To think, I predicted a 4-1 here.
Just as I was laughing when I wrote the preview, so I’m laughing now.
We just don’t do shoe-ins, simple.
But this time, I’m not laughing in a masochistic way, because we took the points.
When you consider Bolton have conceded way more than two goals a game over their last ten, you’d have thought we would have been good enough for more than one.
That one was a penalty too, which puts a bit of a dampener on things.
But it doesn’t matter, because we took the points, which is ALL that matters.
It wasn’t a brilliant game to watch, but there were the odd highlights.
Snodgrass was outstanding, I thought. He was involved in pretty much everything, it seemed.
His work rate, creativity, crossing and set-pieces deserved a goal, in my opinion.
He had a very decent snap shot attempt, late on, which looked a cert and how their goalie got down to save, I really don’t know.
Kodjia scored from a penalty, after he was pulled down (yet again) but was guilty of some real greed just a minute before, when we flummoxed their defence. It was easier to pass to Adomah, who would have had an empty net to kick into, yet Kodjia decided to go it alone and shot wide, albeit the goalie got a touch.
It annoyed me, but that’s what Kodjia does, isn’t it?
Taylor saw a red card, for what looked like a tackle midway between the knee and ankle.
It looked horrendous at first glance, but Steve Bruce seems to have had the hump and walked up to the ref at the end, to complain.
I’d expect an appeal, but doubt we’ll win it, which leaves us with a position played by a player who doesn’t belong there. That isn’t ideal, to say the least and might prove a problem.
And what about Glen Whelan?
This is a player who normally plays in a very small area, who is being asked to move around a lot more.
I don’t think it suits him and it shows. He looks really poor at the moment.
That said, I believe it was him who cleared one of Bolton’s rare chances off the line, so you win in parts and lose in others.
I’ll stick with my “I don’t care, as long as we’re winning” stance.
All in all, it wasn’t pretty, although I didn’t think it was a really poor game to watch.
But we got the points and it’s onwards and upwards.
That’s 4 wins on the bounce, isn’t it?
Which sees us up there in the current form table.
We have some tougher games coming up, but I don’t believe we should be scared of anyone.
You want some positivity?
I say bring them all on. We’ll beat the lot.
We have to, if we expect to go up.
And as it currently stands, I believe we’re capable of it, as much as it might not have looked like it yesterday.
Kodjia needs to stop being so greedy. It’s difficult to criticise a striker for trying to score, but there are definitely times when passing the ball is the best way to guarantee a goal! Hasn’t Taylor learnt from breaking Seamus Coleman’s leg? What was he thinking?!
Blimey, you were quick on the draw there, Luc.
Agreed, he should have passed, but he was similar last year, so I can’t moan.
As for Taylor, it was just disappointing 🙁
Of course you can moan. Kodjia should’ve learned by now. If we didn’t get that penalty, we probably wouldn’t have won, and Kodjia needs to smarten up a fair bit in his play. Benteke would’ve squared it.
Never mind the quality, feel the points, imo.
reading stories that whelan and terry have kept dressing room in order,keeping gabby quite,if these are true whelan terry deserve a medal,
yes its all about the wins but i think against better opposition we will struggle to keep winning
1-0 against a team that leaks goals and had lost 7 on the spin is a worry. It isn’t always about the 3 points. We will need to up our game against Wolves.
Our standards have dropped so low that a win against the worst side by some way in the league is great, no matter how we play. Most of our fans are so happy we won the last 3 games against some really poor sides (and claimed fans overreacted when we lost week after week). Well now we get to play some actual good sides. See how poor performances will do in order to get results.
I haven’t noticed anyone suggesting that the Bolton win was a great result. We are allowed to be happy about 4 league wins on the bounce though. The real issue this season has been games that we have drawn when we should have won. No surprise as well that Kodjia has been fit for 4 games and we won 4 out of 4
You haven’t? Go on facebook, I’d also assume Badger finds it great as well by his comment of “Never mind the quality, feel the points, imo.”. Our fans are claiming it’s a great win. Points and wins are great, but we can’t put in the performances we have against the likes Wolves. It’s easy to get wins playing like that against relegation fodder, but Wolves, Preston, Fulham, they’ll skin us if we play like that. All I ever see if “we won, performances don’t matter” and those exact reasons are why we have been where we have been,
I disagree Andrew.
The reasons why we have been where we have been, are because we’ve played rubbish and either drawn or lost. Whereas we won this one, simple.
Not that I thought we played particularly rubbish.
