Liverpool 1 - Aston Villa 3

451 NOW FKING USE IT (AND NRC) ALL THE TIME.

Well done Villa, tremendous....thats what being a Villa fan is all about....ups, downs , twists , turns...come on !

am i dreaming!? that was a big ***** u performance to all the critics i think

The positives: 4-5-1/4-3-3, Gabby starting ahead of Heskey, NRC bringing some leadership and grit to midfield and a struggling Liverpool side (two defeats already). The negatives: reverting to 4-4-2 later on, still a threadbear squad, no goals from a Villa forward from open-play and Ashley Young either cheating or injured. Still, great result. UPV.

Good overall performance by the lads and a great result for going back on track! I suppose it will stop people sulking and whining for a bit...hopefully! UTV

Booooooooooo! Get in Villa! Booo Booo Booo Nigel Reo Coker ;-)

"451 NOW FKING USE IT (AND NRC) ALL THE TIME." x2

Positive counter-attacking football is the way forward (Just like pre-February). Also, MON seems to have finally realised that Heskey is an impact substitute not a starter. NRC and Sidwell have proved there worth tonight. Liverpool and Everton have got off to poor starts. Top four might, just might, be still on if 4-5-1 is retained. UTV!!!

Positive counter-attacking football is the way forward (Just like pre-February). Also, MON seems to have finally realised that Heskey is an impact substitute not a starter. NRC and Sidwell have proved there worth tonight. Liverpool and Everton have got off to poor starts. Top four might, just might, be still on if 4-5-1 is retained. UTV!!!

VillaWillRiseAgain, the positives far outweigh the negatives! We beat the red scouse in their own backyard, does it really matters who scored??? And as for the Ashley Young comment, I remember last year where we didn't waste time/play the clock down and ended up conceding late goals...I don't like the play acting, but if you can't beat them you might as well join them - especially if it puts points on the board. Cracking result!

451 - CHECK! NRC - CHECK! HESKEY BENCHED - CHECK! utv!

Gordonsleftboot I've told you time and time again mate, be positive, look what you get when you think big! ;op What a result!

What a result!!!

a very well done from a very happy spurs fan. Dirty defenders they have and and a diving midfield. You definitely needed those points too.

a very well done from a very happy spurs fan. Dirty defenders they have and and a diving midfield. You definitely needed those points too.

NRC must never be moved from his natural position again,Sidwell was excellent aswell.Any fans that have recently called for MoN to get the sack should hang their heads in shame.Friedel was a 10.

NRC was great tonight and Friedel man of the match. Get in there.

mascherano should have been sent off. reo coker sublime - as he often is -even out of position, contrary to some peoples views. milner impressed, cuellars best villa game, beye very good, davies good... MON got tactics right, but now please, please, please buy some bloody players

Fear - I have nothing to say!!!

An NRC,Sidders,Petrov axis in the middle is the way we have to go.They have great drive.With Barry in the team had a negative effect on NRC and Sidwell,it restricted them.

Liverpool? Who are they?? Exactly! Great show and as one of the few to predict it I am very very happy. Finally a return to the 451. Brad and Hokey Cokey were both majestic. Davies and Cuellar both showed what they can do, Beye looked very good too. Were are back in the saddle. In MON we trust. UTV!

nobodys given praise to gabby yet so i thought i'd do it, despite his faults having him up front causes defenders all sorts of problems and he sprinted his ass off for 94 minutes. brilliant display by all

lets hope this is the start of bright things to come for cuellar. potentially awesome defender if he keeps that up

Bring on Vienna, lets show them how we really play!!!!!

After alan hansen slagged of villa fans for booing it was music to my ears to hear anfield ringing with boos at half time, not very good fans really are you ? ne way great performance, we set up formation and tactics exactly right, big credit to mon,and played the best players we have availabe, so so so so sooooooo proud of the lads tnight, absolutely brilliant, no faults at all. up the villa!!!!!!

Brad was great. I thought Petrov had a good game too.

that was f****in brillaiant, well done again villla.

Holy crap!! I've still barely unclenched! Awesome to the max!

that was f****in brillaiant, well done again villla.

all of them 200% effort,

all of them 200% effort,

mon's ficlke army AVFC.... HAHAHA NAAA only joking , ive allways been an opti....

i seriously cant wait for thursday and sunday... COME ON VILLA...

Amazing result, watched the game with two Villa mates in a pub full of Reds, fantastic, even the 'Pool fans admitted we deserved it, bring on Rapid Vienna

Villa! Villa! Villla! Villa! PASS ME THAT HUGE SLICE OF HUMBLE PIE.

