Aston Villa v Tesco Bags Post-Match Thread

[taylorsworkrate]

Its amazing that all those slagging off Dowd are very conveniently forgetting Hutton's "tackle".

It wasn't even Dowd's decision to award the penalty / send off Herd.  It was the LINESMAN'S

Ok, so it's the LINESMAN'S fault. Shame the LINESMAN didn't help Dowd out with the rules of the game in the cup final.

I'm not condoning the decision by any means, it was an absolute shocker, probably the most unfathomable decision i've ever seen watching football.

However, the way I see it is that they missed the subsequent penalty, and that we should have been down to 10 men at that stage anyway.

If an Albion player had made a challenge similar to Hutton's, then this site would have gone into meltdown and rightly so.

[PeterWithe]

We seem to have no hustle.  We have too many players "waiting for someone else" to do it.  Earth to McLeish - Our offensive system is not working.

Hutton, Heskey, Dunne and Collins wearing Villa shirts is pretty offensive to me.
But I don't think that's what you mean.

I thought three of those four were among our better players, I'd have put Dunne as clearly our best player.

[Holtenderinthesky]

Its amazing that all those slagging off Dowd are very conveniently forgetting Hutton's "tackle".

It wasn't even Dowd's decision to award the penalty / send off Herd.  It was the LINESMAN'S

Ok, so it's the LINESMAN'S fault. Shame the LINESMAN didn't help Dowd out with the rules of the game in the cup final.

I'm not condoning the decision by any means, it was an absolute shocker, probably the most unfathomable decision i've ever seen watching football.

However, the way I see it is that they missed the subsequent penalty, and that we should have been down to 10 men at that stage anyway.

If an Albion player had made a challenge similar to Hutton's, then this site would have gone into meltdown and rightly so.

I was waiting for someone to wheel out "the penalty wan't scored anyway" nonsense.  It's not the pen that cost us it was the ridiculous sending off of one of our best players that is the issue.  We have a piss weak midfield as it is without losing a player to a bullshit decision.  I'd rather they'd scored the penalty and Herd stayed on the pitch.

[Ads]

11 v 11 we're easily the better side,competitive, winning balls and creating the only chances.

Up step that fat fucking ****** Dowd and that's that.

[taylorsworkrate]

Its amazing that all those slagging off Dowd are very conveniently forgetting Hutton's "tackle".

It wasn't even Dowd's decision to award the penalty / send off Herd.  It was the LINESMAN'S

Ok, so it's the LINESMAN'S fault. Shame the LINESMAN didn't help Dowd out with the rules of the game in the cup final.

I'm not condoning the decision by any means, it was an absolute shocker, probably the most unfathomable decision i've ever seen watching football.

However, the way I see it is that they missed the subsequent penalty, and that we should have been down to 10 men at that stage anyway.

If an Albion player had made a challenge similar to Hutton's, then this site would have gone into meltdown and rightly so.

I was waiting for someone to wheel out "the penalty wan't scored anyway" nonsense.  It's not the pen that cost us it was the ridiculous sending off of one of our best players that is the issue.  We have a piss weak midfield as it is without losing a player to a bullshit decision.  I'd rather they'd scored the penalty and Herd stayed on the pitch.

Maybe you need to re-read the whole of my post.

[eamonn]

Very worrying performance. No one able to gee us up and get us going when things went against us (apart from Given, and there's only so much he can do from in goals).
On Setanta Ireland, Pat feckin' Nevin thought it was a penalty after watching it seven times. Herd didn't complain about being sent-off...according to the experts that's a clear indication he was culpable. No mention of the fact that Olsson didn't stay on the ground or complain at all after the alleged ''stamp''. It changed the game completely but as Brian Little said on the Setanta coverage, that only masked our shortcomings.
The other pundit, Danny Mills, made a very good point. Villa don't have an identity at the moment. We lack the players to play McLeish's up and at 'em approach and we're not good enough to be a patient, passing side. Our ball retention was as horrendous as ever today.

As infuriating as I found his style of football when the onus was on us to break the opppoistion down, and the petulant way he walked out, I find myself missing the days of MON. He would never have us disorganised so much for set-pieces. West Brom scored two goals and almost a third from their first three corners. And we don't have a clue how to be effective when it comes to our own corners. We're a shell of a squad, no coherent style or spirit between them. We've had an average start to the season, a horrific December means we're going to have to get points on the board quickly over the next few weeks and I'm not confident of us beating anyone.

And a third proud unbeaten record against a local team goes in the space of six months.

[KevinGage]

We seem to have no hustle.  We have too many players "waiting for someone else" to do it.  Earth to McLeish - Our offensive system is not working.

Hutton, Heskey, Dunne and Collins wearing Villa shirts is pretty offensive to me.
But I don't think that's what you mean.

I thought three of those four were among our better players, I'd have put Dunne as clearly our best player.

In fairness, he's been better this season.   

But for all the talk of our defensive lynchpins enjoying their football again and enjoying playing under McLeish,  our defending hasn't been so hot really. Given has probably been our player of the season to date, which say's it all for me.

[TheSandman]

Well, that's relegation football. The lack of wins at the start of the season is coming back to haunt us.