At least it wasn’t like lots of games I can remember, where all we seemed to do was give the ball away, every other pass.
Look, I don’t think anyone is saying it was a great result in the way you’re suggesting, but for me it was a good result because it’s 4 on the bounce and we’ve kept the momentum going.
You are correct though, in saying our next games will be the testers, but I’m happy to see how things go before condemning the lads for winning a game, even though I agree we were a bit lucky.
Then again, it seems to me we’ve had more than our share of bad luck over the last couple of years, so to get some in our favour suits me.
I don’t know, perhaps I’m easily pleased.
But if we keep winning, I don’t care.
Who’s condemning the lads for winning a game? It’s great that they won. It would however be great if they finally put in the performances the most expensive assembled Championship squad in history should actually be putting in. You do seem easily pleased and again that last sentence says it all. If we keep winning, you don’t seem to care how well we play. Problem is, against actual good sides, we can’t play like we have been and get results, all we have to do is look at the results at the start of the season and not the past 4 games against mediocre sides.
Boring negativity, this is a game we would’ve drawn last season. Plenty of teams win playing badly. 4 wins, 10-1 aggregate score, closing in on top 6. Time to give the team some credit. Whelan did a job and cleared one off the line. Terry looks class. Terry finally thinks we are going somewhere as he spoke to media for first time since he signed today and has started to celebrate when we win. Deeds not words. He keeps his gob shut unless we win a few. We are on the up. Enjoy it. Have you forgotten last 6 years?! Football is about winning and enjoying going down the Villa. This is slowly returning. Get a grip you miserable bastards! We are going up!
Owen
Hear hear you have said it all, great positive post the problem is it needs to rub off on few of the negative ones. I agree we will be there come the end of the season, as i thinK a couple of the early pace setters have peaked and apart from the odd couple of games we have been pretty poor. Yes we have beaten some of the favorites to go down but you can only beat what is in front of you and take the thee points.
UTV
Erm no it’s not. We beat teams below us as soon as Hogan got injured and we went 1 up top with Kodjia. We were beating teams below/on par on points with us. It was the teams above us we couldn’t beat, which 2 of the next 4 are teams above us. We would’ve still won this game last season. Likely by the same score line. That’s what we do. We beat teams below us. And guess what we did earlier this season against teams above us? We lost…
I don’t want to split hairs, but we’ve only lost to one team above us this season, Cardiff who are in first place in the league.
Amen, Owen.
My attitude is praise when we’re winning, no matter how we do it.
And moan when we lose; which is the right time.
And given that we’ve been losing a lot over the last god knows how long, it’s probably what’s got me a reputation for being negative.
It’s more about balance, which I have to try and achieve as the writer, in my case.
That second sentence right there, is exactly my point. “no matter how we do it”. We’ve lowered our standards so badly that we’re okay with playing like crap all season as long as we beat the teams below us. No, it’s actually about time we start putting in performances for once against all teams, not just relegation fodder. You know, the teams we were losing too and getting dominated by before facing said relegation fodder.
11 games in last season = 10 points (19th position)
11 games in this season = 19 points (7th position)
We didn’t always play well under martin o’neill or john gregory but we won and no one complained. oh hang on, people did….Be careful what you wish for. Some Villa fans will always moan. I do when we lose, but if I cant enjoy it when my team wins 4 in a row, when can I and whats the point of supporting a team if I can get no enjoyment. We also got a good point at Bristol City, who have had a great start to the season. We should have beaten them and that was the turning point- weve been decent on the whole ever since.
also Forest were above us before we beat them, Boro above us when we drew with them, just saying…………
nearly everyone was above us before we played forest for god sake,a no score draw at home to boro is a poor result
and now there is hardly anyone above us!
well if it was end of season ,we still wouldnt make play offs
If the season started 6 games ago we’d be top.
A lot of what if’s. It really is simple though. The last 4 wins were great to get wins, but the performances need to be upped. The next 4 games will tell us where we are. Two promotion contenders, 1 who’s been dominating most of the teams they’ve played and one having probably the best defense in the league. A big Derby game and Fulham who on their day can destroy teams and off their day could get beat 3-0 by our attack. 7 points is the least we can accept. Anything else should be looked as a failure. I do expect us to lose to Wolves, but a draw to Preston and two wins over City and Fulham would be a great run and could definitely change the minds of us naysayers.