An outstanding performance eh? That'll be the euphoria talking. Pking, I have been calling for O'Neill's head ever since it was mathematically impossible for us to secure a top 4 place last season, and tonight's performance isn't going to stop me. We played 3 central midfielders today which was a welcome move, although only Reo-Coker of the three could claim to have put in a good performance. (Sidwell did his running. He's a limited player, and did as much as could be expected. Petrov was poor, and his inability to play football in dangerous areas was exposed tonight.) The midfield was congested, and this offered the kind of cover our defence has been crying out for, but that O'Neill has refused them for in excess of 20 games. We were fairly well organised at the back, although Liverpool's utter ineptitiude going forward today (their passing was, frankly, abysmal) meant that, despite the backs to the wall defending from the lads, they weren't properly tested. We actually offered no attacking threat going forward. Reina didn't have a single save to make. We benefited from an own goal, disorganised defending at a set piece, and a completely laughable lunge from Gerrard. Liverpool were awful today. We were just about competent, and got the luck we needed to get the win. But this match was all about Liverpool's inadequacies. Anyone believing that we have suddenly turned a corner are mugging themselves off. We still look like a mid-table team at best, and if (IF) we stick with a 4-5-1 formation, we should finish in the top half. But anything beyond that is unlikely.

An outstanding performance eh? That'll be the euphoria talking. Pking, I have been calling for O'Neill's head ever since it was mathematically impossible for us to secure a top 4 place last season, and tonight's performance isn't going to stop me. We played 3 central midfielders today which was a welcome move, although only Reo-Coker of the three could claim to have put in a good performance. (Sidwell did his running. He's a limited player, and did as much as could be expected. Petrov was poor, and his inability to play football in dangerous areas was exposed tonight.) The midfield was congested, and this offered the kind of cover our defence has been crying out for, but that O'Neill has refused them for in excess of 20 games. We were fairly well organised at the back, although Liverpool's utter ineptitiude going forward today (their passing was, frankly, abysmal) meant that, despite the backs to the wall defending from the lads, they weren't properly tested. We actually offered no attacking threat going forward. Reina didn't have a single save to make. We benefited from an own goal, disorganised defending at a set piece, and a completely laughable lunge from Gerrard. Liverpool were awful today. We were just about competent, and got the luck we needed to get the win. But this match was all about Liverpool's inadequacies. Anyone believing that we have suddenly turned a corner are mugging themselves off. We still look like a mid-table team at best, and if (IF) we stick with a 4-5-1 formation, we should finish in the top half. But anything beyond that is unlikely.

'twould be nice if some could celebrate our team winning, rather than stroking their own egos ...

lol gordonsleftboot thought you'd like that! ;o)))

to be fair bullers the Vital Liverpool head honcho is on his hols, otherwise he'd have come on and congratulated us, he's a good egg!

Well said BobTheBuilder. Fear - I wrote an article last year headed Great Owner, Average manager - it was during the period that everyone was in the clouds. I guess that is why it never got printed. To be honest my views haven't changed but the negative on here was getting hard to take.

Albarnista you are the sort of fan that holds this club back.

where was Carew? That extra pressure in midfield makes all the differance. I really don't think we will miss Barry at all, Laursen made up for that pressure we have been missing in the middle by winning everything so high up the ground noone ever had a chance with him in our team it didn't matter where you were. Barry never gave it to us and either does Petrov they were a bad combination together and need somone like Sidwell or Reo-Coker to win the ball. If he sticks with this formation and puts Carew in we will be good this year.

Gordonsleftboot more chance that I didn't get the article mate, if I wasn't going to publish it (rare with articles to be honest - one very miserable one recently I refused believe it or not!) I do always let the writer know when on or if not being used as I really appreciate different contributions. I'm sure by the way you write your article comments that it would have gone on - as said, I'd have at least emailed you if not (sent you an email tonight to take the st michael by the way, but got an out of office thing!) As said, very rare I don't print articles and most especially ones where opinions are different to the norm because I like to see things shaken up a bit on the site! Apologies it never made it, try again though, will print it, honest!

carew has a virus liamon1981 pking fans are fans, we might all see things differently but one thing is for sure, we all love Villa ? If not, what the heck are we all doing sitting at our computers at silly o'clock... actually, I think I might go and have a cup of tea and a sleep...!

Pking and others, debate the points not the poster. Funny how Monny did tonight everything the doom mongers have been calling for since February, but no we hold the club back.

Anymore personal BS will be deleted if I see it. We've had a fantastic win tonight, can the point scoring at least be put on hold for a bit.

Pking and others, debate the points not the poster. Funny how Monny did tonight everything the doom mongers have been calling for since February, but no we hold the club back.

Anymore personal BS will be deleted if I see it. We've had a fantastic win tonight, can the point scoring at least be put on hold for a bit.

These doom merchants definatley hold the club back.If we are not winning by half time then it hits the fan and the booing starts.We have not been giants since the 1890s.We only won 2 league titles in the 20th century.The club has a reputation as a poison chalice,every time we hit a bump in the road its a crisis.We have had a great result and there are people still whinging.We are a very difficult club to manage and the ''fans'' dont help.

