Aston Villa v Wigan Athletic Post-Match Thread

[Lobsterboy]

Still unbeaten in the league! Yay!

Was working today so had to make do with the BBC Sport website; seemed a comfortable win and some good performances from Bannan, Ireland and Bent to go with an outstanding performance from Gabby.

Well done you Villa boys and well done Big Eck!

[mattjpa]

Alex McLiesh should worship the ground Gabby walks on, he's making his job safe.   

how about some credit for McLeish for believing in Gabby and having a significant role in him playing as well as he is?

what a load of bollox.
Gabby has been here a long time and has proved he can do it.
Mcleish has played Gabby out wide before now, I do't think he is suddenly instumental in Gabby hiitng some good form.

So the players play badly, its McLeish's fault. They play well and its just a coincidence.

And you have the nads to suggest others are talking bollocks?

When Gabby comes out and says he owes it all to Mcleish, thn fair enough. But until then don't give Mcleish credit for something he may not have done.

are you for real? its a two way thing. If the player is doing well, credit is due to the manager. Because he is the one installing the confidence in the player, training the player and giving him advice on a daily basis. he is the one playing him, putting him in a formation that plays to his strengths and using a style of fottball that does the same. On a good day for our club why be negative? the bucks stops with the manager so if the club does well the manager deserves praise

[PeterWithesShin]

A nice comfortable 2-0 win, still unbeaten in the league, boiling hot weather, and a 10p lolly from the corner shop on the way back to the car after the game. Job done. I've had worse days.

UTV

[Villanation]

I've just realised we don't play again for 2 weeks...

[Toronto Villa]

Alex McLiesh should worship the ground Gabby walks on, he's making his job safe.   

how about some credit for McLeish for believing in Gabby and having a significant role in him playing as well as he is?

what a load of bollox.
Gabby has been here a long time and has proved he can do it.
Mcleish has played Gabby out wide before now, I do't think he is suddenly instumental in Gabby hiitng some good form.

So the players play badly, its McLeish's fault. They play well and its just a coincidence.

And you have the nads to suggest others are talking bollocks?

When Gabby comes out and says he owes it all to Mcleish, thn fair enough. But until then don't give Mcleish credit for something he may not have done.

are you for real? its a two way thing. If the player is doing well, credit is due to the manager. Because he is the one installing the confidence in the player, training the player and giving him advice on a daily basis. he is the one playing him, putting him in a formation that plays to his strengths and using a style of fottball that does the same. On a good day for our club why be negative? the bucks stops with the manager so if the club does well the manager deserves praise

Don't waste your breath. Some are so dead set against the manager, short on him bringing home the World Cup everything he does will be eyed with complete cyncism. Nobody said that Gabby's form is all down to McLeish. But to dismiss that the manager might have had any positive influence on the player is because they have their own anti-McLeish agenda.

[swiss1968]

Just a shame we sat back for the last 20 mins instead of putting a turgid wigan to the sword,or is that a bit fantasy football ?

[mattjpa]

Alex McLiesh should worship the ground Gabby walks on, he's making his job safe.   

how about some credit for McLeish for believing in Gabby and having a significant role in him playing as well as he is?

what a load of bollox.
Gabby has been here a long time and has proved he can do it.
Mcleish has played Gabby out wide before now, I do't think he is suddenly instumental in Gabby hiitng some good form.

So the players play badly, its McLeish's fault. They play well and its just a coincidence.

And you have the nads to suggest others are talking bollocks?

Both.........

Gabby Agbonlahor was the solitary difference today, outside of him i thought we where average, we shared possession and in fact Wigan looked far more comfortable on the ball, and I would have said attacked with some fluidity, take Gabby out of that Aston Villa side today and you had to very even sides, which IMO is worrying, wait till we play quality like the Mancs

Mate, before being worried maybe think about this: football is a team game and a season is very long. Maybe Gabby was the difference today but that is not saying that next week Given wont be the difference and the week after that Darren Bent or the defence having a great game as a unit. Tbh, as long as someone is stepping up and making the difference we will do well. its when nobody is stepping up and making a difference that you need to start worrying

[gervilla]

Faultless display from Given. I think his outstanding form gives the whole defence so much more confidence.

Gabby was the other stand-out performance for me. Could it be that the departure of Young and Downing has encouraged him to step up a gear.

Maybe he fancies a move away too .

He's Villa for life.

I can comfortably say that Agbonlahor will never leave Villa.

I hope ye are both right.

[TheSandman]

Some people seem to be taking a very peculiar line of argument here. A significant number of people on this forum felt that following his form last season Gabby did not deserve to be in the team and it is not entirely unlikely that a new manager coming in would have felt the same way. Last season Gabby looked shorn of confidence and fitness but this season he looks like a different player. Surely the manager deserves some praise for doing that as much as Houllier deserved criticism for how bad he was last year? Much like Ireland, Warnock and Dunne all seem to be better players under him.

I'd go as far as to say that Gabby looks better than ever this season. His all round play looks much better (not that it was bad before) and he is on a good run in front of goal (he has done before but the question is whether he can sustain this). Some of the credit should be with the player but some definitely should be given to the manager for unlocking the form and confidence. If managers did not do that then there would be no point having one.

People are very quick to criticise McLeish for things that he has done badly such as a pair of signings that have as of yet failed to fire and some negative tactics but refuse to acknowledge the improvement he has engineered in some of the players as well as making an excellent signing in Given. I also note that one or two posters who were making a lot of negative noises on the match thread disappeared very quickly after the first goal and haven't been heard from since.

