Well, that was absolutely great for me.
With provisos.
I’ve said before that I can see things coming in the way we play our footy.
We try moves going forward, that don’t always work.
But at the same time, defenders knock the ball back, even though they haven’t looked; because they know where the player will be.
Trust me, I totally believe it’s coming and I believe it’s because we’re organised. Something that I haven’t seen in a long, long while.
That said, it was plainly obvious that Preston were struggling at the back, with so many players out.
They just looked incredibly unbalanced as a side, which meant that they were there for the taking.
And we took them; it’s as simple as that.
This was a display rooted on our defence, where Chester and particulary John Terry were outstanding.
Elmohamady and Hutton did very little wrong either, but it’s just that they were out-shadowed by those in the middle.
That said, we looked lively when we did attack and I’d made my mind up that Keinan Davis was the MOTM, way before it was mentioned.
He was simply outstanding in his movement and hold-up play.
He had a couple of very good chances too, where he was unlucky to not score.
I have to be honest though and I do worry about his manner and body language on the pitch.
Maybe it’s the arrogance of youth, but it doesn’t look good to me.
Whatever, he put himself about well and caused Preston a world of grief.
Well done son!
Another truth is that Preston offered nothing and i worry about them.
Not much, but I do.
The opening line on $ky was something like “Villa started the game and Preston won it”
Very, very fitting for me, as a traditionalist.
Preston are a proper club, similar to us.
But that’s enough about them.
We whupped them and are beginning to show our credentials.
I’m not Bruce’s biggest fan.
Indeed, I’m not Terry’s biggest fan either.
But it would seem things are beginning to click.
If you still doubt it, try putting a neutral head on and just look at the results.
Title contenders, we’re coming for you, indeed.
Think about our squad depth. We still have the likes of De Laet to come in, if needed.
I’m not going to rave about that, against a seriously weakened team, but hey, we won away!
It’s all good.
I’m that chuffed, i’m off to take the mutt for a walk, even though I’m shattered 🙂
Whoop! Whoop!
Brilliant win. Keep them coming.
Man oh man, what happened to Preston. I guess 8 injuries to defenders really does take it’s toll, but definitely looked a good side, us. But we did this before. Shit against Wolves, good against Fulham, shit against City, good against Preston. Need to start that consistency in performances.
no point getting carried away ,too many poor performances
and still no striker scoring would love to see hogan start alongside davies at weekend just tosee if will work
If we are going to be contenders we need to win games like this. If we are going to get an automatic promotion we need to beat the teams above us. Wolves apart, those other sides do not look any better than Villa so we are on track. Can we avoid the Xmas fade for once?
8 injuries?
I haven’t seen that anywhere????
But that’s why I haven’t gone OTT tonight.
We should have won on paper and did.
Easily, it should be emphasised, imo.
JVillan, your comments do you a major disservice.
If you can’t see any positives after that, well, I wonder why you bother.
That was about as good as it’s got in a long time.
Are my sights too low?
Maybe they are.
But if you can’t enjoy a really good win, it’s about time you stopped watching the game, imo.
As it plainly isn’t working for you anymore.
Perhaps I’m being overly critical of those who won’t give Bruce or the team, any credit at all, even when it’s due. I don’t know, but it seems to me some will just not accept Bruce at any price.
Yes, Davis laying off to Hogan interests me too.
Friends with a Preston fan, mentioned the 8 injuries. Makes sense though. You don’t go from conceding so few and having the best defense in the league to conceding 2-3 every game for the last 6-7 games.
And while I agree the team should get credit, if we start consistently putting in performances is the only way Bruce wins back fans. Because if we play like shit over the weekend, fans will be back on his ass.
badger
if it was as good as it gets ,we are in trouble preston had 8 players missing plus lost another at half time,should had penalty when it was one nil ,second half we got deeper and deeper,last 4 matches we had 2 shit performances and 2 ok so not going to get carried away,if we happen to lose terry to injury everything will change,
and if you prefer happy clappers thats ok
You should stop watching football and get a life, if it upsets you so much when your team wins. Sometimes I’m embarassed being a Villa supporter and I watched us go down to the old third division under Tommy Docherty.
JVillan, I like to think I’m very neutral when it comes to penalties either way.
