[Archived] Aston Villa FA Cup game

[joey_big_nose]

If Kean is going to pick that crap midfield in the league expect to lose a fair few of our remaining games. Been saying it for weeks and I will be saying it again, it's time to drop Pedersen from the team. If that means that Lowe comes in or we play two defensive minded midfielders and then have to focus the play on wings then so be it.

Roberts once again showed he is an impact player coming off the bench against tired legs and not a starter.

Being out of the cup means we can fully focus on the league, however i really wanted a cup run this year and I'm disapointed we are out of it.

We did play two defensive midfielders - Nzonzi and Andrews. Pedersen was on the left.

[FourLaneBlue]

What the hell do we need to be concentrating on the league for? No other team has played more games than us. It's not as if we had a run in the League Cup now, is it?

Not a good day at the office for Kean or our fringe players.

[philipl]

What the hell do we need to be concentrating on the league for? No other team has played more games than us. It's not as if we had a run in the League Cup now, is it?

Not a good day at the office for Kean or our fringe players.

Agreed and Villa will be a far more formidable prospect when we go back to Villa Park in three weeks' time than they were today.

Anyway, back to the grind of looking for an all top 6 Cup Final so 7th gets a Europa League place- assuming we can keep the league form going.

[MarkBRFC71]

Hand on heart - who thought we'd get anything with our worst possible centre-midfield pairing??

[67splitscreen]

Didn't expect a win, hoped we could have got them back to Ewood, disappointed in what sounded like a poor performance in so many ways.

Spuds next, back on home ground and hopefully Kean and the players will put a smile back on our faces.

[92er]

Andrews hat trick - that'll shut you all up.

2 hat tricks might have done.

[dj54nna]

Can we cancel Keith Andrews' contract on the grounds that he isn't actually a footballer?

Absolutely horrific today. He needs getting rid of as soon as possible. Would have played Diouf over him any day.

Grella played ok, for someone who hasn't played in forever.

[Presty On Tour]

Gutting, dreams of Wembley down the pan for another season.

Really hope the Rocky injury isn't bad.

[Seggie]

I didn't see or hear anything about the game apart from the Internet commentry but I would hope with the way Kean set up the idea was to give Santa some game time and he probably tweaked his hamstring and was pulled off as a precaution, hopefuly he will start against Spurs.

Just to make things worse Bentley has scored a wonder goal

[92er]

Remove Wembley from your satnav. The FA will have paid for it by the time we visit

That was funny.

That is a pathetically bad substitution.

It seems to be his style.

[92er]

.

Got to say I'm yet to be impressed with Hanley he doesn't look up to it at this level yet.

This is strange as people who were watching youth/reserve teams thought Hanley was ahead of Jones in his development.

What the hell do we need to be concentrating on the league for? No other team has played more games than us. It's not as if we had a run in the League Cup now, is it?

Not a good day at the office for Kean or our fringe players.

All good points.

Especially as Kean said on Radio Lancs he wanted a good cup run.

[True Blue & White]

Steve Kean should sell Yo Yos

[Billy Castell]

Maybe Karl Pilkington managed todays game. It was a bad result, but hopefully a few good signings will cheer us up.

[Amo]

What the hell do we need to be concentrating on the league for?

The league is precariously tight. Get a good run of results and we could be Euro contenders, slip up and we'll be staring at relegation. As today proved, we haven't got strength in depth.

[imy9]

Kean says RSC taken off as a precaution, i reckon he'll be fit for the weekend.

[FourLaneBlue]

The league is precariously tight. Get a good run of results and we could be Euro contenders, slip up and we'll be staring at relegation. As today proved, we haven't got strength in depth.

Oh do me a favour. What, and you reckon a few more games in the cup will negatively impact that? Far more likely to have an effect of raising confidence levels and spurring us on. I can imagine the press conference..."yes, we went down due to losing almost all our last 14 matches. It was all down to us playing a couple of extra games in the cup!"

Besides, what is the point of getting into Europe? It might affect our league position! Why enter the cup competitions at all?

We should have played our full-strength team. Sam didn't last year in the FA Cup, but we at least had a semi-final to look forward to.

I really thought with bringing in Jones that the days were gone of seeing Keith Andrews starting for us.

[m1st]

Kean said on Radio Lancs he wanted a good cup run.

