Thoughts on Villa game

[Ordar]

Firstly I was delighted that we managed to steal a draw.

Sadly the last gasp equalizer will only paper over another abysmal performance against a Villa side that hadn't scored for 7 hours and played with 2 kids (Banan and Clarke when Rio Coker went off) in central midfield, and only had 1 recognised striker (who on a different day, easily could have scored a hat trick)

Yet again we continuously over play without creating anything really, apart from the AJ chance, which he really should have scored. Greening and Murphy were totally outfought and outclassed by the 2 young lads, and Villa's pace on the break caused us countless problems. Villa goal came from nowhere was a well worked, the sort of goal we never score. Our attacks are just too slow paced. We looked much better in the first half when we were at least crossing the ball into the box. Second half it was just pass-pass-pass along the Villa box. Overall Villa created the much better chances, and will wonder how they didn't win

I'm getting seriously worried about this season. Looking at the upcoming fixtures, I cant see where points are coming from. A home win against Brum looks the most likely. Thats 4 wins in the last 22 league games for us, which is alarming.

Below is our games before Christmas

        A   Wed 10   19:45   Chelsea
   A   Sat 13   15:00   Newcastle United
   H   Sun 21   16:00   Manchester City
   H   Sat 27   15:00   Birmingham City

December 2010

   A   Sat 04   15:00   Arsenal
   H   Sat 11   15:00   Sunderland
   A   Sat 18   17:30   Liverpool

I think we'll need to bring some faces in, in January. A central midfielder and striker is an absolute must

[Lighthouse]

You have echoed mine and many others thoughts. I feel our injury problems are giving us a good excuse but the fact is that Mark Hughes needs to do his best work in January.

[FatFreddysCat]

Dont panick, i'm going to Newcastle, and my presence shall inspire a Fulham win  :028:

[alfie]

It does not help when both full backs have to go off, it then means limited options for change up front, mind you not that there was much to change up front, still Eddie Johnson may have scored, who knows.

I thought we were just ok up until the point they scored then we just seemed to get tangled up in trying to chase instead of calming down, real off day for Gera, i don't know the situation with Pantsil and Hughes, but it must be rough if pants can't get on before Kelly.

[TonyGilroy]

I wouldn't underestimate how good these Villa kids are though.

Villa played with good energy and handled us well. We got out of jail and I reckon it was Villa good rather than us bad.

We need more pace in the side - that is a fact. Dembele hasn't got going since his injury.

[FatFreddysCat]

It does not help when both full backs have to go off, it then means limited options for change up front, mind you not that there was much to change up front, still Eddie Johnson may have scored, who knows.

I thought we were just ok up until the point they scored then we just seemed to get tangled up in trying to chase instead of calming down, real off day for Gera, i don't know the situation with Pantsil and Hughes, but it must be rough if pants can't get on before Kelly.

Yeah real shame about Pants, it does seem like his time is up. Ok his last two games he played were sunday football standard and he was quite rightly dropped, but surely he deserves anouther go ahead of Kelly?  Still i firmly believe in Hughes so if we lose a crowd favorite so be it, i've seen so many hero's go i'm almost immune to it.

[Lighthouse]

Kelly has played well enough this season and deserves to be ahead of Pantsil. If both Fullbacks are now injured then Pants may have a chance against Chelscum. Kelly on the other side maybe.

[dannydog]

Kelly got roasted by Downing non stop he is a liability, our build up play is too slow and ponderous and why Johnson tried to go round the keeper when all he had to do was slot the ball past him is beyond me. Thank God for Hangers !

[Peabody]

Have to agree about Kelly, he was awful, as was the midfield after Villa scored. Also how can Demps be so good one week and the next totally out of it.

[Craven Cottager]

Bemused - we played long ball after long ball. I agree that we tended to over play it a bit but when we get ball to feet and work it around we look far more dangerous. Time and again the ball was punted up and simply came straight back at us. All a bit of the whiff of Sanchez without the physicality up top to hold it up and bring in the midfield. Frankly we didn't deserve a point and were very lucky. Not particularly optimistic about Wednesday - doesn't look like it will be televised?

