[Archived] The 2-1 Villa Preview Thread

[frosty]

Don Mackay said that Carlos was the poorest performer and thought he was struggling with prem football.

Strange, he got MOM in the Mirror and Lancashire Telegraph today. I didn't watch the game so I'm not sure who is correct.

[vintageadidas]

We played very well yesterday and lost to a team who will challenge the top 4 this year. How many teams will go to Villa and boss it as much as we did? The disappointing thing, as with Boro was the fact that they were there for the taking.

West Brom is now a major game, we lose and we get dragged into a group of 6 who could go down (even at this early stage of the season). We win and I think we will push on. Chelsea at home is a zero point game so all the more important we win at the Hawthornes.

Yesterday was one of the best games I have seen us play since Spurs away when we also got beat. Ince has certainly brought sexier football to the club (away from home that is).

Robinson – Should have done better with the third.

Simpson – Good game.

Ooijer – His lack of pace was shown for the second but rescued a clear goal scoring opportunity

Samba – Did well against Laursen.

Nelsen – Again, played well/

Pedersen – So slow, but better than previous games

Andrews – Played well, put his foot in and never gives the ball away.

Warnock – Played very well MOM and he suits that position.

Emerton – Very good game also

Carlos – Sometimes magical, sometimes a liability. Will get better.

Benni – Set up the goal, did little else in my opinion.

I think with RSC upfront we would have come away with at least something. Ince has had very little time with the squad, he started late and with all the internationals.

I am looking forward to next season under him once everything is settled.

[thenodrog]

I think blaming Samba for the third is harsh. Even if he was 5 yards further back he'd probably have still been beaten by raw pace.

Robinson could have done better. It wasn't struck hard and he got a touch on it but imo he went down too slow.

[thenodrog]

If Ince can find a way to get Cruz and McCarthy to actually perform together up front we could see some very very attractive football.

That is not the priority! Points are.

[gazsimm]

That is not the priority! Points are.

don't worry drog, i am sure if we keep playing like we did last night the points will come. Ince has done very well so far and has had very bad luck regarding injurys. We will finish about mid table i think this season, which will be a good 1st season for Ince.

[CrazyIvan]

This is a good interview and honestly sums up the game and the problem we have at present.

[waggy]

did not go to the match,listened on the radio and soaw the highlights on motd.don mackay said before half time rovers were giving the ball back to robbo far too much,this meant losing possesion/this has been a fault for at 3 seasons.my cousin WHO WENT TO THE GAME,AND EVERY POSTER WHO WENT SAID WE PLAYED WELL.now i know playing pretty football and losing is not everybodies cup off tea,but i don't mind watching attractive football.as soon as santa was not fit to line up,i was worried.benni should have gone last season,he is self centered and sulks.my cousin thought andrews was good,warnock great and emerton superb.to me all 3 goals were bad defending,were was samba for the 2nd?i reckon ZURAB needs recalling

[chileandude]

Well, this Blackburn has possession...so that's one big plus straight away. I don't see them struggling for the rest of the season...

As for Carlos...yes, of course he is not yet worth £5million...he's only played two full matches! As I understand the price was agreed beforehand, so obviously Audax predicts that at the end of the season he will be worth that much...and hopefully more. Also, I'll lend Carlos a hand...if pineapple has had to man of the match performances according to more than one critic...then what does that say about the rest of the team?

[CrazyIvan]

Well, this Blackburn has possession...so that's one big plus straight away. I don't see them struggling for the rest of the season...

As for Carlos...yes, of course he is not yet worth £5million...he's only played two full matches! As I understand the price was agreed beforehand, so obviously Audax predicts that at the end of the season he will be worth that much...and hopefully more. Also, I'll lend Carlos a hand...if pineapple has had to man of the match performances according to more than one critic...then what does that say about the rest of the team?

Personally, I think Carlos will only continue to improve. He has something magical in his game.

[BRFC95]

Personally, I think Carlos will only continue to improve. He has something magical in his game.

I hope you're right and not crazy

[92er]

Haven't seen any of the game but if we were pinging it around so well and getting a lot of shots in (mostly on target for a change) presumably he was playing his part.

I think it's the first start he has made which he didn't get subbed from so he is clearly building stamina and strength.

Philip-he stayed on for the whole of the Boro game.

[modes98]

Can we afford to weight all our expectations on one player.

When you only have 1 world class player in your team maybe you have to, even more so when it's a striker. Afterall the other 20 goal a season striker has misfired badly.

Last season we had Bentley and Santa. When you lose a top performer you really have to replace them, we don't seem to have the urgency to replace them.

