MAN CITY V ASTON VILLA 25 APR 5:30PM

Trotters wrote:And Benteke needs to change his first name by deed poll from Christian to Offside. He pissed me right off for 90 mins.

It's not all his fault though. When a ball is rolled slowly out wide as a striker you expect the ball to be put in first time so time your run based on that. So when benteke does that and then our wide men take a touch it means he's a couple of yards offside when the cross eventually comes in.

I'm not saying it's not his job to work that out over 90 minutes and make his run later, but sometimes you expect a professional footballer to be able to cross a ball without needing to stop it. Although if you look at our corners lately I can see why they can't cross a moving ball!

mefromhere wrote:

Trotters wrote:And Benteke needs to change his first name by deed poll from Christian to Offside. He pissed me right off for 90 mins.

It's not all his fault though. When a ball is rolled slowly out wide as a striker you expect the ball to be put in first time so time your run based on that. So when benteke does that and then our wide men take a touch it means he's a couple of yards offside when the cross eventually comes in.

I'm not saying it's not his job to work that out over 90 minutes and make his run later, but sometimes you expect a professional footballer to be able to cross a ball without needing to stop it. Although if you look at our corners lately I can see why they can't cross a moving ball!

Grealish and Benteke need to get to know each other. I liked the Liverpool match approach with N'Zog and Grealish given free rein but don't see N'Zog as anything other than a compromise. Remember that chap Gil? Would Sherwood have looked at Gralish being pushed around by the opposition yesterday and decided that he couldn't have two lightweight players in attack so would stick with just Grealish? Would Sinclair be better up front in support with Grealish? Even Bacuna (who already works well feeding Benteke and can score goals himself) allowing Hutton back in defence?

I think we were just set up too defensively yesterday, which allowed ManC to keep us in our half. Swapping defensive Westwood for attacking N'Zogbia helped massively, I think I'd still have preferred Gabby on to really run at their defence. And with Tim in charge why can't we have a percentage of a match with Benteke alone up front and then shift formation with Gabby on to use his pace and power to harrass the opposition? Would never have happened with Lambert.

I'm feeling much more positive about it all. Individual mistakes Tim can address.

I think Guzan's confidence is shot, not surprising after the last couple of seasons. It was noticable in the semi final that Given seemed to steady the ship - he has to play the remaining games and the final.

Typical of Villa we found a new way to lose a game we should never have lost.

This time frankly disgraceful errors which should never happen from a professional footballer and yet another dodgy sky-4-itis decision from the officials cost us ..as happens without fail every single year at the Etihad it must be said!!

So we go into 4 tough games to save our skins, what a shame Palace are on the beach and donated 3 points a piece to Leicester & now Hull else we would be practically safe now otherwise.... need to beat Everton.. they and Martinez have been doing my head in for a few years now so we owe them one Big time!

I'm still pissed off. Totally outplayed city for long periods & have dropped vital points. Would like to see Sinclair start against Everton & Sanchez dropped.

Let's not forget why we're battling relegation, it's because we're not a complete team. We have a couple of very good players and a majority of average players who make regular mistakes. We played a top two team yesterday and made them look awful.

We beat ourselves in the end, but I'm not going to get angry about it, because this Villa team needs a hell of a lot of work and changes before it becomes the real deal.

We didn't let ourselves down yesterday, we played above the sum total of our respective abilities. Unfortunately our known weaknesses resulted in enough fatal mistakes for Man City to scrape it.

We may well be relegated, because with just four games left we just don't know how many more glaring errors we'll make, but we have a good chance of survival if our positive play can outweigh our mistakes for the next 360 minutes of Premiership football.

Did any of us expect anything other than defeat yesterday , with Sherwood we at least had a go & as a fan that is all i can ask !

We gave a really good account of ourselves & our future is in our hands , we have finished with the "big" teams, there is no reason why we cant gain points in all our remaining fixtures & then relax for our historic cup win May 30th !

VillaBill wrote:Did any of us expect anything other than defeat yesterday , with Sherwood we at least had a go & as a fan that is all i can ask !

We gave a really good account of ourselves & our future is in our hands , we have finished with the "big" teams, there is no reason why we cant gain points in all our remaining fixtures & then relax for our historic cup win May 30th !

Good post .... let's make it happen!

I might be just getting my hopes up but I can see us taking points from all our remaining games. At least 2 wins and 2 draws.

I think we take 4-6 points from Everton and West Ham and that's us safe

At least our next opponents haven't hit any sort of form !

VillaBill wrote:At least our next opponents haven't hit any sort of form !

You're right Bill, it's only five wins out of the last six .... No worries!

It's time they lost again then.

Everton's last four away matches were drawn, won, lost, lost. They're playing well at home but then so are we.