Norwich City - 0 Aston Villa Youth - 2 Post Match Thread

[Gareth]

Thought it was a thoroughly good performance, the Young back pass aside they were pretty insignificant in the game.

Very interesting comment by Gerrard after the game where he pointed out Chukwuemeka was sent on to get around Gilmour as they thought he was getting too much of the ball…definitely did they job and assist was icing on the cake.  Norwich fans aren’t big on Gilmour if you look at their forums

Cantwell was truly awful, never rated him and hope never to see his name in the transfer thread again :-)

Norwich first half were getting torn a new one down the right yet Williams was continually left on his own to deal with it, was very similar to our games against Arsenal / Southampton where it was obvious what was happening but Deano didn’t change anything in running & waited for half time….ultimately I think that stubbornness cost him his job & he must have felt gutted last night

Ramsey & Douglas MotM for me…hopefully the half hour in Ings legs will help as personally thought when he came on we lost some balance.

[Risso]

So much for Smith's knowledge of our players being used to stop us!

[Allan C]

Work prevented me seeing any of the game but I’ve read the reports. Still puzzled that so many on the pre-match thread thought this would be a difficult game. Great result which has us one place away from 8th.

[Smithy]

It was the sort of game/result you'd expect from a top-half side playing the bottom side.  I always fear the worst with us, but had this been the 7/8/9 team playing bottom, it went about as expected.

If we can do the same again to Burnley, then I'll start to think we could be on the verge of something really special.  After our first year back, we've shown we have the ability to beat the top sides in any game (having beaten every champs league challenger bar Man City in the last 18 months), but we've rarely done it consistently well against the lower teams.  If we can start regularly winning against the bottom half teams, as we seem to be doing, then I can see us pushing for Europe sooner than we thought possible.

The form table over the last six games certainly makes pleasant reading!

[Risso]

Work prevented me seeing any of the game but I’ve read the reports. Still puzzled that so many on the pre-match thread thought this would be a difficult game. Great result which has us one place away from 8th.

I think most of us have still got a lot of "typical Aston Villa-itis" in us after years and years. Expecting to struggle against shit teams, thinking we're going to chuck away 1 goal leads, being certain that a striker needing a goal will break heir duck when they play us. Going to take a while to get past those deeply ingrained worries, which to be fair are a result of years of actually having to witness them!

[Risso]

It was the sort of game/result you'd expect from a top-half side playing the bottom side.  I always fear the worst with us, but had this been the 7/8/9 team playing bottom, it went about as expected.

If we can do the same again to Burnley, then I'll start to think we could be on the verge of something really special.  After our first year back, we've shown we have the ability to beat the top sides in any game (having beaten every champs league challenger bar Man City in the last 18 months), but we've rarely done it consistently well against the lower teams.  If we can start regularly winning against the bottom half teams, as we seem to be doing, then I can see us pushing for Europe sooner than we thought possible.

If we beat Burnley it will be 15 points from 7 games. I wonder when the last time was that we achieved that in the Premier League?

[Allan C]

Work prevented me seeing any of the game but I’ve read the reports. Still puzzled that so many on the pre-match thread thought this would be a difficult game. Great result which has us one place away from 8th.

I think most of us have still got a lot of "typical Aston Villa-itis" in us after years and years. Expecting to struggle against shit teams, thinking we're going to chuck away 1 goal leads, being certain that a striker needing a goal will break heir duck when they play us. Going to take a while to get past those deeply ingrained worries, which to be fair are a result of years of actually having to witness them!

Yes agreed, but kind of periods usually coincided with us having unimaginative managers and/or poor squads. Although initially unsure of the SG appointment, I’ve seen and heard enough so far to be confident of us beating the bottom team

[olaftab]

So much for Smith's knowledge of our players being used to stop us!

Well he did to keep it down to 2.

[john e]

Makes me laugh how many people calling it a routine win is if we are at the level of Man City now all of a sudden

Where we are there is no such thing as a routine win, every result has to be hard won
As poor as the opposition played last night the game was only put to bed five minutes from the end
Burnley are in the bottom three so you would expect another routine win
No chance every result has to be fought for

[Risso]

Makes me laugh how many people calling it a routine win is if we are at the level of Man City now all of a sudden

Where we are there is no such thing as a routine win, every result has to be hard won
As poor as the opposition played last night the game was only put to bed five minutes from the end
Burnley are in the bottom three so you would expect another routine win
No chance every result has to be fought for

The performance felt like a routine win. Other than the Ashley Young mistake, at no point did they remotely look like threatening us, even when our performance levels dipped a bit in the second half. Normally my pulse would be similar to having run a 5K at 1-0 with 10 minutes to go, but last night was almost relaxing.

[The Edge]

Makes me laugh how many people calling it a routine win is if we are at the level of Man City now all of a sudden

Where we are there is no such thing as a routine win, every result has to be hard won
As poor as the opposition played last night the game was only put to bed five minutes from the end
Burnley are in the bottom three so you would expect another routine win
No chance every result has to be fought for

Anyone who thinks Burnley will be a routine win needs to give their head a wobble. Their thugs will be attempting to kick us off the park.  Expect Ramsey to come in for some special treatment. We will have to match their aggression to earn the right to play football. I'm hoping that Ben Mee gets a similar reception from the Holte that Schmeichel got. He's a fecking shithouse.

[john e]

Makes me laugh how many people calling it a routine win is if we are at the level of Man City now all of a sudden

Where we are there is no such thing as a routine win, every result has to be hard won
As poor as the opposition played last night the game was only put to bed five minutes from the end
Burnley are in the bottom three so you would expect another routine win
No chance every result has to be fought for

The performance felt like a routine win. Other than the Ashley Young mistake, at no point did they remotely look like threatening us, even when our performance levels dipped a bit in the second half. Normally my pulse would be similar to having run a 5K at 1-0 with 10 minutes to go, but last night was almost relaxing.

I know what you’re saying but that miss place back pass which should’ve been scored from and suddenly there is no routine at all
I’ve seen all this looking comfortable before and it not working out
But you’re right last night did and was in the end but I still don’t think there’s any routine win for us in this league at the moment

[LeeB]

Makes me laugh how many people calling it a routine win is if we are at the level of Man City now all of a sudden

Where we are there is no such thing as a routine win, every result has to be hard won
As poor as the opposition played last night the game was only put to bed five minutes from the end
Burnley are in the bottom three so you would expect another routine win
No chance every result has to be fought for

Anyone who thinks Burnley will be a routine win needs to give their head a wobble. Their thugs will be attempting to kick us off the park.  Expect Ramsey to come in for some special treatment. We will have to match their aggression to earn the right to play football. I'm hoping that Ben Mee gets a similar reception from the Holte that Schmeichel got. He's a fecking shithouse.

Last seasons two games should be the warning, I doubt we dominated a single team more over the two games yet they walked off with 4 points.

[Flamingo Lane]

Ramsey's goal was a cracker, and well done the referee for playing the advantage after Watkins was fouled - it would have been understandable if he'd blown, having seen no-one near in support of Ramsey and on the half way line.

[lovejoy]

Work prevented me seeing any of the game but I’ve read the reports. Still puzzled that so many on the pre-match thread thought this would be a difficult game. Great result which has us one place away from 8th.

So 9th?