[CAPT KAYOS]

Personally, I think Carlos will only continue to improve. He has something magical in his game.

from what I have seen of him - I totally agree on this.

[B.R.F.C]

First half we were by far the better side and our goal was a brilliant bit of slick passing, a smart layoff by Benni and a great run and finish by Stevie Warnock. We then created a couple of chances which might have produced a second and put us firmly in control.

I kept saying we need to hold this lead till half time or else we won't get something from the game and sure enough we conceded. The ball came in sliced off Sambas foot, hit Luke Young twice and somehow found its way into the net. No matter what way you look at it that was a fortunate goal and one that came at the right time for Villa.

Second half was even enough as we continued to play well but a bit of slack defending and Milner barge his way through to setup the 2nd for Barry. We should have muscled him off the ball and got rid but it wasn't to be. The onus was then on us to try and find an equaliser and MGP almost did. Agbonlahor hits us on the break and Danny Simpson went missing as was the case alot of last night...Samba had no chance. A great turn of pace and a smart finish. Game Over

A good free kick from Emerton in the dying minutes made the scoreline look more respectable from my PoV. A game we should have got a point out of but at the end of the day its the goals that matter and not the dominance.

A puzzling one from Ince was to bring off Benni and MGP who had linked up well replacing with Olsson and Matty. From that moment on we didn't create much and Villa dominated the final 15 minutes of the game. However as a positive from last night I reckon Ince is finally getting there in terms of getting our best formation and side.

As a further note I'm beginning to worry about Matty and his development in the past year. He has shown glimpes of being a quality striker but now it seems to me like he might be a little out of his depth at his weight and size. Hopefully Matty can prove me wrong on that one.

Hopefully we pickup some points on Saturday before Chelsea visit us next Sunday or else we could really be heading the wrong way fast in the table.

[Walls]

He's absolutely right. I'll say it again - Samba is marking Agbonlahor, but he's standing IN THEIR HALF. Defensive mistakes do no get any more basic than that. He allowed Agbonlahor to have a head start on him, but still be in his own half so not threatened by the offside flag. It's worse than schoolboy defending, it's ridiculously embarassing. What the hell was he playing at?!

Its not as simple as that though is it. You're taking the one event (Samba not marking Agbonlahor) and viewing it in isolation and not taking into consideration what happened in the build up to it. Tugay miss controlled the ball which resulted in a challenge with a Villa player and the ball breaking loose between Samba and Young. As Simpson was pushing up Young was on his own. Samba was then faced with either challenging for the loose ball or marking Gabby and letting Young run the ball and being left 2 v1 anyway. He seemed to get caught in 2 minds - initially making a move towards the ball and then realizing he would be laving Agbonlahor. In the end he neither went to challenge Young nor marked Gabby but to say the goal was his fault is unfair IMO.

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

Just like the Boro game we need to start turning this possession/good play into straight 3 pointers for the club as we are slowly but surely heading in the wromg direction in the table.

I cant help but feel we are just one or two players away from being a good footballing side and money MUST be made available in January.....its just frustrating at the moment.

[T4E]

Its not as simple as that though is it. You're taking the one event (Samba not marking Agbonlahor) and viewing it in isolation and not taking into consideration what happened in the build up to it. Tugay miss controlled the ball which resulted in a challenge with a Villa player and the ball breaking loose between Samba and Young. As Simpson was pushing up Young was on his own. Samba was then faced with either challenging for the loose ball or marking Gabby and letting Young run the ball and being left 2 v1 anyway. He seemed to get caught in 2 minds - initially making a move towards the ball and then realizing he would be laving Agbonlahor. In the end he neither went to challenge Young nor marked Gabby but to say the goal was his fault is unfair IMO.

The ball broke far closer to Young than it did to Samba - who should have had the awareness to realise that he was within 5 yards of Agbonlahor with no-one else anywhere close to them. As soon as it broke near Young, Samba should have immediately retreated. To get sucked towards the ball was a bad error in judgement - particularly in their half. Had Agbonlahor been in our half, Samba could have been forgiven for expecting the rest of the defence to be holding the same line, and we would have caught him offside.

I've taken a snapshot of the moment as Young played the ball, there is clearly a Rovers player close enough to have closed him down (I think it's Emerton), had Samba judged it correctly and dropped to cover Agbonlahor, Young would have had no ball to play and he would have been closed down. We made it ridiculously easy for them.

I understand your point, but I maintain this is another example of Samba not reading the game well enough at this level.

If anyone can host the photo by the way let me know.

