West Ham London - 1 Aston Villa - 1 The Post Match Thread.

[ROBBO]

JM is a different player since his return M.O.M for me, Bailey needs a long spell out and contrary to others I thought Traore didn't give us anything, same old same old. This manager we have is as passionate as they come, always on the line shouting instructions, think back to the previous manager, sat in the dug out, expressionless and out of ideas. I'm certain if he had stayed we would have been facing relegation, with Emre we have a plan, a different style, roll on the summer.

[olaftab]

I would take a chance on Benrahma as well as he was good today and has been out of favour this season.

Why would we take on a player who has not been first choice for a team in bottom 3?
Apart from scoring the pen he made a right hash of couple of half chances he had.

[eamonn]

He fashioned those chances for himself in the main and left Cash with twisted blood.

[Ads]

I quite liked the shit version of the Chicken Run having a whistle and "blowing up" 2 minutes early to generate loud boos from the West Ham lot.

[coreyfeldman]

JM is a different player since his return M.O.M for me, Bailey needs a long spell out and contrary to others I thought Traore didn't give us anything, same old same old. This manager we have is as passionate as they come, always on the line shouting instructions, think back to the previous manager, sat in the dug out, expressionless and out of ideas. I'm certain if he had stayed we would have been facing relegation, with Emre we have a plan, a different style, roll on the summer.

Traore made an excellent chance for Duran, it was his first game back for a long time and was so much more involved and physical than Bailey it was night and day tbh. He wasn't perfect, but Bailey was also so poor that my nan could have come on and looked more threatening. First live game for a couple of months and really cannot believe how poor Bailey is in the flesh, pathetic excuse for a player

[Paul.S]

This is no new manager bounce now. We’ve had the initial bounce and then lost a few but we are on another decent run and that’s down to top coaching. We could finish top half and from where we were when Emery took over that would be some improvement. With some decent additions in the summer we could definitely challenge for Europe next season. We’d have lost this game under Gerrard but there’s now an in built resilience as well as a game plan.

[Hookeysmith]

I’m in Budapest so didn’t see it.

I'm currently in Mauritius  and could not get a feed. Will watch YouTube later

[Hookeysmith]

I’m in Budapest so didn’t see it.

I'm currently in Mauritius  and could not get a feed. Will watch YouTube later

Mauritius is full of Tories at this time of the year so you must be the only Villa fan there😉

You are right, I paid for it with my share options when one of my companies I invest in sacked a load of union workers for being...err poor

Still great holiday thanks

[sid1964]

I was in Dudley, and spent the afternoon doing house hold chores, only found out the result at 5pm, watched the 2 minute high lights on Sky Sports.

[steamer]

DSTV/Mnet carries 90% pf premier league games live.
Most Hotels in Mauritius have DSTV as their main satellite channel, if you are still there on Sat you should pick up the game. 

[The Edge]

 I thought we were excellent at times yesterday. It's obvious that Unai Emery has a plan, a vision of how we should play and I like that a lot. It's not pretty at times but we are definitely heading in the right direction. Yesterday could of easily been another away win. A dubious penalty earned them a point and we had two point blank chances inside their six yard box either of which could of won us the game.All in all I'm very positive about where Unai Emery is taking us.. And a special shout out for Tony Gale. A more one eyed biased commentator would be very difficult to find.

[Villa Lew]

A good point against a team, fighting desperately for win, one of the things that pleased me was how well we defended their corners, they had 13 in all, and don't think West Ham created any decent chances from any of them. This has been one of our weaknesses and full credit to Emery and his staff for the improvement in this area.

[Chico Hamilton III]

I quite liked the shit version of the Chicken Run having a whistle and "blowing up" 2 minutes early to generate loud boos from the West Ham lot.

That whistle was blown by them about 3 times in the second half. Potential for some real confusion if the players had reacted to it.

What a depressing place to watch football. The only improvement over last season’s visit was that we weren’t marched around the back of Stratford for half an hour after the game by the coppers.

[boozey182]

It felt, to me, like the perfect representation of where we are at the moment: We're a better team than West Ham, but not quite consistent enough to put them away. We were generally a lot more solid, but looked slightly vulnerable to more direct attacks. Some of our passing was incredible, but we didn't manage to create enough clear-cut chances as a result. Most of our players have improved under Emery, but a couple have struggled.

We're a work in progress. Mings, McGinn, Doug and Watkins continue to look like top-half Premier League players and I thought Buendía looked good again - we just lacked that final ball, or that decisive run. I don't like pinning too much blame on one player, but someone else in Bailey's position that offers more of a goal threat could make such a difference to this team. Nothing is happening for him at the moment. I think if Kamara, The Donk or Phil were fit for that one, we'd have won. Largely because any one of them could have come in for Bailey and it would have improved us. (I am still clinging to the hope that things might click for Bailey, but it's getting increasingly difficult to justify that stance to be honest).

A point isn't the end of the world by any stretch, even if it is frustrating not to close the gap on the teams above us. The progress we're making is there for anyone that wants to see it. With no threat of relegation the pressure is off, but the players have to prove their worth to the manager - that could mean that us fans get an enjoyable end to the season. A convincing win on Saturday would be most welcome for a start.

[Chris Smith]

A good point against a team, fighting desperately for win, one of the things that pleased me was how well we defended their corners, they had 13 in all, and don't think West Ham created any decent chances from any of them. This has been one of our weaknesses and full credit to Emery and his staff for the improvement in this area.

Their penalty came as a result of a bit of panic defending a corner. It was very harshly awarded but it came seconds after a goal line clearance.