Aston Villa under-10's vs Arsenal -FA Cup Final Post-Match Thread

[richard moore]

What's the fucking point? I wish I hadn't renewed already. We're never, ever going to compete again. We exist just to exist. Tossbuckets.

With respect, what melodramatic rubbish.

It's quite accurate though isn't it! :-)

[Toronto Villa]

What's the fucking point? I wish I hadn't renewed already. We're never, ever going to compete again. We exist just to exist. Tossbuckets.

With respect, what melodramatic rubbish.

It's quite accurate though isn't it! :-)

Not really. Only a few years ago when they were winding Southampton up I'm sure many of their fans felt the same way. It doesn't take long to turn around when you have a good plan in place and astute investment. Just because Randy hasn't been able to do doesn't mean someone else can't.

[NorthYvillan]

Hutton was to blame for the 2nd goal?

 Sanchez cut inside, should have been running into the central midfielder, and then shot from 30 yds, right into the middle of the goal, and thats Huttons fault?

 Westwood and Given share no blame then?

I don't think anyone saw particular danger when Sanchez cut inside as he was so far from goal so he was given too much space and time. But it was a tremdous hit with a lot of dip and swerve going in off the underside of the bar so I don't think Given can be blamed - and, listening to 5 Live on the long drive home, none of the pundits there, although originally thinking Given was at fault, thought so after seeing the TV replays and the way the ball moved.

[Gareth]

Not read any of this thread so I'll probably repeat plenty of the above.

I'll be honest still had a great day out, until about 6pm that is....

Not convinced we at any point pushed Arsenal out of 2nd gear but they actioned the game plan easily and effectively, always seemed to have an extra man in attack whenever we ventured over the halfway line were able to double up on Grealish / Benteke with ease....Steve Backley in goal was the only one who didn't have the ability to hit the full backs with ease.

Given kept us in the game, have only seen Sanchez goal live and the big screen so not sure if he should have done better or not as there was some action on that ball.

The intensity and pace of popping the ball about that was there 3 to 4 weeks ago has vanished, I clung to the vain hope that it might have been Southampton / Burnley then reboot but it never looked like happening.

I agree with Sherwood that there is a losing mentality about the place, we have lost far too many game 4/5/6/8 over the last 4 years....Delph / Benteke and Grealish apart I won't be gutted to see any of the others binned.

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

Sorry, can we get over the myth we had great support yesterday. It wasn't great. It matched the team. The support yesterday was poor. Only rarely did the crowd get going.

The second goal was the killer, not only the timing and the fact that it gave them a 2-goal lead but also the sheer quality. Until then our support had been excellent, certainly where we were, near the corner flag, and all the way round behind the goal

Agreed 100% frank.
We were always still in it until then - to score so early in the second half virtually wrapped the game up for Arse...and our fans pretty much knew it.

[Dave]

It was a poor peformance all round but one of the few to have any credit for their performaince in the game was Given, and trying to blame the goals on him is just ridiculous.

He was one of our poorest performers. You're welcome to disagree if you like, but in my opinion you're completely wrong.

[curiousorange]

I said before the game, Sherwood should have taken the back four to one side and said 'if the ball goes loose anywhere near or in the penalty area, twat it away.' We've conceded far too many goals from fannying about instead of clearing it. The Sanchez goal, I felt, was an example of that. Hutton had about a second to decide to smack it out of play, hesitated, and let Sanchez grab the ball, the initiative, and ultimately the Final.

[john e]

It was a poor peformance all round but one of the few to have any credit for their performaince in the game was Given, and trying to blame the goals on him is just ridiculous.

He was one of our poorest performers. You're welcome to disagree if you like, but in my opinion you're completely wrong.

Given got lobbed from 35/40 yards at Southampton, and still posters on here were defending him,
 they arn't going to change now

I can guarantee if Guzan had played yesterday every poster on here defending Given would be blaming Guzan had he put in the same display

[clash city rocker]

Have just looked at Wikipedia and apparently CNZ is a professional footballer who plays for  Aston Villa. He has scored 4 goals in 77 appearances and there was me thinking he was shit.

[pig]

I'm a bit surprised that some are giving Given grief for the second goal, I just watched the highlights and it confirmed exactly what I thought at the match yesterday, that second was a wonderful strike of the ball.

Given did well to keep it at 1-0 until Half Time.

[Tayls_7]

When Arsenal started like they'd been fired out of a canon,  I felt that rather than just digging in, trying to ride out the storm we had to counter with some kind of threat of our own to instil a level of caution in their game.Even after 15 minutes when that didn't materialise I was as sure as you all must have been that we were sunk. So much work to be done at VP in the coming months that we just have to hope for the best. Strangely, even after yesterday, I still feel a million times more positive about all Villa related matters knowing that our finest achievement this season was seeing Lambert removed from his post.

[richard moore]

What's the fucking point? I wish I hadn't renewed already. We're never, ever going to compete again. We exist just to exist. Tossbuckets.

With respect, what melodramatic rubbish.

It's quite accurate though isn't it! :-)

Not really. Only a few years ago when they were winding Southampton up I'm sure many of their fans felt the same way. It doesn't take long to turn around when you have a good plan in place and astute investment. Just because Randy hasn't been able to do doesn't mean someone else can't.

I was agreeing partly in jest Toronto, but you do have to wonder. If you mean competing at Southampton's level, you are probably right, and your point is very well made. I was thinking of competing a bit higher up the food chain which now seems an aspiration which I think is beyond Villa unless we get some of mega investor rocking up

[cdbearsfan]

Given made one fantastic save. I somehow managed not to notice at the time but saw it on one of the concourse tellies at half time.

For each of our goals any number of Villa players could've done much better. From the half-arsed attempts at clearing the first and second to the disappearing acts for the third and fourth goals, our defence was pretty poor all round (honourable exception for Richardsom who had a decent game and made a very good block).

What makes it all the more disappointing is that we knew in advance that our defence wasn't great and that our only chance was to try to take the game to Arsenal. We totally failed to do that. From the second I learned that Hutton was in for Bacuna I feared that we were going to attempt to contain Arsenal, rather than attack them, and my fears were confirmed by the way we played. Or rather didn't.

[LTA]

Well that was shit.

My take on it, with hindsight is that the players have been tired for a while - we played a higher tempo game when Sherwood arrived and results improved, but we started to look weak in the second half against West Ham. We ran out of steam and have been poor since that point and went into the final with no momentum, or presumably confidence.

Arsenal are much better than we are but we went in with a very negative, Lambert-esque mindset and were far too timid. If we had given it a real go and lost 4-0 that would  have been awful, but to go out with a whimper was a real waste of an opportunity. To not have one shot is unforgivable.

Which makes playing so many of them against Burnley in what was a dead rubber game for 90 minutes even more ludicrous.

A real blessing to miss out on the Europa League.  The  squad could barely with just league and domestic cups.

[Dave]

I'm a bit surprised that some are giving Given grief for the second goal, I just watched the highlights and it confirmed exactly what I thought at the match yesterday, that second was a wonderful strike of the ball.

Don't get me wrong, I don't necessarily think Given should have saved it.

I just think we should have been playing the goalkeeper who is half a foot taller and has a bigger reach and would have had a better chance of reaching it.