The Storming Aston Villa 2-0 Delia's Norwich

[Jimbo]

From where we have been for the last 6 or 7 years, I think we need to accept our rise to greatness will come with small steps.
Stop getting beaten so easily.
Win some games at home.
Start to win away games.
Look solid.

All of those are being achieved.

The next stage will be to start dominating games and play with a bit of flair.
That will all come with the confidence of winning regularly.

Small steps.

Is the correct answer.

One thing that looks to be changing is attitude. It looks like we no longer believe we have a divine right to win games. It looks like we've twigged that everything must be earned with hard work, both physically and mentally. And it looks like we're approaching games with a 'must win' and not a 'should win' attitude. This can go on for the rest of the season as far as I'm concerned. Create a 'must win' culture and the nice football will follow.

[pbavfckuwait]

Pretty football yes please, pretty football and losing no thank you, what is the greatest feeling now, is not having that ache in your guts 5 minutes before half time and the same again just after, then the gut wrenching 80th to 96th minute feeling that Villa had transplanted into me.Clean sheets my missus loves them.

[oldhill_avfc]

The team are winning, so doing well, but not winning by playing well. Out of the games that we have won in the recent run how many have you left the ground thinking, "we played really well today"? Its not about not enjoying the wins, that's just daft, but the next step is to try and play well in a game, take the game to the opposition and win well. We still short of that.

You're right that on the whole we're not dominating teams, but we are playing (very?) well defensively and with Kodjia there's always a goal threat - for those reasons the run isn't down to luck.

Where luck does play a part is avoiding an injury to Kodjia.  Without him we'd be back to the form over Christmas, because the midfield doesn't retain possession and nobody else seems to create much of a goal threat, although Hogan looks to be finding his feet.

[peter w]

And despite all this positivism I can't help think there's an air of the emperor's new clothes about it. We're somehow getting the breaks, the turned down penalties, the clean sheets, the 1-0/2-0 wins, but we're not dominating games, turning teams over or looking like we're actually playing that well. It feels to me at least that we could just as easily lose the next 5 as win them.

I wouldn't call 6 wins in 7 or several clean sheets 'getting the breaks'. I'd call it a good run of form. Why not try and enjoy it?

Where did I say that I wasn't enjoying it?

Well in fairness you didn't but you don't come across as overly impressed either. How did you think we played on Saturday out of interest?

Nothing special but took the two goals very well. Cameron should have score early on and I think Naismith had a header which he really should have done better with. I think the lack of decent forwards is glaring in the Championship. I also think that we contained well from what I saw and Johnstone made a good couple of saves from a through ball. Attacking wise I don't think we held the ball well enough and rushed the final ball too often.

[SoccerHQ]

The team are winning, so doing well, but not winning by playing well. Out of the games that we have won in the recent run how many have you left the ground thinking, "we played really well today"? Its not about not enjoying the wins, that's just daft, but the next step is to try and play well in a game, take the game to the opposition and win well. We still short of that.

To me we are winning games now in the style Newcastle have been all season.

I've seen Newcastle about 6 times this season on TV (twice v us and four other times) and I can't say they've impressed me much more than we have.

They however score at the right times in games, have individuals like Gayle and Ritchie capable of scoring at any moment and can grind out results given who their manager is.

Newcastle scraping past Wigan 2-1 at home is surely not more impressive than us beating them 2-0 away?

They just had a very good start to the season, we didn't.

Brighton have been more impressive but even a few weeks back when they had a dodgy spell a few of their fans were saying they weren't playing great.

I just don't think it's the sort of league where you can play wonder football and steamroll teams on a regular basis. Maybe the odd game here and there but over 46 and playing every 3 days regularly negates that I think.

[SoccerHQ]

And despite all this positivism I can't help think there's an air of the emperor's new clothes about it. We're somehow getting the breaks, the turned down penalties, the clean sheets, the 1-0/2-0 wins, but we're not dominating games, turning teams over or looking like we're actually playing that well. It feels to me at least that we could just as easily lose the next 5 as win them.

I wouldn't call 6 wins in 7 or several clean sheets 'getting the breaks'. I'd call it a good run of form. Why not try and enjoy it?

Where did I say that I wasn't enjoying it?

Well in fairness you didn't but you don't come across as overly impressed either. How did you think we played on Saturday out of interest?

Nothing special but took the two goals very well. Cameron should have score early on and I think Naismith had a header which he really should have done better with. I think the lack of decent forwards is glaring in the Championship. I also think that we contained well from what I saw and Johnstone made a good couple of saves from a through ball. Attacking wise I don't think we held the ball well enough and rushed the final ball too often.

Amusing thing is those two forwards cost about 15m between them.

I thought in January Steven Naismith would've been a good signing for us but he's been awful at Norwich, 8m he was.

[aj2k77]

We had more chances than Norwich.

[Hookeysmith]

Saw the on line highlights and that awful 35 seconds allowance we have on Channel 5 (have we ever been a extended highlights game on there?)

And have not seen the Jerome miss - I wanted to see again just how poor / lucky it was

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Reverting temporarily to miserablism our attacking problem with Codger plus AN Other brings to mind the old (sexist) adage of not putting two women in the same kitchen.  Johnny does like to be the star.  Johnny does not like to pass.

I don't think he was complaining about the pass he received from Hogan for the first. It may take a bit of time for them to form a partnership where they both feed each other but you'd hope it will happen and when it does the goals will flow.

[peter w]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o4BjGAMkakg

[SoccerHQ]

Saw the on line highlights and that awful 35 seconds allowance we have on Channel 5 (have we ever been a extended highlights game on there?)

And have not seen the Jerome miss - I wanted to see again just how poor / lucky it was

Every time we're on Sky we get extended highlights on there.

[Matt Collins]

And despite all this positivism I can't help think there's an air of the emperor's new clothes about it. We're somehow getting the breaks, the turned down penalties, the clean sheets, the 1-0/2-0 wins, but we're not dominating games, turning teams over or looking like we're actually playing that well. It feels to me at least that we could just as easily lose the next 5 as win them.

I think this is less true now than when Bruce first arrived. Then we were getting last minute winnners, penalties, having to come back to win games, quite a lot

I wouldn't get too excited but we're looking more solid at the back, scoring slightly more goals and winning games with a bit more to spare

Still absolutely miles off premier league quality though

[four fornicholl]

And despite all this positivism I can't help think there's an air of the emperor's new clothes about it. We're somehow getting the breaks, the turned down penalties, the clean sheets, the 1-0/2-0 wins, but we're not dominating games, turning teams over or looking like we're actually playing that well. It feels to me at least that we could just as easily lose the next 5 as win them.

I think this is less true now than when Bruce first arrived. Then we were getting last minute winnners, penalties, having to come back to win games, quite a lot

I wouldn't get too excited but we're looking more solid at the back, scoring slightly more goals and winning games with a bit more to spare

Still absolutely miles off premier league quality though

We have to get back there as quickly as possible though, time really isn't on our side.

[Hookeysmith]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o4BjGAMkakg

Only just saw this - thanks