Aston Villa Preview

[RevidgeBlue]

I don't know if too much can be read into tonight, it was a case of if anything can possibly go wrong it will.

First half we were much the better side until they scored, albeit it was a case of pretty tippy tappy football not really getting us anywhere.

The opening goal which I think swung the game was due to an absolute howler by Friedel. If you start coming for the ball you've got to get it. Unacceptable.

After that we went for pieces for the remainder of the first half and I was happy to get into the interval only one down.

I still had hopes we could pull it back and indeed we started much brighter second half, but then...........................

The penalty, just seen it on TV and I think there's a stronger case for a yellow card for diving.

After that it was academic.

Very disappointed with Bentley. People go on about MGP but I thought DB was abysmal tonight and has been poor by his standards all season. The England thing is over and done with now (albeit he has acquired celebrity or notoriety status) and he needs to start pulling his finger out for us.

[Plastic Head]

Right some serious stuff here...

This will probably be deleted I know but can I state that these are MY opinions and will gladly see anyone in court who should wish to challenge them, because they cannot br PROVEN to be incorrect.

The crux of the matter is that today's game was refereed by a "man" from Staffordshire, a well know Villa heartland.

He has set out, along with his assisitants from a similar part of the world, to ensure that the result was well in favour of Villa.

Whether this was for monetary gain or because he is a Villa fan is open to debate.

I have a friend who is involved in football in Staffordshire and will find out more tomorrow. I will also be asking the FA to start an immiediate investigation into this matter and depending on what I find may involve the Police.

In view of todays other events my continued interst in this "game" may well end.

The fact that the club have allowed this to occur also brings their judgement into question.

Ok got a few of you going there..............

But don't anyone think it's odd that a Staffs guy is reffing Rovers v Villa?

Surely this leaves the ref open to these type of accusations. And I am surprised Rovers didn't challenge it. Maybe they did and we don't know.

Could be when we play Villa away the ref will be from Clitheroe.....???? Or Lower Darwen...even better me !!!!!

[RevidgeBlue]

P.S. doesn't Dowd have a history of "wrongly" sending our players off?

Can't remember specifically but was it away at Anfield or Goodison?

[thenodrog]

1. Villa are a very strong team. 2 Big away wins on the spin for them now.

2. I've said this loads of times but a penalty is punishment enough and sending offs spoil the game for all!

3. One part of me is quite happy that Villa won if only to rub the knobheads on the BBurn Ends noses in it for the infantile booing of Barry and Carson. We all know that England were poor v Croatia but I cannot find it in me to boo those two.

4. Too many big decisions went Villa's tonight. If video replays prove that many were wrong then Dowd needs disciplinary action to prevent him doing so again.

[AggyBlue]

4. Too many big decisions went Villa's tonight. If video replays prove that many were wrong then Dowd needs disciplinary action to prevent him doing so again.

The trouble is that nobody ever studies the video to access the ref, it just gets swept under the carpet.

Far too many referee's ref us to the letter of the law, but not our opponents.

We see time and time again Rovers getting pulled up for offences that our opposition get away with.

[USABlue]

First half we were much the better side until they scored, albeit it was a case of pretty tippy tappy football not really getting us anywhere.

I've been a bit concerned about that for a few games now Rev, good to watch but, I think it was our last home game, we took the tippy tap one touch pass when I thought we had a bead on their goal and should have been going for the jugular. Hope this was just a throw one in, lose to the Geordies, which I feel we might and we areright back amongst the ho hum teams.

[Presty On Tour]

i would of loved to of been a fly on the wall in the changing rooms to hear what hughes said after the game.

4-0 loss at home is really hard to take and i'm finding it difficult to come to terms with it, were we really that bad tonight.

manager of the month award strikes again!!

[modes98]

Just got back and watched the match back. The villa curse strikes again.

Mr Dowd and his "assistant", who did nothing to assist but more to hinder our progress, had shocker's. Will this be all over the press tomorrow like previous big errors? No. Will anything be done about it? No. There is no consistency from premiership refs today.

Performance wise i have no idea how we lost 4-0. We outplayed villa for vast periods of the game and even with 10 men. The key difference was Villa taking the little chances that fell there way and we didn't.

The opening goal which I think swung the game was due to an absolute howler by Friedel. If you start coming for the ball you've got to get it. Unacceptable.

The penalty, just seen it on TV and I think there's a stronger case for a yellow card for diving.

