Taylor Swift

Ronaldo captain Transferred him in. Genius Have Drogba, Gerrard and Richards doing good as well Good week so far.

Why didn't Berbatov start? Thought him and Defoe were doing well together.

Sounds eerily familiar

I'd go for that too, rather than see Parker selected. blueeek.gif Jeez, now you're agreeing with me. I guess that bug must have lasted more than 24 hours

Tbh, our loss today can't be blamed on the fact that we weren't clinical enough in front of goals. We didn't have ONE clear cut chance, bar the penalty that is. We had a few chances here and there but never one that you would expect one of our attackers to score, again excluding the penalty. We just didn't create one clear cut chance. We were passing the ball in their half, true, but couldn't create the chance. Whether that's to be blamed on the lack of movement from our strikers, lack of vision/patience from our midfielders, lack of support from our midfielders, I don't know. Could be a number of factors. Fact is, however, we couldn't defend from the set-pieces. That can only be improved through organization and communication. Even the shittiest of defenders can be coached to defend a set-piece (see Bolton) and the best of defenders can be shite at defending them (see Liverpool last season). It's just down to coaching in this case.

We need Duff back for the game against Manyoo. If he's not back, I'm desperate enough to play Luque at LW because we need a left winger to be playing, and have Emre and Butt in the middle with Milner on the right. That's our best bet. I don't fancy seeing Dyer out on the wing because it takes him out of the game. I'd rather he float around with Martins up top, we seem to play better that way.

Ah that was shite. Here are my player ratings. Bear in mind that after they made it 3-0, I basically tuned out. Just shite. Given - 5. Couldn't kick today (literally). I thought he might have done better with the Neville goal considering the high standards that we have come to expect from him. Any other goalkeeper and I'd probably say that this goal was hard to save considering how much the ball was spinning and how wet it was but with Given, you just expect better. Solano - 5. Didn't notice his defending so I can't comment on that. Drifted in too much for my liking because he wasn't involved. Offensively, pretty much non-existant. His passes were either too short or too long, symptomatic of the team really. I hope it was just the pitch and how wet it was bluesigh.gif Huntington - 5. Was poor tbh. Offensively, he's like Ramage = fucking shit. However, that's to be expected from a CB playing as an LB. Defensively, he wasn't that good as well. Same with the rest of the defence. Taylor - 6. The only bright spot in defence? He still seemed calm and composed and was not at fault for any of our goals, which is a big plus. His anticipation has improved markedly and without him, it would have been a lot worse. Ramage - 6. Was good enough while he was on. Emre - 6. First half was decent as he was involved in our game. Second half just poor. Passes not finding targets (this applies to Dyer and Martins as well) and losing possession at crucial moments in our attack. Poor corners as well. Don't think many went past the first man, and when it did on the odd occasion, went over/past everybody else. Dyer - 6. Not his usual electric self. Ran at their defence once and guess what happened? We got a penalty. His passing wasn't crisp and certianly wasn't on the same wavelength with anyone else on the pitch. Milner 7. Best player on the pitch for us. Kept on running. His crosses are finding our men in the box more often than not now. He was the only one who ran at their defence consistently and it was obviousy he was our only outlet in attack. Butt - 5. Ineffective in the first half, started out the second half well as a CB but then his lack of experience playing in the position showed as he was caught out quite a few times. Marking was also suspect. Martins - 5. Disappointing from him after his decent performance in the first half. Penalty just ruined his confidence. His first touch was Shola-esque at times. Good points was he was trying to make things happen, but again, passes weren't finding teammates and/or wasn't weighted perfectly. Sibs - 5. Decent linkup play but didn't offer anything else. Movement was really non-existant and just couldn't get anything going with Martins. Shite defending from free kicks costed us goals. Can't believe we didn't at least score a goal. Poor penalty from Martins, really came out of nowhere that. Pick a foot man! We did play good possession football at times, but couldn't sustain it nor could we get a goal from the times that we were on top. That was the difference. When they were on top, they got their goals.

Heskey for Wigan and they lead at Vicarage Road.

Portsmouth lead 1-0. Taylor again FFS.

blueeek.gif First I heard he was 3 months out, then it came down to a month and now he's started training? Jesus.

blueyes.gif Only if we beat Everton by three though. If we just win, we'll move into 9th place

Heard he's out for a month at least, must be pretty serious then.

2-1 Hughes. Good stuff.

Would be nice if we got it

The Premiership has really been what it's all advertised out to be in the last few weeks. Loads of goals, loads of brilliant goals, loads of late goals and plenty of exciting and magnificent games

Charlton are all over Villa. I do not know how Aaron Hughes kept the ball out there. Magnificent defending.

Agreed. And the pity of it is that the reason Emre was on the bench is likely to be because Roeder doesn't have the balls to leave out his Captain ( a still hush descends over the forum....quiet respect for The Captain) when he's fit. :lol:

Bent 1-1. Brilliant goal/Mellberg mistake imo. He's stepped up his game (Bent that is) since he's been made captain in Luke Young's absence. Come on Charlton.

Would have loved to have seen what he could do with our squad, which i still believe is far superior to Villa's, at his disposal. They're not playing well atm. The recent run of form has just signalled the end of the honeymoon period. Let's see what he can with the transfer window and let's see how they end up finishing this season. The start they had was unbelievable by all accounts but we started the Souness reign with a 10 game unbeaten start...

How many penalties have Villa had this season? It's the only thing that's kept them away from the relegation dogfight. Martin O'Neill special my arse :roll: can't believe I actually wanted him in :oops:

Ambrose just hit the bar with an absolute gorgeous shot. Still 0-0 though.

hell fucking yeah

Isaksson was immense in the WC. especially in the game against the Germans. Ben Foster is also pretty underrated.

Into to the third round I go

So it's 11m then? Work it out titbox £10m + loan for 2 years, 1 year not given so £1m compensation so how much do you think they valued the first year at bluewink.gif but they actually only paid 11m!!