[mattjpa]

Alex McLiesh should worship the ground Gabby walks on, he's making his job safe.   

how about some credit for McLeish for believing in Gabby and having a significant role in him playing as well as he is?

what a load of bollox.
Gabby has been here a long time and has proved he can do it.
Mcleish has played Gabby out wide before now, I do't think he is suddenly instumental in Gabby hiitng some good form.

So the players play badly, its McLeish's fault. They play well and its just a coincidence.

And you have the nads to suggest others are talking bollocks?

When Gabby comes out and says he owes it all to Mcleish, thn fair enough. But until then don't give Mcleish credit for something he may not have done.

are you for real? its a two way thing. If the player is doing well, credit is due to the manager. Because he is the one installing the confidence in the player, training the player and giving him advice on a daily basis. he is the one playing him, putting him in a formation that plays to his strengths and using a style of fottball that does the same. On a good day for our club why be negative? the bucks stops with the manager so if the club does well the manager deserves praise

Don't waste your breath. Some are so dead set against the manager, short on him bringing home the World Cup everything he does will be eyed with complete cyncism. Nobody said that Gabby's form is all down to McLeish. But to dismiss that the manager might have had any positive influence on the player is because they have their own anti-McLeish agenda.

It just amazes me. The last 2 games i have been to were bolton and newcastle - neither of which were pleasurable games (I will always love going to the match as a whole, there are not many better ways to spend a day out in my opinion) but...I have also seen the wolves and QPR games on tv and if i take all of them together I can see things going in the right direction. FFS, look at the league position, look at the players who are now back on track that were previously road kill and look at the parameters he is being asked to work within. I just wish the anti mcleish b**shit would stop now...

[Villanation]

Alex McLiesh should worship the ground Gabby walks on, he's making his job safe.   

how about some credit for McLeish for believing in Gabby and having a significant role in him playing as well as he is?

what a load of bollox.
Gabby has been here a long time and has proved he can do it.
Mcleish has played Gabby out wide before now, I do't think he is suddenly instumental in Gabby hiitng some good form.

So the players play badly, its McLeish's fault. They play well and its just a coincidence.

And you have the nads to suggest others are talking bollocks?

Both.........

Gabby Agbonlahor was the solitary difference today, outside of him i thought we where average, we shared possession and in fact Wigan looked far more comfortable on the ball, and I would have said attacked with some fluidity, take Gabby out of that Aston Villa side today and you had to very even sides, which IMO is worrying, wait till we play quality like the Mancs

Mate, before being worried maybe think about this: football is a team game and a season is very long. Maybe Gabby was the difference today but that is not saying that next week Given wont be the difference and the week after that Darren Bent or the defence having a great game as a unit. Tbh, as long as someone is stepping up and making the difference we will do well. its when nobody is stepping up and making a difference that you need to start worrying

Alex McLiesh should worship the ground Gabby walks on, he's making his job safe.   

how about some credit for McLeish for believing in Gabby and having a significant role in him playing as well as he is?

what a load of bollox.
Gabby has been here a long time and has proved he can do it.
Mcleish has played Gabby out wide before now, I do't think he is suddenly instumental in Gabby hiitng some good form.

So the players play badly, its McLeish's fault. They play well and its just a coincidence.

And you have the nads to suggest others are talking bollocks?

Both.........

Gabby Agbonlahor was the solitary difference today, outside of him i thought we where average, we shared possession and in fact Wigan looked far more comfortable on the ball, and I would have said attacked with some fluidity, take Gabby out of that Aston Villa side today and you had to very even sides, which IMO is worrying, wait till we play quality like the Mancs

Mate, before being worried maybe think about this: football is a team game and a season is very long. Maybe Gabby was the difference today but that is not saying that next week Given wont be the difference and the week after that Darren Bent or the defence having a great game as a unit. Tbh, as long as someone is stepping up and making the difference we will do well. its when nobody is stepping up and making a difference that you need to start worrying

Worth listening to both managers reports, both are singing from the same hymn sheet, McLiesh is saying Wigan got control of  the game in parts and had lots of possession, Martinez is saying they made silly mistakes, and he felt should have done better and could have done better, when i say worrying, concern would be a better word, because when we come up against quality sides then is where we will be tested.

The stats confirm just how close it actually was in spite of the 2 goals which is the point i was making.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/15045618.stm

[Rigadon]

Not sure about the stats but I thought we were comfortably the better team, made all the best chances and on another day would've won 4 or 5 nil.  They never once looked like scoring.

[Villanation]

Not sure about the stats but I thought we were comfortably the better team, made all the best chances and on another day would've won 4 or 5 nil.  They never once looked like scoring.

They where dire in front of goal, worse than I thought they would be, they are without doubt relegation fodder IMO, simply because they can't get anywhere near the opposition goal, get something like 10 corners and how many free kicks??and never really threaten once.......

[PeterWithesShin]

We scored twice, hit the crossbar and Al-Habsi made 2 or 3 high quality saves. We could easily have had 4 or 5.
I can only remember Given having to make one notable save, late on with a deflected shot.

Not exactly what i'd call close.

[Dante Lavelli]

"when i say worrying, concern would be a better word, because when we come up against quality sides then is where we will be tested."


Villanation,
So you're basically saying that Villa will find it harder against better teams?
I don't think many will disagree with you.