Well, we got the result I predicted, but first I want to mention AVTV.
Just do not buy this rubbish, as although I subscribed for the video in Turkey, so it doesn’t work in the UK.
Ok, I knew that, but it now seems I’m subscribed and they’ve hit me for another £13 just today.
I searched the site and there’s nowhere that tells me I’m subscribed, so I can unsubscribe.
I now have to send them an email to explain that I’m back at home and while I was content to reduce to the audio option, after tonight’s experience, there’s no chance.
Even the audio stream went down more often than my ideal woman.
It’s almost unbelievable that an entity the size of Aston Villa can’t stream a decent audio feed and my strong advice is don’t touch this rubbish with a bargepole until they get it sorted. It’s a waste of money, where I didn’t even get to hear a description of Sunderland’s goal.
2 out of 10, purely because it works at times.
With that rant over, it sounded like the game wasn’t much better.
Sunderland bossed the first half, possession-wise and you have to wonder why?
They were poor and the commentator said they never threatened us at all. Note here, that there wasn’t even a second commentator, to bounce opinions off.
So all in all, a rubbish experience that I’ve no doubt was matched if you actually attended.
I did a Sunderland home game a couple of seasons back. That was rubbish too, with the highlight being me watching the grandkid’s first experience of the Holte end.
You can’t blame the Sunderland fans, they brought 500 and very few can/want to make that sort of trip on a Tuesday night.
But it leads to a poor atmosphere, that just isn’t conducive to a good football game.
Notice I’ve hardly mentioned the footy?
That’s because there’s extremely little to say.
We won; in a game that will not live in the memory.
And that’s all.
3 points, which was the minimum expectation/requirement and we move on.
Ipswich next; hardly the most inspiring game either. But at least it’s on a saturday afternoon.
I just feel like I’ve totally wasted two and a half hours.
Comments
50 responses to “Villa 2 – 1 Sunderland; A dour game and is that good enough? AVTV is shocking.”
Meh!
Right result, everything else was crap.
Did a job – Samba looked decent, Snodgrass everywhere and two assist, comfortable til the last ten. Bizarre Bruce subs as standard. Closing in on top 2. Must be followed up with 3 points v Ipswich or it proves we bottle it when we get close to automatic.
I have been watching matches on Facebook….always someone streaming from somewhere…it was from Australia today…..think its from AVTV…but always turn sound off anyway.
But found out late on it was on my normal stream …switched to that and we let the goal in…..switched that off quick….LOL
Game was crap but as you say could have been worse….was the one you took the grandkid to the 0-0 where we only did anything in teh last min when Zog hit the woodwork…..now that was dire.We had a family trip and I was embarrased.
I think so VAID3
A true low.
But I’ve seen many poor games against the likes of Sunderland.
Man city at home, where we singing “All we are saying, is give us a goal”.
Probably around 1975/6.
Look what happened shortly after that 🙂
It’s typical Villa fashion though, isn’t it? Good game, bad game, good game, bad game. Fortunately, these bad games are still getting results. First half looked like a training session.
I don’t get the hype around Coleman. Yeah he did decently well with very few good players, but Sunderland doesn’t have a championship version of a Bale, or even a Ramsey to get them out of the mess.
Either way, we played quite poorly, but still looked comfortable. But with Bruce’s news on Kodjia, just reaffirms our desperate need for a striker. Davis has done well but until he starts getting a goal a game or every other game from here on in, is just not reliable enough to win us games and Adomah has been brilliant in that form but relying on a winger to score every game isn’t going too happen.
Bruce talks like we have no money, but he still spent money over the summer and got more than the 2-3 players he claimed we’d sign. So I’m still rather hopeful for January.
Managers should ALWAYS talk like they’ve got no money! That’s how the best deals are done! 😊
Poor game but 3 points. Really surprised Bruce didn’t freshen the team up from Saturday though. The same thing happened after Preston except Sunderland were weaker than shef weds.
We are crying for grealish to play. Someone who is comfortable on the ball and can create. Also bit disappointed he dropped ohare from the bench today.
Hopefully he makes some adjustments for Saturday although I bet he wont.
Nail bite game that, in defence of Whelen he’s lot better than Westwood for the team imo , no negativity by passing back or side to side, we do now go forwards more, Samba, Hutton, Chester, fair game but we do need a killer forward player in getting goals, nice to see us moving up and hope we can get that win Saturday, this is only the first half of the season that will be the turning point for Villa we have the top teams to play. Utv.
U wanna take up cribbage Badger. More fun and less stressful!
QPR mate said we were the better team and deserved to win at the weekend. Sunderland? I like them but we have to be ruthless and exploit any teams weaknesses.
Is it just me but is winning becoming a habit at the Villa?????
