The play offs.

[clash city rocker]

Villa are going to have to be at the top of their game if we want to beat Fulham.

[Drummond]

Villa are going to have to be at the top of their game if we want to beat Fulham.

I think you're right, and play slightly differently than we did against Boro.

[mike]

Wading into the whole Premier League vs FA Cup argument, we also need to be pragmatic about the ability to continue to maintain our fan base when even the shops in our own city centre are full of Manchester, Liverpool and London teams gear. I remember a mate of mine who took his lad to every Carlisle game, bought him all the gear, the kid knew all the players etc then one day, he came back from school and said, Dad, I support Man City now.

[Risso]

We'll need to be much better to beat Fulham, but we've got the players to do it.  Need somebody to put the shackles on Sessegnon, and for somebody like Jack to drive the team forward.  If we try to keep it tight and nick a one-nil, we'll lose.

[mr underhill]

well we beast them comfortably at home and they beat us away so we both have a chance!

[Brassneck]

We'll need to be much better to beat Fulham, but we've got the players to do it.  Need somebody to put the shackles on Sessegnon, and for somebody like Jack to drive the team forward.  If we try to keep it tight and nick a one-nil, we'll lose.

I understand what you are saying but I think the term "much better" is slightly misleading.

Our players were fantastic last night and worked their socks off for the entire 90 minutes. They all deserve tremendous credit for the job they did over the 2 legs. We couldn't have asked for any more off them. We were not obliged to get men in the box and allow Boro the option of counter attacking at pace, we closed down their space and denied them the opportunity to run at us.

We need to be different against Fulham rather than better. I don't think we could have been any better than we were last night.

[Risso]

We'll need to be much better to beat Fulham, but we've got the players to do it.  Need somebody to put the shackles on Sessegnon, and for somebody like Jack to drive the team forward.  If we try to keep it tight and nick a one-nil, we'll lose.

I understand what you are saying but I think the term "much better" is slightly misleading.

Our players were fantastic last night and worked their socks off for the entire 90 minutes. They all deserve tremendous credit for the job they did over the 2 legs. We couldn't have asked for any more off them. We were not obliged to get men in the box and allow Boro the option of counter attacking at pace, we closed down their space and denied them the opportunity to run at us.

We need to be different against Fulham rather than better. I don't think we could have been any better than we were last night.

They certainly worked hard, and did enough, but had Twatface's free kick gone in, things could have been different.  You also need to factor in that Fulham are a much better footballing side than Pulisboro, so I do think our attacking play will need to be a lot better than it has been over the last two games.

[Brassneck]

We'll need to be much better to beat Fulham, but we've got the players to do it.  Need somebody to put the shackles on Sessegnon, and for somebody like Jack to drive the team forward.  If we try to keep it tight and nick a one-nil, we'll lose.

I understand what you are saying but I think the term "much better" is slightly misleading.

Our players were fantastic last night and worked their socks off for the entire 90 minutes. They all deserve tremendous credit for the job they did over the 2 legs. We couldn't have asked for any more off them. We were not obliged to get men in the box and allow Boro the option of counter attacking at pace, we closed down their space and denied them the opportunity to run at us.

We need to be different against Fulham rather than better. I don't think we could have been any better than we were last night.

They certainly worked hard, and did enough, but had Twatface's free kick gone in, things could have been different.  You also need to factor in that Fulham are a much better footballing side than Pulisboro, so I do think our attacking play will need to be a lot better than it has been over the last two games.

The problem is, we didn't need to attack any differently to how we did last night, we had the lead. It's not attacking "better", it's attacking "differently". We attacked superbly last night given the scenario.

Don't worry about attacking Fulham - Their defence is no better than Boro's.

[olaftab]

The worst thing about this whole argument is that it's already been answered, we should want to go up and do well in the cups and former gives us a better chance at the latter so why do some people still want to make this a choice.  This is a lot like the argument over the style of football where some people are determined to make a choice between playing attractive, effective football and winning games, as if the 2 things aren't linked.

I want us to go up because I want us to be the best we can be, and that won't happen in the championship, we might win more games but I, personally, can't get all that excited about beating teams like Barnsley and Burton Albion, I want us competing with Tottenham, Liverpool, etc like we were on the cusp of 8-9 years ago. That means playing in Europe, it means getting to cup finals, and winning them, and it means being comfortably top half of the premier league (as a minimum), we shouldn't be picking and choosing between those.

Correctamundo......

Get over it......

[Risso]

The problem is, we didn't need to attack any differently to how we did last night, we had the lead. It's not attacking "better", it's attacking "differently". We attacked superbly last night given the scenario.

I think scoring a goal would put us in with a better chance of winning personally.  But I think you're just getting bogged down in semantics anyway, so will leave it there.

[Brassneck]

The problem is, we didn't need to attack any differently to how we did last night, we had the lead. It's not attacking "better", it's attacking "differently". We attacked superbly last night given the scenario.

I think scoring a goal would put us in with a better chance of winning personally.  But I think you're just getting bogged down in semantics anyway, so will leave it there.

I'm not getting bogged down in anything - I simply posted an opinion, just lie you did. Of course it would have been nice to score a goal or two but it rarely happens in games as tight as this one. The players have been fantastic over 2 legs and got the job done that they set out to do.

Remember Fulham only scraped through by one goal - I don't see any of their fans panicking over it.

In 1996, we played Arsenal the the league cup semi final. The 2nd leg at VP was almost identical to last night's game and that was even more of a tightrope because a goal for Arsenal would have seen us knocked out.

[Drummond]

We'll need to be much better to beat Fulham, but we've got the players to do it.  Need somebody to put the shackles on Sessegnon, and for somebody like Jack to drive the team forward.  If we try to keep it tight and nick a one-nil, we'll lose.

I understand what you are saying but I think the term "much better" is slightly misleading.

Our players were fantastic last night and worked their socks off for the entire 90 minutes. They all deserve tremendous credit for the job they did over the 2 legs. We couldn't have asked for any more off them. We were not obliged to get men in the box and allow Boro the option of counter attacking at pace, we closed down their space and denied them the opportunity to run at us.

We need to be different against Fulham rather than better. I don't think we could have been any better than we were last night.

They certainly worked hard, and did enough, but had Twatface's free kick gone in, things could have been different.  You also need to factor in that Fulham are a much better footballing side than Pulisboro, so I do think our attacking play will need to be a lot better than it has been over the last two games.

Yeah and had all the shots they had on target over the two legs gone in we'd still only have drawn.

It's all ifs and buts. Sessegnon could have Hutton all over him.

We were by far the better of the two sides and did what was required. We beat Wolves 4-0 and you would normally say they are a better footballing side too. We can do it.

[mr underhill]

i thought it was 4-1

[Dave]

i thought it was 4-1

Maybe he was talking about the 2004 match under O'Leary.

[Drummond]

i thought it was 4-1

Maybe he was talking about the 2004 match under O'Leary.

Arse, erm, their goal didn't count. Or I have fat fingers. Or I got it wrong.