So there I was, sat in a cafe having a bite to eat and a pint, where I was contemplating how I’d be able to get to watch the game.
When it suddenly occurred to me that I could legally sign up for AVTV.
I hoofed it back to the hotel, signed up for a month with the hotel’s address and success! I was in business.
I noticed that the sign-up form had already seen that I was in Turkey, so it’ll be interesting to see if it still works when I get back home. I suspect it won’t, but I won’t know for sure until the Sheff Weds game, as Blues and Preston are being shown by Sky.
Anyway, I’m rambling.
Suffice to say, I got to see a fair chunk, but missed the last fifteen minutes and Fulham’s goal.
From what I did see, this was much better than last week.
After a bit of an iffy start, we quickly got a grip of the game, with us closing Fulham down quickly and simply not giving them time to play.
It was good to watch and it had me wondering why we don’t do it every game?
We created plenty of chances and it was only a matter of time before we scored.
Hourihane sent a lovely floating free kick in and John Terry was there to head in from close range. I’m not Terry’s biggest fan, but it’s always good seeing a Villa player getting a goal for us and I was of course glad for him.
We then continued to dominate, but there was always a bit of a worry, especially after Fulham had managed to get in behind us a couple of times.
And I lost the feed just after 45 mins.
I thought I’d been pretty lucky up till then, as the internet here in Turkey isn’t the best, especially through a hotel’s Wi-Fi.
Anyway, sod’s law saw Fulham scoring from a free kick of their own.
I still haven’t seen it now, so can’t comment, save to say I was gutted.
Onto the second half then and I was a bit concerned that we’d do our usual “one half” trick. More accurately, I was concerned that we wouldn’t be able to keep the harrying and hassling up.
But I thought we managed to keep it up fairly well.
After some good work down the right, Onomah sent a square ball from deep, into the box, only for Kodjia to miss an easy goal.
Fortunately, Albert Adomah was just behind him and kept up his very decent scoring run to make it 2-1.
And so the (stuttery for me) game continued, with us not sitting back too much. Fulham came back into it somewhat, but never enough to really dominate.
And then the stream went down entirely on the 75th minute, which meant I missed the last 20 minutes. This time, it seemed to be a problem at Villa’s end, but I’m not sure.
Which had me pulling my hair out trying to refresh and keep up with the score.
Whatever, I was delighted with what I saw today.
I thought Kodjia, Onomah and Adomah all really grafted today, as did the midfield, where while I can’t single anyone out for praise, so I didn’t notice a bad performance anywhere.
I thought the defence looked fairly solid, although we were caught out a couple of times.
That’s not surprising, given that we were pressing higher up.
What I also noticed was that Hutton wasn’t anywhere near as involved as last week. I’m surprised Fulham didn’t try to hurt us more there and it seemed most of their best work came down our right.
Where it was nice to hear that Ritchie De Laet made an appearance.
Davis came on for Kodjia, who you could see was tiring, so that was another decent substitution.
In fact, I think Bruce called this well today and credit where it’s due.
The attackers seemed full of confidence and were trying little tricks, flicks and dummies. Ok, they didn’t always work, but it’s much better than having players who seem almost scared to touch the ball, isn’t it?
So all in all, a massive improvement on last week.
Dare I say I actually saw signs of progress today?
Maybe some of you will see that as a step too far, but let’s not forget Fulham are not a side that are going to struggle.
And having looked at the table, I reckon we’re now 5th, after Preston and Bristol City both lost.
You can’t knock it, in my book, although I suspect at least some of us won’t be convinced.
Yay!
As simple as that 🙂
badger
never seen it just got to listen to talksport we are only 5th game in championship they went to ,which is bad we should be main commentary from this league,but as you said why cant bruce get steady performances out of this team ,need another win next week
I don’t care much for Talksport or how they order their coments either, tbh.
Performances? Well, I’d like to think they’re coming, but it seems it was backs to the wall for the last 10 mins, in which case I’m glad I didn’t see that part.
It always does my head in.
I’ve also seen it said Fulham weren’t very good, but I prefer to think we stopped them playing.
In fact, having read around on other Villa sites, you’d think Villa were utter rubbish today!
I’m not having that at all, although it was far from perfect.
And some think the people on here are too negative, lol.
badger
same on 5 live,even sky dont make us one of main matches,your 2nd line last weeks match and most previous this season have been mainly poor so i dont get where all the hope is from
It’s as I said, it looks to me that confidence is improving, which should see us playing better.
Don’t forget, we’re still third favourites to win the league according to the bookies, even though we haven’t played particularly well.
There’s a reason for that and the bookies aren’t daft.
And anyway, without hope it’s pointless isn’t it?
5 wins out of 6.
15 points from a possible 18.
5th place in the league with 33 games still remaining.
5 points off automatic promotion.