[onlyoneDuff]

Not sure what match people were watching....Carlos does occasionally lose possession too easily, but some of the passes he made were pure class and you can't teach that. Morton, on the other hand, seemingly has lost a step when I'm not sure he had one to begin with. I'm not sure I saw one cross from the left wing and that's a problem. I would give Treacy a start Saturday and see if he can bring some much needed width to the team. Nelsen was good until the 45 th minute, poor thereafter. Would like to see a Zurab/Samba pairing Saturday.

[LeChuck]

If anyone can host the photo by the way let me know.

Stick it on here Neil: http://www.imageshack.us/

It'll give you the code to post here as well. I think.

[Exiled in Toronto]

Thanks to Setanta Canada I watched the whole game this morning.

As those who went said, we bossed the game for the most part. The goal was one of the best we have scored for years and Villa were offering nothing. Warnock and Andrews bossed midfield but we were short of options on the flanks. I thought Benni and Carlos looked like they could develop something special between them the more they play together.

The equaliser was a real scabby goal. Fair play to the guy, he attacked the ball in the box, but it pinged about it went in off his knee.

Second half I thought we looked good, but their second was a sickener. Samba went AWOL, Oooijer at least didn't let the guy through on goal or give a penalty away, the major fault for me was Nelsen getting sucked into a near post lunge when there was no need. If he had stood up and kept his position, he would have cleared the cross. After Warnock went off with what looked like double vision, we didn't have enough quality on the field and it began to show.

Unlucky not to equalise through MGP, but the third was a catalogue of errors. Tugay needlessly gave the ball away when everyone else had gone ahead of him; Samba was left for dead - I feel Samba does not defend well when we have the ball, he loses track of his man and is not ready for the unexpected - and Robinson should have got it really.

Player ratings:

Robinson - 4. At Villa Park you are going to need your goalie to come up big at some stage and he didn't

Simpson - 5 Some good things, some not so good.

Samba - 4 All his good play was undone with their last 2 goals

Nelsen - 5 Ditto with the 2nd

Ooijer - 7 I thought he had a better game than recently

Emerton - 6 Didn't do enough for me, didn't show himself for the ball enough

Andrews - 8. Definitely a Super-Atko sort of performance. He had 3 good goalbound shots and was otherwise neat and tidy

Warnock - 9 MoM

MGP - 4 If anyone looked a League 1 player it was him. No one else seems to want his place though

Carlos - 6 Curate's egg - very good in parts but gives it away a lot

Benni - 7 I thought he looked good until he tired, he was involved in just about all our chances

Tugay - 3 Looked 38

Derbs - 5 Got the freekick but that was about it

Olssen - 5 Didn't see much of the ball

I expected to lose this one but I didn;t expect us to dominate for long spells. It's still a work in progress but we really do need some qaulity on the flanks in January. The defending has been like this for a few years now - remember when we could only keep the score down with the Axe in front of them? I still think Zurab and Ooijer are the best pairing.

Interesting to see that the most vitriolic comments came from people who didn't see anything of the game. If we are going to slay Ince for a game and result like this then Hughes should have been similarly slayed 15 times a season, which of course he wasn't.

We won't go down.

[alexanders]

Andrews - 8. Definitely a Super-Atko sort of performance. He had 3 good goalbound shots and was otherwise neat and tidy

Nice to hear that Keith Andrews had a really good game. I think he has looked quite good when he has been on and I would like to see the pairing grella-andrews against WBA.

[jim mk2]

Emerton - 6 Didn't do enough for me, didn't show himself for the ball enough

Emerton has never been my favourite player but from my vantage point in the Villa Park stand I would say he had one of his best games in a Rovers shirt.

Unfair on Pedersen, who tried hard throughout, while I never really noticed Andrews. Biggest disappointment was Villaneuva, who gave the ball away and was caught in possession far too often. Robinson should have done better with the third goal but his catching, punching of the ball and decision-making with crosses was excellent.

[Exiled_Rover]

Emerton's been revitalised under Ince. Ideally he'd take on the Warnock role after January, with Warnock reverting back to LB and two wingers being brought in.

[T4E]

Stick it on here Neil: http://www.imageshack.us/

It'll give you the code to post here as well. I think.

Oh good, I was expecting to have to register.

OK, here it is (not great quality but the gist is there) -

EDIT: Bloody hell thats small. What did I do wrong?

EDIT2: Right, I've now made it larger but the board is telling me img tags are not allowed.

[T4E]

URL for it bigger is

http://img186.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sambavsvillaxl0.jpg