In the first half at set pieces it seemed as if Benni was given the role of marking Carew..... Before the free kick came in Samba stood in front of Carew and then walked off to go and mark someone else. Benni then turned and looked around for help as he stood no chance against Carew and was left rooted when the ball came in. Brad made his decision on the strength of the fact nobody picked him up and challenged him for the ball. There is noway if Samba or Nelsen, as they should have, had picked up Carew that Brad would have come for the cross. Granted didn't get there but i feel the blame lies more at the feet of the Defenders for that one.

The penalty is difficult. Agwhatshisface made it seem 10 billion times worse than it was but Nelsen had hold of his shirt for a split second. Not a red in a million years, as much as villa fans argue by the letter of the law, there was at least 1 defender behind him meaning he wasn't the last man.

I still think the Bouma handball is a penalty, his arm is away from his body and he gains control of the ball by using his arm. There is no intent but there doesn't need to be.

A few more niggley things that annoyed me where the ref not booking Young for his dive in the box and Barry for kicking the ball away.

I have a feeling we are going to belt Newcastle on Saturday

[philipl]

A few disjointed ramblings:

- I saw the game between the 5th and about 30th minutes (I just missed seeing the Benni "goal"). In those minutes I saw some of the best football I hve seen Rovers produce. Bentley was superb at controlling difficult balls and retaining posession, everything vaguely in Santa Cruz' direction he got and Benni was just sublime. If that had been Man U, the journalistic ecstacy would be covering the sports pages today.

- Villa defended brilliantly

- In fact we have to recognise Villa are the most likely club to disrupt the Big 4. When they beat Chelsea 2-0, I thought they mugged Chelsea exactly how a Big 4 club mugs little ones and they mugged us the same way last night. The competition for CL places is the Big 4, City, Villa and it might include Pompey and it might include us but simply getting ahead of one of the Big 4 is not going to be enough to get CL qualification.

- It sounds like our defensive organisation totally failed for the free kick opening goal. We have had a few stupid lapses this season.

- Nelsen is not the player he was, sorry to say. This 3 match ban could be the cruelest of kindnesses as I suspect that Ooijer and Samba at CB and Emerton back at RB will prove to be the strongest defensive combination.

- The crude statistics point to something wierd happening last night and it appears that Mr Dowds was the wonk wko made the difference.

- Since the Citeh game, Rovers' foul count has been below that of the opposition in every game. If you look at the card count since then, it is clear we are being reffed on reputation and not on what is happening on the field of play.

- Plastic Head may or may not be living up or down to his name with that post but I noticed last season and this one that refs are getting games very close to their home patch teams in ways they never used to before. This maybe a product of the Lancashire and London League (the Premiership) making geography difficult or it might be there has been a sinister changing of the rules for ref appointments.

- Finally, it appears that there are some complete drongos following the Rovers now. Booing Carson and Barry!

[Paul]

Finally, it appears that there are some complete drongos following the Rovers now. Booing Carson and Barry!

Not some, it sounded like a sizeable proportion of the Blackburn End.

[Ewood Spark]

Quote of the night ... heard on Radio Rovers on way home after the game ...... "For thirty minutes Rovers taught Villa a footballing lesson .... trouble is they learned!".

[Alan75]

Not some, it sounded like a sizeable proportion of the Blackburn End.

The BBE is becoming an unpleasurable area of the ground to sit in. for a number of reasons.

Fans with no respect for others,

Fans with no idea what is going on, on the field of play

Late arrival at seat before kick off and at half time

Early exit from seat at half time

Abuse at players, for no apperent reason

Abuse of stewards or anyone else in authority.

The drummer

[Blueboy Downunder]

i am shocked by the result, first and foremost. i thought we dominated until that red card for nelly, was it a straight red card?? i ahve no problem at all with the penalty they got as it was as blatent as you'll see in taht situation. the red card however, completely killed the game as a contest and i thought it was very very harsh on ryan and the team. we got completely overrun by villa and they showed us how to play against a team with 10 men...find the spaces and make your opponents run around like silly buggers, to which they did exactly that and got the goals, to almost make the game look like a farce.

don't know what else to say!

[Exiled_Rover]

The BBE is becoming an unpleasurable area of the ground to sit in. for a number of reasons.

Fans with no respect for others,

Fans with no idea what is going on, on the field of play

Late arrival at seat before kick off and at half time

Early exit from seat at half time

Abuse at players, for no apperent reason

Abuse of stewards or anyone else in authority.

