Probably end up as miss of the season will that. Open goal from one yard out, must have bottled it and closed his eyes. It's the only explanation I can think of.
Hogan spent the entire game either slicing shots wide or running offside. He was right to be subbed off. It's just a shame for Bruce that Slutski didn't mess around counteracting his Samba sub.
I think I was one of the offending 'likers'. I didn't realise it would cause such hurt across the other side of the world, but I stand by it as I feel tough lessons need to be learned at times. It's for the good of the board in general. I don't post all that much these days but still like a read and felt I had to do my bit to raise awareness (as if it were needed) of the incessant bores and bloody-minded argumentative twerps who block this place up every day with human sized internet turds in speech form. There are many on this board, in fact they're over represented in my opinion. It's boring. No regrets.
He deffo looked interested! Maybe putting himself in the shop window? Hopefully he plays like that in September?
Indeed it did. Part of the answer is getting Campbell up to full match fitness, because he clearly isn't.
Yesterday showed were we are despite the supporters doom and gloom. Villa will be right up their this year and we went to there place and came away with a point. It's a very very good point. With Villa and Boro dropping points on the opening day, it shows how wide open the league is going to be. We need to bring in 5/6/7 players and if we do, we'll be right up there. I didn't think there was much between the two sides despite our appalling start.
It should have been over by half time. And there's no proof after one game that Villa are major contenders this season, people said exactly the same at the start of last season. Slutsky himself said after the game that he needs a couple of games to get things sorted, so he obviously wasn't satisfied.
It wasn't over by half time though, was it? A fairly typical Steve Bruce team (he's a great part of our history and it would be daft not to recognise that and what we learnt from it) performance which we suffered from aplenty. The flip side is that Bruce seems to have the players to polish and improve, which will make them a constant threat for any team at this level. Slutsky will be reasonably happy with much of yesterday's performance, but he needs further recruitment and everyone seems to accept that. Important weeks to come.
It's great to see all the tweets of congratulations to Bowen (and Clark) from all the other players, even the likes of Curtis and Robbo.
I would but I'm afraid he'd get lynched if he was seen down my cul de sac. If you think I'm bad you should see my neighbours. It's like Beckham after France '98 down here. Effigies swinging from lampposts, there's a checkpoint with at least two residents standing guard with pick axe handles making sure he doesn't come down our close. They've even got a brazier, signed photos' of Bowen are being used as kindling and there's talk of burning a shirt with his name and number on the back at some point this afternoon. It's little wonder I despise him, I'm surrounded by such hatred and vitriol. Henry,the pensioner who lives across the close from me, kicked off in the Co op because they've employed a blonde haired lad who comes from Bristol. I pointed out to him that Bowen was from Herefordshire but he wasn't having it. Said it was close enough.
I don't think Bruce improved players that much here, and a normal Bruce team at City surely played weak first half but was better second. Villa supporters saw them lose leads a fair bit last season, so to them this game was deja vu. Both teams need to score more than is likely at this point.