him a two-year contract extension...

[Legion]

That was really, really, really, really boring. Given was immense. N'Zogbia was awful. Bannan and Gabby played well as did Albrighton. Ireland played a few good, incisive passes. Bent looks out of sorts but he's not getting much service. Was Petrov substituted due to an injury?

[MarkM]

Bent was not in the game for most of today, Nzog was poor again and Delph gives me cause for concern.

With Bent the way he is at the mo its like we are a player short and couple that with the weakness in the centre it's no surprise that we were going backwards more than forwards today.

I though Bannan had a good game and I would have left him on and taken Nzog off, if MCleish couldn't see that Bannan should have stayed on then he should have gone to spec savers

[Dr_Fegg]

At least it was slightly more entertaining than the wolves game (!?).

Thought Bannan played well and we should give him some game time. Agree with the earlier poster to let him and Albrighton have a run in the team. Also thought Ireland looked interested and got stuck in. He played 2 or 3 quick intelligent passes and should start the next game.

Bent needs decent balls in to him not a hoof from Given and a knock down from gabby so lets get the young lads outwide scarring defenders

On the negative side Petrov was too slow and too negative as usual (why does he start?) but the worst player on the pitch was N'Zogbia. If he's not interested in at least trying to run or do something useful stick him in the stiffs for a few weeks. I'll forgive most things if you at least try but he was shocking today. £10m for that, wigan must be pissing themselves.

Still season ticket renewed so in it for the long haul (and I think it might be).

[woody4866]

We seemed to run out of ideas after Gabby`s goal
Superb saves by Given which kept us in it although I do think we missed some half chances
Getting worried about N`Phukin Useless, not even close to what we had in Ash Young

[Dan England]

I think we are not half as bad as some are making out. Newcastle played quite well, we played ok and in fairness could have scored a couple more ourselves, but it is being made out that we got a lucky goal and then sat on our 18 yard line, which is total nonsense.

Biggest issue was NZogbia, who is clearly not up to pace, so Albrighton should be starting in place of him. Bannan did well, but Delph IMO was very poor today, and Jenas can't be fit soon enough. Midfield wise we are light and short of experienced quality and it showed with Cabeye looking a hell of a player for them. Hutton needs some time to settle, and Bent needs to play himself back into form and fitness.

Given is top drawer. Totally brilliant, and way better than Big Brad was. I think people need to look at it objectively though, 2 unbeaten sides stayed unbeaten, and either could have won it. Hardly wrist slashing time. We will get about 50 points, which would be about what we would expect this season.

This tallies with my view far more than the rather more critical posts of almost everyone else.   Except I can't see why Delph is coming in for so much flak, I thought he broke up play quite well and brought it out of defence intelligently on occasion.

They were two evenly matched teams, and I thought it was a fairly entertaining game. We didn't hoof it, except for a short period before half time, and we tried to play a passing game from what I could see.  Both sides had periods in the ascendency, and it could have gone either way.  The excellent Given (a big improvement on Brad in my view) saved us a couple of times,and Bent could have wrapped it up for us.  The move to set up that chance was sublime, and he won't have a better chance all season.

Weaker links today, I thought Hutton didn't look up to speed and  Zog  has been poor all season.  I thought Ireland showed some very nice touches when he came on.

Pardew reckoned they should have won on SSN, Le Tissier's less partisan view was that he was talking bollocks.
The result wasn't ideal and we are drawing too many matches but, but Newcastle are 4th and unbeaten and I think there are some positive signs. Certainly not as depressing as some would make out.




 

Agree with both. Only add on would be that I don't think Bannan is a wide man and if we let him play in the middle he will dictate games in a way that the current, more defensively minded, Delph and Petrov blatantly don't.
The biggest concern for me is today was another "on another day we would have won that", you can't afford too many of them in a season.