The drummer

The simple answer would be to move. I'm sure you'd prefer it in the morgue.

[USABlue]

A few disjointed ramblings:

- I saw the game between the 5th and about 30th minutes (I just missed seeing the Benni "goal"). In those minutes I saw some of the best football I hve seen Rovers produce. Bentley was superb at controlling difficult balls and retaining posession, everything vaguely in Santa Cruz' direction he got and Benni was just sublime. If that had been Man U, the journalistic ecstacy would be covering the sports pages today.

- Villa defended brilliantly

- In fact we have to recognise Villa are the most likely club to disrupt the Big 4. When they beat Chelsea 2-0, I thought they mugged Chelsea exactly how a Big 4 club mugs little ones and they mugged us the same way last night. The competition for CL places is the Big 4, City, Villa and it might include Pompey and it might include us but simply getting ahead of one of the Big 4 is not going to be enough to get CL qualification.

- It sounds like our defensive organisation totally failed for the free kick opening goal. We have had a few stupid lapses this season.

- Nelsen is not the player he was, sorry to say. This 3 match ban could be the cruelest of kindnesses as I suspect that Ooijer and Samba at CB and Emerton back at RB will prove to be the strongest defensive combination.

- The crude statistics point to something wierd happening last night and it appears that Mr Dowds was the wonk wko made the difference.

- Since the Citeh game, Rovers' foul count has been below that of the opposition in every game. If you look at the card count since then, it is clear we are being reffed on reputation and not on what is happening on the field of play.

- Plastic Head may or may not be living up or down to his name with that post but I noticed last season and this one that refs are getting games very close to their home patch teams in ways they never used to before. This maybe a product of the Lancashire and London League (the Premiership) making geography difficult or it might be there has been a sinister changing of the rules for ref appointments.

- Finally, it appears that there are some complete drongos following the Rovers now. Booing Carson and Barry!

Anagram of NoDrogs????

Why a red card for a shirt tug in the box???? Can someone explain that for me.

[jim mk2]

Villa are turning into a typical O'Neill team like the sides he had at Leicester and Celtic - big players, physically strong, organised and disciplined. Remember the Celtic performance at Ewood in the Uefa Cup ?

They, Everton, City and possibly Man City and Portsmouth are all likely to finish above us in the league.

[Steve]

Groan moan stupid ref!

I need some good excuses I have three Aston Vanilla fans singing chim chim carew to me

I didnt watch it though as I could feel a beating coming on.....

[CAPT KAYOS]

I don't know if too much can be read into tonight, it was a case of if anything can possibly go wrong it will.

First half we were much the better side until they scored, albeit it was a case of pretty tippy tappy football not really getting us anywhere.

The opening goal which I think swung the game was due to an absolute howler by Friedel. If you start coming for the ball you've got to get it. Unacceptable.

After that we went for pieces for the remainder of the first half and I was happy to get into the interval only one down.

I still had hopes we could pull it back and indeed we started much brighter second half, but then...........................

The penalty, just seen it on TV and I think there's a stronger case for a yellow card for diving.

After that it was academic.

Very disappointed with Bentley. People go on about MGP but I thought DB was abysmal tonight and has been poor by his standards all season. The England thing is over and done with now (albeit he has acquired celebrity or notoriety status) and he needs to start pulling his finger out for us.

Looks like we are back to agreeing Rev - have said before re the tip tappy and our laborious 'talent' in attacking in and around the box- yet for a periods last night we where excellent upto the edge of the box but the absolutely useless but then just stopped and kept going backwards

How can you go from playing some of the best football I have ever seen played at Ewood to getting mauled (robbed) then just giving up - maybe the players where as peed off with the 'officials /officially useless' - as the fans where with them.

I mentioned about Bentley in the Fulham thread and keeping him on the wing - he offers nothing unless on the right hand side and as for getting pushed of the ball / or was that diving again- Sparky please can you keep him there.

Thought Dunn tried but lacked any movement from anybody else for him to get anything going , and Oojer I thought played well.

Now for Nelsen - is anybody of the same as me thinking at the moment he is just a liability - he is making alot of mistakes and getting caught alot on the ball - I said at half time last night he needed taking off with Emerton being dropped back to RB and Oojer going into the middle - and bringing on Pedersen just to give us the balance -then looked what happened.

It has been mentioned by Mr E about teams with the statistics decisions going against them - this is something I posted last season and still guarantee that we would come out on top in this.

