I only managed to listen to most of the first half on the way home from work and managed to part watch the second half while I was finishing work at home.
So while I can’t really say I watched it properly, I saw/heard enough to give me a fair idea of the game.
And I ultimately felt incredibly frustrated.
I think we had something like 26 chances and to only score 2 goals is frankly annoying, especially when Forest scored 2 from their 3 chances.
But even though that’s been a familiar story this far into the season and our lack of conversion is seriously costing us points, so I’m pretty sanguine after being fuming angry immediately after the whistle.
I’ve had time to re-think, in other words.
I know a lot of you might think I’m talking out of my proverbial, but on reflection, I’m encouraged, as we frankly outplayed Forest and deserved to win easily. RDM thought so, as did Philippe Montanier;
“It was a tough game for us because Villa started very strongly,’ he said.
It was better from us in the end of the first half but we conceded a lot of opportunities to score. Villa deserved the victory but sometimes you can win a point when you are a little lucky. We showed good character.”
And that for me, sums it up.
They were lucky.
McCormack missed when it seemed easier to score and Ayew hit such a storming shot, that I don’t know how it didn’t snap the crossbar when it hit.
But that’s the difference. Millimetres.
And things just aren’t going for us at the moment.
But we WILL start converting those chances and make possession pay in my opinion. The law of averages says so.
As I see things, we’re not only dominating teams, but we’re overall battering them.
And while I’ll concede that it’s all useless if we don’t get the result, I’m utterly convinced it will come together sooner rather than later.
And we’re going to batter a team to such an extent that the scoreline will reflect it.
The only thing that worried me today was the part where Forest scored 2 from their 3 chances.
Their first goal was a cracking strike, but I just felt Bunn should have done better. Pereira did brilliantly for their second goal, but our defence made it look incredibly easy and I believe Bunn should have done better there too.
That’s all we need, two dodgy goalies, but that’s easy to say.
Sometimes a good strike deserves a goal more than we deserve to save it.
So 2-2 it ended and it’s another 2 points dropped, ultimately.
If we were playing poorly and not creating, I’d be seriously worried.
But we aren’t.
And we should remember that.
I see shabbys been subbed on the hour mark obviously seen enough of him.
Obviously his personal fitness programme isn’t going well [probably needed to come off for a few lung-fulls of laughing gas].
I thought overall we played well yesterday, but the problem was the center midfield for both goals. You cannot play Gardener and Westwood together. Overall give them time to gel, but we need a couple of wins back to back to avoid being cut adrift from the top.
i thought against forest, we played well created numerous clear cut chances. hit bar or post couple of times. forest came with a plan to frustrate and hit on counter when possible.
we could play with more width, which would open up more spaces in centre, and in kodija we finally have a presence upfront leading the line, somebody who can scare the shit of the opposition defense.
back in the days when i used to try to play, we used to play attack verses defence, at end of training and its not easy when one side has no ambition to score, but just defend. attacking team either runs out of ideas or switches off because its so easy. credit forest cause they forced a the game late on. but they rode their luck, once our team knits together and we play with more width. i can see us smashing teams in this league.
i have to concede we have given newcastle a lead so champion we won’t be. but we still have enough time for automatic promotion or worst playoff. just think wembley and premiership. we never done things simple in past so why start now. we can do this still. keep believing and somebody shut that prick hollyways up wot does he know about football. shouldn’t a guy with a big gob still be in the game if he was so wise
Nath, there’s certainty more football than we’ve had over the years , i now think we are just a game away from turning it around, your right in saying we need to play more from the wide flanks and I think that will come. We still not seen the full potential yet and that might be tomorrow.