Aston Villa v Norwich City Post-Match Thread

[Legion]

Available Saturday evening.

[jasonia]

season ticket holder working away anyone know where i can watch?

[Lambert and Payne]

Happy with the 3 points, not happy with how we let them back in it. If it weren't for Gabby we woulda lost that. Involved in all 3 goals. We have to step up and sort the defence out asap, were shocking defensively

[Rigadon]

Only saw the second half and we should've scored 5.   Our full backs are shit.  Jenas look like he might give our midfield a bit of composure and hopefully some balance.

I'm worried about N'Zogbia.  Despite being tidy on the ball he doesn't appear to be aware that he has 10 team mates to pass to.  £10m is looking a shocking price right now.

[PaulWinch again]

We needed that.

[Rigadon]

Also, the table looks much healthier today.  Much needed 3 points.

[Phil from the upper holte]

Pleased with the win, Annoyed with square pegs in round holes, Heskey in midfield again? Jenas looked good when he came on, Agbonlahor man of the match, Herd did well, N'zogbia annoys me, He never passes the fucking thing to anyone, should have fed Ireland at the end, greedy ******

[Mister E]

Well, we showed all the positives and negatives of the current managerial regime at Villa. Against a spirited and neat Norwich side there were times when I was in a cold sweat. Some of the defending was comical – Dunne and Collins definitely are not the solid partnership of 2 years’ ago. The propensity to concede cheap free kicks is worrying, to say the least. The porous nature of having only two genuine midfielders cannot be the way forward if we expect to keep clean sheets.

The reality is that we have to have at least three genuine midfielders on the pitch: Petrov and Herd again looked excellent today and need to be joined by Jenas (whose eventual appearance in a Villa shirt showed some early promising signs) or Delph (who deserves more pitch-time to prove whether or not he is a Premiership player).

Playing 2 from Gabby, Bent and N’Zogbia (the latter of whom has yet to demonstrate genuine class) up front and a central midfield three then leaves a final slot for either JJ / Delph or Bannan / Albrighton – although clearly not in favour, Marc has the delivery to provide for Bent and his striking partner.

Defensively, Clark has to be given a run of games – otherwise we’ll be faced with another “Cahill problem”: a young player who thinks he should be getting more game-time. Clark is too good to leave festering on the bench. Overall, though, the real problem in defence is one of shape and communication. Both Hutton and Warnock have demonstrated some good attacking contributions so far this season, but without a solid midfield this is just cavalier. No wonder that Norwich ripped us a new hole down our right in the first half!

If we play so openly against the good sides, we will get mullered. We have to have a more solid midfield combined with changes at centre back. My team for the next few tough games? –

Given – Cuellar – Dunne – Clark – Warnock; Petrov – Herd – Jenas – Bannan; Bent – Agbonlahor.

Will it happen? – unlikely.

[eamonn]

I'm still waiting for Norwich's equaliser. We can't really have held-on, can we?

The game kind of reminds me of the Blackpool game at Villa Park this time last year. Looks like being be a similar, transitional season too.
Gabby was immense, after Rooney he's the best English attacker when on-form.

Encouraging signs from Jenas that he has the bit of composure and awareness of space we sorely need in the middle.
If N'Zogbia learned to look-up once in a while when running with the ball he'd be far more effective. That failure to square the ball to Ireland running clean-through could have been very costly.

Not sure what to make of the defence. The full-backs our probably our achilles heel. They can look good, especially when over-lapping at times but are liable to drop a clanger, Hutton in particular, when defending.

[oldtimernow]

thought that was a better performance....GA was my MoM...thought N'Zogbia and Hutton in 2nd half had their best games.

Bent back to predatory best

Herd & Heskey played reasonably well

Dunne looks to slow as with Petrov

[Small Rodent]

Some very fluid attacking at times.

Defence does worry me.

The thrown away extra two points at Sunderland would have us with a 4 point buffer.

[Phil from the upper holte]

I thought we passed it well at times

[Rigadon]

I'm still waiting for Norwich's equaliser. We can't really have held-on, can we?

The game kind of reminds me of the Blackpool game at Villa Park this time last year. Looks like being be a similar, transitional season too.
Gabby was immense, after Rooney he's the best English attacker when on-form.

Encouraging signs from Jenas that he has the bit of composure and awareness of space we sorely need in the middle.
If N'Zogbia learned to look-up once in a while when running with the ball he'd be far more effective. That failure to square the ball to Ireland running clean-through could have been very costly.

Not sure what to make of the defence. The full-backs our probably our achilles heel. They can look good, especially when over-lapping at times but are liable to drop a clanger, Hutton in particular, when defending.

It wasn't just N'Zogbia who picked the wrong option - from what I saw a least 3 others did the same thing.  He seems to have close control and a good burst of pace, maybe he'll come good yet.

[oldtimernow]

Some very fluid attacking at times.

Defence does worry me.

The thrown away extra two points at Sunderland would have us with a 4 point buffer.

and QPR too

[Small Rodent]

And N'Zogbia needs to pass more, although for the third goal, his hanging onto the ball did draw 3 players in leaving space.