Aston Villa Superstars 5-0 Bristol City

[darren woolley]

Brilliant performance by us everything clicked for us I thought Jack was our motm.

[The Edge]

Whilst a win is welcome we should remember they had a poor second choice keeper in goal after their first choice was red carded against wolves on Saturday.

Oh behave!

[UK Redsox]

Following on from my sarcastic post about Baker's back heel. I forgot to mention the deliberate one from Chester in the build up for the second goal. A nice piece of skill from a defender.

Also, Flint and Taylor combining to miss an open goal was right up there with when Hogan cleared off the opposition's line earlier in the season

[Ads]

4-1-4-1 suited us.

The midfield were ten yards higher up and we just looked balanced. An indifferent start where not a lot happened for 20 minutes, but once the first went in, we were excellent.

Grealish bossed them, while Hourihane and the wide men were higher up and able to put them under.

Their change of formation was foolhardy and we found acres of space. We should have scored 7 or 8. Such a one sided 70 minutes and a joy to watch.

[Risso]

The pleasing thing for me is that we humped a team in the top 3 who were on a much better run than us.  The defeat against Wolves was their first in 7 and included a win against Man U.  The tiredness thing is a red herring as well.  You can guarantee if Bristol had won, that it would be Bruce moaning about the fixture list and Johnson saying nothing.  After a 5-0 win, I bet nobody is feeling tired in the Villa camp this morning.

[pauliewalnuts]

Whilst a win is welcome we should remember they had a poor second choice keeper in goal after their first choice was red carded against wolves on Saturday.

Oh behave!

Indeed.

I don't have any problem with people criticising Bruce (and this is basically having a pop by taking the polish off last night) but it is absolutely unfair to then not give him his due when he gets it resoundingly right like he did last night.

All this "yeah but they had someone out injured / it's a long way to travel from Bristol / the stars weren't aligned for them" stuff is a bit sad.

[Ads]

The pleasing thing for me is that we humped a team in the top 3 who were on a much better run than us.  The defeat against Wolves was their first in 7 and included a win against Man U.  The tiredness thing is a red herring as well.  You can guarantee if Bristol had won, that it would be Bruce moaning about the fixture list and Johnson saying nothing.  After a 5-0 win, I bet nobody is feeling tired in the Villa camp this morning.

Aye considering, bar one player, it was the same team that beat Boro 2 days earlier I'm not sure why we were able to run riot, yet they were all so sleepy tired that they were playing in their PJs.

Could be they're just not very good and on a roll, who have been found out by two much better sides in two days. Seems more likely to me.

[godzvilla]

Only seen the goals. How was Hogan in open play, did he link up better once he’d had a confidence boost from the goal, or take people on? Having never noticed him for Brentford, and only seen him out of sorts for us, I still don’t really know what kind of player he is.

Very lively, constantly on the shoulder of the last man and making runs the midfield were too slow to spot.

We obviously made a conscious tactical decision to attack down the wings and I'm not going to criticise that given the scoreline but it did generally lead to the midfield only looking sideways for a pass. Had they looked forward Hogan was finding loads of space which is hardly a surprise up against an incredibly pedestrian Nathan Baker who we all know is very prone to switching off positionally.

Are we witnessing  to early fruits of the ´Steve Agnew effect ´?. The team certainly seems to be going in a different direction since he arrived a few weeks ago...........Godzvilla!

[footyskillz]

I very pleased with this win. Great for Snodgrass and Hogan and BB in particular.
I think Steve Agnew coming into the club has had an impacted if results are anything to go by.
Once the first goal went in villa seemed a more positive lodge.
Is there any coincidence too that without Whelan villa moving forward a lot more.
UTV

[auntiesledd]

The pleasing thing for me is that we humped a team in the top 3 who were on a much better run than us.  The defeat against Wolves was their first in 7 and included a win against Man U.  The tiredness thing is a red herring as well.  You can guarantee if Bristol had won, that it would be Bruce moaning about the fixture list and Johnson saying nothing.  After a 5-0 win, I bet nobody is feeling tired in the Villa camp this morning.

