Straight after the match, I took the dog for a walk.
Okay, the reality is he took me for a walk and we ended up doing about an hour and a half around Witton lakes and the surrounding area. It was actually a very nice walk on a sultry evening, to be fair.
The intention was to come back in and do a review, but I sat down for five minutes and then fell asleep at the computer.
Hence no post.
I just don’t have the energy I used to.
Never mind, as it gave me some time to reflect on our performance.
And first I have to say that was the best game I’ve seen in a long time.
I don’t just mean from a Villa point of view too, although our first half blew me away.
This was a game played exactly how it’s meant to be played, with both teams going for the win.
Straight after the result, I felt elated that we’d got a point, even though I thought we easily edged the game.
But coming back is always difficult, isn’t it?
Yet we did it twice against a very good side in Brentford.
I’ve seen suggestions that they’ll be up there, come the end of the season, but I have doubts, as their squad will probably fail them somewhere down the line.
There’s no doubt they’re a very decent side though and they caused us problems at the back.
I’ve also seen suggestions that they had a bit of an “off” game.
I’d say that’s rubbish and our pressing just didn’t allow them to play the game they like.
Which is what impressed me massively.
If we can keep that sort of effort up, we’ll have no problem in being in the play-off places and will even blow most teams in this league away.
I say “if”, as I’m sure we have a bit of a motivation problem against the “lesser” sides.
Whatever, after having had a day to think about it, I now partly feel like we were robbed of two points, because of Maupay’s stamp on McGinn.
I felt at the time that he should have seen red and that’s now been justified with him having been retrospectively banned for 3 games.
Quite right too, the dirty bxxxxxd.
A stamp as late as that has no place in the game and as much as Dean Smith (totally wrongly and he’s gone down in my estimation) tried to defend him, it was simply indefensible.
It is what it is though and in a game which many thought we might lose, I’ll take the point.
Tuanzebe stood out for me and if we move him to CB, I suspect he’d look even better.
The thought of him playing out against most sides is a nice one.
Jedinak doesn’t suit in defence, but he’s doing a job, just as he will throughout the season.
It doesn’t seem signing a CB is a priority. More on that in a minute.
Kodjia looks might he might have got back into the groove and I’m really pleased about that.
If he’d have missed that first goal, how many of us would be calling him greedy, yet again?
The angle, on average, looked too wide and most would have said he should have squared it (was there anyone there? I don’t know).
But that’s what greedy strikers can do and I say keep it up, Jonathan, if you’re confident.
Going back to that not signing a CB point, I think this says something fundamental.
It’s my strong belief that Bruce has been told that the owners want to see a more adventurous game.
Why else would Bruce not be concentrating on beefing up a weakened defence with Terry leaving?
If I’m right, I expect a very exciting season, especially with El Ghazi and probably Bolasie signing on for us.
Concede some, but score more should always be the name of the game.
