Mixed Reactions On Derby Draw

Heskey set up Gabby for the goal. I'm not a massive fan but I do get annoyed at our own "supporters" not supporting our players. I heard boos and people screaming "We don't want him" last Saturday against Chelsea when Heskey came on. That is NOT support. Today was not brilliant but it was an away derby match and we didn't lose. It was never going to be a walk over. We had the best chances. We took one. Sidwell should've scored if only Dunne hadn't forgot he was in the oppositions box.

disappointing performance and result. One up and in control although not playing well, we should have seen it through. Totally uneccessary challenge by Sidwell I thought. IF we play 442 I think Sidders is the weak link. Prefer him in amidfield three. Carew not at the races at moment. For Everton I would bring Reo in for JC and play 451. If we go 442, dare I say it, but give Emile a run. Team for Sunderland will be interesting!

Thought Milner was fantastic and Sidwell was hopeless

Milner was not fantastic, why would you say that ?????

Agree with Aspinall, Milner wasn't fantastic. He was ok, and worked hard as you'd expect him too (he always gives 100% etc etc etc). He got his challenges in when he needed to. No one REALLY excelled today and one or two were quite poor. Shame after the Man City and Chelsea games we could have done with the confidence kept going. At least Martin O'Neill got the after match right - we were pretty poor in the first half, and I have to say that wasn't because of Wolves. We were "better" in the second, but not anywhere near our best. Gabby missed two he really should have scored, or at least make the keeper work harder. Ash is low on confidence - or something, and despite my 5 year old singing John Carew songs throughout the whole match even she said at the end "he wasn't as big today daddy"! Sidders, well, shame really because I like him. In a totally football way you understand! Maybe Heskey showed a little of what he CAN add today and did himself no harm, unlike the previous 6 odd times he's been on the pitch. Petrov and the back 4 looked solid again. Wolves I thought were actually ok and have one or two players who were good today and shouldn't go down if they show that kind of commitment. At the end of the day it's an away point.

Surprised that O'Neill should make a point of saying that there wasn't much football being played in the first half. Surely this is the case every time O'Neill's Villa team step onto the pitch! We are not a footballing side. We're reasonably effective spoilers with a reasonably effective counter-attacking game, but a footballing side we ain't. O'Neill doesn't set us up to play that way.

It is really beyond me how the Villa can come up with huge victories in games that we should be hoping for draws in, yet when we have games that we really should be taking three points away from, we drop points. Lets look at Blackburn for example, we dropped three points there because we didn't show up. Well Chelsea went in there today and kicked the crap out of them. How is it that Chelsea can show up against these teams, yet we never can. Where have we dropped points this year? 3 at home against Wigan (ok Wigan did steal some points from Man City and Chelsea this year, but we should still be beating them). 3 at Blackburn, give me a break, we should be putting up 3 or more on them, that is if we play the way we did against Chelsea. Now we drop another to Wolverhampton, that is a joke. This is why we aren't top 4 already, because we aren't taking these opportunities to improve our goal average and instead are dropping points to these types of teams. If I'm Martin O'Neil, before every single one of these games, I challenge my players to put up 3 or more goals, and I consider it a loss if we don't put up 3 or more goals. I try to get rid of the complacency of just scraping by against these lower teams and I want to get the cocky, never say die, we are better than any team in the world attitude that we somehow carry against the big 4. We have shown that we can win against the big 4, lets show that we can win against the bottom of the table.

Chelsea spanked Blackburn presumably because they put away the chances they created. If they'd taken the simple chances they created against us, we too would have been beaten, though probably not spanked because we are a bit better than Blackburn. And btw, you can't simply translate a performance in one game into another. We're an interesting side in that, to some extent, we are able to drag opposing teams down to our level, which isn't necessarily an insult. I would say that there are at least a dozen sides in the Premiership who play better possession football than we do, but most of them aren't as good when not in possession. That's why we are relatively difficult to beat when the opposing team takes the initiative, but also why we aren't very good when we try and impose our attacking game on other sides. All of which goes some way to explaining why we can lose to teams like Blackburn and Wigan, although it's always worth remembering that, on any given day, any team might lose to another. That's football.

I just thought the way Milner was involved in one attack and by no fault of his we lost the ball but somehow he was the player who tracked back to clear the danger from their breakaway attack on us . That was just one example he was popping up everywhere clearing balls off the line , making runs down the left and right wings . If the rest of the team put in his workload we would have had the big win we are hanging out for . I dont see it but a lot of people talk about what Heskey does off the ball but it is Milner they should be talking up (no i'm not his Dad or his agent). Sidwell put in tons of effort but he just doesn't seem to fit in with our style of play . Imo I am starting to believe our critics that we are one dimensional mainly due to the fact that Mon (still wouldn't swap him) never makes any real changes when we are crying out for them . Yes he will bring Heskey on in the last 20 - 30 Mins but we know that before it happens and so do our opponents . We usually need to bolster the midfield and I know i'm going to get criticised for this because nobody seems to rate him but Craig Gardner is a player we are going to lose in the next window and when he's getting first team football for another prem side we will be wondering why we ever let him go . We should be bringing the likes of him or Delph, Coker on to take back control of the midfield .

P.S I read one persons comment a few days ago that said Sidwell and Coker play well together in a 3 or 5 man midfield . I tend to agree with that . I think Sidwell is a good player but needs to be utilised better .

Let`s be honest, when Carew is in the mood he`s looked recently we`d be much better off playing 5 in the middle especially as MON starts dragging Gabby wide to fill in the gaps to accomodate Carew and Sidwell IMO,we haven`t played well yet this season overall yet have a good points total, be nice to click into gear and see what happens.

I was getting ridiculed the other week when I was calling for Gardner to play ahead of Sidwell. (I also said I wouldn't play Dunne & I stand by that.) I'm confident Gardner would have made that tackle successfully or not have gone in. He is very underrated & especially underappreciated. I'll be gutted when he leaves. I understand that you should never change a winning team but surely why not an underperforming team? Or at least a sub when we need new legs? (not the Heskey 1 which always dwindles my enthusiasm.) Maybe it's MO'N's reluctance to change the line-up that is keeping the players complacent in these 'lesser' games. I was happy with the point though (a score & scorer I predicted hours earlier.) We are not playing well & getting some decent results. Come the end of the season, this will be 1 point gained. UTV!

Lets hope he makes plenty of changes for Sunderland game - at least then he can see other players with the aim of including L.Young and another midfielder next time out!! Carew NEEDS to be dropped!! He has added very little and forced Gabby out wide. Lets get him through the middle again!

Quite frankly our formation and tactics were ****e again, lump the ball forward to lose it in midfield. Forest Gump could see that needed to be changed so we could control the game. And whats with serving bags of pork scratchings outside a football ground? And could anyone understand the Wolves chants?????

Sidwell was awfull... those saying he worked hard, i'm not sure we were watching the same game! He did nothing except give away the penalty. Overrated :/