Bolton Wanderers vs Aston Villa Post-Match Thread

[postal]

Had Jack's volley shot from outside the area gone in, it would have been hailed as a goal of the season. Oh, for what ifs... 

[Malandro]

Finally got home at 2.30 AM, after a very snowy drive south of Birmingham. So, so disappointing. The whole season potentially thrown away in two performances. After Wolves, I thought no one would want to play Villa in the play off's. Now everyone will see we are a soft touch if you simply put us under pressure.

I said "poor dorsetvillian" to Mr Green after the game. Good on you.

[nodge]

I can't remember ever seeing us win in the snow.

13th December, 1975: Villa 3 Norwich 2 - An excellent game played on a very snowy and icy pitch; the game would probably not have gone ahead in the current era.

Sheffield United, FA cup, that Dwight Yorke penalty?

[jeowje]

It has been a very disappointing week, but on reflection we knew there would be setbacks. But since Xmas we have both won seven league games in a row and recently thrashed the runaway leaders 4-1. Does anybody really think Cardiff are too good to have a few slip ups? It ain’t over yet.

[Legion]

Automatic promotion probably is.

[Tom_Mc9?]

We just need to win our eight remaining games. Should be relatively easy.

[kipeye]

It has been a very disappointing week, but on reflection we knew there would be setbacks. But since Xmas we have both won seven league games in a row and recently thrashed the runaway leaders 4-1. Does anybody really think Cardiff are too good to have a few slip ups? It ain’t over yet.

This was not a game to be judged on for team or manager. Very difficult conditions-yes same for both sides but suited the kick and rush tactics of Bolton who were nowhere near as skilful. We have benefited from the run of the ball in recent games, this was not one of them. I will wait for the next game before criticising either, I just hope Bruce does not lose his bottle and revert to one up front with a defensive midfield.

[Clark W Griswold]

If there's an extenuating circumstance today it is that conditions were abysmal.

Yes abysmal for both teams but it was always going to impact is more and drag our players down to the level of theirs.

We need to keep our shit together and focus on taking as many points as we can till the end of the season.

I am not a massive Bruce fan either but some of the stuff posted about him just seven days after taking wolves to pieces is embarrassing.

Would agree with all of that.

Bruce wise, i think he's done a fairly decent job so far. He came into us 18 months ago with the club and squad in diabolical shape. He's had to change much of the squad, and ok he initially had a fair chunk financially to help him but that dried up due to FFP. There are 24 teams in this division, we were near the bottom when he took over and now we're in the top 4. He's by no means perfect (subs yesterday for example) but overall he's done fine.

I think with regards to promotion i'm a bit of a realist and have to say that automatic is out of the question, play off success is dependant on us playing like we did against Blues and Wolves in all 3 games to make that happen and i would be amazed if it did. We will bottle it at some point as others have said. Should be persevere with Bruce for next season if we have a near miss? I wouldn't mind at all, but i think Xia will have other ideas. Will making another change give us a better chance of promotion next season? I very much doubt it.

[Villa in Denmark]

If there's an extenuating circumstance today it is that conditions were abysmal.

Yes abysmal for both teams but it was always going to impact is more and drag our players down to the level of theirs.

We need to keep our shit together and focus on taking as many points as we can till the end of the season.

I am not a massive Bruce fan either but some of the stuff posted about him just seven days after taking wolves to pieces is embarrassing.

Would agree with all of that.

Bruce wise, i think he's done a fairly decent job so far. He came into us 18 months ago with the club and squad in diabolical shape. He's had to change much of the squad, and ok he initially had a fair chunk financially to help him but that dried up due to FFP. There are 24 teams in this division, we were near the bottom when he took over and now we're in the top 4. He's by no means perfect (subs yesterday for example) but overall he's done fine.

I think with regards to promotion i'm a bit of a realist and have to say that automatic is out of the question, play off success is dependant on us playing like we did against Blues and Wolves in all 3 games to make that happen and i would be amazed if it did. We will bottle it at some point as others have said. Should be persevere with Bruce for next season if we have a near miss? I wouldn't mind at all, but i think Xia will have other ideas. Will making another change give us a better chance of promotion next season? I very much doubt it.

