Well that was a very pleasant turn up for the books, wasn’t it?
We thrashed our balls off at work, to try to get away early and it actually worked.
I was sat in the car at 3.05 and tuned into WM as I pulled away, only to find myself listening to the Albion game.
Bloody hell.
Then I got into the house at about 3.50 and immediately searched around to see if I could see the game, while listening on AVTV.
Yeah, I got a picture, but it was foreign and at least two minutes delayed.
Trust me, you can’t watch a game like this, so I had to choose and went with the AVTV live commentary.
Which reminds me, if anyone from the club happens to read this, why is AVTV so crap?
I consistently struggle to get the commentary in any reasonable time and it needs sorting.
So basically, I don’t know what went on in the first half, apart from Green hit the post with a flying header, Bent should have had a stonewall penalty and most importantly, Chester had scored from a Lansbury corner.
The part I actually saw/watched then, was very worrying and as per usual, we sank back deeper and deeper and basically started to panic. AGAIN.
But I’ll move onto that shortly.
I see Steve McClaren has got the hump because he can’t believe we won.
Well sorry, Steve, but I can.
We put the ball in the net and you never, it’s as simple as that.
As I said in the preview, it’s all about goals, which in fairness I expected them to get.
Going back to how we played, it was backs to the wall stuff and I can’t say I’m impressed.
Derby nudged 70% possession, which is desperately disappointing at home.
But Bruce called it right in saying that they never got a shot off until the 75th minute.
I’ve said before, that while possession is good, it means nowt if you aren’t doing anything with it.
Arsenal spring to mind here.
So what am I saying?
Well, we quite simply needed a win and 3 points.
I’m not convinced it’ll do as much for our confidence against Bristol City (who I note went 2 up and ended up with a draw at Newcastle) as some of us would like.
We still play far too defensively overall, for my liking.
But maybe it was needed?
I can see the arguments that say we shouldn’t be like this and Bruce is rubbish because that’s how he plays.
But I feel that when I expected us to lose and we actually won, with a clean sheet too, this is a great result.
I was all doom and gloom in the preview, because I couldn’t see that the team has the fight about it to get us out of trouble.
Well, you can call the Derby game lucky or whatever you like, but from every report I’ve read about it, there’s no way you can say the team weren’t trying.
And that’s very encouraging in itself.
We’ve got the quality.
And if they can show some fight, then relegation isn’t a problem.
And as I said, they showed it yesterday, just as we’re about as low as it gets.
It bodes well, but we have to maintain it, against Bristol and Rotherham.
Get six points there and it’s happy days again, isn’t it?
Well ok, it isn’t really, but it’s more about breathing room.
By the way, I didn’t have the heart to give my Derby mate too much stick.
He was raving about them a few weeks ago, but now thinks they’re rubbish for having lost to us.
It’s not just us Villa fans who are fickle.
It’s the name of the game though, isn’t it?
A win’s a win, as simple as that.
Just when we really needed it too.
Lucky? maybe, but it at least shows some character.
And here’s the quote from Bent, that to me, sums it all up;
“There was my header and we had a couple of other half chances, but we didn’t really create anything that really tested them.”
As always the win papered over the cracks. At least we won’t go down now but team is nowhere near good enough to finish top 6 next season imo
We’ll throw another 40m over the summer too the team. Hopefully bring back a couple loan players who would make a difference to this creative-less team.
And that’s true, i didn’t get a good stream till second half, so I had missed most of the first, one thing I did notice was the attendance it was well down, and if you seen Bruce’s face he was defiantly under preasure probably his job, there was more understanding in midfield with defending a priority and I would have given Hutton motm, some would say it wasn’t good enough, me! a better game than late. Tuesdays game will show if Bruce beginning to change his strategy and now knows points matter to us fans.
Say what you want about Hutton but over the years he has proved to be our best right back and we have tried a lot. I thought Taylor at left back was our motm at Newcastle btw he had a decent game.
Didn’t Kendrick of the Brum mail give Hutton a 9?
9!!
Playing for a contract?