It wasn’t , for me, because there was contact on the ball before the tackle.
It was slight, but it was there.
I criticised us sitting back as the game went on too (see the previous thread).
But that’s what Bruce does. We all know it and it pisses me off as much as it does you and everyone else.
But being equally as pragmatic as him, I admit that that’s how he gets teams promoted.
I think we’re much better than trying to contain a game in this league, with our squad. But if it gets us up, I can live with it.
As much as it hurts me to say it, Terry being injured would indeed be a major loss.
But he isn’t yet, so why worry about it at this point?
My little moan was aimed at the fact that, for me, you need to enjoy the highs as much as you suffer the lows.
Otherwise, I can’t see the point.
And no, I don’t just want happy clappers at all.
As always, views from both sides are always appreciated, as they keep me balanced.
On this occasion, I just think you’re totally wrong 🙂
Can understand the worry though. Samba is so bad. Would much rather have Sulliman be 3rd choice. I do like that Bruce said we could look to sign players in January. Striker, Center back as back up and Left Back are necessary. A midfielder wouldn’t be completely out of place either.
A strong squad wins the championship. We, arguably, have the strongest squad in the division. This will be Wolves, Cardiff, Sheffield United and other teams let down.
I am convinced and have been since the start of the season we will win this division. Nothing has changed in my thinking.
IN BRUCE I TRUST.
UTV
THIS TEAM IS GOING UP! Jedinak back as well – Whelan dominated then we got Jedinak to help him close the game out. Tactics executed well. Happy days! Told you so ha ha!!!!!!!!!
Some people’s negative comments on here after 3 wins and a draw from our last 5 away games are unbelievable. I have said it before some people will moan if we go up with 100 points. Miserable stuff!
I just find it unbelievable. We were going to lose all these games, but the only reason apparently that we didn’t is because other teams have injuries ans apparentmy we don’t Go figure?
Agreed. Kodjia was out and Grealish and Lansbury still not fully ready. We have had injuries and suspensions too. But we march on. Plus we are spreading the goals around. A lot less people post on here when we win. Nothing to moan about.
Mentioning injuries clearly is Preston’s problem, but that’s not the only reason we won. NO ONE has said it was. We out played them. We had multiple chances, just no one to score them. We desperately need a striker but I’m pretty sure I praised the team as a whole for the win.
That’s an interesting point Andrew.
Who got the goals?
It wasn’t the strikers and it hasn’t been them, for a while.
Which demonstrates serious strength in our side, imo.
Which surely has to be a massive plus point?
We are not relying on Kodjia, this season, simple.
Now imagine Bruce can pull a striker out of the hat in the winter window (and he has done, previously).
I think we’re looking very well set up for a proper challenge, myself.
Happy clapping, maybe.
But I’m riding the wave.
Analysis is all well and good, but you can’t beat the simple feeling that we’re overall on a roll 🙂
While true, we need strikers you can rely on to score goals. Top teams do have players other than strikers and it’s great for once we have that ability not to rely on Kodjia, but we don’t have a striker we can rely on in case our midfielders or center backs on corners stop scoring.
Unfortunately, the striker Bruce pulled out of the hat was Hogan. And he’s been a failure. Imagine having an Assombalonga or even a lower level striker like Grabban. We’d have scored 4-5. I agree, I do love the feeling we are back to something O’Neill had where Young and Milner could contribute some goals and not rely on Carew and the lesser extent, Gabby. But we need that Carew now. If Kodjia never got injured, we’d probably be rolling with him getting goals, but we need someone to do it.
It’s also probably the one position we don’t have in the academy of someone we can bring in. Davis is good, RHM is good, but we don’t have the natural goal getter.
Nice to get 3 points when I wasn’t expecting it. The commentators were very positive, but I was less convinced. We will need to play better than that, particularly against the top few sides. At some point we will need to beat them in order to get promoted.
We outplayed Preston on their own patch – had they won they would have been in the top 6. We have only lost to the top 2 Wolves and Cardiff – we could lose to them again and win all our other games and go up. We have beaten plenty of teams in the top half – there are only four teams higher than us in the table so its pretty hard to beat the “top few sides” as actually we are one of the top few sides and there are 19 teams below us so more often than not we will be playing a team who are not a top team and we will be expected to win – which we will.
