ohmelads

When all are fully match fit I'd say Owen and Viduka. At the moment though they look the least match fit of our strikers.

I remember the big screen next to St John's Shopping Centre was still displaying BBC News 24 a week behind reality, which meant they were reporting on Bigley as if he was alive days after he'd been killed. It seems to have 'caught up' now though, you don't get last week's football results as breaking news! You're right though, I was living in Liverpool at the time and I don't remember the Bigley thing being anything like as big as it was made out to be on national TV. I think a lot of the reputation Scousers have is perpetuated by the media. We're often portrayed as being simple in the media ourselves, like the guy off "I'm Alan Partridge", and many southerners tar us with that brush, yet when they come to see the city for themselves I'd say the majority leave with good things to say. The same can be said of Liverpool. In general I have found Scousers to be humble people, happy to take the piss out of themselves, much like Geordies. They are very parochial with deep-rooted anti-London views, but so are we up here if not moreso being further from the capital. I do find Liverpool fans to be a bit arrogant, but I've had the same problem with Mancs - it goes with the success I suppose. As far as the people of the city go, I never had any problems. Give me a Scouser over a Cockney any day.

I don't see what's wrong with the memorial that's already there. Move it to the new stadium and you'll keep the most people happy and offend the least people as well - seems the sensible thing to do.

Exactly what I was thinking. It'd be disgusting double standards not to tbh, they'd be in for a lot of criticism.

Sums up my thoughts entirely. Rozehnal didn't take enough responsibility in my eyes, both in dealing with danger and clearing the ball safely. He was hoofing balls in the air as much as anyone. Too early to judge him, but to see him get praise and Taylor get criticism is totally unfair when Taylor was always in the right places and playing it out along the floor. Rozehnal has been careful to play it along the ground in pre-season, but being closed down in the Premiership he was as quick as anyone to resort to the long ball, which was a bit disappointing. Basically I think he's getting the benefit of the doubt because he's a new signing, so Taylor becomes the scapegoat (even though we kept a clean sheet). Some of the criticism I've read of Taylor in recent days has been totally disproportionate to his performances, it seems some people just don't like him.

Well we're level with Liverpool and above Man Utd with a game in hand. Think we'd have taken that!

I queued for about 20 seconds to get into the east stand. Same here, big queue when I arrived but I was in within a minute.

He'll get a reputation as a diver soon enough, no doubt about it.

To be fair to the three midfielders, there was no movement at all, nobody running into space. We didn't have any runners from midfield looking to get on the end of crosses, mind. All too easy for Villa.

Media overreaction to follow.

Man U will be fine, the important thing is that they're still playing bloody good football, dominating games and have key players to come back.

Man City 1-0.

I don't think Smith had a bad game, he broke up the play and tried to move it around but it was the shape of the whole team that was the problem. I realise people will look for scapegoats for a very tepid performance but we were playing with one up front and one genuine winger, we played too deep and lacked pace and movement. Smith wasn't brilliant but he was no better or worse than most of the team. Villa's performance and our tactical problems stifled most of our players, not just Smith.

All what negativity?

Yeah I noticed Sam told Oba and Milner to switch flanks within the first 15 or so minutes because you could see straight away that Young had been told to give Carr a hard time and Oba wasn't giving him enough protection.

Apart from his one comedy moment, can you give any examples to back that up? He was beaten in the air once or twice by Carew, but stood his ground. He was leading the defence yesterday, his positioning was excellent and he was playing it out along the ground, which is more than can be said for Rozehnal who was part of the problem with his long balls costing us possession and putting people under pressure. I thought Rozehnal "got away with it" a few times where he let players outmuscle him or get goal side of him, and he broke ranks once or twice as he got drawn towards the ball. I don't want to be too critical of him because he does have qualities, he's certainly quick, tall, seems to have a decent enough reading of the game and he's a calm head at the back, but as Sam alluded to before the Bolton game he can't afford to be doing these things in the Premiership because once managers are aware of his weaknesses they will look to expose him. Hopefully in time he'll get to grips with what the Premiership is all about, I think he has what it takes. Getting back to Taylor, I thought he was very solid yesterday and certainly didn't look like a 21 year old in the heart of our defence. Very professional performance, barring his one 'moment'.

I agree about Dyer, I was a bit surprised at all the reaction when he left, because Smith is not a like for like replacement. We've lost valuable pace and direct running from midfield and people were happy about it, but yesterday provided a small reality check I think. I do believe Zoggy coming into midfield when Enrique's available will give us more options though, as we can go with two genuine wingers, an option not available to us yesterday and one Villa took advantage of I thought.

A lot of money and wages for a 31-year old. I tend to think though that the cost of sticking with a sh*te player like Carr can be greater over the course of an entire season. Belletti will be more effective at both ends of the field, but represents a very short term solution.

Is this the way things are going to be all season? This thread is a knee jerk reaction itself, there's hardly any doom and gloom about man. Most people were philosophical after the match and admitted there's work needs to be done. Then I read all this stuff like "ffs it's week 2 chill out man your fickle as f*** you". Why don't we just call a spade a spade, give Sam/the team praise where they've done a good job, and constructive criticism where they haven't? To say "we did have our chances" sounds good but it's not true and I doubt any neutral watching that match or any Villa fan would agree with that assertion. Taking a step back, 4 points from 6 is a decent enough start, but there's a lot of work to be done yet and most of the reactions I've heard/read were in relation to the performance and not the result, which is fair enough.

