Ladeezs and Gentlemeeeen, it gives me great pleasure….
To announce an excellent win, where there was literally nothing to complain about.
My God, how nice it feels to say that.
We got the first goal, that I felt was always going to be important, but even if we hadn’t, I just got the feeling that things clicked today and we’d have won this whatever.
The major thing I noticed, was that we seem to have moved away from constantly giving the ball away and we are knocking it around very nicely at times. So much so, that I think we just had too much for the home team.
That in itself is a pleasure to say, because with our resources, that’s simply how it should be, at least occasionally.
Make no mistake, there was nothing to criticise today and saying that gives me such a good feeling in a world where some have me marked as a big pessimist.
Adomah’s first goal was fortunate, in that their defender messed up and the goalie seemed to bottle it, but sometimes you need a sequence of events like that and let’s just say it balanced up our bad luck against Boro.
It seemed to relieve some pressure though and from then on, it was pretty much plain sailing, where I thought we controlled the game from back to front.
I’m looking for bad points, just to keep the balance, but I really am struggling.
The defence had Barnsley in their pocket.
Johnstone looked very comfortable.
It seems some coaching worked, with some nice doubling-up in our LB position.
Kodjia looked lively, even though I didn’t expect much out of him after his injury.
Adomah got two goals.
We kept a clean sheet.
And the young lad Kienan Davis got his first professional goal, after having played superbly in leading the line.
What a player he’s looking to be.
And I’m just going to leave it at that.
I’m going to sip a few beers, safe in the knowledge that if we can keep that sort of performance up, we’ll romp this league.
But the question has to be: Can we?
Happy days!
“We want 4”
When was the last time we heard that?
One very happy bunny here today 🙂
I doubt it it was more a case of their keeper losing it for them than us winning.
3 times?
Shut up and suck up a good win, albeit one we should be getting.
First goal was 100% down to their keeper. Second clearly wasn’t, he went the right way. Davis’s header was probably saveable but it’s why he’s a Championship keeper in the lower end. Wasn’t gonna save it. Agreed Oohah should be a bit more happy with the overall performance.
Hopefully the confidence will grow from here. Excited by Kienan Davis. Great to see him bag a goal. Works hard.
Davis and adomah were excellent
People are quite overreacting to a decent performance and 1 win. Yes we won, it felt amazing and yes some of the players deserve a hell of a lot of credit. But we beat one team that were on points with us. No this game isn’t our “turning the corner” moment. Because some said the same thing against Norwich. If and only if we manage to put in similar performances against all of Forest, Burton and Bolton, can we say we turned the corner.
Bruce’s comments about fans over-reacting to our performances and position and claiming this one result should stop the hysteria is a joke. He caused all of this. 1 performance shouldn’t give him the balls to claim it was hysteria or an overreaction to the shit performances we put in prior to this game.
Andrew, I totally agree.
But IF we can keep that up, we’ll be laughing.
It was the sort of performance that us Villa fans expect and you can’t knock it.
My attitude has to be that we savour the moment and look for things to be improving.
Which they do seem to be.
As I said and i’ve noticed it more lately; we aren’t giving the ball away every third touch or so.
You might not think much of it, but it’s an improvement, imo, after us having done it for ages.
Maybe I’m over-egging it.
But why not?
We won convincingly, after all.
Not going to disagree with that and there is improvement but this is the kind of performances this expensive assembled team has to be putting in every single game. Obviously there will be the odd bad performance and we won’t win every game, but there’s no reason why we shouldn’t destroy the next three games and if we don’t… It’d be absurd.
On paper we should win every game. For automatic promotion a team has to win circa 28 games out of 46. We’ve won just 2 so far so we need to win 26 more games from 39. Not a chance in hell. I think we still need to win 23 to finish top 6 still can’t see that happening either
I agree win papers over the cracks. Though it may just give players a bit more confidence
It was a big game today and we certainly showed up, a lot of positives to take. Took an injury to Green but finally Adomah got a start, quite like the look of him out on the left. A nuisance all game, they simply didn’t know how to handle him. Not much to say on Davis that hasn’t been said already, did brilliant and finally got that first goal. Snodgrass and Elmohamady look a very decent unit on the right, don’t they? Johnstone and the defence now have 3 clean sheets in 3 games. Some going! Hopefully we are on the up now!
Agreed.
Adomah was my MOTM, until Davis got his goal, where I had to give it to him because of his young age.
Adomah worked his nuts off, in defending too.
He must surely have secured a start for the next game.
But if not, that says a lot about genuine competition in the squad.