IN BRUCE I TRUST.
UTV.
There’s no debating that post B6.
However you look at things, they’re just plain facts.
FACT!
A performance like that! At home! Surely not Mrs Jones!!!
Happy days, great performance, we beat a promotion rival and we are clicking into gear. Should’ve been two up before they equalised and second half about from one save by Johnstone they created nothing. We have a team now. Pretty sure I can celebrate this win and that’s great. UTV
It seemed to me that we dropped back with about 30 mins to go …it seemed that long and I was screaming for the clock to get a move on.
Even though they were pressing we looked most likely to score apart from their one chance.
The free kick for their goal was shades of all the times we did that in the Prem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P84k5bH3Z00
Nice link, cheers.
Yep, totally agree.
One good chance , the goal apart, that was equalled by a very good save.
Otherwise, did Johnstone get his gloves dirty?
I seriously can’t think of anything.
Wow, I’ve just read the Sky write-up and they practically make it sound like Fulham pissed all over us and we were dead lucky.
http://www.skysports.com/football/a-villa-vs-fulham/374763
“Much deserved equaliser”, my arse.
We should have had a few in the first half, although they are correct in saying we weren’t as sharp as Fulham in our attacks.
It’s the wording that pisses me off and it makes me wonder if we were watching the same game.
Sky have to big up the London teams!
Went to the match , both sides pretty even. It got to me that Fulham aren’t as strong as I thought. Good performence from the Villa and a good game overall. Just to mention , there were points when Fulham showed themselves to be a decent team.
Good points, well made, Alfie.
Although nowhere near biased enough for someone your age!
I suspect your dad had a hand in that comment 😉
Good to hear you went to the game.
Hello all, by the way 🙂
(That’s one of my twin grandsons, for anyone else).
Fulham didn’t look as strong as you thought – and the London based/biased media would have you think – because Villa didn’t let them in the same way Wolves didn’t let Villa look good last week.
Spot on!
That was exactly my thoughts too!
We have the players.
We just need to make them go for it, from the off.
Do that and we’ll be fine, imo.
It’s all down to Bruce, imo, but as I’ve said, I believe it’s coming.
Agree I think we learned a lesson from Wolves game playing a similar style team plus we were at home which makes a big difference for us. I’m still not convinced about our away form.
And no, he wasn’t led by me to post on here.
Makes you proud when you know your grandkids have chosen the right path in supporting the Villa 🙂
Oh no not two Badgers 😄😄
And a few more I can wheel out, if needed against your negativity, mate 😉
I’m not playing, though.
This was a good win and should be enjoyed, as we don’t get many in that style.
Hopefully a sign of things to come.
It’s strange that there aren’t so many people willing to stick the knife in tonight, eh?
Do you have anything really postive to say?
Nah, thought not.
And that’s unfair, imo.
See, that’s the difference.
I’m quick to slate things if I think we played poorly.
But I’m equally as quick to hand out the praise if I think we did well.
Whereas you have nothing good to say at all.
Along with quite a few others, who aren’t being reasonable either.
I think I might need to have a closer look at some of the people who post on here, as while I like to think I give everyone every chance, I am beginning to wonder about some of the motives that lie behind.
Their manager….” . We created some great chances but did not score. We were not clinical as we missed chances while Villa scored two easy goals from situations which were not dangerous to us.”…….
Think he’s a Daily Star sports reporter as a 2nd job…….
Lol 🙂
Meanwhile, here’s a much more balanced view, from a Fulham site, no less;
http://hammyend.com/index.php/2017/10/adomah-ends-fulhams-unbeaten-run/
Shows I wasn’t being deluded in my views, thank god.
Here’s part of Jokanovic’s view, as stated in the Express;
“We didn’t have enough quality, we weren’t brave enough playing from the back,” Jokanović stated. “When they started to press us a little bit we played it back to the ‘keeper and went long ball. This is not the best choice for us.
“In the second half we showed more personality and we tried to move the ball. We got the ball in the opposite box but we weren’t clinical enough.
“The second goal that they scored came from a long ball which they controlled and many, many players could have scored the goal. We didn’t finish our chances and score the goal.
“They’re a physical, strong team, they’re fast. We didn’t find the quality to have an answer for [Jonathan] Kodjia and all the long balls he controlled.
“He always pushed us and he was the winner in this kind of situation. This is another situation that we didn’t control well enough, but more important is that we weren’t clinical in either box.”
http://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/869407/Aston-Villa-2-Fulham-1-Tony-Xia-Twitter-Championship
Which backs up the fact that we didn’t let them play at all, imo.
I didn’t want to highlight Kodjia, as I thought we were all round great, up front.
But I thought he was immense and caused them a world of grief.
Fulham just couldn’t handle him and although he still looked to set himself up first, so he did try to get others in at times.
Perhaps I’m going OTT, but even now, I think that was a great performance.