[Aldo]

At best this made up for the point we didn't get against Spurs! It seemed that we just could not get the ball through their 5 man midfield! They didn't give us the space that Wigan did and we struggled as a consequence!

Fair play to Villa who played very well all things considered. However, if we play like that on Wednesday then the dark side will slaughter us!

[Tonywa]

Bemused - we played long ball after long ball. I agree that we tended to over play it a bit but when we get ball to feet and work it around we look far more dangerous. Time and again the ball was punted up and simply came straight back at us. All a bit of the whiff of Sanchez without the physicality up top to hold it up and bring in the midfield. Frankly we didn't deserve a point and were very lucky. Not particularly optimistic about Wednesday - doesn't look like it will be televised?

Totally clueless with abysmal passing and pretty poor defending.  Quite why we spent most of the afternoon lobbing the ball up onto Richard Dunne's head is beyond me.  I suppose we could have scored a couple of times early on through Gera(what a dreadful game he had), but Villa had more chances and I think we were probably lucky to get away with.

[LBNo11]

Bemused - we played long ball after long ball. I agree that we tended to over play it a bit but when we get ball to feet and work it around we look far more dangerous. Time and again the ball was punted up and simply came straight back at us. All a bit of the whiff of Sanchez without the physicality up top to hold it up and bring in the midfield. Frankly we didn't deserve a point and were very lucky. Not particularly optimistic about Wednesday - doesn't look like it will be televised?

...Agree word for word with this. I was so incensed with us playing long ball hoofs to a well meaning but height impaired striker. The bloke behind me said "for Christ's sake, why don't we bring up Hangeland, he is the only one likely to get those high balls!....sure enough at the death we stole it. Villa controlled the game, and grew with confidence in the second half, I'm not convinced they made us look bad, we just couldn't string two passes together in their half.

Lets put it this way, I have not desire whatsoever to watch the 20 seconds of MOTD coverage, we mugged Villa at the death, and yes I'll take it, but we did not deserve the point, an awful spectacle...

[SmithyFFC]

Today was, in my opinion, the worst performance for about 3 years at the cottage! What we all have to remember is that Hughes has come in and didn't have time to buy his own players and has therefore had to adapt to a different style. Hughes' old teams, Blackburn and City, were all about wide players, with pace, giving the team width and providing crosses. At FFC, we don't have any real pacy wingers. We have to give Hughes the benefit of the doubt as a tries to build a team in his own image.

For now we all have to get behind Sparky until January, and then see how things go!

COYW

[LRCN]

let's remember that we've played much better than this and not got the points we deserved this season. but it's strange so far. it seems like we either play poorly and nick a draw or play really well and not win (apart from wolves wigan and west brom). we need to be more consistent though. still haven't warmed much to mark hughes either, it's strange cos i know he's a quality manager and he's the fella i wanted when we lost roy. how many times was his name sung today?

[LBNo11]

...three times I made it Lork - that said it was very subdued at the back of the HE - I have a sore throat as usual but there are so many tourists in H6 who sing nothing it's getting very frustrating...



_{"We Are The Whites"   shhhh!}

[ron]

I think we're selling Villa a bit short when we criticise our performance today. It seemed they had three players challenging whenever we were trying to get through that well drilled defence, and were alert enough to catch us on a break whenever we got caught square in trying.

[LBNo11]

...that being the case ron, it saddens me that we didn't have an answer to Villa game over 90 minutes.

Worst game for a long time, a good job they were short of their strikers.

Lord help us on Wednesday...

[LRCN]

...three times I made it Lork - that said it was very subdued at the back of the HE - I have a sore throat as usual but there are so many tourists in H6 who sing nothing it's getting very frustrating...



_{"We Are The Whites"   shhhh!}

yeah, i counted once at the tottenham game a couple of weeks ago. i don't know what it is, he comes across well in interviews and we play nice football.

[ron]

Hmmm, you're probably right LB....I'm probably trying to make the best of what was admittedly a rather disappointing game. We weren't bad when the play was more open (i.e. before they scored).

As for Wednesday, they won't be putting up the shutters  ...you never know !