Bolton Wanderers v Aston Villa Post-Match Thread

[kippaxvilla2]

Looked great going forward with immense pace, plus Guzan had a good solid game which impressed and admittedly suprised me.

All the people claiming Big 'Eck can only play defensive football surely should have shut up now, albeit if we sat back in the opening of the
second half a bit too much.

The only games we haven't played horrible, defensive football have been against Wigan, Blackburn and Bolton who are pretty much the 3 worst teams in the league. We played o.k at Sunderland who aren't far off those three.

If McLeish can conjour up a good passing attacking game against either Liverpool or Arsenal then he'll start getting more goodwill from me and others on this forum.

This is where I am at.  We have become a bigger version of Blues.  If we stand up against the big teams we'll start being described as plucky.  Something a lot of us hadn't bargained on during the post Ellis years.

[Sexual Ealing]

Well, when you think that people who don't share your view on things aren't "supporters" then any claims to be rational aren't really based on much.  And you should really have a read over your own posts, I'd say a good 90% of them are you whining irrationally about other posters. 

The first sentence is not what I said at all and the second is a lie.

Bloody right. Those figures don't account for any of the condescending, repetetive inferences that hint at, but never prove, inside knowledge.

Oh dear, you've caught me out. How clever you are.

I wasn't trying to catch you out, nor to appear clever; I haven't got an internet playground to bully thick kids in so you carry on. I bet it's a right laugh.

Sure is. And incidentally, it's 'repetitive.'

It certainly is.

[Greg N'Ash]

Today was a start i reckon. twats in defnece hoofing it, but overall we kept it down on the floor 1st half. that wasn't the formation of a phillistine today and it only started going pear-shaped  when petrov ran out of puff near the end. TOP TOP MARKS TO AGENT GINGER

[Pete3206]

Compass-types excepted.

Villa winning will have spoilt his weekend, along with a few others.
Long live McLeish as Villa manager.

Where's our next win coming from then? Four wins against piss poor opposition is nothing to crow about. I want McCleish to succeed at Aston Villa, but let's get real, it's never going to happen. He's a nice man who's totally out of his depth.

[KRS]

Long live McLeish as Villa manager.

"We're going up, we're going down,
Going up, we're going down"
...no thanks!

Nice bloke and he's been proper dropped in the shite, but the odd win against other struggling teams doesnt paper over the cracks that AM is out of his depth.

The only people who say we're struggling are Villa supporters.

Funny, a lot of external people were saying it after the Manure game. Also most of us have seen most matches this season and have seen that most performances have been poor. 3 wins against teams that have been bottom when played and one against a newly promoted team is not the best.

Although saying that it looks like we appear to be the best of a bad bunch and if we are allowed to get some players in improve (or to at least replace Jenas), Albrighton, Bent and N'zog get their confidence back and the manager plays with more attacking intent against some of the bigger boys, we should be close to this position or better by the end.

The highlighted text is the most important factor here. Before todays result the table showed that we were just a few points above 15th place...the fact that after todays win we are still only 4 points off 15th place shows that we are fortunate to be in a group of so many other bad teams who are indeed worse than us.

Having watched the highlights, we showed some good attacking play and we should have closed the game out earlier if we'd put our chances away. The bottom line is that a team with the likes of Bent, Gabby, Albrighton and N'Zogbia shouldnt be "struggling", but if other teams around us do start putting some results together then we could well be.

I dont want us to lose, I dont want us to go down...but for all his passion on the touchline and the unfortunate circumstances he's found himself in, I dont think AM is a capable enough manager to string together a decent set of results and because of that I dont want him as Villa manager anymore.

Villa fans arent the only ones who think we are struggling...its been all over the media, but a lot of it is also condescending along the lines of "those Aston Villa fans need to know their place...who do they think they are expecting better results and being in 8th position in the league". Forget the league position for a second...we've won 4 out of 15 games against Bolton, Norwich, Wigan and Blackburn...not exactly great reading when 3 out of 4 of those teams are currently in the bottom 4 of the league table. Fortunately for us, those 3 teams are far too bad and too far behind for us to be relegated, but are we really supposed to accept avoiding relegation as being good enough?

If AM can keep us in the top half of the table after the next 3 games, then I will be very surprised to say the least.

[LeeB]

Today was a start i reckon. twats in defnece hoofing it, but overall we kept it down on the floor 1st half. that wasn't the formation of a phillistine today and it only started going pear-shaped  when petrov ran out of puff near the end. TOP TOP MARKS TO AGENT GINGER

I was mightily pissed off after last week, and the two previous performances, but the manner of our performance yesterday gave me much hope and gave me some confidence in the manager again.

It may only be shitty Bolton, but in 25 years of following us I've never taken an away game as a given.

[Chris Smith]

I don't know what happened at the start of the second half but we definately were defending deeper and it put the defence under pressure. You can have one hoofer in defence but it seems all the back four were doing it the second half. Albrighton had his best game for a long time shows what a goal can do for your confidence, Zog started well but disappeared the second half, that could have been the consequence of playing deeper.

What happened was Bolton started playing long balls and by-passing the midfield which forced us to defend a bit deeper. You should always  expect periods when you have to defend when you're away from home but other than a scrappy goal we coped well. Even after that we still made the better chances and if Bent had been his usual self we'd have won much more decisively.

I've been saying for some time that the problem was with the balance in midfield, yesterday it worked, all 4 of them had good games and we looked so much better for it. Definitely something to build on.

Well done to all concerned.

[Mister E]

Biggest disappointment was finding The Bromilow Arms shut !!

Yeah but the Buccaneer was open ...

[andyh]

A very welcome 3 points, but I can't get carried away by a win over probably the worst team in the league.
At 2-1 we semed to be doing our very best to let them back in it. I think the injury to their main man 15 mins from the end propably saved us because Bolton went to shit again after he went off.

Still, to protect me from being accused of not being a true fan, I'll declare contentment with the win and see how we fair in a stiffer test next week.

[Shrek]

Gabby suspended for Liverpool I think.

[avwebby]

For me Petrov was mom he seems to be playing better every time I see him.

As for winning against teams at the bottom, we have to to stay up.

[Villafirst]

Gabby suspended for Liverpool I think.

Can you appeal against a yellow card? Watching on Football First the co commentator was flabbergasted that Gabby got the card when their keeper kicked the ball at Gabby! Dowd was a complete twat throughout the game - he shouldn't ref any of our games after the Carling Cup Final Vidic incident. Didn't he send Herd off against West Brom which proved an incorrect decision?
He's a shit referee!

[Dave Cooper please]

Delighted with the win.

Back in the title hunt.

Just say no, kids.

[supertom]

I do like seeing Stan playing further forward. Frankly given his composure and technical ability, we need him to do that. Herd allows him that freedom. Stan hasn't got the legs to play the defensive midfield role. He'll be fucked after 60 minutes. With Herd taking on the running more so, Stan lasts a little longer. He can't do 90 at top gear, but at least by the end we don't have to strether him off the pitch with an oxygen tank.

Yesterday was promising but we can't get ahead of ourselves like we've turned a corner. We've only won 4 game, 3 against the shittest teams in the top flight, whilst Norwich aren't very solid away. When we start getting results, or at the very least, competing with the top 6 clubs, then we'll get behind McLeish.

We played 2 wingers yesterday and 2 forwards and created more. 4-4-2 isn't the most stylish formation but probably, at this time, the best for us, and something simplistic enough to fit a McLeish game-plan. We look clueless and lost playing a 4-2-3-1.

[Chris Smith]

Tom, I think to expect us to be competing with the top 6 given the cost cutting that has been going on is unreasonable.