We are unbeaten at home and have won three of last 5 away . We have beaten good teams and crap teams and we are getting very close to the top 2 – win on Saturday and Cardiff lose we will be just two off automatic. There is a long way to go but fuck me – we have lost one in 12 – have a settled line-up and are the form team in the division – surely we should be a bit more confident now?!
We have not played the Blades, and we have not beaten the other teams above us. In fact the highest placed team we have beaten is Norwich in 9th place. So posters on here who are still to be convinced Villa are promotion certainties have a lot of ammunition. The fixture list will soon provide us with answers.
We’ve actually only beaten 2 of the other top 12 sides in Norwich and Preston.
Facts eh? They can get in the way of the rose tinted glasses brigade.
Why do people keep forgetting we lost to Reading?
We are a bit more confident, but we need to keep the performances up. Not have a good game, then bad game, then good game, then bad game. Results are going well but we need to consistently perform to keep the results consistent.
its that easy innit. i won every game on my ps4. its all about scoring more than the opposition. putting the pigskin in the net thingy… what is hard about that
Welcome back again, glad you finally got off your ps4 to comment again.
You’re right for once though, it is about scoring more than the opposition. Unfortunately we’ve only won 7 out of 15 games. If you didn’t know, that’s not even 50%. Which could change against Wednesday of course.
Problem is, we’ve won 2, lost 2 and drawn 2 against top 12 sides. Meaning we have 5 more games in the next 8 (which means we’d be half way through) which means yes, we have to up our game vs United, Leeds, Derby, Ipswich and QPR. Yeah we can play poorly against Sunderland and win, but against them? Unlikely.
Still a couple of areas that need impoving but far more confident this season.
Two quotes from Tony Fernandes, the man who blew £200m on QPR.
He made his money with AirAsia and had this line
“Cheap enough to say Phuket, I’ll go.”
He lost his money with QPR and says
“I never realised players would take a salary and do nothing.”
Pity he never looked at the recent history of AVFC.
mckirdy has real potential for another gem forward playing player. he has ability to find space and attack them areas at the right time. he has that same canny ability like platt had to find them areas.
i will have all my wolves gear on tonight shouting for them. come on the dingoes. should be a great game. iam going for twenty nil they are class. should be winning the premier league next year and world cup next. only if they keep that manager from everton lol
badger and even ooohahaha post balanced views on villa. its a shame certain posters feel the need to villa bash constantly. it was about time that badger alluded to this to somebody. its like me posting on bluenoses blog and bashing them. nobody is saying villa are all that. but most are positive for the sake of it.
glad to see positive posters still floating around, we have had a shit time of it lately but we will be back. ste bruce has built a squad that has the ability to get out of this division. that has to be the only immediate goal. we need the tv money.
terry and hutton both had many critics on here but both are playing brilliantly
From calling them the foreign whipping boys to buying their kits… You change your mind quite easily.
You’re right though. Terry has been very good and Hutton’s definitely stepped it up at left back.
And it what universe is Oohah balanced? The only thing he’s ever said positive was he likes Davis and Hutton has been our best player the last few games. He’s still as negative as ever.
Davis will get us goals.
He’s been really unlucky up to now, but they’ll come, imo.
he is also as strong as a ox leads the line really well. he is the only forward we have to have this ability. hence why i wanted us to get that soton man whos onloan at scum. we have plenty good youth coming through. we have such a bright future. we need to earn the right to reach premiership then. we will reach the goals of all the fans. but its one step at a time championship is a battle.
some posters claim its weak and shit league then the same person is pleasuring himself over wolves. either its shite league or its not lol newcastle and brighton both got promoted its a shit league now. who could have said this i wonder. i bet they wouldnt admitt they said this
It is in fact a shit league, it’s just hysterical how wrong you were about them.
If we have not done well against the top sides then beating all the bottom ones twice seems to get a lot of points…
It does, but I suspect the other top sides will do that as well. The reason I carp on about our style of play is that I don’t think it is good enough to get in the top 2, even though I am convinced the side/squad has enough talent to do that.
That seems to indicate the play offs. That’s a lottery, and we shouldn’t be in that position.