Early doors - but getting points on the board at last. Much more concerned about closing the 5 point gap to catch WBA than the bottom four catching us. All the newbies want the same as us - prem football next year.
if the ball had of hit mackies knee/shin/left nut we'd have been 3-1 up and odds on to win. from the 30th min on it was all villa. mixed emotions tbh. happy with a point but with only 15 games left and only 21pts on the board every point is like gold dust so another 2 would have been handy.
Fair result I think. We more than held our own for the first half hour...if we'd have just held out until half time at 2-0 then things would have been very different. Thought Cisse looked class, but didn't really feel that we ever controlled the midfield, and Taiwo was skinned for Bent's goal. It's a slight concern to me that, like Traore, he prefers going forward - but at least he has presence I guess. Before we moan at the ref for fouls, it should be noted that Villa had a cast-iron penalty for handball in the first half............. 7 out of 10 for me - plenty to get excited about for the future. It's a sahme that crucial games against Wolves and Blackburn come so soon as I think we won't find our real form until the end of March....
Before the game any QPR fan would have taken a point. Villa Park is still a hard place to go and i truely thought we would get beat last night with the fact we had 3 players on debut along with hulse and derry in the starting x1. Saturday is our must win game. I just look at this round of games where we have edged a little bit further away from the bottom 3 after an away game at Villa, that has to be a good week for us. Personally thought 4 points this week would be what is needed and we can be 6 points from the drop by saturday night, would be happy with that.
We have to have A MIDFIELD ,that we did not have yesterday. That is the reason why Villa keep going up time after time and in the end equalised the match quite deserverly. Hope Taarabt is back for saturday because we really need a midfielder who can hold the ball and also could feed Cisse upfront. Yesterday we didn't have a one. Only Derry ,Mackie ,Taiwo and they just did kick the ball away from our half and usually straight to villa player. We need Faurlin ,Buszacky , Taarabt or that new bloke Diakate really bad. Well ,obvilously Ali can't come back until autumn and that's a shame.
Just a thought guys i know young has been great for us this season but he does seem to get drawn into the centre of the area when crosses come in and forgets all about the player coming from behind, i think it was his mistake for the second goal last night he tends to ball watch a lot.
Thought a point was a good result considering the amount of pressure we were under due to a posession squandering midfield. If we could just retain posession more and prevent the crosses we could have walked away with a win. If our midfield dont improve for Saturday could be a tough afternoon. Thought Hulse and Machaeda provided nothing of use, however I thought Cisse looked good offered us some class when he finally got the ball to feet! Roll on Saturday!
Great post. So they had loads of possessionad shots on target. That is actually a positive because it means the defenders and Paddy did their job very well in the main. My glass is more than half full today and will be overflowing if we can beat the Wolves on Saturday.
Yesterday Villas passing accuracy was nothing short of great and paceful. So as we didn't have a decent midfield players to prevent them and of course we look bit clumsy and were running after almost all the time.....
Yeh I agree Young is looking increasingly dodgy. I suppose Onouha who was great yesterday could move to RB, and Gabbidon come back in if/when fit with Anton again. But I think MH may prioritise getting a settled CB pairing, Anton and Onouha looked better together the longer it went yesterday. If we are still short it is at CB, and even more so in CM.
The most important thing for me is that the new players got some real game time with the rest of the players before the next two crucial games. I also think we lack balance with SWP on the left. A switch to the right for SWP with Troare on the left will improve things and with pace on both flanks should keep apposing full backs too busy to get forward.
I watched the game and I agree. We were battered. It was so nerve racking to watch. The positive was we got a point at Villa Park. We need all three on Saturday though, thats the biggy!
Sam, I was watching but could feel my adrenaline rising with each minute. had to go and do some work and just watch the text commentary on bbc. For some reason I find radio and dodgy internet feeds much more stressful than live games.
Barton can hold the ball for a second or two and is capable to give a some kind of assist but Derry cant do that.
I think Barton is looking a lot sharper, probably the new training regime but I do worry about his distribution, I think that will improve when he starts playing with better players, maybe he's trying to anticipate other players movements but they are not on the same wave length?
Find myself saying it nearly every week, we just don't harry and press teams as much as we should. When our defenders have the ball, opposing teams seem to harass them and close them down straight away, either forching a long hopeful punt upfield which surrenders possession, or forcing the defender to take a risk by taking them on. We back off FAR too much and give the opposition a ridiculous amount of space. There's barely ever any pressure on the ball. There are always gaping holes between our defence and midfield. Not sure if this is a Hughes tactic, to back off and let them play in front of us, but with the team we have the moment we're not suited to playing this way. I'd plump for a 5 man midfield a la our championship winning formation at the moment - albeit that would mean not playing either Cisse or Zamora.