McLeish is going to go down as the worst Villa manager since Graham Turner, and it's not really even his fault. He's inherited a shambolic, divided squad and is forced to play with the crap he has. The only thing I can fault him for is signing N'Zogbia, but even that is in hindsight.

He brought Heskey on because there was nobody else on the bench. I don't know what Clark or Ireland would have done differently.

We're now stuck with McLeish because we can't/won't afford to pay him off. The football is crap, the desire is missing and we're hurtling down the league. We've played more games than the teams beneath us, so 8th (or whatever it is now) is a false position.

I have to agree with you Tim. As much as it is belied by how clueless they seemed to have been in the last 12 months the board knew exactly what they were doing when they appointed McLeish. That is, getting a convenient scapegoat that would draw attention away from the real culprits for the state of our team this season. I said at the end of last season that we needed a decent central midfielder to hold the ball and also some new defenders. Instead, for whatever reason we lost a number of important players, none of whom (with the exception of Friedel who I'd probably rate as the least important of them) were adequately replaced. We were shit last season so how anyone can expect anything better than that this when we sold some of our better players is beyond me. We're basically relying on the same players who let us down last season but surrounded by poorer players this time round. I'm not saying McLeish is blameless. Jenas, Hutton and N'Zogbia have all been poor - at best - signings and today's tactical decisions were baffling (but not negative as his reputation seems to suggest) but there are far bigger culprits for our uninspiring team and performance. The most hurtful thing in this is that I'm not hurt. All I feel is a sort of resigned indifference. A resigned indifference that I've heard from many of the Villa fans I've talked to this season.

Today, we were not as bad as some imply. Up until the sending off  we competed well. However, Herd was playing an important role for us and he was playing it well. After he went we struggled to keep the ball (which I felt that Herd did well when he was on) and we struggled to get the ball to our effective and creative players. Some people may point to the fact that we deserved to be reduced to 10 men anyway through the Hutton incident but that obscures the issue as we lost a good player who was doing an effective job rather than one who was something of a liability. Ultimately, it was the sending off that did for us as we lost our fluidity.

[Compass]

Is anyone still happy with Alex McLeish as our manager?

2 wins out of 9. The 2 wins were against teams who are currently 19th and 20th at home.

We've won zilch away. We've now lost 2 in a row and December hasn't even arrived yet.

His win record % is absoutely pathetic considering the teams he has played. Man City and Everton being the most threatening teams so far and probably Newcastle considering their form. We still have Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs to play.

And he couldn't even compete in the Carling cup against a team who are currently 18th. Again, at home.

Today he couldn't even get the team to have 1, just one target at HOME.

Worst manager we've ever had. And the sad thing it was so predictable this would happen.

I still can't get my head around why we hired such an incompetent manager.

[PeterWithesShin]

Just got back, we looked comfortable up until the sending off. After that we fell apart. Haven't seen the sending off yet so no idea if it should have been given or not but it 100% changed the game.

Petrov was woeful today I thought, especially in the second half. The amount of times Gabby made a run and Petrov ignored him and played it sideways or backwards was ridiculous. Gabby or a set piece was the only way we were going to score in that second half. So play to Gabby's strength you fucking useless twats, get the ball to him when he's already started his run. Not when Gabby has had to stop and has his back to goal.

Bent, if he doesn't score he may as well not be on the park. I knew when we signed him he was primarily a goal scorer and not much else but had no idea how shit he was at everything else.

Whether a red card or not I thought Herd did okay in his brief appearance.

P.s. Fucking lucky shirt my arse!!

[taylorsworkrate]

We seem to have no hustle.  We have too many players "waiting for someone else" to do it.  Earth to McLeish - Our offensive system is not working.

Hutton, Heskey, Dunne and Collins wearing Villa shirts is pretty offensive to me.
But I don't think that's what you mean.

I thought three of those four were among our better players, I'd have put Dunne as clearly our best player.

In fairness, he's been better this season.   

But for all the talk of our defensive lynchpins enjoying their football again and enjoying playing under McLeish,  our defending hasn't been so hot really. Given has probably been our player of the season to date, which say's it all for me.

Yep, excellent point.

[olaftab]

Just got back, we looked comfortable up until the sending off. After that we fell apart. Haven't seen the sending off yet so no idea if it should have been given or not but it 100% changed the game.

THe question is PWS why did we fall apart? Why didn't McLeish make effective subs straight away and change tactics? How does  havinga man short  makes you crap at defending corners?

[sidcowans10]

I hate to be controversial but on whatever channel the live stream was on, they looked at the penalty incident after the game and it did look like a stamp on him. At the very least it was a " tread on" whether there was intent I m not so sure. The linesman did flag early for it.

That said we were awful. No shots on goal in open play is, i think, relegation fodder. I hop I m wrong. I have never been so " MEH" about my beloved club

[olaftab]

Phil Dowd you are a wanker. 

Not his fault that we lost this one. I will hold my opinion till  I have seen the MOTD. It's not his fault that we are shite at defending  set pieces. Yes we were down to 10 and conceded 2 from corners. FFS how many men do we need to defend a corner properly?

[PaulTheVillan]

11 v 11 we're easily the better side,competitive, winning balls and creating the only chances.

Up step that fat fucking c*** Dowd and that's that.

Not saying Dowd isn't a ******, because he is.
But the Lino was the one who saw the incident