Cardiff City v Aston Villa Post-Match Thread

[ozzjim]

Deserved to win second half. Benteke and Gabby need some sharpening up. Weimann did well on the left. Albrighton bright. Delph good. Vlaar quality.

A point is not a disaster. One point closer, keeps then in the shit.

[Matt Collins]

Poor second half but very good second. Could have had a hatful

Player ratings for the second half:

Guzan 6
Bacuna 8 - really good apart from the miss
Vlaar 7
Baker 6
Bertrand 6
Albrighton 7
Westwood 8
Delph 8
Bennett 4 (Weimann 6)
Gabby 4
Benteke 6

[andyh]

Is 1 point from 6 against our relegation rivals good enough?
I don't want to start worrying, but I'm starting to worry.

[curiousorange]

Yet again, I have no idea where we'll end up in the table. We could finish top half or relegated.

[eric woolban woolban]

I only saw from 60 minutes.

Abysmal really looking how unthreatening Cardiff were.

I think this must be the worst villa team since records began.

[bertlambshank]

One half of good football again.I just don't get it.

[Monty]

Talk about the game having two equal proportions of time.

Cardiff dominated us so much in the first half it was embarrassing. As I said on the thread, Lambert must have got Di Caprio in to do the chest-thumping humming thing from Wolf of Wall Street as his half time team talk, because that was an unbelievable turnaround, and we should have won it.

Tactically, the key thing for me was that, while in the first half our wide players were very, very wide, in the second they cut in and joined up more, rather than leaving the two central midfielders isolated as in the first.

[Fergal]

Frustrating, if Gabby and Benteke had turned up we would have won.

[supertom]

Not bad in the second half. This was an opportunity missed though. You look at this game as the most winnable of the next seven fixtures. Astonishing save at the end by Marshall.
As bad as we are, at least we're not as bad as Cardiff. Dreadful side.

Vlaar always makes a difference. We need to keep him fit. Albrighton needs to play every game. He's consistently been one of our liveliest players when he's been in the side. Even so, he's still average, but for us, that's good.

The midfield is still a major problem. We're struggling to find any real balance there.

We're crawling to safety.

[ez]

Poor result. Cardiff are rubbish and we didn't beat them. Bent would have liked all the service into the box.

[aj2k77]

No good again i'm afraid.

You can look to the second half and say we can build from that but we never do.

Just what is going on with the players that they can go out first half and perform like that, it was abysmal.

[Matt Collins]

I agree. Albrighton tucked in and bacuna provided a lot of the width

It's not rocket science though is it? There's a reason hardly anybody plays 442 nowadays.

[Quiet Lion]

I can only imagine the team talk at half time was along the lines of "Try that passing thing we did at Liverpool, it might just work"

[Smirker]

Should have won it. More than enough chances but wasteful in front of goal. Play like we did in the second half consistently until the end of the season and we will be more than OK.

[hartman_1982]

Superb second half. The midfield two were both excellent, with Vlaar in the side we look a completely different side and if we had the final ball/chose the right option, Benteke would have had 6 today.

We will be fine.