O'Neill Upbeat - Coppell Happy

Again the rub of the green is not there.The deflection of Bardsley for the first goal and the cutting edge up front hesitant.A draw would have been a fairer result as both teams had very good opportunities and I thought we deserved something. At least we are more of a threat and Maloney looks like a livewire.Gav looked great just a shame we did not get stuck in earlier in the first half.

I know we are in a transitional period. I know there are new players still working out how to play together. I know we will get it right eventually. But I'm so sick of losing.

We still have an element of doggedness and determination about us which was missing last year, but this is truly a transitional season for us, and the fact is simple, if these players aren't performing they will eventually be turfed out, look at Juan Pablo for instance, not even in the squad! MON has lots of bad habits to get rid of within this Villa team. My gut instinct is that Petrov needs to settle and we'll see him at his best next season, Barry was surprising, as he's normally reliable at left back. I still think we are doing better than last season, under the previous manager and staff we would have been in a worse position than this, I still have faith in O'Neill, and I know he'll get it right....

surely he has to start giving davis a run over petrov. Petrov has done nothing for us. I'm all for giving chances, and thats why i am going to assume that he is one for next season. With regards to the way we play, i definatley think we bypass the midfield to much, (which probably doesn't help Petrov), we are far to direct. I think we can play on the counter attack, but sometimes we have to try to keep the ball for a bit and give the defenders a rest, the defence is put under so much pressure because of our play

This season was always going to be about consolidation, the takeover happened to late in the day for Lerner/MON to change to much. The one thing that really pleased me today was Carew, Young, Bardsley, Cahill, Gabby - in fact nearly the entire team showed frustration. Young and Carew especially when it spilled onto the pitch in the last 20 mins - for the first time in a long time I saw players taking defeat, or staring down the barrel of defeat personally! THEY CARED ABOUT LOSING FOR ONCE! Young was gutted when he came off and he got kicked around the park for 75 minutes but kept getting up and working his socks off. Carew the same, uterly frustrated by Bikey - but I noticed at the final whistle Carew went straight to Bikey and shook his hand out of respect for the game he played. For the first time our players really looked like they took the result personally - how long has it been since we saw a collective display of disapointment and hurt from our players? This is the one big positive I noticed from today. Silly mistakes apart, like sitting to deep, not reading runs or positional play from Reading, not matching them physically, waiting 30 mins for a hard tackle etc etc etc??? All the things that were drummed into the majority of us from the age of 6 playing sunday league. My old man always used to say to me, 'if your man is better than you or quicker than you, and he takes the ***** and makes you feel silly....NEXT TIME CLATTER HIM HARD !!! Because he will think twicwe before he does it again! This is so true, but again today we were never imposing enough or looked tough enough to intimidate Reading today. We allowed them to come at us and intimidate us! I want to see an intimidating team, pumped up, ready, never say die mentality - especially on the road!!!

Have to agree with Stig - Reading basically bossed it. From the first minute it was pretty clear we'd be hard pushed to get something out of it.

No team in the EPL (including Man U, Chelsea etc etc) has a divne right to win every game. O'Neill can instill the principles that will turn us into a better team, and that's what we've always been lacking. I'll say that Villa never give up anymore, but we need to start taking the initiative and stop chasing games, i'm sure this will happen but it's going to take more than one season to do it.

The spine of the team is weak. A commanding centre half is needed. Petrov and McCann will only get you so far. Petrov's attitude is nothing short of despicable.

how can he be upbeat were just not good enough, barry got skinned every time by a no hoper we were p*ss poor and had to chase the game once again. just be happy to survive this season

i think we will see more of what mon and rl are going to achieve by the middle of next season when we get the REAL mon team because hes still having to play with a lot of o'drearys mistakes

Our away form is not good enough and the team is too fragile, which I am sure will be addressed in the summer. 6 defeats on the bounce, including the FA Cup, but the most significant stat for me is that we have conceded at least 2 goals in each of our last 8 away games!!

Agree Dee1, defensively we are just not tight as a unit. Individually we have quality there, but as a unit we just aren't functioning. Maybe the re-introduction of a fully fit Martin Laursen would help matters?