Aston Villa v Manchester City Post-Match Thread

[paul_e]

I'm  going to annoy a few people with this but I don't think the first half was too bad.  Yes we offered nothing but they only scored with a corner and the only other shot on target was the dzeko one that any professional keeper would expect to save.  On top of that we did it in a very efficient way, we weren't running around pressing them and chasing shadows, we just sat in and let them have the ball in front of us.  What we didn't do well was get them chasing to win the ball back but other than that we were doing what I think Lambert wanted, which was get them to do the running and frustrate them.

In the second half we opened up a bit more (we had no choice as it was but I think we'd have done the same anyway) and looked like we had the legs on them.  Certainly towards the end we looked a lot fitter, which was largely down to the approach in the 1st half and meant that they struggled to push for an equaliser.

I think it was a very professional performance against a side that came expecting, and requiring, to win.  I don't buy the argument that Man City got complacent either, they've had a bad time away this season so I don't think they'd have looked a 1 goal lead and decided it was won, certainly not at the times we scored, I think we made it difficult for them to break us down, that they only scored from 2 corners tells 2 stories, we still do't defend them well enough and we do defend better than many people give us credit for in open play.

[paulcomben]

Their two goals were simply due to shit defending from corners. Our 3 were class.

[Richard]

I like the 3 5 2 formation - imagine better wing backs (Bacuna if he improves, maybe Lowton when he returns to form) and Benteke/Gabby as the front 2

Loved today, football and an atmosphere returned to VP !

[Rigadon]

The only genuinely quality goal was Bacuna's free kick which was sublime.  We got lucky today but it was coming after being shafted by the luck fairy for ages.  The first half was abysmal but the second much improved and that's heartening. 

I want to see a convincing 90 minute beating of an opponent in the league.  But the fact that this didn't happen against this decades Goliath isn't cause for concern. 

Well done to the team for staying in the game. 

[john2710]

Typical of Villa to summon up a win against a side everyone had us losing by a hatful to.

Here's what Komapny says:
"Stunned Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany, pictured above applauding his side's travelling fans at the final whistle, tries to explain how they lost against Aston Villa after taking the lead twice.
"If we played that game 10 times, we would win nine of them," Kompany said. "It was a very unlucky result and a very unlucky day. Villa had three chances and scored three goals and that was it. The first goal was offside and we did not get the decision - but every time we made a mistake, we conceded."

So, they were unlucky.

Of course their goals were beautifully crafted & not the results of mistakes or poor defending!  Fuck 'em

[Jockey Randall]

I completely understand people saying we need to be better at keeping possession as we just invite pressure but part of me feels it may also have a detrimental effect on us if we try more possession football. We're direct and like to set up chances as quick as possible when we have the ball whilst catching the opposition defence off guard, whether that be through long balls for the speed merchants to chase or a quick bit of one touch passing to set someone away this appears to be our main strength going forward. If we try and slow things down and incorporate a few extra passes into our game will we see the goals dry up?

[johnboy]

There was me before the game just praying for clean sheet.

[Dave Clark Five]

Bacuna is looking impressive , we have needed a free kick specialist for a while now and although I feel sorry for Lowton I think he will struggle to get back in the team if bacuna continues to impress.

Kea was very impressive today and deserves praise too.

Definitely. That pair worked well together. I was complaining in the first half about our lack of a free kick taker.

[CJ]

There was me before the game just praying for clean sheet.

There was me before the game strolling across Aston park praying the defeat wouldn't be too embarrassing. Enjoyed my humble pie for tea!

[danno]

Got to the ground, saw the line up and panicked.

Two hours later I was buzzing!

Shows what I know. 

[adrenachrome]

I'm  going to annoy a few people with this but I don't think the first half was too bad.  Yes we offered nothing but they only scored with a corner and the only other shot on target was the dzeko one that any professional keeper would expect to save.  On top of that we did it in a very efficient way, we weren't running around pressing them and chasing shadows, we just sat in and let them have the ball in front of us.  What we didn't do well was get them chasing to win the ball back but other than that we were doing what I think Lambert wanted, which was get them to do the running and frustrate them.

