Rotherham United v Aston Villa Post Match Thread

[UK Redsox]

Grealish's goal, by the way. Holy smokes.

Elmo produced a similar pull-back early on for the Albert chance. Looks like something they've worked on

[AV82EC]

Was so jealous of what looked a great atmos at Wednesday last saturday but got tickets for last night and wasn’t disappointed to say the least. After a nice drive through the Hope Valley and a suitable pub stop we arrived early, most mumbling around us before the game was how tough it was going to be, with no overconfidence on show.

First half we got involved in their type of football and a few good moments aside we just didn’t get going. The officials were atrocious. Fair play to Rotherham they had a game plan and delivered on it.

Second half, I have to say that’s the proudest Ive felt of my team in years. Heart, soul, clinical professionalism, and a game plan that they delivered on superbly. The ref suddenly realised it wasn’t all about him as well.

Scores on the doors:

Steer - 8 didn’t have much to do but that one handed stop 2nd half, superb
Elmo - 9 - the unsung hero of the night, up and down and creative as well, in great form.
Tuanzebe - 8 solid as fuck
Mings - 6 oops an off night
Taylor - 8 after a dodgy start, settled and excellent 2nd half including a couple of great runs and nutmegs.
Hourihane - 8 quiet, unassuming but was super controlled and disciplined in that second half, feeding the ball to Jack/John calmly.
McGinn 10 and MOTM - wow just wow my man love for this guy went up a level after this, quite astonishing energy and performance
Grealish 9 - sublime and that goal, oh just brilliant
Adomah - 7 didn’t do much before getting the hook for the sending off
El Ghazi - 6 didn’t do enough for me was ok but just not involved enough.
Abraham - 7 it’s not going for Tammy lately but he keeps going and you can see his commitment.

Subs

Jedinak - 8 after a tentative start and a few moments he seemed to get into it and he was back to being aggressive and committed in that second half, some superb headers in the closing stages
Kodjia - 9 absolute beast, his hold up play and trickery they just couldn’t live with and balls of steel with the penalty, great performance.
Whelan - 7 not really on for long enough

Smith - 10 ballsy call for 4-3-2 in the second half but it worked as they couldn’t live with us, our quality told all over the pitch.

All in all a great night, good atmos and some “scenes and limbs” at the start of the second half. Roll on Saturday, can’t wait......

[Meanwood Villa]

Really felt like things were unravelling at half time but absolutely brilliant second half. Well done to Deano and all the players. Still buzzing this morning.

[kipeye]

Oh, and a shout out to Steer.
He was superb last night night. Did everything that was asked of him and the one handed reaction save at 2-1 was brilliant and points winning.

Yes thought that save was magnificent and seemed to go unnoticed.

[JD]

What a great comeback and result.

I'm so proud of this team and the way they just don't give up. Reminds me of the Saunders days. 

[badluckeric(gates)]

Loved Dean's comment about John McGinn. 'So good I thought there was two of him'. S omaybe we weren't down to 10 men

[olaftab]

Grealish's goal, by the way. Holy smokes.

Elmo produced a similar pull-back early on for the Albert chance. Looks like something they've worked on

I think they picked up a couple of tricks watching Bruce�s master class last Saturday.😉

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

Loved Dean's comment about John McGinn. 'So good I thought there was two of him'. S omaybe we weren't down to 10 men

We had John McGinn and John McGinn's arse!
We had twelve on the pitch to start with!

[joe_c]

I don't now if anyone else has made this point but it occurred to me on the way home last night that we've only had two red cards this season and that what happened next sums up the difference between Smith and his predecessor.


2-0 up and in control against Preston then wilted when Chester was sent off and fortunate to rescue a point in the end.


1-0 down and out of sorts last night and Smith made the necessary changes to personnel to get the win we needed.

[Small Rodent]

Mings at FT: https://twitter.com/i/status/1116084214783455233

That's Grealish scoring.

It's Mings.

I’d prefer him to be apologising.

[hilts_coolerking]

At half time we were staring right down the barrel of another season in the Championship so it was an absolutely bloody brilliant turnaround.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

[Lastfootstamper]

Grealish's goal, by the way. Holy smokes.

Elmo produced a similar pull-back early on for the Albert chance. Looks like something they've worked on

If you go on the Villa YouTube channel, there's some vids from Bodymoor. Some of the drills seem to try to replicate situations that might, or could be made to, happen in an actual game.

Nothing we do now happens by chance.

[darren woolley]

I'm so glad with another win and seven on the bounce first half wasn't very good the ref was Frank Spencer in disguise he had a few whoops Betty moments they tried to rough us up but second half we bloody well showed them and any other team we ain't going away we are well in the mix and nobody is going to stop us not even comic refereeing.

[paul_e]

Grealish's goal, by the way. Holy smokes.

Elmo produced a similar pull-back early on for the Albert chance. Looks like something they've worked on

If you go on the Villa YouTube channel, there's some vids from Bodymoor. Some of the drills seem to try to replicate situations that might, or could be made to, happen in an actual game.

Nothing we do now happens by chance.

Watch Jack's movement after he plays the pass, it's clearly something that has been trained for us to look for crosses behind the retreating defence. This is the sort of detail that shows the difference between Smith and managers like Bruce. At the start of the season we were getting plenty of crosses into the box but they were percentage balls played into an area where the plan was to just keep throwing the ball in there and profit on the ones that don't get cleared now we're trying to game the numbers by playing balls into different areas, there were a couple of crosses like it on Saturday as well.