Liverpool v Aston Villa Post-Match Thread

[Small Rodent]

I imagine many have commented on something I saw when Gabby went over the hoardings and looked in trouble. The nearest Liverpool supporter showed his concern by getting out his camera to take a picture.

An absolute disgrace and Sky picked it up and no doubt the BBC will tonight.

He looked like he was taking a photo of his food to put on Facebook before he are it.

[old man villa fan]

Never should have been a penalty.  Saurez realised he had knocked it too wide to go around Guzan so went down.  No way could Guzan have been sent off as Vlaar had cut back to cover the goal.

Vlaar looking like the player Lambert saw when he bought him.  It has not been easy for him with injuries and having to carry the entire defence at times.

Unlucky not to get three points.  Well done.

[robbo1874]

Watched the last 20 mins. Pleasantly surprised to see the score at 2-2 and villa seemingly taking the game to Liverpool.

One thing though, vlaar may have got mom, but the player that stood out for me in the last 20 mins was Gerard. Much as I hate him and every season I always think he's on the slide -Still got an eye for a pass though, wins his tackles and always a threat going forward. Not sure who was playing at right back for us today, but gave the ball away badly in our own half 2 or 3 times. Worst one was right near the end and I thought: here we go, 3-2.

The post match highlights on fox, made it looks very entertaining game, villa hitting the post and Guzan with a world class save down to his left to keep one out. Although it went wide, he also looked to have had that Suarez free kick covered towards the end as well.

Pleased with a point and what looked like a much improved performance. That Bertrand fella looked pretty assured too. I didn't know he'd joined us until the commentary mentioned it. Loan signing, presumably?

[ktvillan]

Credit  to Al Hamadi, probay his  best performance in a Villa shirt.

We should change his nickname to KAH, sounds much cooler.

[jeowje]

Petrov also said it was a pen. It was a dive, but skys super-slow motion zoom camera did suggest a slight contact. My first reaction was that Brad was a bit rash. Suarez is truly detestable though.

[SashasGrandad]

I'm struggling to understand why people are saying you can;t blame the ref for the pen.  First off he was directly behind the incident, and the view from the camera at the far end - similar to his view but further away - clearly showed there was little or no contact and certainly not enough to warrant a swan dive.  Second, unless he's been living on a distant planet for the last two or three years, the ref would know, like everyone else does,  that Suarez is a cheating diving c**t. Thus any going to ground by that clown should be treated with the utmost suspicion and scepticism, unless you are 1500% certain he was fouled. But as usual with the SKy pet teams the refs are all too ready to give anything when they go to ground against one of the "making up the numbers" brigade. 

If you have ever been a referee you will know the ref could not be blamed. Without video evidence he gave the decision. You can't think Suarez is a diving cheat - you have to judge what you see. The fact that he took no further action against Guzan means there was some doubt in his mind. If he had not given the pen and there had been contact he would had been crucified and sent to league 1.

Some refs are up themselves - I don't think this one today was. Had it been one of the prima donna refs we would have lost today. If you want me to name names I will.

[villajk]

On the train back home feeling quite chuffed with that performance.  Couldn't see the penalty incident but sounds like it was a dive.  Suarez did seem to fall down quite easily several times during the game.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Best 45 minutes in years. Superb football that should easily transfer to Villa Park as we played like the home team. I think we can now put to bed any questions of whether it's the tactics or the "cheap, foreign and lower division players" that's made us one of the ugliest Villa side in years. The lads were brilliant, crisp passing to feet, great movement and winning every 50/50 ball. The only complaint was we weren't 5 or 6 up at half time.

Second half after losing Gabby we lost our shape and purpose with the introduction of Holt. He tried his best but as others have said, the in-form Albrighton was the obvious replacement to keep our balance. Still, we managed to restrict Liverpool to few chances and not many teams can claim that at Anfield this season. All players deserve credit today but to name a few I can't miss out Bertrand whose positioning was excellent, nothing like the narrow back four Lambert prefers with Luna and Bennett. Vlaar really is having a great season, Delph looked back to his best, as did Benteke and Gabby drove us forward in only the way Gabby can. Westwood had his best game this season as did Andi Wiemann.. even KEA looked like a footballer today.