Are you serious Badger if Adomah dosnf start that’s down to Bruce being a useless twat and picking Odomah because he has to play when fit! Fwiw I think Odomah is rubbish he’s no better than what we’ve got. A decent player to come off the bench but he shouldn’t be a regular starter unless we have injuries and suspensions
100percent agree typical bruce signing comes from big 6 side has to be better than ours
I think our clean sheets are more luck than judgement they had a cracking chance to score and should of. I like Snodgrass but don’t think he played well tbh but I think he will give us a new dimension in future games. Elmo I just don’t rate though I do prefer him at right back than anywhere else
Bruce is feeling the heat, his embarrassing post match comments show it. Incase he hasn’t noticed we’re still the bottom half so he hasn’t ‘shut anyone up’. Maybe you might Steve if you can actually better an average of 1.25 points a game…
Instead of shouting his mouth off to his press pals, he should be focusing on stringing together the next 4 or 5 wins in a row we need to get ourselves back in promotion hunt. Maybe then he can start gloating.
No doubt, he’ll be covering his back again shortly. We have the squad, but dont let today fool you, we are still crying out for a managerial change.
Davis has fantastic potential though, if he continues his development we could have a star on our hands here.
“we are still crying out for a managerial change.” – Are we really?
I’m not thinking of today’s performance so much [great as it was to watch, for a change] but I think SB’s pre-match comments were quite correct: go ahead, fire him, put in yet another new face and start ‘building’ again… Hmmm.
I’m looking at Palace, and at what’s gone on at the Sty this evening, and wondering do we really, really, want an 8th new manager in 7 years at this stage of the season?
My own view is No. Not yet. Let’s see what this squad can do to Forrest, Burton and Bolton in the next couple of weeks before people start calling for another spin of the managerial roulette-wheel.
The problem is we’ve seen this all before. We get one result, people start talking it up as a turning point and then we flatter to deceive for the next 3 or 4 games.
We’re still well behind the pace because of Bruce, in order for us to get back into the mix we need to win the next 4 or 5 in a row. Then he can start being bullish, not because of a one of result.
And yes, with our squad and financial advantage we should be in the top two. Therefore, if we haven’t got a manager that can get us where we should be, then a change is absolutely required.
Failure to win any of the next 3 games should result in an immediate sacking
We should get rid of him anyway we are already out of top 2 race in just 7 games ffs. And wind be long before we are double figures behind top 6 then we are doomed
very good post villain
time to shut up and perform bruce no more stupid formations or teams
That’s another one of my problems with British managers. We always seem to sign the media darlings. O’Neill, Sherwood, McLeish, Bruce, Lambert… Who anywhere else in any other Country would’ve been considered laughing stocks with how they’ve performed, and yet they think they’re gods in England because no one who “matters” has ever told them they absolutely suck at what they do. 4 promotions is looked highly upon, when in another Country it just means you can’t hack it in the big leagues. Hell, Owen Coyle has gotten a team promoted. Bruce’s comments are an absolute disgrace and almost make me want him out more than his shit performances as a manager has.
Agree
Great to watch for once! The away support was fantastic as always..full credit to them, loud and proud. For me just having a slightly unfit kodjia up top did the world of good for the rest of the team. They had confidence and with adomah we had runners playing of davis..it just seemed to click. One of those games where every attack we looked like we could score. On the subject of davis..what a prospect!.. Fingers crossed we build on this now. Bruce is still under pressure but hopefully we can get rid of that negative mentality and finally get some consistency and that positive vibe going in to every match.
The downside with Davis of course is that we will never hang onto to him. We may get one or two more seasons out of him at best before he goes to our parent clubs city or Liverpool
Let’s not get too carried away. Defensively we were excellent today but they really gifted us the goals…but unlike in previous weeks we took our chances.
Not doubt about it we needed the win. Davis was great again and good to see Kodjia back. Definitely a result to build on but I don’t think Brucey can relax just yet!!
One swallow does not make a summer.
It was a good result. I am really excited about Davis and hope he can continue to develop. When Green is fit and if Grealish can kick on then we are starting to get a core of home grown Villa players, who will care more for the club than some of the mercenaries we’ve had and have!
SB has bought himself time with this result. He now needs to ensure consistency and churn out these results Saturday and Tuesday each week.
One area that still concerns me is the centre of our midfield. Too often the opposition are able to run through the middle unopposed. It happened yesterday and against Boro. SB needs to think about this issue.
Finally, John Terry had been immense. His positional play and distribution have been excellent.
Maybe Dr Xia will allow SB to take us up and then replace him in the summer. It will allow SB to add to his strength of taking teams out of the Championship. Whereas keeping them in the Premier is not his strength.
That’s a good point 2 of our goals keeper should of saved but sometimes you need that luck
Nice surprise for me. I was travelling so didn’t see the game so will watch it later. By all accounts it was a much improved performance. It seems Barnsley helped us along the way but that’s fine with me.
In perspective, it is our second league win of the season. If we lose the next game we are back to square one.
I hope Bruce will get the team playing more consistently, but until he does I’m not changing my mind about his suitability to be our manager.
Keeping players who have played well, and playing them in the right positions; picking an attacking formation with support for Davis is key for me.
That’s fair comment, DSVilla and pretty similar to what I said.
As soon as we lose, the fans will turn on Bruce again.
The only solution is that we have to go on a stonking run, imo.