In the second half we opened up a bit more (we had no choice as it was but I think we'd have done the same anyway) and looked like we had the legs on them.  Certainly towards the end we looked a lot fitter, which was largely down to the approach in the 1st half and meant that they struggled to push for an equaliser.

I think it was a very professional performance against a side that came expecting, and requiring, to win.  I don't buy the argument that Man City got complacent either, they've had a bad time away this season so I don't think they'd have looked a 1 goal lead and decided it was won, certainly not at the times we scored, I think we made it difficult for them to break us down, that they only scored from 2 corners tells 2 stories, we still do't defend them well enough and we do defend better than many people give us credit for in open play.

I agree with you, and if I compare the mood of the fans in the concourse of upper Witton Lane with that against Newcastle, when he conceded just before half time, then a lot of others agree as well. We held our shape, and most of their attempts were from long range. The back line was the best coordinated in terms of the offside trap that I have seen for a long, long time. 

The near post weakness should be addressed as a matter of urgency, to be sure.   

[Ads]

Not long back. A fantastic win!

We contained them pretty well first half, I struggle to remember clear cut chances, perhaps the one that squirted just by the post. Corners are definitely our soft underbelly. We offered next to nothing going forward, but at one nil you're always in it.

Second half I thought Bacuna was pushed ten or fifteen yards further up the pitch and we really got into the game in an attacking sense, a good deal more, while maintaining the deep, disciplined defence.

A lovely little dink through to KEA, and I dont care if he was half a yard or half a mile off side after what happened up there last seaaon, and we're back in it. Right on queue though our soft underbelly is exposed again.

Andi deserves to be praised for his marauding run that lead to the free kick that Bacuna effortlessly stroked in. High balls are Kompany's bread and butter, but when we did get it down and pass it or work the channels, we made them look a bit more ordinary.

The third was great. What a shambles the City back four and Hart were!

I want to heap praise on Lambert as he got it tactically spot on. City created very little and scored from a couple of corners, which is incredibly frustrating, but pleasing the way the defence manfully stood up to them.

A second point is that I thought we were too negativw in our approach first half. Whether the way Lambert pushed players higher up the pitch was a planned matter; i.e. box clever and hang in at 0-0 or 0-1 I don't know, but we limited a side that smashed Yanited into next week.

I said before the game that I felt we needed a repeat of that 2-0 style win against Chelsea to break a mental block and we got it.

I have a lot of faith in this squad and Lambert. I hope those boasting before the game about how little they cared and how they gave their tickets away watch the highlights and feel gutted that their faith waivered.

[Fasth56]

When the two teams lined up one was worth nearly £200 mil and the other £24 mil, so you would expect a fairly uneven match in terms of possession. There was however only one team out on the pitch and one team that seemed to enjoy the goals when they scored.

[godzvilla]

This is from the Indy , a lot of postive stuff in here and I loved the bit about " Old men battering the hoardings " !................Godzvilla !  ( in Mexico , unfortunately  , definitely missed a good un . )  .

It has been a long time since Villa Park looked and sounded like this, a rhapsody in claret and blue. Perfect strangers embraced, old men battered hoardings with their bare hands, stewards communed with all and sundry. Well they might. Aston Villa were nowhere for 45 minutes, lucky to be only one goal behind a Manchester City side that looked capable of anything they pleased. Yet unbelievably, victory was Villa’s at the close.

How to evaluate the spirit shown by a home side shredded 4-0 five days earlier in the same stadium, and increasingly shorn of confidence and belief? Only four of Villa’s previous 13 home games ended in anything other than defeat. Perhaps some things are simply beyond analysis. What we know is that Villa grew to a station way beyond the sum of their parts after the break, refusing to be denied their share of a day Birmingham eclipsed Manchester in the coming together of second cities.

