Aston Villa A Mon 16th Sept 8pm. Will Anderson turn the Heaton Villa?

MrsGrey

One for the neutral?

MrsGrey

No lack of effort or commitment.

Jorderz_Moyes_will_be_Moyes

We were pretty poor even before the red card. Did we have a shot in the second half?

It's alright everybody playing pretty passes around the wings and 40 yards from goal, but we never looked like scoring against a very average side.

Bit of a miserable performance.

jay_in_cpt

Fair score, good effort, no stand out players tonight which was a bit of a let down, seemed to play better when we had 10 players.
Very harsh 2nd yellow but Arthur was naive as well...missed opportunity but after the red card a ok point...

Vorselaarhammer

Without Antonio we miss the pace, being able to bring him on in the second half when there defense is tired is a big plus.

Thought the team wasn't quite with it.

Ref played a part no doubt but he could also have sent Noble off.

SuzanneClaret

So, Sunday, left back, Cresswell or Johnson.

Jorderz_Moyes_will_be_Moyes

And as much as I think Felipe is super talented, he seems to have become very one-dimensional since that scoring spree in the middle of last season.

He's ALWAYS looking for the pass now. What separates him is that he can pick wonderful passes, AND cross, AND beat players one on one, AND finish.

He needs to mix his game up because he's too predictable right now.

Lukerz

Yeah I was disappointed.

A draw was ok given we played the last 20 with 10 men but that was a massive opportunity to really launch our season.

Really wanted us to grasp the game by the scruff of the neck & push to win it. Seemed to be happy to wait.

MrsGrey

Cresswell

grey_til_I_dye

jay

I'd put a vote in for Diop as stand out tonight

Clearly people are things differently; I thought it was a decent game from both sides.

Hamstew

Bit dull but I thought we were very impressive with 10 men. Rice was outstanding.

thornburyiron

Mrs G I think neutrals will have switched that off. It was a poor game and nobody deserved to win it.
We don’t seem to play with any urgency.

MrsGrey

thornburyiron said:

Mrs G I think neutrals will have switched that off. It was a poor game and nobody deserved to win it.
We don’t seem to play with any urgency.

:nonono:

Jorderz_Moyes_will_be_Moyes

I also don't get why anybody was suggesting Noble dived in the first half, when you can clearly see his ankle buckling.

Hell of a commitment to diving if you're twisting your own ankle to do it.

Also, Mike Dean = clown.

jay_in_cpt

Grey , Diop was very good in the 2nd half, but IMO he was clumsy in the 1st half giving a few soft fouls away... Noble just said Arthur was silly...Oh well better start than last season, but somehow feel tonight we just didn't click, guess that's the way it goes sometimes...1 bonus, 2 clean sheets in a row, now that is rare for us!

MunichHammer

Jorderz_Moyes_will_be_Moyes said:

I also don't get why anybody was suggesting Noble dived in the first half, when you can clearly see his ankle buckling.

Hell of a commitment to diving if you're twisting your own ankle to do it.

Also, Mike Dean = clown.

And he got up right away and from my view he didn't ask for a pen either.
Definitely no dive!

OutcastLondoner

I think we're trying to play in a more controlled way but things need to come off and Mings and Engels were better than Norwich. In a lot of ways I don't think our performance was all that different to the way we played against Norwich. Though we did switch off a bit before the red card.

Fornals has been really disappointing. I thought he was going to be much better but when he's not making the wrong decision, he's failing to execute what he's trying. Noble did well getting into good positions but seemed to get it stuck under his feet a lot. Yarmolenko still looks off the pace.

I think Diangana would be getting minutes right now if he wasn't on loan (though nice to see he's been doing well).

Diop played well. Haller battled and did a lot of things right. Rice made some really important tackles when we went down. I think Lanzini's getting better.

There are positives and I think we are settling into something good.

Zabaleta's overlaps when he came on against tired legs - looked like the Man City version of him!

MIAHammer

We looked better after going down to 10 men. Before, we were too slow going forward. We need someone running up to feed off Haller.
Formals had a couple of chances at the end but seems to lacking confidence (or talent).
At the end a draw seemed like a fair result.

claretandbluesky

A draw was what I expected but I was disappointed at how little threat we had which I put down to having no second striker or Antonio to step in to the role. The defence played well and showed composure throughout we have beautiful ball players in midfield such as Anderson and Lanzini but in front of goal Haller looked isolated and frustrated. In some of the previous games we only became threatening once Antonio came on, this evening we had nobody to introduce. We need more bite up front, and I don't mean we should put in a bid for Suarez.

As for the red card I actually think it was right as he did deliberately put his arm across the player making it a professional foul as they used to call it. However I am unsure how the Villa player who threw his head at his team mate avoided a card of yellow if not Red. Surely violent conduct against any player is the same offence.

horshamhammer

The post match analysis is basically a Manc and a Scouser musing on where Declan will be playing in two years. Even asked him the question directly. I always get moderated for my comments re:Sky so I shall leave you to deduce my feelings about such a conversation.

welovethehammers

I really feel for Fornals. I feel he's got the quality but his confidence has been shot. The poor pass at the end of the match as well as the wayward shot which we won a corner from probably won't help his confidence either. Going from a great summer to joining a new club and struggling to make the first team to show what you can do must be tough for him.

When I saw what he was doing in the Spanish youth team over the summer, he looked like he could be on par with Haller!

When you look at Lanzini, he was poor for several games at the end of last season and is playing well now so there's still plenty of hope for Fornals. If he got a run in the team, I'm sure he'd gel with the others and be as valuable as Lanzini in the long run.

Fingers crossed he turns it around as I imagine it's mainly in his head.

claretandbluesky

I think Pelle had in the wrong way around in Fornals should have started and Yamalenko introduced, Yamalenko offered little and I would rather give Fornals the pitch time to find his Premiership feet.

ASLEFshrugged

So did I miss anything?

whupathman

nope , dean finding a way to help manure again by sending off a player who misses the match,#respectthepoint

OutcastLondoner

Haller needs someone closer to him. He links up with others so well. There was a brilliant chested lay-off for Fornals.

chicagohammer

All in all that was a tight game, both teams made mistakes in possession, a good interception was swiftly followed by poor control or pass, we upped the tempo when down to ten men and we had a chance to win it at the end.

Fornals really, why on why did he not put his laces through that chance at the end, he literally had nothing to lose as blasting it into row Z would not have been a bad result.

I thought that Rice and Haller were superb, my wife was entertained by watching me try to kick every ball, it was that sort of game.

Hamstew

Villa forums are funny. All moaning about Noble diving and some saying sending off was deserved but not one mention of their players dive or headbut on own player. Funny that.

sweepy23

Fabianski was brilliant

SuzanneClaret

Hamstew said:

Villa forums are funny. All moaning about Noble diving and some saying sending off was deserved but not one mention of their players dive or headbut on own player. Funny that.

I'm still chuntering about that this morning. I just don't understand how Dean and Taylor thought that no action was required. Had El Ghazi done that to one of our players instead on Mings, its a straight red.

Do the rules say that its ok if its a team mate?

grey_til_I_dye

thornburyiron said:

Mrs G I think neutrals will have switched that off. It was a poor game and nobody deserved to win it.
We don’t seem to play with any urgency.

All about the onions:

BBC live text called it 'feisty and entertaining', so at least one neutral enjoyed it.