After last week’s poor show against Newcastle, where I basically spat my dummy out and couldn’t be bothered to write anything, I determined that I’d try to look at today’s game in a more positive light.
I didn’t really need to as it turned out, because straight from the off the Villa were very good to watch.
We took the game to Hull and played with a really high tempo, something that I’ve often said is our best asset.
We were quite simply too sharp and fast for the opponents; so much so, that they looked a bit shell-shocked, in my opinion.
Just when some of us were slating Gabby and Andi Weimann for a lack of goals, so they turned around and proved us wrong.
Gabby took his goal well with a sharp turn and shot, which reminded me of Kenny Dalglish in his heyday and Weimann did well too, after a nice ball in from Richardson.
So two up at half time (it could easily have been three if Westwood’s free kick had been an inch to the right) and we were cruising towards what I thought was going to be a 4 or 5-0 job.
So what on earth happened in the second half?
You might say that Hull massively stepped up their game, but I don’t believe that was the case.
My money says we totally took our foot off the gas and let them back into it.
So much so, that they looked more dangerous than us.
Perhaps it was a case where our lads had just run themselves into the ground, in which case I’ll forgive them.
But I doubt it myself.
I reckon it was down to Lambert wanting to protect the lead; a poor tactic.
Whatever, there were quite a few positives.
The defence looks pretty solid overall.
Cissokho gives me loads more confidence about our left hand side.
And young Grealish just scares the proverbial out of the opposition.
Mr Potato head had obviously done his research and told the players to take him out.
If the kid can stand up to the “treatment”, I see a great future for him.
The biggest positive of all?
That’s 7 points out of 9.
Better than I expected, if I’m honest.