As for the tits booing - WTF was all that about - just part of the reason why England are in the mess they are in anyway and I would hazzard a guess are part of the 'new fan' brigade corrupted by the media and useless FA

Now the serious stuff - we can put alot down to the officials for last night but to me Villa where there for the taking and didn't show anything in my eyes to suggest the recent form they have been in the problem we have is what has been said for absolute ages, and our ability to finish off teams - we can be as fancy as we want but our final ball needs improving 100%, so we only have ourselves to blame on that ( but that is nothing new)

Without wingers we are at best an average team.

Our set pieces are amateur if that - can somebody please take the corners and freekicks off Bentley.

What last night said to me really , is how much the officials are spoiling the game for me in particular - I left early last night - id felt crap before I went on but was absolutely disgusted by the inept idiots tagged with the tit'e of officials and had seen enough. I am in two minds whether to go to the Newcastle game and am certainly not attending the West Ham game next week - season ticket or not.

One thing is certain at the moment my S/T is looking like it is not going to be renewed after nearly 20 years regardless of what we do this season - last night I ate the cherry of the top of the cake.

[OJRovers]

- Why wasn't Barry booked for kicking the ball away?

- Why wasn't Young booked for diving (like Bentley was at Fulham)?

[stuwilky]

Not some, it sounded like a sizeable proportion of the Blackburn End.

Yup. The vast vast majority of people.

[AggyBlue]

As for the tits booing - WTF was all that about - just part of the reason why England are in the mess they are in anyway and I would hazzard a guess are part of the 'new fan' brigade corrupted by the media and useless FA

So opposition players shouldn't get the bird now. Jeez. Should we be cheering them?

I felt like booing Bentley after his dive at Fulham, the stupid basket went and did it again last night, I'm very surprised the idiot Dowd didn't yellow card him for it.

[stuwilky]

I felt like booing Bentley after his dive at Fulham, the stupid basket went and did it again last night, I'm very surprised the idiot Dowd didn't yellow card him for it.

And he would have deserved it.

The plank.

[modes98]

Why a red card for a shirt tug in the box???? Can someone explain that for me.

Last man, denying a goal scoring opportunity. However both of those points are up for discussion.

I need some good excuses I have three Aston Vanilla fans singing chim chim carew to me

Yeah tell me about it. My stance has been, were you at the game or even see it? Come back to me when you have.

- Why wasn't Barry booked for kicking the ball away?

- Why wasn't Young booked for diving (like Bentley was at Fulham)?

Both should have been booked and are further examples of anti-rovers bias.

Yup. The vast vast majority of people.

I started booing carson but the psychology behind it was that if it put 1 second of doubt in his mind then it would benefit us. When it clearly didn't work i didn't bother and centered my abuse towards Mr Dowd.

[CAPT KAYOS]

So opposition players shouldn't get the bird now. Jeez. Should we be cheering them?

I felt like booing Bentley after his dive at Fulham, the stupid basket went and did it again last night, I'm very surprised the idiot Dowd didn't yellow card him for it.

Give them grief yes Aggy but not booing before a ball is kicked or they have done anything on the pitch.

All last night did in my eyes was spur both Barry and Carson on what's the point?

As for Bentley - totally agree and needs to get back to concentrating on his game

[Blackburn Ender]

Pretty, good football for 20-30 mins, mugged for the first goal. Nelsen was badly at fault for the penalty and turned the game against us.

Hasn't he previous for this?

Especially when Friedel is so often so good at stopping point blank shots.

After 0-2 O'Neill showed what a great tactician and organiser he is. I, too, recalled the Celtic games.

Can't understand why Bentley didn't switch to the right and I didn't understand/agree with Hughes' substitutions.

Although, to be honest, the game was up at 0-2. The last two goals were irrelevant.

I'm not blaming the officials - they were not at fault for the first two goals and the sending off is an interpretation that, while I don't agree with it, is there to be called.

Finally, the atmosphere. I agree with a couple of posts above.

The climate of negativity - abuse towards officials, opposing players, other fans, our own players, for God's sake - which begins virtually before a ball has been kicked makes Ewood Park a pretty unpleasant place to be in.

The drumming is tediously unimaginative and repetitive and gets on my nerves.

Sadly, it seems an awful lot of spectators turn up with a negative attitude and a desire to hurl abuse at anyone and anything.

I may be naive in wishing for something better, but it's not much fun and is a major factor in why I am going to Ewood Park less and less.