Just because any manager says something like that on the media doesn't mean it's actually what he really thinks. I'm not in the Radio Lancs catchment area so I didn't hear the interview; but he's hardly going to say, "No; I don't want us to win this game.", is he?

I'm sad that we've not won [as I am when we don't win any match]; but it's not the end of the world. Not that I think League safety is at risk, I'd have thought that it was a higher priority than F.A. Cup success this season.

The team that Kean put out today [as lots of Premier League clubs will have done this weekend] smacked to me of allowing him to bring in squad players so that he can have his first look as manager at them against Premier League [admittedly reduced strength] opposition and to give players like Rocque some match time. Pity that experiment didn't work; but I think it was worth it.

[cruz]

That was funny.

But sadly just as true as your sarcasm

[Wing Wizard Windy Miller]

Today just highlights that we have a very weak squad. Out of interest where was M B Diouf?

[92er]

But sadly just as true as your sarcasm

When I read it, it just amused me.

Not intended as sarcasm.

Just because any manager says something like that on the media doesn't mean it's actually what he really thinks. I'm not in the Radio Lancs catchment area so I didn't hear the interview; but he's hardly going to say, "No; I don't want us to win this game.", is he?

.

We have had a number of managers who have played down the importance of cup and even european matches.

Kean really sounded as though he wanted a good cup run as a means of improving the club.

[only2garners]

I presume I'm one of the first who was actually at the game to get back. No matter what you think about Pedersen and Andrews (and neither were as bad as you would believe from comments above), we lost the game because of conceding three poor goals. Two free headers and a failure twice to get a ball away suggests to me the problem was at the heart of the defence. Both Hanley and Samba were poor and Olsson wasn't much better. as well as a failure to clear he was consistently hesitant in going forward up the wing - in the end Pedersen started not to pass to him as he was checking back so much. I know I'm not really allowed to criticise Samba on here but really he looked completely disinterested today. I hope it's a case of not being up for the cup rather than settling for an easy life on a new contract.

[bep]

I think to be fair Steve Keane had to give squad players a go to see what they can do playing in a different system,now he has seen them let's hope we make a concerted effort to strengthen before the window closes.

[92er]

I presume I'm one of the first who was actually at the game to get back. No matter what you think about Pedersen and Andrews (and neither were as bad as you would believe from comments above), we lost the game because of conceding three poor goals.

.

That is what Radio Lancs said.

Just read a link on the RSC postings in which Kean talks about not only the bad goals conceded, but the 8 good chances we had.

[DavidMailsTightPerm]

Not SK's finest hour. Most supporters woould have picked a better team and selection of subs.

But most supporters aren't aware of injuries - drop in fitness levels etc. Also - whether rated or not - Andrews and Nzonzi needed some game time.

The whole approach to this game made me think Spuds was more of a priority. I wonder how close Givet and Nelsen were to playing today.

[cn174]

I presume I'm one of the first who was actually at the game to get back. No matter what you think about Pedersen and Andrews (and neither were as bad as you would believe from comments above), we lost the game because of conceding three poor goals. Two free headers and a failure twice to get a ball away suggests to me the problem was at the heart of the defence. Both Hanley and Samba were poor and Olsson wasn't much better. as well as a failure to clear he was consistently hesitant in going forward up the wing - in the end Pedersen started not to pass to him as he was checking back so much. I know I'm not really allowed to criticise Samba on here but really he looked completely disinterested today. I hope it's a case of not being up for the cup rather than settling for an easy life on a new contract.

I agree with that. Our central defence did not look very good today. The lack of anyone playing on the right side of midfield (I think Andrews was supposed to be there - cos Hoilett deffo wasn't) meant that Salgado was very exposed all the time. Luckily Villa did not rally take advantage of this.

The midfield was infuriating, especially Nzonzi. Does he ever pass a ball forward?! Pedersen and Andrews didn't play well, although Andrews did play a class ball to Salgado for the Rovers goal - if Dunn had made that we'd be loving it.

All in all it was a very frustrating afternoon for two reasons.

Firstly, we did seem to have quite a lot of the ball, but just didn't have any creativity to do anything with it. I completely forgot that they'd gone down to 10 men, really didn't feel that way.

Secondly, the tactics clearly weren't working for us in the 2nd half, so why not change it?! Bringing Benjani on with 5 minutes to go is not a good substitution at all!