Sunderland v Aston Villa Post-Match Thread

[old man villa fan]

I'll tell you what, I would rather see us playing some football that suits Bent's abilities than a team without Bent and playing the way we are now.

[Brian Taylor]

I'll tell you what, I would rather see us playing some football that suits Bent's abilities than a team without Bent and playing the way we are now.

Agree!! Currently we are sh*te!

Give N'zobia a kick where he'll appreciate it and the rest will follow.

40 pts here we come?

[KevinGage]

Why do posters say Bent missed a sitter? on the replay surely the keeper saved it, he put it to the side of the keeper but as good keepers do he spread himself. Is it just coincidence that Petrov has scored a few screamers this season or has AM instructed him to shoot whenever possible? Collins should have been in front of his man bad marking and lack of concentration at a critical period.

Was thinking that about Stan.

Aside from the goals he has bagged, he was very (very) close with another long range effort v Fulham away and on a few other occasions this season.

He has that in his locker -always has. And maybe McLeish recalls that from his time in Scotland. Is it enough to keep his place in the side long term, the occasional long range wonder goal? I like Stan, but probably not. That's an argument for another thread though.

[JD]

Watched the game and thought it was a better performance. Would have settled for a draw beforehand so the big disappointment is that we should have won.

The things that irritate me the most and put us under pressure are the amount of times we give possession away needlessly and the stupid free kicks we seem to concede all the time. Get these sorted and we will vastly improve, as we seem to put ourselves under pressure.

Herd played well today, as did Gabby. N'Zogbia looked better and a good goal from Petrov but a lot of his passing was abysmal.

3 points next week will be the tonic we need.   

[Matt Collins]

I don't recall much abysmal passing from Petrov. Some of Herd's was a little, erm, industrial, but he did provide good cover and played well. Bent's missed quite a few sitters already this season: Sunderland, Newcastle, Wigan come to mind immediately.

I thought N'Zogbia was comfortably his best so far and Hutton looked a threat going fwd and a bit of a liability at the back. Warnock's showing why Mcleish was right to bring him back. Given we've no cash I don't think we'd have found a better alternative.

We do look really badly organised from set pieces though - all a bit scrambled all the time.

What we really need to do is find a way of giving us stability and presence in central midfield, creativity on the ball, and the threat of N'Zogbia, Bent and Gabby. I still maintain that this is probably best done through a genuine 4-3-3, with Petrov, Herd, Delph, Jenas, Ireland and Bannan scrapping it out for the 3 midfield places. That's where we've been weakest, but in theory we should be able to put a decent enough central midfield out if Jenas, or Ireland get in decent form and / or Bannan or Delph develop. But at the moment I don't have much confidence in that part of the pitch

[Phil from the upper holte]

Thought we did well with the ball / crap in defence. Some positives though, generally. Herd, N'Zog, Warnock and Gabby were particularly good. Hutton is good on the attack, but gets no cover when caught out of position.
Defensively, we have the same problems as we had last season: set-piece management is awful.

We should have won this game.

Clark and Cuellar, anyone?

 Clark and Cuellar is what I said, Herd as well mcleish said if we keep failing to defend then players would be dropped its time to start sticking to what he said, how can the smallest player on the field win a header in the 6 yard box Dunne is slow and past it. Should have won

[Shrek]

I think we need to get Clark playing Abit more, he can't be any worse than Dunne or Collins. The last thing we want is him wanting to leave to find games.

We need Bannan back instead of Heskey, as I said before, are we actually in a position to take the moral high ground with Bannan? We are in a relegation battle and need to utilise all our resources.

[TopDeck113]

Last season we deserved something and got nowt; this season we possibly deserved three points and got one.  Then again we did them a few years back after Ashley had been sent off.    Such is a nature of football: you don't always get what you deserve in any given game.

[Chris Smith]

I think we need to get Clark playing Abit more, he can't be any worse than Dunne or Collins. The last thing we want is him wanting to leave to find games.

We need Bannan back instead of Heskey, as I said before, are we actually in a position to take the moral high ground with Bannan? We are in a relegation battle and need to utilise all our resources.

We're 9th at the end of October, it is ridiculous to talk of being "in a relegation battle". By that sort of reckoning Newcastle are title contenders.

[nuninho]

Was thinking that about Stan.

Aside from the goals he has bagged, he was very (very) close with another long range effort v Fulham away and on a few other occasions this season.

He has that in his locker -always has. And maybe McLeish recalls that from his time in Scotland. Is it enough to keep his place in the side long term, the occasional long range wonder goal? I like Stan, but probably not. That's an argument for another thread though.

The old Hitzlsberger argument....

[olaftab]

And as far as the 'save' today goes, if you compared it to a penalty kick (from a comparable distance out), you'd have to put it down as a poor pen rather than a good save.
In other words, its still a poor miss from a top-rated striker in that position. How many of those did Shearer or Lineker miss?

This is rubbish. No way you can compare taking a penalty to the this chance and save. Taking a penalty ball is dead on the spot you can compose yourself with all the time in the world to decide what you want to do. Yesterday Bent expected but was not sure he would get the ball. Did not know what speed or angle the ball was going to delivered. Did not know if a defender or two were going the chop his legs off or the  GK will rush out or stick. He had to think about all this and take a best shot.  It was angled wide of GK but not wide enough  and that was  a difference of fraction of second wait to angle himself properly. He didn't do that that is all.
And oh yes I have seen some shocking misses by  Shearer, Linekar and even Messi.

[MarkM]

Although we are in 9th, their are a number of teams below us with a game in hand.

We could drop a couple of places dependant on results.

We are only 2 points away from 16th with some tricky fixtures to come.

I only watched the highlights so I can't really comment on individual performances, had Bent scored we could have won.

We desperately need to win against Norwich in order to keep a buffer between us and the bottom

[Nastylee]

Reminded me of Fulham last year when MA gave away a needless freekick and we all know what happened. Not sure Clark or Cuellar are going to solve the problem as I think it's more to do with organisation/tactic than personnel. I mean you have Dunne and Collins who are both strong in the air consistently failing to defend set pieces. It makes no sense.

[Nastylee]

Oh, and to add - we change mentality when we take the lead. We were dominating the second half and looked like we could score a couple only to take the lead and become nervous wrecks. Happens everytime and I doubt anyone was surprised that Sunderland scored their equaliser.

[Risso]

After Man U, Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool, I'd argue everybody's in a relegation battle.