He did cut inside way too much, but I thought he felt a bit uncomfortable taking risks because of the huge gap he'd be leaving behind him. The couple of times he tried to skin his man in the first half he skipped past him with ease. Whether Sam told him to go easy or whether it was his own doing, we don't know. Like against Sampdoria, move him onto the wing and he'll be a lot more willing to take players on and make things happen. When Enrique is in the team and N'Zogbia can play left wing we'll see him taking on players more I think, as we did when he moved up to the wing against Sampdoria and changed the game.

I think the vast majority of the fans in the ground agreed yesterday that we needed to go two up front with two wingers quite early in the game. While there's 2 points to gain and 1 to lose, Sam's a cautious manager who would rather not lose the game and I think our approach reflected that. However there will be poor teams who come to St James' hoping we line up like that because they will do the same and look to cancel each other out and maybe nick a winner. We need to be prepared to go 4-4-2 when sides like Wigan come looking to stifle us.

Milner's actually one of our most creative players. His crosses have improved unbelievably and his control of the ball is quite supreme now. His development as a player over the past couple of seasons is unparalleled with anyone else in the squad. I don't think he lost the ball easily once. Even when he was being marked by two players late in the game, he always made sure he got something out of it, even if it was just a throw-in. If you're going to whinge, at least make sure you know what you're whinging about. The forum's gone berserk in one day just because we drew to a solid team which was organised by someone reknowned for being one of the most solid managers in the game. It's two games into the season. We have 4 points, which is 2 more than Manyoo have, 1 more than Spurs have and 3 more than Villa have. RELAX! Our transfer spending isn't over, our new signings are still adapting and our defence kept a clean sheet yesterday. We're also missing our vice-captain who's also our most consistent performer, our 'best' striker is not near match-fit and we're playing our best left-winger at left-back. The best is yet to come, the world's not ending, it's not going to go downhill for here, just be patient and lower your expectations. Good points. I espescially agree on Milner, how anyone can criticise him at the moment is beyond me. In some ways yesterday's result was needed, because there were too many fans who needed to take a step back. This game presented more questions than answers. Can Martins play in that deeper wide right/left role? Personally, I think he needs to be playing further up the pitch to be effective. Noone was ever going to set him free with a through/long ball yesterday because he always picked it up with defenders to beat. Time will tell. Will 4-3-3 work? In time probably, but at home I think we need to be prepared to go for 3 points against teams like Villa. The team was crying out for wingers yesterday, and something more than Viduka to aim at, but we were paranoid of losing the midfield. Part of the reason we lost the midfield at times was because their defence wasn't at all scared of Viduka's "pace" and pushed right up, leaving us outnumbered in that area. Two strikers up front and I doubt Villa would have had that luxury. When Owen came on, Villa sat a bit deeper. Villa would also have been happy about our lack of width or pace in midfield/up front as it made their job a lot easier. Villa deserve some credit for a thoroughly professional away performance. But we made them look good because we never asked any questions of them. Teams shouldn't be coming to St James' and getting an easy ride like that. It was the performance that got me more than the result, 4 points out of 6 is a decent enough start but there's a reason we're almost 10 hours without a goal at St James' and it's because of tepid performances like this. Lots to work on.

If Allardyce is going to be heavily praised for what he's achieved, I think he has to take a bit of constructive criticism for what went on out there today. Quite simply there was no movement, no pace, no width, for large parts of the game we were playing way too deep, it was desperate stuff. I'm a bit surprised by all the positive reaction on Rozehnal. He's impressed me in pre-season, and I know there's always supposed to be the benefit of the doubt with new (and foreign) signings, but I thought he didn't take enough responsibility today, and left Taylor doing a lot of the work. He gets pulled out of position quite easily, bombs forwards for 'all or nothing' tackles and shy's out of the odd balls that centre backs really should be winning. He didn't have a bad game, no major mistakes to speak of, but he's not deserving of all this praise. For a defender who wears white boots and apparently fancies himself as a cultured ballplaying defender, he did an awful lot of hoof and hope when the likes of Butt, Smith and Geremi were giving him options. Taylor made one shocking mistake which could have been costly, but apart from that he was solid, and yet he doesn't get a mention. Seems to be the way at the moment. Milner deserves a mention, as the only player in black and white willing to find space and run at people. Zog tried to make forays forward but cut inside way too much. Viduka looked way off the pace and was rightly replaced by Ameobi. Martins had another one of those days, he needs to be playing further up the pitch to be effective. There's still a lot of hard work to be done. We didn't stretch them and never deserved anything more than a point. Throughout the game we were hoping for a 30 yard screamer, a corner, a free-kick, a dodgy pen. A goal was never going to come from open play, we could have played for hours. I hate to say it but we could really have done with Dyer and Solano today. It's all well and good having shiny new players but the pace, directness and creativity of those two was in bloody short supply today.

From our favourite local journalist today:

Good news. The BBC site did have him as a starter earlier, but then changed his name for Meite. Looks like Faye once again hasn't travelled.