Post match thread. Villa 1 Leicester City 2

[brontebilly]

Wherever we finish in the league this season, Deano is going to have to learn to rotate his squad which means sometimes picking less than the best team for matches. Thereby keeping all the squad involved and avoiding situations where the likes of Guilbert and Hoorahan ask to go on loan to get game time.

Agreed, they are two decent enough players anyway so it wasn't going to weaken us hugely giving them minutes earlier in the season. Both Cash and Barkley were appalling in the Leeds and Southampton games for example. I think Elmo was eventually brought on for Cash in one of those games. It would have kept those two involved by giving them minutes. Hourihane I thought played quite well in his three starts. That West Ham away game was one of the last games we completely controlled midfield.

For whatever reason, Smith clearly doesn't rate either of them. Ramsey and Sanson have pushed Hourihane firmly out of the reckoning and if you are third choice behind Elmo, then your time is up too. But Smith needs to wise up from his MON esque approach on player fatigue, rotation and substitutes.

[London Villan]

West ham have been pretty good at rotating key players.

[ChicagoLion]

Leicester had just played a full game in Europe though with a lot of the same starting line up so I’m guessing they eased up or tired in the 2nd half.

That was another really annoying aspect.  We've had two games in a row with whole weeks in between, but we still played them both like every player had just run the London marathon.

I always think of the Boat Race and the contrast between the 2 Crews, one is jubilant and look like they could row it again, the other is slumped head down breathing out their arse.

[dcdavecollett]

One of the few highlights of the day was listening to Alan Hutton on the radio before the game.

After that, things went downhill...