Just 5 points of second now and we do seem to have found the winning habit. I like how Bruce only changes now when absolutely necessary. I think he makes mistakes when he has too many options. Samba has been surprisingly good – we might get away with losing Terry for a bit at this rate, Hutton is the great survivor and keeps making himself undroppable. Whelan did another good job in midfield and the wily Snodgrass has skill and an evil streak. Loved it at the end when he was sent the ball three times in the corner and kept possession to waste time then when the whistle went was straight over celebrating with the fans. All the midfielders a performing well. We just need a new striker in January. I don’t want Grealish or Gabby to play as they are drains on morale and used to the old losing ways. Symbols of our malaise. Whilst Villa got relegated – Hutton battle on and grealish, gabby and richards took the piss – bomb them all out of the club.
Very poor performance against a team with zero confidence but at least we got the 3 points in the bag. I do think we’re going to struggle to keep pace with the top 2 in December as with only Davis available we just dont have any chance of freshening the forward line up and he’s bound to have poor games like last night.
Not a fan of Grealish overall but thought he looked bright when he came on. I’d consider giving him a start against Ipswich though I expect Bruce to play the same 11 again
We can always try Adomah up front. He makes great runs and has a knack for getting in behind defenders, plus his size would come in handy. Bring on Davis in the 2nd half. With Grealish back he can always play out left. Or we can bring up McKirdy finally. He’s 20, with his contract expiring in the summer, I think it’s time we see what he’s all about.
Apparently RHM is going to be back for the U23 cup game against Sheffield United next Thursday. Obviously he won’t be fit for a while, but that’s good news.
Adomah a good shout up front.
The game was indeed dour. The players looked tired and disinterested and it made for some painful watching.
I don’t agree entirely with you about AVTV though. I subscribed because I live in California and being able to see the game live is a big treat. The service was a bit dodgy at first and Villa are hopeless at communicating when matches will be shown and when not. Also, I’ll agree that the account pages on the website are atrocious and controlling your subscription is difficult.
However once you get it going the live stream is pretty good quality. I wish they’d put Jack Woodward back with Tony Morley though: The current commentating is very average. Today I actually received a QPR fixture refund from them – quite unexpected so I guess they do eventually react to complaints.
UTV
All fair comments Bill.
It’s interesting that I’ve had better experiences with video and even audio, abroad though.
For clarity, Villa can show any game, as long as it isn’t being screened live elsewhere, in the UK.
In which case, you just need to look at the $ky schedules. If it’s not on there, you’re good to go.
Totally agree about Jack and Tony. They say it as it is, with a bit of heartfelt opinion added in.
Lately it’s all been a bit sterile and too neutral, imo.
You’re right. When it works, it’s spot on.
But it needs to be all the time, as there’s nothing more frustrating than when it goes tits up.
no matter win or lose we are never happy. its a long hard season. its unrealistic to suggest wolves will continue to play attractive winning football. let alone villa who have been dealt injury after injury, that’s football. shit happens had wolves lost their better players, they too would be struggling to keep winning and producing the style which has everybody excited
i thought it was a good victory against sunderland, agree it was not the most entertaining. but it was no less enjoyable having won. lots of fans under estimate teams. oh they are bottom so they are shit. not so sunderland have some decent players, and are in a false position. i think they are struggling like we did last year. recovering from relegation isnt as simple as most think. clubs like villa and sunderland both struggled for years before they fell to relegation. over that time bad habits bad attitudes were plenty in the squads. hard to change this just over one summer, with contracts lasting much longer. wages much higher
i would like to see a target man being brought in january. i had wanted one during the summer,like the guy who went to scum was a good shout. i think it would be guaranteeing us promotion if you get a austin or ulloa. like i said back in summer. davis is good enough but can not be made to carry the team all season. he is the only one of our strikers that can play the role of target man.
finally mckirdy isnt a lone striker type. he is a forward thinking player that attacks spaces by coming late into box. a bit like platty totally. i think he should be getting in like ohare but they are not lone strikers.
Agreed! We are doing well! We’ve lost our best defender and captain, until recently our best midfielder has been out since April, out 19 goal striker is out, our great young hopes Grealish, green and RHM all injured, Lansbury injured and Taylor suspended. We are doing very well considering. Wolves will falter at some point but still go up. When Sheff U and Cardiff get injuries they will fall and we will sneak into the automatics. Mark my words we are going up!
Hmm, for balance, let me say;
Grealish was injured, but is now available, as is Lansbury.
Taylor is no longer suspended and hasn’t been for a couple of weeks.
But, yes, I agree that we’re doing well, in digging out the wins, given our strike force.
We just need to prove that we can do it against the higher placed teams, imo.
