Gallowgate Toon

His position will always demand defensive responsibility, that's part of being a right winger in the modern game as full backs bomb on. We should be looking to move forward and back as a unit, currently we only move back, that's where our problem lies.

Agree with Cajun. Teams like Everton work hard at both getting forward and back, we work at the latter, but fail miserably at the former. Villa always had at least 3 in the box today when crosses were coming in, it's usually just Cisse for us, so it's no surprise we're poor on that front.

His position demands some defensive responsibility, I think he's been too deep this year but the work rate's fair enough. It's a fine balance, trying to be enough of a threat to keep the full back from pushing on but not staying so high that they capitalise on the space. We miss him creatively though, really badly, I really rate Marveaux as a creator but his mentality is what separates him from HBA. One will grab the game by the balls, the other waits for it to come to him.

He's a very good footballer but he's yet to prove himself a very good player. So much potential mind, his first touch and control are majestic.

What a goal.

Coutinho did not fancy going for that at all

Villa are wasteful, they play good stuff going forward but don't finish. They created against us but squandered great opportunities. Crap watching 2 progressive teams that pass forward and cross early etc.

Gouffran's seemingly his go-to guy when we need to make a change. No idea why he made that decision yesterday, Gouff was no worse than many others and was working fairly hard still.

It's so depressingly obvious as well, literally no team-wide gameplan, just give it to him and see what happens. I still think he's absolute class but he needs support, he won't work in his current role without more of it. I'd love to see a front 6 of Cabaye, Sissoko, Marveaux, Ben Arfa, Gouffran and Cisse, one day.

Pretty much, it's ridiculous watching him go past a couple of players for him to look up and there's only a heavily marked Papiss ahead of him.

He looks low on confidence and match practice.

He's properly relying on Sissoko at the minute. Never mind Cisse needing a bit of support, Sissoko needs it more, gets on a decent run and there's only one player within 20 yards of him.

Sucks all the fun out of football. I'd love to see us in an entertaining game now and then. Totally agree with that. This. I can take a loss but as long as we've given it a go, football just isn't fun like this and fronted by too many egocentric posers like Pardew.

I've defended performances like Stoke but this has really riled me, completely disrespects the fans. Can't think of the last time I turned a match off. At the end of the day, it's a game of football, go and have a go and stop taking yourself so seriously. The players looked immediately demotivated, probably by the tactics.

'I didn't have all my best players, so it's no surprise we got beat convincingly today. Man City are a top team, the best we've faced all year and are in terrific form'

What a crap substitution, might as well have taken off someone that can actually participate on Thursday.

Simpson looked like a van then.

You would have thought he'd have learned by now. His game plan will have been to get through 70 minutes without conceding and then bring on Marveaux. So gutless.

She went to my school, amazing what a bit of slap can do. Complete and utter wet blanket, not that he'll mind of course.

Entirely predictable. Their priorities are completely skewed, the fact they even state that nobody has seen the incident properly and have the gall to do nothing about it.

His reaction was apalling. If he had anything about him, he would've gone to the referee straight away, he didn't, which is a pretty good indicator as to what type of character he really is.

yeah, you can make things up if you like. I said i'd like a Benteke type. Big, strong and fast. Can run in behind but also hold it up/flick-ons. According to stats, Benteke would be something like twice the finisher of Cisse right? I notice Giroud's passing is seemingly the worst. I think those stats include headed passes attempts from flick-ons etc. The big lads have considerably worse pass retention. What's made up? You said he was better... Considering Benteke actually has a very similar conversion rate to Cisse this year, taking nearly twice as many shots per game, it would appear they're fairly level in that regard, one has simply had more opportunities than the other this season. Your last point might have been valid, if we weren't the biggest users of the long ball in the league. You don't think Cisse's not had the ball belted at him at head height a fair bit this year? You said Cisse didn't contribute enough, or to any effect, yet he finds a team mate 3 times out of 4 and is just involved in matches just as much as Van Persie. He's not just some poacher with no ability man.

How anyone can even begin to defend that, is beyond belief. Look at the way he goes in man, it's not like going to challenge a player who's booting the ball out, he's literally piled into his knee with feet off the ground. What the fuck was he thinking? How would that kind of tackle ended in the recipient not being completely taken out? There's no conceivable way he wouldn't have done serious damage there.

Dropout obviously loves a highlights player. He'll crucify Cisse's link-up play and no doubt bang on about Benteke being superior, and yet... Benteke's average pass accuracy this season 64.8%, Cisse's 73.9%. Since Villa, Cisse's PA has risen to 76.2% from an average of 23.1 passes per game. Compare that to some different strikers: RVP - 80.2% (from 26.8 per game). Giroud - 60.4% (20 PG) Michu - 77.7% (33 PG) Comparing him to some 'poachers' - Defoe only makes 14 passes per game on average, with 85% finding their man, Bent is 67.8% from 12 Not bad for a poacher that apparently can't get involved and contributes nothing to our play, doesn't seem too far off these 'real' footballers.

I'm a bit lost as to what happened after Debuchy went off, we were looking very good up until that point and suddenly it all changed. I don't know if that was down to Pardew or momentum changing but I'm leaning towards the former, I just don't see how they could have found an extra gear with our full back going off. As for the rest of the match, I can't complain too much about AP, only the Gouffran switch annoyed me. Thursday's tough game has been forgotten, the effect of which was doubled as 2 first half subs meant we really needed fresh legs in the second but couldn't, Sissoko in particular seemed to really be struggling. And then there's the mental aspect of that tackle too. I thought we put in a good shift in the second half, created some opportunities and could have had more but for some poor decision-making.