Well done lads. No more excuses, Lambert. Whatever you did today you need to repeat and build on. We were a joy to watch.

[Smirker]

Come on lads, Guzan should have been more cautious considering Suarez' reputation. I don't think we were robbed exactly. A draw was a fair result.

UTV.

He dived, he cheated, that's not Guzans fault...

Guzan gave him the opportunity to go down. You're not seeing the same thing I'm seeing, you can whinge all you like about decisions, I'd rather accept the reality that players go down in the box looking for penalties/forcing contact and hope that our defenders and keepers don't lunge in like Guzan did today unless they get the ball. Guzan didn't touch the ball. Asking for trouble.

That is what I would tell my players as a manager, not 'it doesn't matter, he dived, we were robbed' etc. Don't give players like that the opportunities to con the ref.

[Colhint]

So what given there was minimal, if any contact at all and it was a pen. What would have happened if brad would have got there first then Suarez trod on his arm, again minimal contact, but he must have been studs up. Would he have been sent off for a dangerous challenge

[ktvillan]

No way could Guzan have been sent off as Vlaar had cut back to cover the goal.

Vlaar was irrelevant in that situation, there was no way Suarez was in a position to score having knocked it wide/out, so it doesn't matter about where anyone else was.

[SashasGrandad]

I imagine many have commented on something I saw when Gabby went over the hoardings and looked in trouble. The nearest Liverpool supporter showed his concern by getting out his camera to take a picture.

An absolute disgrace and Sky picked it up and no doubt the BBC will tonight.

He looked like he was taking a photo of his food to put on Facebook before he are it.

Did not want to move too fast in case his DLA and Blue Badge was taken away.

[old man villa fan]

I'm struggling to understand why people are saying you can;t blame the ref for the pen.  First off he was directly behind the incident, and the view from the camera at the far end - similar to his view but further away - clearly showed there was little or no contact and certainly not enough to warrant a swan dive.  Second, unless he's been living on a distant planet for the last two or three years, the ref would know, like everyone else does,  that Suarez is a cheating diving c**t. Thus any going to ground by that clown should be treated with the utmost suspicion and scepticism, unless you are 1500% certain he was fouled. But as usual with the SKy pet teams the refs are all too ready to give anything when they go to ground against one of the "making up the numbers" brigade. 

If you have ever been a referee you will know the ref could not be blamed. Without video evidence he gave the decision. You can't think Suarez is a diving cheat - you have to judge what you see. The fact that he took no further action against Guzan means there was some doubt in his mind. If he had not given the pen and there had been contact he would had been crucified and sent to league 1.

Some refs are up themselves - I don't think this one today was. Had it been one of the prima donna refs we would have lost today. If you want me to name names I will.

If there is any doubt in his mind and he is not 100% certain, he should not give it. 

[newtonsballs]

Gary Lineker talking a serious amount of tripe on twitter about the penalty decision at the minute. Claims it wasn't a dive and stupid goalkeeping on Guzan's part. I feel like giving up on football sometimes

Lineker is what he is, a one dimensional footballer and a one dimensional presenter.

Typical of the thick pundits at work today, how can it be anything other than a dive when he wasn't impeded in any way?  He's the kind of twat that comes out with "there was contact" and "he wasn't the last man" because he's too lazy and dumb to actually read and understand the laws of the game

[richard moore]

Difficult to tell from our position but we all thought Guzan had pulled that c**t down. Bloke behind showed us a clip of it on his phone. He really does need fucking off out of this league. It won't bother me one iota if someone breaks both his legs and he never plays again. I don't mean Guzan, obviously.

Nor me, hope you had a great day out, I'd break them for him if you gave me a hammer

The pre-match pub was top drawer and sold some cracking beer. Roll on Everton away.

Great stuff, hope you and Pauline had a fantastic time!