Probably the right time to go to bed, given that it’s 3AM here 🙂
Agreed, it was one of our better performances overall. I’ll even give the team some props for that. The 4-3-3 worked well, and will continue to work well if we play that way. Old habits die hard though. We’ve never been a team that has a full 90 minutes of football, even back in the “good” days of O’Neill, we’d sit back and allow needless pressure we shouldn’t be allowing.
I agree that was our best performance over 90 mins. First time IV seen us compete in 90 mins for years
Great result today. Hopefully we can put another unbeaten run together to take us up to Christmas. We have now passed another test I’m that we have bounced back from a bad defeat. My faith in the team is growing by the week. Slowly making progress week on week after a poor first few weeks.
Didn’t see the game as on my hols but that sounds a lot more positive. I’ve always said we’ve got the players. I still doubt the manager and coaching staff though. In the eyes of some people that means you don’t support the team!! Go figure.
Blues is a derby so hard to call that one, and probably hard to read anything in to it if we lose, but strangely it would seem a big measure of progress if we win. If that makes any sense.
Preston away will be tough, but a win next match would be good for confidence.
DS, if you’re abroad, you might want to consider signing up for AVTV.
It might not work at home, but if it does, it’s a quality picture if you have half decent BB speed.
If you’re holidaying in the UK, I suspect my sympathy is more in order, from what I’m seeing in the news.
Never mind, it seems I’ve timed things perfectly and while the weather is to take a serious turn for the worse here (mid 80’s down to low 70’s), so I’ll be bringing it home with me 🙂
Ha! I’m in Cornwall!! Staying in a house that gets hit with spray from the waves. Enjoy your sun Badger
Oh dear 🙁
That’s why I’d never book a holiday in the UK, regardless of the time of year.
But I have a work friend who has recently been in Cornwall too, because they can’t fly, so I do understand.
Very good first half barring the stupid free kick given away by Whelan. Onomah coming in definitely worked and he played very well
The tactics in the last 20 minutes were shocking though, we just invited pressure on ourselves and that was down to the poor and negative substitutions from Bruce.
Next two games will be tough and we all know the away form is our achilles heel time and time again in this league. If we could get 4 points that would be a good return.
Yes, it was stupid by Whelan, but I just thought it was one of those things that happen. He’s been slated lately and it seemed easy to pick on him for that mistake.
Some of the comments I’ve read, that were posted elsewhere, intra-game, about him were frankly embarassing, although I do understand there’s passion involved.
I thought he did ok yesterday and it’s obvious Bruce rates him very highly, which I why I suggested there’s no way Bruce will “rest” him until Jedinak is fit.
I can’t specifically comment on the last part of the game, as I didn’t see it.
But I always knew we wouldn’t be able to keep the serious graft up. It’s just not possible.
Hence I prefer to think we had no choice but to take it easier.
I’ve no doubt it made for unpleasant viewing though.
But at the end of the day, it was a deserved result, imo.
I’m not going to give my view on the Blues game just yet, but yes, 4 out of 6 would be very decent, agreed.
In other news, the Express are suggesting Man U bid £5 mill for Davis, in a bid to get in before Arsenal and we’ve quite rightly told them
to “bugger off”“no”.Cheeky sods.
And it now transpires that Wyness has come out and said the story is a load of bollocks;
http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/aston-villa-keinan-manchester-united-13796539
It seems it eminated from the Stun and I really should have known better.
Apologies.
Typical we will never beca decent team unless we keep our best players. At the moment we havnt a chance in hell of keeping them. Even if we go up we will never be more than a midtable nothing team so can’t blame players going elsewhere. Now Newcastle May crack top 4 if rumours are true so we will be left even further behind
Decent performance yesterday. invited pressure onto ourselves in last 10 which could have cost us the game, but overall think we deserved the win.
The only thing that worries me is I think Whelan and Hourihane are too similar in the middle. I think we need a faster ball winner in there- a delph, gueye type player. At times we just look too slow in there, and better teams dominate in the middle against us.
If we play 4-3-3, we could also put Kodjis on the left and Adomah on the right, with Davis in the middle. Might be better balanced.
Good points.
I actually found myself thinking we need a “Delph” type during the game too.
Someone to inject a bit more energy.
And I actually think if those front 3 are firing, you could swap them any way you like. They’ll cause any team problems at this level.
Wasn’t it Adomah who dummied for Onomah, right by the left touchline?
I forget, tbh and ok it didn’t work and there was a quick bicker between them.
But I loved it, as at least they’re looking for it.
My point is I don’t think any of our player’s positions are fixed, as such; see the previous thread, which is still ongoing.
The two matches have shown us we are better than Fulham and not as good as Wolves, which is what the table tells us also. Good to see JT open his account with a very typical header – based on his reading of not where the kicker intends the ball should go, but where it actually will go.
