Aston Villa v Cardiff City Post-Match Thread

[pbavfckuwait]

A Villa home win not something we can say often, hard work and endevour more so than massive skill infusion, but that will do for me Villa

[eastie]

Very important win - played much better and more balanced after the change - cannot see why lambert didnt start with Lowton at right back and bacuna  more advanced - Kozak has 3 fine headers on goal and looked useful when given the right service.

Kea was again well off he pace and disappointing - defensively a few scares but pretty solid and a clean sheet again which is good to see .

Overall the result is what matters going onto a 16 day break and its nice to be in the top half again - enjoy your weekend all!

[ez]

Thank goodness for that. I was fearing the fallout had we not won this one.

[Dio1874]

Take the win, needed the 3 points. But overall a very poor performance.

[VancouverLion]

Good turn out too just under 36k well done lads!!

[OCD]

Bacuna's a quality player. It's a useful weapon for situations like that to have someone who can score freekicks. We could really do with at least another one of him because he's the better defensive right full back and the best right midfield option.

The confidence didn't half lift after that free kick. We could have ended up winning 3-0 or 4-0 after such a poor game before that. Obviously the amount of time since last scoring had been a weight on their shoulders. Hopefully that's just what we needed. Albion will be tough and then we've got to beat Sunderland.

It's starting to look like we should play 4-3-3 in away games and 4-4-2 games at home. I agree with the earlier comment about a midfield of Gabby-Delph-Westwood-Bacuna too (depending on the opposition of course - we will still need to play 3 in the middle against the better teams and probably need Bacuna at right back when the opposition have a tricky left midfielder to deal with).

We could have done with a bit of a better summer transfer wise. Bacuna and Okore - top buys but the others are one's that we've just got to hope come good with time or if not, move them on.

We've been a real mess for some time. Too many poor, ageing players on big contracts. We've not had a strong squad in years and it's a big rebuild job. One summer was never going to be enough. It will probably be another 3 or 4 years before we become a really good side again.

[pooligan]

Good result much needed.well done lads bring on the baggies

[Ron Manager]

Right, first of all lets give some credit to Ron Vlaar who has been turning in consistently good performances for some time now. Libor Kozak in the second half worked hard and was unlucky not to score twice so credit marks to him. The last 15mins were encouraging the 75mins previous were not.

A 2-0 home win is just what Lambert needs. Perhaps we can move on now and pick up a few more points before Xmas.

[PaulWinch again]

I'm pretty worried about Benteke's frustrations at the moment, he's visibly annoyed a lot of the time.

[PaulWinch again]

Vlaar was great again, he's been really good this year.

[Toronto Villa]

Frustrating for a lot of the time but we never looked like losing. The injury really took Benteke out of his stride and he doesn't look as instinctive since he's returned. It will come back because he's that good. Another clean sheet which is what we all wanted to see more of.

[N'Zimidy]

I think Kozak will be a very good player when we are on top of teams and pressing them back into their box. He is excellent attacking the ball in the box and put in 3 very good headers, one of which he scored from. I just don't see him being of much use on the counter attack until he gets used to playing with his back to goal.

[OCD]

Striker's tend to be frustrated when they're not scoring. I know his team-mates aren't particularly helping him at the moment but it might have been different had he scored the penalty against Everton.

Vlaar has been good. He's obviously adapted to the Premier League now. I also thought Clark played very well even though he was playing out of position. I wasn't too impressed with Baker. Obviously he's not comfortable with the ball at his feet but he's also very reactionary, he doesn't tend to see the danger before in advance the way the better defenders do.

[PaulWinch again]

Striker's tend to be frustrated when they're not scoring. I know his team-mates aren't particularly helping him at the moment but it might have been different had he scored the penalty against Everton.

Vlaar has been good. He's obviously adapted to the Premier League now. I also thought Clark played very well even though he was playing out of position. I wasn't too impressed with Baker. Obviously he's not comfortable with the ball at his feet but he's also very reactionary, he doesn't tend to see the danger before in advance the way the better defenders do.

I agree with that.

[Monty]

It was definitely 3-5-2 in the second half with Tonev as a wingback - fairly insane, but straight 4-4-2 it weren't as Sylla, Westwood and KEA (later Bacuna) clearly crammed the centre. We lacked creativity but we never stopped going and Bacuna is starting to look a real player. An up and down game for Tonev, but he basically set up the second goal and really kept going. KEA was not very good really, Westwood showed a few glimpses of form and Sylla puffed worthily. Vlaar was excellent, and they didn't really have a single proper chance.

Some despair on here, which was understandable given we had scored in 7 hours, but I don't think it's fair to lose faith completely in Lambert because of a dip in form brought on, at least in part, by bad luck with injuries. Put Delph back in that team and we'd have had no trouble today.