Aston Villa vs SHA: Post-Match Thread

[clash city rocker]

watching the game again I can not believe what a niggly bastard Gardner is .  treading on players while they are on the floor

Gardner violates the beautiful game on 2 counts.   1....he Can't play football....2....he's a right ugly sod.

[ROBBO]

Disagree with a previous poster about Whelan, I thought he was a liability with the ball always passing square or backwards. New keeper needed badly I've wanted this guy to prove us wrong but for his size he's a bit of a mouse. Love the way Smith sets us up we just need a decent centre back someone of a decent size we look dodgy against tall forwards.

[LeeB]

By the way, great of the less ugly Gardner brother to sit himself in the Blues dugout. I hope the fans near there gave him what for.

I put him In there as a few of our over excited "fans" we giving him a lot of stick when he sat in the stands. If their fans acted like that we would be furious.
It's his brother who is the nose not him.

Fair play to you.

[SoccerHQ]

By the way, great of the less ugly Gardner brother to sit himself in the Blues dugout. I hope the fans near there gave him what for.

I put him In there as a few of our over excited "fans" we giving him a lot of stick when he sat in the stands. If their fans acted like that we would be furious.
It's his brother who is the nose not him.

I always wonder what on loan players actually do for games like this (more so when it's actually local rivals involved). Personally I'd have wanted to watch the match at home in Gary's situation but guess Monk wanted the players not involved to travel and give support in the dressing room as Jota was also with the subs on the bench.

Difficult one for Gary and he was missed by them today as he's much better than his brother nowadays.

[Dave P]

Beepity beep beep beep

As if a Blose fan would understand what a library was.

There’s a big one in the centre of Brum where we never go and they have the run of.

[john2710]

Great result, if not a performance. Fortunate when they hit the post & that we then got 2 quick goals. Great to see Jack score & Hutton's goal was a sight to behold.

Only disappointment was the behaviour of some of our fans in the Lower Trinity trying to get at some Nose's in the boxes behind. Grown men acting like dickheads & frightening the life out of young kids.

[KevinGage]

Loads of Villa and ex-Villa on Twitter toasting the Scottish Cafu.

Even when we're off colour we still have far too much for fodder like the Noses.

Whelan was so deep at times dropping into the centre half slot, but Smith said these were his instructions. Felt that it really affected the midfield ability to dominate and it didn't change too much till after the half hour mark.

We missed McGinn but as Deano said, it's hard to press a side that only has 24% of the ball.

Anyway, McGinn back for Forest and Bolasie for Adomah. That isn't a bad use of the squad.

We always sit too deep with Whelan.

[ChicagoLion]

The problem with Whelan is that he looks off the pace and gave the ball away too often.

[olaftab]

The Hutton goal was one of those mouth open 'What Did I Just See?' moments. Bloody wonderful.

A run like that poses a real dilemma for opposition. They think he is going to pass any second and back off to cover runners and than can not change course as he sweeps past them.  Having ran 75 yards and still have the composure to slot it in the perfect place with the  precision of world class player was amazing.

[Legion]

By the way, great of the less ugly Gardner brother to sit himself in the Blues dugout. I hope the fans near there gave him what for.

I put him In there as a few of our over excited "fans" we giving him a lot of stick when he sat in the stands. If their fans acted like that we would be furious.
It's his brother who is the nose not him.

Nice one.

[olaftab]

Would you prefer we hoof it in the general direction of Elmo, or even worse, Hogan? We play football now, time to get used to it 

No, we can play out from the back, that’s fine.
But, when you are aimlessly passing across the back line and not going forward you risk getting caught out.
And we did...a few times.

Yes agreed. Whilst the intent is good execution is terrible. When our back players receive the ball from Nyland they are not moving it forward quickly enough. Only Tuanzebe is comfortable with the ball on his feet. A lot of work and maybe change to personnel is required to make it work better.

[john e]

Beepity beep beep beep

Beepity beep beep beep

there's a couple of us villa drinking in a pub in Newport Pagnell this afternoon
no blues to be seen anywhere
the town is ours

although there is a Cobblers fan at the bar who I know is pretty handy so maybe we will have to share town ownership for now

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

Great result, if not a performance. Fortunate when they hit the post & that we then got 2 quick goals. Great to see Jack score & Hutton's goal was a sight to behold.

Only disappointment was the behaviour of some of our fans in the Lower Trinity trying to get at some Nose's in the boxes behind. Grown men acting like dickheads & frightening the life out of young kids.

That will probably be the noses in the boxes in the Trinity Middle who were giving it large when they scored their first calling the Villa fans in front of them - including the lady in front of me with her 6 year old daughter - "wan*ers", "loser cu**s" and "scum". The one nose was goading the Villa fans close to him and disappeared into the safe refuge of his box as soon as the stewards arrived....which took some time!
So yes, you're right...grown men acting like dickheads!

[footyskillz]

So a neat controlled composed finished by Kodjia.

A header by the hungry Grealish,

A penalty kick dispatched by Tammy Abrahams

And then : amazing solo by Hutts leading to an all piled on top of one another celebratory scrum in the holte for that beautiful goal .

It was all deserving for the attitude (if not overall performance) of the villa today .

We , Villa , the better team won. And that we scored 4 times we can all be entitled to feel there was some style in the victory .

Fittingly, this match delivered some twists and turns, and individual superlatives for Our Grealish and Our Hutton.

4-2 is a wonderful result that seemed blessed for the villa after they 'only' struck the post.
We never looked back.

And with Head coach Dean Smith I don't think we ever will as we just keep moving forward.

Thank you Dean Smith .

Up the Villa.

[rougegorge]

Would you prefer we hoof it in the general direction of Elmo, or even worse, Hogan? We play football now, time to get used to it 

No, we can play out from the back, that’s fine.
But, when you are aimlessly passing across the back line and not going forward you risk getting caught out.
And we did...a few times.

Yes agreed. Whilst the intent is good execution is terrible. When our back players receive the ball from Nyland they are not moving it forward quickly enough. Only Tuanzebe is comfortable with the ball on his feet. A lot of work and maybe change to personnel is required to make it work better.

Yes the key to it all of is speed. The benefits should outweigh the risk, but the frequency and impact of making a mistake does make us vulnerable at present.

The tag team fouling on Grealish did have an effect for the first half an hour and he must've been fouled about 10 times in total. Kieftenbeld's foul in the first minute would've been a yellow if it had occurred after about 15 mins. We overtook Norwich as the most fouled team in the division.

Great derby game and a great comeback after an insipid 30 minutes. I would still prefer ElMo ar Rb and Hutton at Lb.