Although I’ve always rated him for what he is; a mediocre grafter.
£20k a week, maybe?
Any more, no.
Whereas I’m seeing others get the pick for MOTM.
Seems it was hard to score who did best.
This is also good if we consider the players worked hard, imo.
when you have 8 men in your own half of field not hard to look good,but have read reports from people at match caught out position as usual ,me seen second half hutton missed absolute sitter hitting nearest derby player, another short corner on his side of field not defended,most derbys cross came from our right, if hutton as good as some on here think why only 110/5 appearances in 6 years on 40 thousand a week for first contract
lad scored 2for soton today on 40thousand now, why do we hand out gold wrapped contracts to poor players
The saints scorer is a forward he’s bound to score more. Happens all the time in football we only paid Benteke peanuts originally every now and then a team picks up a bargain. Saints striker will be off to Liverpool or another sky 4 team in summer for £30m and a £150k a week and most likely sit on the bench fir that
Hutton is not a great player but nobody can fault his commitment and effort to the cause. If the other 10 players had his commitment we would be higher up the table.
Too bad he isn’t committed to defending properly, he might look a decent player then. Sure, he’s committed to getting forward but doesn’t care less if we’re getting attacked. He’s either too high up the pitch out of position or thinking he’s a Center back out of position.
sense at last
Don’t agree with much of these “we were lucky” comments, they might have had much more of the ball but what did they do with it? Nothing. Before the goal, Chester had another header superbly saved by Carson. Green hit the post while Bacuna and Hutton spurned chances that should have hit the back of the net. So our finishing still has to be questioned in some sense. While we seemed fortunate to escape giving a penalty away, they were fortunate to only concede the one goal. Of course I’d like to see us playing nice football, but I’ll welcome wins like Saturday all the same.
so another big loss ,80m plus nearly 200m over 4 years yes lerner really screwed us over
Wtf are “exceptional items”???
BWS – I guess write downs on capital expenditure allowable for tax purposes – might be something to do with financing from Lerner or say a transfer loss where the whole loss is allowable. My guess (and I’m no accountant) is Lerner tidying up the books ahead of a sale. I think OLL might be more qualified to comment than me.
I’d like to think he screwed himself at the same time JV!
It would not surprise me in the slightest if we give Hutton a new contract. Maybe a a 5 year one. Makes sense with our logic!!
Speaking of terrible ideas, here is another one from the moronic HITC:
http://www.footballinsider247.com/three-reasons-aston-villa-re-sign-playmaker-six-months-left-contract/
Benno – whoever wrote that article need psychciatric help !!
Ireland’s agent? 🙂
He epitomises everything that went wrong at Villa Park under the foolship of RL and if we were, for whatever reason to resign that part time shisha pipe smoker and full time waste of space, it would be all over for me and AVFC.
BWS are you still talking about Ireland or have you moved onto Flabby 🙂
Applicable to both mate, Flabby’s conspicuous by his absence- Never in the field of EPL football was so much payed by to one man for so little.
I’ve searched for a stream to see if its on tonight and sports devil has it listed you’ll have to go through them all to see it there, why is our goalkeeper making waves saying we paid to much for Kodjia? Sod all to do with him at least he’s scored more goals than him, he’s only let 4 or five go past him.Kodjia scored 11 for us.
Mate they’ll list it but I doubt you’ll find a working link.
Well you can only try BWS, sometimes they sell abroad like last week.
thanks bill and i hope this link works,just like saturdays link you said. 🙂 otherwise i’ll be watching brighton beat the magpies
was thinking (dangerous i know) about who could play as emergency striker. adomah davis could back up kodjia or partner him. i don’t think we need to panic and offer a free agent a contract.
tonight’s game could put a end to our nervous disposition, fans and players alike. we need to finish this season well and carry so form into preseason and next one. we cant afford to loiter to long in the championship.
3 nil to villa i forgot to predict
3-1 kodjia hat trick.
Bit wet and cold….they’ll all have their hats and gloves on…..man up and run about a bit! 🙂
2-1 Villa