Bruce had already had a moan about having to play 'em yesterday. For once, it's great to see his negative comment(s) had no detrimental effect on his tactical plan & the ensuing (brilliant) team performance. May he and the players continue to do the business.

[Risso]

The pleasing thing for me is that we humped a team in the top 3 who were on a much better run than us.  The defeat against Wolves was their first in 7 and included a win against Man U.  The tiredness thing is a red herring as well.  You can guarantee if Bristol had won, that it would be Bruce moaning about the fixture list and Johnson saying nothing.  After a 5-0 win, I bet nobody is feeling tired in the Villa camp this morning.

Aye considering, bar one player, it was the same team that beat Boro 2 days earlier I'm not sure why we were able to run riot, yet they were all so sleepy tired that they were playing in their PJs.

Could be they're just not very good and on a roll, who have been found out by two much better sides in two days. Seems more likely to me.

That's entirely possible Ads.  More pertinently, why did we look so abject against Brentford, then extremely mediocre against Boro, but then blow Bristol City completely and utterly out of the water and look like the best team by a country mile in the Championship?  I wouldn't expect to win by that margin every week, but if we'd at least try to play like that every week, I'd never have a bad word to say about Bruce again.  Yesterday was absolutely terrific football, no question at all.

[saunders_heroes]

The pleasing thing for me is that we humped a team in the top 3 who were on a much better run than us.  The defeat against Wolves was their first in 7 and included a win against Man U.  The tiredness thing is a red herring as well.  You can guarantee if Bristol had won, that it would be Bruce moaning about the fixture list and Johnson saying nothing.  After a 5-0 win, I bet nobody is feeling tired in the Villa camp this morning.

Bruce had already had a moan about having to play 'em yesterday. For once, it's great to see his negative comment(s) had no detrimental effect on his tactical plan & the ensuing (brilliant) team performance. May he and the players continue to do the business.

“For once”?
We’re 5 points off an automatic spot not 5 points from the bottom you know.

[garyshawsknee]

Hopefully SB won't start Whelan for a while now, his first instinct is to turn towards his goal or sideways after winning possession. You don't have to be a great passer to play that position, just need to be able to play short passes forward, which Jedi can do and with Jack deeper that can benefit the team. UTV.

[rougegorge]

Whilst a win is welcome we should remember they had a poor second choice keeper in goal after their first choice was red carded against wolves on Saturday.

Oh behave!

Yes, Luke Steele is an experienced keeper and was first choice at Panathinaikos not long ago, so is not some rookie. The second goal was the only one where he may have done a bit better.

[Ads]

The pleasing thing for me is that we humped a team in the top 3 who were on a much better run than us.  The defeat against Wolves was their first in 7 and included a win against Man U.  The tiredness thing is a red herring as well.  You can guarantee if Bristol had won, that it would be Bruce moaning about the fixture list and Johnson saying nothing.  After a 5-0 win, I bet nobody is feeling tired in the Villa camp this morning.

Aye considering, bar one player, it was the same team that beat Boro 2 days earlier I'm not sure why we were able to run riot, yet they were all so sleepy tired that they were playing in their PJs.

Could be they're just not very good and on a roll, who have been found out by two much better sides in two days. Seems more likely to me.

That's entirely possible Ads.  More pertinently, why did we look so abject against Brentford, then extremely mediocre against Boro, but then blow Bristol City completely and utterly out of the water and look like the best team by a country mile in the Championship?  I wouldn't expect to win by that margin every week, but if we'd at least try to play like that every week, I'd never have a bad word to say about Bruce again.  Yesterday was absolutely terrific football, no question at all.

Million dollar question that. Shows what we can do and lead to me thinking why haven't we seen that before?

I thought Boro was more a good away performance, second half at least, against Pulis and his tedious crew. That said, it is difficult to fathom how we can click and go from plodding along for 20 minutes and suddenly look as good as we did.

I certainly think the formation helped and it is not a coincidence to me that Whelan being out the side and Jedinak being the holding player allowing four midfielders to attack, saw us play significantly better than Derby, Milwall, Sheffield United, Brentford.