Sign of the times that, in 2016, we're expectant of hammering a club like Aston Villa away, the 4th most successful club in England.
The win never came in doubt. We weren't that great, but Villa really didn't challenge us at all. Tadić was our best player imho. Don't know what to expect from the next two matches, I guess they'll show us a better picture of what level are we at the moment.
Well, a decent second half but we were sloppy defensively and endangered ourselves by conceding. Long was extremely wasteful today, however Tadic looked extremely good and Davis plus Romeu in the middle looked good. Surprised Mane did not start, however he made an impact and Rodriguez is starting to get back into the fold, so overall content.
This has been one of the strangest games I've ever seen. We've won 4-2 and yet I feel quite disappointed. The team were fairly poor but dominated the game, scored 4, hit the woodwork twice and could probably have had ten.
Strange game. One of those ones where you play down to the quality (or lack of) of the opposition. I wonder if the oddness of the atmosphere there, where the home fans were ostensibly taking the piss out of their own team was a factor. Never mind, it's a win, it's three points, and it's a shot in the arm for Dusan who is so clearly a confidence player. Yes Tadic and Mane looked good, but don't overlook Romeu, and I thought Clasie looked positive when he came on too.
Also, really pleased about how we kept the ball, I think that has been our weakness sometimes this season, but we were happy to recycle and won lots of second balls.
Just about encapsulates our season. Ron will be happy with the 3 points, but he is not going to be happy about the performance. However, I suppose the win is the important thing at this stage....especially with the 2 points dropped against Everton.
No one really played badly. It was just we didn't seem to stay on it as a team. The negative atmosphere and the lack of decent opposition may be behind it. I thought you could argue that Shane Long was both MotM and the worst player on the pitch at the same time quite convincingly!
It's pretty frustrating to watch. But tbf, it balances out to some extent. Long creates a lot more chances than most, but he's also more wasteful with those chances than most. In the end as long as he is scoring/assisting at a decent clip that's all that matters.
Good to win and 2-4 looks great but like the Newcastle game - the opposition were not there. We have lost games where we have played a lot better than this. We are not yet a top four team that steam rollers wins but we make it so hard because we play lovely football at times until the final third and then the back four get sloppy too