Nath, Sunderland are not in a false position.
You should know better than saying that, as it’s just what everyone was saying about us before we got relegated.
The facts are we were awful, regardless of the squad and wages etc.
Sunderland were and still are exactly the same, as little has changed.
In fact, I’d say they’re worse off than us, as they have no Dr Xia, as yet.
My point is you can’t defend them, imo.
They are dogshit and have every chance of going down again. More than we did, last season, when things looked bleak.
Fair enough but a win tomorrow and with Cardiff playing sunday we could be 2 points off second place despite all the injuries and suspensions along the way.
If we can nurse onomah and davis through the next few weeks we will be set fair. Reckon we will hit top 2 in January. 31 points from last 15 games – automatic promotion form – we just had a poor first 3 games.
if i believe sunderland are better than their position they currently occupy, then its my belief that they are in a false position. they are struggling bigtime coping as we did the first season. getting relegated is not easy in reality, only easy in fans heads. i am not a expert on sunderland but i heard they sold one or two of their better players. thats not unusual for relegated clubs. better players leave once they are relegated. clubs are left with the shit nobody else wants like richards.
sunderland will progress up the table, finishing around top of the bottom half. therefor current position is false, where as burton are in the position currently where i expert them to finish. i like them, but they are punching above themselves just being in the division,
what gets my goat is cause sunderland are bottom,so its a easy game statement from fans. i disagree with this. all teams in this division are easy capable of beating each other, thus far only wolves have been easily the best team. but even the mighty wolves will struggle if and when they lose a few of their better players to injury.
lastly about poor sunderland NOT they played good against villa and probably deserved more than they got. sunderland have the same crippling injuries villa have. their bench was full of kids. that sort of bad luck will cripple most teams. soon as this clears up and new manager gets them all singing together like bruce did last season. they will progress to their true position around midtable
Is anyone actually upset Onomah wants to return to Tottenham instead of permanently signing for us over next summer? I’m certainly not.
West Bromich are largely being linked to Johnstone right now, but without a manager (I don’t think they’ve replaced Pulis yet), don’t think anyone should be too worried about that happening. He is replaceable if we have to find someone though.
We’re being linked heavily to Musa. He’s a much, much better version of Gabby. He’s smaller, quick as hell with great foot skills. Leicester are hugely wasting him, Ulloa and Slimani, three very good strikers. Though Musa at CSKA was more of a winger, he’s the kind of player you play off of Davis. I do think we’ll look for a striker but I can’t see it being someone that good. Musa did turn Hull down over the summer, but he does need to play for the world cup so maybe. Austin would be a great signing himself as well. Get him some confidence and he’d score a lot for us.
Agreed Badger, Sunderland are crap. Their defense and goal keepers are pretty much all horrible. Grabban is getting them goals and McGeady and Ndong are good players, they’re just fortunate with how crap City, Burton and Bolton are, that they could possibly get a win or two and City could easily drop back down in to the bottom 3.
so its ipswich today. going off last years game. they should beat villa again. classic mccarthy gameplan, they will soak up villa pressure, villa lack any cutting edge compared to last year, so its nil nil or last minute goal for the tractor girls and win.
mccarthy is a good manager before last season game villa fans slagged him off. but he has a bad habit of pulling off shock wins, not a bad habit. when you look at his record just at ipswich. you will see him having to selling his best players each year and each year they improve as a club. this year right in the mix for a playoff spot,
to also recap on sunderland, they compare to villa last year, except villa had some money to reshuffle. maybe too much too soon. but sunderland have lost their better players and not replaced them with not much money been made available to grayson. but they were premiership club last year. they still have quality at the club plus new manager. i would put money on them turning around a poor start.
they should been a warning to those that think this leagues a walk in the park. villa last season before bruce arrived. were close to sunderland this season. we lacked organisation couldn’t see out matches. gave away poor goals. look in the mirror that was were rdm team were heading. ste bruce has changed things for the better. we have a fighters chance to get out of the league this season. we have a decent squad and thats a bloody good job or we would have struggle to cope with all the bad injuries we have had this season.
in january i expect bruce to do some wheeling and dealing. we need a player that can hold the ball up and allow midfield to move up and support. just like davis has done in a terrific debut season sofar. but as i said preseason he can not do this role all season every game. its a very demanding role. but without this type of player. villa will struggle
Have to say Nath its going to be tough today, your not far out in your assessment on our progress, we have to get players that can control the game and score goals, this now and again football will end for us if we don’t get it into our heads every game counts now.
i understand ppl who think bruce is wrong for us. i think all villa fans want decent football like wolves seem to be playing. but promotion is key to our future. their is no room for failure. after promotion i think bruce will not be at villa long. its a cruel game and life. i think bruce knows this. also players which are needed this season are not gonna be needed next.