andrew
why should we lose to wolves,we have one of most expensive squads in this league,according to some best manager we could hope for,if we play like last couple weeksno we will not beat wolves but if we manage to lose the shackles and go for it no reason why we cant win
I’d say Wolves are easily one of the favorites to win the league, other than Cardiff and apparently us for some reason. Wolves are also an expensive squad, they have a much better manager and their side is just as good if not better than ours. Irrelevant what people think, I read on here that Wolves would be the foreign whipping boys because they went foreign with Portuguese based players and a Portugal manager but there they are. Funny how that person no longer comes here.Our midfield will get overrun by Ruben Neves and Jota.
yes our midfield is a major worry ,whelan and jedi both have not got the legs or nous to dominate even at this level which is a worry when both are on35/40 thousand a week,still think with attacking players we have we should be using them instead of setting up not to lose
Whelan received his Uefa A coaching license. Maybe when Bruce gets us promoted after winning every game from now till the end of the season, he’ll step aside and let Whelan and Terry take us forward with that attacking style football and we’ll win the league.
boring negativity, wolves this, wolves that – why worry about the opposition – we are getting close to two points per game – if we can do that – we will go up – i would not watch villa if i were you andrew, it is too stressful for you, you don’t seem to enjoy it, so why bother mate?
Sorry, praising them for being a very strong team is too far? Also I do like watching/supporting Villa. You know, the club, the players… About the extent of it.
Funny as hell that. We were overreacting after the shit start we had, but 4 wins and we’re going to get promoted with averaging 2 points a game. With still 35 games to go. But when we had 39 to go we were overreacting. That is truly ironic.
andrew
is owen one of missing 4
No, the ones randomly liking his comments without commenting are the one’s I’m likely talking about.
so we can’t be sad when they are shit and happy when they win? thats what we do with anything praise when things go well, criticise when things go badly – thats not just football- thats life. it’s not being fickle either – i go to every game- but my opinion is based on what ive just seen – if we are crap ill moan – if we are ace i’ll praise
What are you even talking about? I praised the team for winning, I won’t praise them for the shit performances they put in, even if they win. You’re claiming I’m claiming you can’t praise the team which is stupid as I never even remotely made that claim. However the performances need to be upped against sides like Wolves, sides like Fulham, Preston etc. We won’t win playing like shit like we did against Bolton which has been my entire point this entire time but all you did was ramble on about negativity or some bs like that. We can get away with crap performances against Bolton, but we can’t against the better sides we’re now going to be facing and we haven’t put in performances, even against the lesser sides, that will get us wins against better sides.
I’m not sure I see this, Andrew.
I’ve personally thought Man u were garbage for years, yet still eked out wins.
Of course, if you’re playing brilliant footy, it helps.
But surely you can win ugly too?
No doubt we’ll soon see.
Well yeah but when you have the likes of Vidic, VDS, Ronaldo, Rooney, Giggs, Scholes etc or recently Rooney, De Gea, Ibra, Lukaku etc. We have none of those.
I guess the next few games will prove if we can win ugly even against the best sides in the league. I can’t see this team being able too though, but I hope you’re right.
In other news, Taylor will be suspended for 3 games after an appeal for his red card failed.
Bloody hell 🙁
So no Taylor, and the player most of our fans disliked, Amavi, just got called up for the French international side. So we have no left back, that’s great. Most likely play Hutton there or some crap like that. But that’s the great planning of our genius manager right there.
I loved Amavi. A gem in a shit squad.
gives you something to moan about though Andrew – thought you’d be happy with that at least
I do appreciate you thinking about me. But I don’t like moaning, but there’s still just so much to moan about. I guess I could be happy with mediocrity.
De Laet or even MItchell Clark can do a job – but if Bruce picks Bjarnason then I’m going to be a bit worried. None of the players listed are left footed though so it could be difficult
I’d hope he learned from playing him there before that he can’t play there.
Well Bjarnason scored a belter in Iceland’s 3-0 thrashing of Turkey in Turkey (doesn’t that read like a typo!) so he will be back and raring to go. He played left sided midfield.
Turkey are horrid.
Bjarnason is a left sided player, whether it be midfielder or winger, and that’s the only spot he should ever be played for us. Seeing we play a 4-4-2 now, he should be backup to Adomah on the left at the moment.
There’s nowt wrong with a bit of Turkey at Christmas!
Amavi has joined Marseille on a permanent deal for 9m after the clause in his loan contract was met for appearances.
what are odds he is sold for massive profit in 18 months
Wouldn’t surprise me. Though think Marseille have new owners so don’t think it’ll be easy get players off them like it used to be.