Aston Villa vs Chelsea Post-Match Thread

[Dave]

"There were so many decisions that were poor."

Chelsea did of course have a valid goal disallowed as well, so it's not as if everything went in their favour.

[steamer]

Hard to believe we contrived to lose that one. 1-0 and a man up, Chelsea looked out on their feet and it seemed only a matter of time before we got the second. Benteke for me tried to do Terry, bit like Ramires tackle it wasn't that bad but the reaction of the tackled players for both red cards sealed their fate. Benteke could have seem red in the first half anyway for the elbow and was extremely lucky to stay on the field against Norwich last weekend.
Benteke going off gave Chelsea a new lease of life. Great first goal from Lampard though Baker was poor for it. Vlaar went to shit after that, his defending for their 'goal' was criminal and efforts at a bicycle kick in his own box almost handed them another. To be fair the winner was a brilliantly worked goal but a number of our players were caught ball watching badly with the one two and Delph for some reason decided to not keep tracking Lampard.
Both our full backs played well. Lichaj could have done better for the Chelsea winner maybe but had a very good game up against Hazard. Bennett had a fine game. Westwood had a great game in midfield. Sylla is a bit skittish with his touch but did well. Delph I thought was our best player again but switching off at the end for their winner cost us. Gabby and Weimann went out of it after Benteke went off. Definitely thought Nzogbia should have come in for Weimann but Lambert is poor when it comes to substitutions. Baker did alright but Vlaar was again absolute shite when Chelsea had us under pressure. Thought Guzan was muck today too. Kicking was deplorable, almost handed them a goal after Luiz free kick and didn't cover himself in glory generally for the last half hour.
As an aside, can't understand the hatred for Lampard on here.

Did you miss his save from ba. and touching fat fwanks shot wide ?

[neo_Villan]

Have to say it, it would be criminal if we don't get 3 points today. These lot were shite enough with 11 men.

Only Villa...

[Rigadon]

Delph, Sylla both absolutely brilliant today.  We deserved to win, they deserved fuck all.  Typical then for us to lose the game. 

Lampard, please retire and take your sky pointing celebrations away from Aston Villa please. 

Don't fancy Wigan to beat Arse.

[oldham_villa]

I'm sure some posters just like to get a reaction.

Great performance Villa and very unlucky. The amount of effort we put in the game I think we missed a trick by not using our subs.

We have shown real promise in recent weeks and its been a joy to see confidence growing in their game. It's been a strange season but we have stuck at it. Wonderful to see Stan is getting better too!

I feel we will stay up but we shall see what tomorrow brings eh.

[PaulWinch again]

We were pretty good today, but really should have got something from the game. Hopefully ultimately it won't matter, and we can't go on conceding goals every week.

[eastie]

"There were so many decisions that were poor."

Chelsea did of course have a valid goal disallowed as well, so it's not as if everything went in their favour.

Maybe but it was hardly clear cut - theres no way the linesman could have seen that with the bodies in the way - if not sure then its no goal.

It took several replays with the frame frozen to confirm it crossed the line a split second before westy cleared.

[Toronto Villa]

I'm sure some posters just like to get a reaction.

Great performance Villa and very unlucky. The amount of effort we put in the game I think we missed a trick by not using our subs.

We have shown real promise in recent weeks and its been a joy to see confidence growing in their game. It's been a strange season but we have stuck at it. Wonderful to see Stan is getting better too!

I feel we will stay up but we shall see what tomorrow brings eh.

Agree entirely. For me, there is so much to look forward to next season. We need to become less naive, and that comes with some better players and experience.

[Dave]

"There were so many decisions that were poor."

Chelsea did of course have a valid goal disallowed as well, so it's not as if everything went in their favour.

Maybe but it was hardly clear cut - theres no way the linesman could have seen that with the bodies in the way - if not sure then its no goal.

I agree with that - and it's obvious why it wasn't given. But that doesn't mean that the ball wasn't over the line, because it was.

[Toronto Villa]

"There were so many decisions that were poor."

Chelsea did of course have a valid goal disallowed as well, so it's not as if everything went in their favour.

Maybe but it was hardly clear cut - theres no way the linesman could have seen that with the bodies in the way - if not sure then its no goal.

There are ifs and buts with almost every decision both for and against. We got the rub of the green on a couple of occasions. When you make mental errors as we did today against Sunderland you can get away with it. When you do at the top level you get punished. We could and should have won today. We didn't fir most of the obvious reasons why we've lost many of our games this season.

[SoccerHQ]

You always need to keep 11 on the pitch against the top 4...it's hard enough getting a result when you have 11 on the pitch.

No chance we'd have lost that with the full 11....Chelsea back 4 looked petrified of him and all our pace for the first hour....without him (and Gabby looking done for the last 30 minutes) we had nothing really going forward and Chelsea could just creep forward up the pitch and start to get their attacking players in the game.

Think Lambert should've thrown on N'zogbia at least to give us someone to run at Chelsea a bit.

Think this result will prove academic but yeah Wigan away needing to get something with no Benteke suddenly has a difficult look to it.

[steamer]

Chelsea will finish 3rd, they annihilated us earlier in the season.
I can not begin to imagine the cost of their squad against ours, and Terry is a wanker.
But we played some good football today.
either Gabby or Andi should have been subbed because they were knackered.
But we did not let ourselves down and will improve.

I see hope and a bright future.

There is only one Aston Villa.

[brontebilly]

I totally agree with Lambert. Sums it up perfectly:

Aston Villa manager Paul Lambert told BBC Sport: "We should have won the game. I thought we looked great and played good football, we had a good tempo. Some of the decisions today were bizarre. The referee missed the John Terry one, he's taken down Yacouba Sylla. You've got to be big enough to make that decision.

"We were so far in control of that game. We didn't deserve that - we were excellent.

"I thought we should have had a penalty. There were so many decisions that were poor."

deciding not to bring on any substitutes after Chelsea equalised might have been the worst decision of the lot

[Risso]

I'm sure some posters just like to get a reaction.

Great performance Villa and very unlucky. The amount of effort we put in the game I think we missed a trick by not using our subs.

We have shown real promise in recent weeks and its been a joy to see confidence growing in their game. It's been a strange season but we have stuck at it. Wonderful to see Stan is getting better too!

I feel we will stay up but we shall see what tomorrow brings eh.

Agree entirely. For me, there is so much to look forward to next season. We need to become less naive, and that comes with some better players and experience.

Assuming we stay up, we need to spend £15m minimum on a new defence.

[eastie]

You always need to keep 11 on the pitch against the top 4...it's hard enough getting a result when you have 11 on the pitch.

No chance we'd have lost that with the full 11....Chelsea back 4 looked petrified of him and all our pace for the first hour....without him (and Gabby looking done for the last 30 minutes) we had nothing really going forward and Chelsea could just creep forward up the pitch and start to get their attacking players in the game.

Think Lambert should've thrown on N'zogbia at least to give us someone to run at Chelsea a bit.

Think this result will prove academic but yeah Wigan away needing to get something with no Benteke suddenly has a difficult look to it.

We looked likely to add to to the lead before benteke saw red and Chelsea looked stretched every time we attacked - his departure totally changed the match.