I think that last point very much depends on how much of the current squad are still together and how much we're reliant on the likes of O'Hare and Mitch Clark to fill gaps in the squad / first XI. Bruce isn't exactly renowned for bringing through younger players, something we might be reliant on next year when the financial constraints of falling parachute money bite even harder.

[Stinkin_Thinkin]

I think we should of looked at the conditions and started with Kenian Davis and just gone route one all game. we should have left possibly Adomah on the bench and beefed up the centre of the park with Lansbury. We seemed to finish in that mind set however it was too late and the 4 strikers on the pitch was laughable.
It's pointless having tricky wingers trying to use pace and dribbling when the ball just holds up in the snow. You might aswell just launch it into the box and hope for something just like their goal.
 I did notice they didn't sweep our penalty area before the kick off yet they swept it clean in the 2nd half when Bolton were defending it.
The ref was awful. But I think the reason we lost was they won the physical battle

[SoccerHQ]

kippa i,m in dreamland right now . never thought we would be in the top 2 right now at this stage . for me thought we might scrap  top 10 nothing more . warnock will get the freedom of the city of cardiff if we make it to the prem .

even the plastic man utd  man city , liverpool fans are swapping there tops to cardiff tops right now in south wales  . the demand for villa away tickets is incredible right now all over south wales. it's not all rugby down here you know  !

Surprised you only had 16k for one of your recent home games. Is it true so many of your fans are still miffed off with Tan changing the kit to Red? Think you've lost 10k average since relegation from the prem.

[dave.woodhall]

I'd like to think any Brummie Reds/Blues who started to support us if we were doing well would be heartily told to fuck right off back where they came from, but maybe that's just me.

[ktvillan]

If there's an extenuating circumstance today it is that conditions were abysmal.

Yes abysmal for both teams but it was always going to impact is more and drag our players down to the level of theirs.

We need to keep our shit together and focus on taking as many points as we can till the end of the season.

I am not a massive Bruce fan either but some of the stuff posted about him just seven days after taking wolves to pieces is embarrassing.

Would agree with all of that.

Bruce wise, i think he's done a fairly decent job so far. He came into us 18 months ago with the club and squad in diabolical shape. He's had to change much of the squad, and ok he initially had a fair chunk financially to help him but that dried up due to FFP. There are 24 teams in this division, we were near the bottom when he took over and now we're in the top 4. He's by no means perfect (subs yesterday for example) but overall he's done fine.

I think with regards to promotion i'm a bit of a realist and have to say that automatic is out of the question, play off success is dependant on us playing like we did against Blues and Wolves in all 3 games to make that happen and i would be amazed if it did. We will bottle it at some point as others have said. Should be persevere with Bruce for next season if we have a near miss? I wouldn't mind at all, but i think Xia will have other ideas. Will making another change give us a better chance of promotion next season? I very much doubt it.

Successful teams have to adapt to all conditions.  Good managers should know how to adapt tactics for all conditions.  As for how Bruce has done, well the obvious comparison is with Colin.  Cardiff were in a similar situation to us when he took over (weren't they actually below us?) with a much less expensive squad and barely anything to spend.  So by comparison I wouldn't say Bruce "has done fine".  The target was and is automatic promotion, he was given sufficient funds, players and other resources to achieve that.  Up to Tuesday it looked like he had a good chance of achieving that, albeit via grinding his way there rather than cruising.  Right now it looks more likely he is going to fail.  Reverting to a variant of the Lambert-Bradford method (except replace young and hungry with aged, slow and overfed) was not a sign of a manager who has a coherent plan.  On the bright side, he does seem to do well in play off games, and Cardiff's low-cost transformation indicates that FFP spending limits need not prevent getting out of this division.

[Dinas_Caerdydd]

soccerhq yes the rebrand of our club killed alot of our support and as of yet fully recovered . caused massive ructions around these parts , you would only undestand if you lived in south wales  . as mentioned we have to put up with alot of plastic liverpool and man utd fans around this way too .

put it this way if a very rich owner came in to aston villa and changed your kit to blue , changed your club badge  , the colour of your stadium and seats basically wiping out your heritage of a club would you lot be happy ?

[TonyD]

Could have done with Hutton on the pitch last night.  Is he injured?