We’ve seen Norwich and Bristol City are actually quite good as they are up there with us now. We gained four points off them and have beaten Forest and Fulham both in the top half. This suggests we are not that bad against the top teams after all.
Of course bigger tests are to come but we are strong at home so Cardiff ad Wolves won’t have it so easy at VP. Onomah off the front man worked so maybe Bruce will now go 442 at home and 4411 away. I’d play the same team for the Fulham game against Blues.
We’ve got consistency of positions with Johnstone, Elmo, Terry, Chester, Snodgrass, Whelan, Hourihane, Adomah and Kodjia playing in all 5 recent wins. A very settled line up will aid consistency. And all done without Jedinak. We only won one game without him last season. So we are improving. He will strengthen midfield further when he returns. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a solid midfield.
A left back and a target man in January and I feel we will cement top 6 and maybe even nick an automatic spot. Maybe.
I would start Davis and drop Kodja to bench for blues game. Last season at St. Andrews he got bullied all over the place and hardly touched the ball. Davis is more physical so will do more damage then maybe bring in Kodja with 20 mins to go
When you look at the form table (http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/championship/table) at the teams above us, even if we continue to drop the occasional point or two, you’ve got to fancy our chances for soon getting into the top 2. There’s no one at this point besides perhaps Wolves who have the ability to dominate, and you get the impression that if Villa were to turn it up a gear and really click game in game out, that we could run away with this league. Of course, Villa are Villa and we don’t do things the easy way – but you can see the potential is there.
Agree Wolves will walk away with this division now but I still think 2nd is beyond us. Yet again we have Grealish and Jedinak to come back and Kodja hasn’t started scoring yet so who knows.
Ps Koeman anyone 😄
AGreed about Jedinak and Kodjia but not sure what Grealish actually offers. Certainly not goals from midfield like Hourihane and Adomah
This the same Grealish who had more goals last season for us than Hourihane and Adomah combined? Adomah also appeared more than Grealish.
While I agree Adomah has stepped it up this season. Hourihane has scored in 3 games out of 12 appearances. So he’s not exactly reliable in terms of getting goals on par with what we’d need.
Grealish offers nothing for me.
I predict he’ll be just another Stefan Moore or any of the same ilk you care to mention, who fell by the wayside.
Unless he seriously ups his game
One good game in five or whatever isn’t good enough and we can’t carry him in this league.
I watched a bit of the U23’s and saw nothing to change my mind.
Otherwise, it’s nice to see some positivity creeping in amongst the comments.
I do believe I’m even seeing the slightest hint of optimism in Ooahh’s posts, as much as I’m sure he’s doing his best to hide it.
If we can keep up this sort of form, I can see even the biggest critics coming onside.
And that would be great.
With the team winning and the fans fully behind them, we’d definitely be one of the favourites.
IF!
Of course, with the way some of us see Bruce, it could all be undone in one game.
Grealish was actually quite good during our runs of wins with Kodjia. It was pretty much those two leading us to any wins we had. Grealish is arguably the only attacking midfielder we have that can read what our strikers are going to do.Although Onomah might get good enough to do so himself.
Don’t get me wrong Andrew, I do like Grealish and want him to come good.
And agreed, he’s head and shoulders the best technical player we have.
He frightens defenders and I could go on with the superlatives. When he’s attacking.
It’s when he’s not attacking; he doesn’t contribute enough for me and dissappears from games too often.
That’s unfortunately what you get with special players. When they’re not attacking, they don’t track back and defend. Mahrez, Alli, Shaqiri etc are similar. They do well in dominate sides and look average in sides that aren’t going to dominate sides. However playing Grealish like he did Onomah v Fulham would work well.
I think Grealish is technically very gifted, but does not fit in anywhere – certainly not in a 442. Andrew my dear chap, according to whoscored.com – stats wise Grealish did score more goals than Hourihane and Adomah combined but only by 1 and all three players stats were pretty weak last year. Adomah still contributed more. Anyway I digress…. whoscored.com has the stats as follows for last season:
Grealish – 31 apps, 5 goals and 2 assists – so he was involved in 7 Villa goals last year in 31 appearances – not great.
Hourihane really struggled to adjust to Villa last year I grant you and you have a fair point here – after he joined he had 17 apps, 1 goal and 3 assists – so he was involved in 4 Villa goals. Both player contributes/scores a goal once every 5 games – not flash from either player.
Adomah has been much better this season but stats wise Albert always poses a threat even when having a crap game which Grealish doesn’t in my opinion. But his stats last year were pretty good – 30 apps, 3 goals and 10 assists. Now football is not an exact science, I grant you but Albert was offering a goal or assist every 2. 3 games – so every other game he contributed something tangible which the other two did not.
I like Grealish, I want him to do well, I just don’t think he offers enough.