To single out any for special praise would be an abuse. It is enough to suggest that Fabian Delph, Yacouba Sylla, and Karim El Ahmadi, the central cogs in a five-man midfield, had little trouble sleeping last night. City might have had half a dozen in a first half of absolute control. Had the Villa portion of the pitch boasted a shower block and toilets it could not have been more of a campsite for City, who had too many guns, stretching Villa left and right.

Long before the first goal came you sensed that Villa knew as well as City that it was on its way. Incredibly it took 44 minutes to arrive. Less of a surprise was that Yaya Touré should score it.

Touré is a wonder of the modern game, labouring as if carrying a sack of coal on his back yet still managing to elude defenders, and positively eating up the ground when the moment calls. He was first to the ball when Samir Nasri’s corner was headed clear, side-footing past keeper Brad Guzan.

The game changed utterly seven minutes into the second half with a goal brilliantly crafted by Leandro Bacuna, who slipped a neat reverse pass through for El Ahmadi to turn and rifle a shot that left Joe Hart helpless on the seat of his pants. When Edin Dzeko headed City back in front from a corner, City must have felt the danger had passed.

But something was stirring in the young legs of this Villa side and driven forward via the Ahmadi-Delph-Sylla axis they were a team transformed. Not that City were commensurately diminished. Forward they poured magnificently supported by the flying full-backs Pablo Zabaleta and Aleksandar Kolarov. Nasri gave way to the jet heeled Jesus Navas and Dzeko to Stevan Jovetic, a £50 million athletic transfusion right there. At the end of the first half Villa were at sixes and sevens trying to keep City at bay. Here they were composed, led heroically by skipper Ron Vlaar.

Bacuna levelled with a well-taken free-kick in the 73rd minute and two minutes later Andreas Weimann sprinted between napping defenders to race on to Guzan’s clearance and guide the ball past Hart for the winner. Villa Park convulsed.

“It is a massive result for us,” said Villa boss Paul Lambert. “I’m proud of those boys. The three lads in the middle were excellent, worked really hard. But we are a team. We are all in this together, the crowd too. The Holte End was magnificent today. City had possession in the first half but not many teams have ball against them. This is a team favoured to win the Premier League, looking to go all the way in the Champions League so that tells you the magnitude of the result for us.” His counterpart Manuel Pellegrini was struggling to explain the outcome. “At the moment we haven’t a victory away. Today we played similar to the way we played against Manchester United. It’s frustrating, but that’s football. We had a lot of chances and possession, the game was under our control but we didn’t take our chances,” he said. “This is the nature of the Premier League, something that I knew about and that I have seen. Any team can win. The differences are very small. We played the same in the second half as the first, what was different was the goal.”

Despite the result City go to a Champions League tie with Bayern Munich with a clearer sense of what Pellegrini wants and how the team knits together. As contradictory as it sounds this was a powerful City display. Had the ball bounced their way they would have been comprehensively out of Villa’s reach. This was not the insipid showing that saw them stuffed at Cardiff and embarrassed by Stoke. And the way this season is unfolding this was not the worst day to have a freak reverse.

Villa’s challenge is to repeat the intensity at Hull next week. “We’ll enjoy this, but you can’t dwell,” Lambert said. “We have to go again.”

Line-ups:

Aston Villa (3-1-4-2): Guzan; Vlaar, Baker, Clark; Delph; Bacuna, El Ahmadi, Luna, Sylla; Weimann (Bowery, 79), Kozak.

Manchester City (4-4-2): Hart; Zabaleta, Kompany, Nastasic, Kolarov; Nasri (Navas, 65), Fernandinho, Touré, Milner; Negredo, Dzeko (Jovetic, 73).

Referee: Mike Jones.

Man of the match: El Ahmadi (Aston Villa)

Match rating: 9/10

[pauliewalnuts]

Their two goals were simply due to shit defending from corners. Our 3 were class.

Although Weimann's goal was a result of some of the worst defending of the day.