we all need to understand the importance of taking the league seriously. because the fans are so important to how the players play. wolves i have seen a few times and they are patient team. working the opposition, probing them, countering them with speed. the fans at wolves are very patient this allows the players to express themselves stress free. at villa against sunderland its the total opposite, fans impatience works against villa players and plays into the opposition.
teams like ipswich will come with a game plan. that will mean less space to attack. by sitting deep. or pressing villa high like wednesday did and surrounding davis. each game is different and fans have to be patient and realistic. we are not leagues better than the rest of the league. each game needs to be won
Basically given up on expecting performances out of the team. While I completely dislike the every other game being a good performance, we seem to be getting results despite it. Right now that seems to be enough.As long as that gets us up, we can continue scoring once a game and keeping a clean sheet.
I don’t think anyone would disagree we were complete garbage last season. Even under Bruce unless Kodjia was scoring (or the rare time Grealish scored and Kodjia didn’t), we were awful and fortunate to get a run of wins. Grabban is doing what Kodjia did last season, however Sunderland’s defense and goal keepers are so bad. Coleman’s best bet is getting better defenders to keep them up.
Apparently we had scouts at Rosenborg v Sociedad’s Europa League game. Only player I remotely believe they were watching sadly is Bendtner. Although he’s been in incredible goal scoring form. But the Norwegian papers don’t claim who it was. Fulham and Arsenal had scouts there as well.
Ipswich will definitely be difficult. They have a few decent goal scorers but they also concede regularly so we will have our chances,
According to the Birmingham mail, Bruce has told his scouts to target a foreign striker who could join on the cheap as he’s yet to find a suitable loan possibility, and typically a striker from say, Norway, would come incredibly cheap compared to another Championship striker.
As much as I’m against foreign imports on players, i have to say that makes seance, We seem to get old player’s at the end of their days or someone looking to make money out of the Villa. Players from abroad have the attitude on either wanting to be in our country and making a go of it. 2-1 today.
continuing with sunderland and us similarities they signed a player called rodwell for X amounts on 60k he has a 5 year contract. there was no clauses inserted into his contract. this cripples clubs like us and them. they have more like this still in there squad, as do we.
to sign good players we enter a russian roulette in offering a better contract than our competitors. we got lucky with that traore lucky we offloaded him and got a decent player in return. on more manageable wages and reduced our wages
both sunderland and villa have had far too many managers in recent years. both had poor squads of miss matched players. we got bruce and he has stabilised us reducing wages and made us more competitive. sunderland are 12 months away from us. coleman will sort them out, but they will need sorting their squad in this windows and summer. they will be still good enough to survive this season. but its hard work for them at present. they beat burton and then things could all turn for them. as i expect it will.
We scouted another Norwegian side’s Europa league play off games in the summer, one left back to replace Amavi and a goal keeper. So it seems like we’re really looking into that Country’s players. Will be interesting to see what our scouts come up with. They seem to be all over Europe (one was in Italy not long ago to watch a Swedish defender at Bologna), so it looks like unless there’s a loan player from a Premier League side, we’re basically priced out either on fees or wages.
The loss of Amavi still gauls…
We have a better left back now
Do people only post here when we lose?
Hi Pat. I’ve sort of lost my love of the game so only pop my head around the door occasionally, but I know what you mean…
Can a resurgent Villa rekindle my love for the game? It’s the money in the game and appalling England sides that did it for me BUT where there’s momentum you can’t help but be seduced by it.
Another great win by a resurgent team! Quite frankly Bruce is turning us around after a turgid period under our previous bastard of an owner.
Well done to all involved!!! UTV!!!
Looks like it Pat, I’ve been streaming the match, Pat all them players played their hearts of, Samba was brought on he had a blinder. Well done the lads.
Another fantastic win. 2 points off 2nd place as i speak. All the players and Bruce can hold their heads high. Adomah is on fire. Lets hope we can keep this going in to Jan then 2 more needed additions and were good to go for the 2nd half of the season. Fingers crossed UTV.
Could do with Brit Assombolonga in Jan especially if Boro are out of promotion race. Doubt we could afford him or whether they would sell though
Yeah i think he would fit in well for us. Should have got him in the summer its too late now i feel.
Just on my way back. Whelan, Samba, Hutton, Adomah, Snoddy, Davies. At last we have proper grafters in the team. Players who put there bodies on the line.
My adrenalin in pumping like it used to after a win.
Proud of all of them today.
IN BRUCE I TRUST.
UTV.
Especially Hutton he’s never had the credit he deserves of villa fans because Mcclown signed him. But he’s always grafted even when we went down he was arguably the only player we had that cared