Really, and that happens every match does it or have the boos only come around because the fans are a little peeved at our form since February. That's not a bump in the road, it's a pattern, a bump in the road doesn't take 6 months to recover from nor does it take 6 months to realise that their might be a correlation between formations and team selections when you consider results. Glad to see I hold the club back though, didn't realise airing your opinion on the internet automatically meant you had to boo your team for 90 minutes, nor did I realise I had the power to change the managers decisions into winning ones -learn something new everyday. Where's that smilie where the head hits the wall repeatedly? Oh well, if you don't mind me I'm going to go back to enjoying the night.

I think last seasons slide began when the team were booed off after the 0-0 against Wigan despite the fact that the team performed brilliantly that day.Opposition teams at VP know it doesnt take long for the crowd to get on the teams back,that must give them extra confidence.You can rant and rave all you want mike but you doom merchants have spent a little too long on your soap box.

One swallow does not a summer make

I think you're being a touch over-sensitive on behalf of those who may have posted criticisms of the team/MON recently. I for one am not against that - only against those who constantly post negative comments about anything and everything, rarely posted during our 'golden spell' last season, and who seem to derive real pleasure when we aren't doing to well. "can the point scoring at least be put on hold for a bit" was precisely the point of my own post to those (very few) it was aimed at ...

"One swallow does not a summer make". Absolutely true, VotN, I do agree, but can't you/we even enjoy our victories?

Nothing to do with losing Laursen properly, Monny accomodating at every turn Heskey, change of formations, even more reliance on Reo-Coker at right back or centre half. It was one game that the fans expressed their displeasure in because we were dire. If that's even remotely true, then it's not fans who fickle, it's players if they get affected that easily. As for soap box, considering Monny did tonight what we've been crying out for I'd say Monny agrees with the likes of me. Whichever way you look at it though you 'trust' Monny to get it right, others have had enough of waiting for him to get it right. It's because we want the club to succeed that we point out the failings. Pointing out where any organisation is failing, especially when you can provide evidence to show it can be fixed quickly doesn't hold said organisation back.

Again Monny got the selections right tonight, got rid of the lard and kept players in their preferred and proper positions. He picked a formation that suited our players greatest strengths and we won again.

I believe it was Sir Brian himself who said you pick the tactics to suit your players, you don't pick your players just to suit a tactic. Our team screams 451/433 and it's when we are at our best, deviation from that is not a failure by fans when we go on a losing streak.

Why don't we all just revel in this glorious win for a while? Some believe we'll have a few more this season, some believe we won't, but tonight we got a bloody good result so lets focus on the here and now shall we? Our team and our manager deserve praise for the way we played tonight, let's focus on that for a while....

One swallow may not make a summer but it does mean spring is here and summers on it's way doesn't it?? :)

lol Bob, I hadn't even seen your post as I scanned to check for insults etc and hadn't (when I first posted) seen JF post either. Not overly sensitive just pointing out the obvious again. I'm one of the vocal doom mongers but don't always rise to the bait, the others (I believe you are implying to) have been on tonight and were saying the same things about our lack of a plan B etc during our record winning streak. The whole - you're only saying this because we are losing - angle is well over hyped and only serves to cloud the valid points people were making before our luck ran out.

That said I'll be off to bed happy in a minute, and with a hope Monny sticks to this for Vienna and tonights win fills the cracks in as opposed to merely papering over them again.

I dont trust MoN to get it right but I think we have our best chance under him.Fans booing at the drop of a hat is a failure on the supporters part.Blind optimism should not be expected but a little bit of realism is needed and there hasnt been enough of that recently.No manager is perfect,and if there are fans that are tired of waiting maybe they should try support Man U.

451........... i hope the penny has dropped

og and a pen - bit lucky were we :-)

stats are way different to those on SSN!? UTV, i can't go back to the pub i watched it in, though.

Suffice to say there's no way I'm having a pop at either you or JPF, Mike. Criticism - even harsh criticism - is fine, but in my view there is a line that shouldn't be crossed. There are only a couple on here whose posts I really detest, and it is nothing to do with whether they are right or wrong in their analysis. It is about their egos being larger than their love of the team, and that they can't stop themselves belittling our players' performances even on a night like tonight. Nuff said ...

Boys,,boys, boys..we won...AT ANFIELD...nuff sed.

Totally agree with you BTB but there are also a couple of people on here who belittle contributors just because they are negative but they don't offer their point of view. I find this more annoying as they slag off anyone who is negative but they don't have a counter argument. In fact there is one in particular who actually moans more than the fans he is moaning at... irony at its best!! We should all be enjoying the win and debating the next match… gulp!

Bob - understood mate, was trying to provide the balance that there was more than one reason our season died last year, and whilst some of it was out of the managers hands, a lot of it was in his hands. Criticising that, seeing this season as no different and being a continuation doesn't mean those of us who have had enough suddenly take joy in us losing. If we didn't care about the club, and didn't want us to win, we wouldn't give a flying flunk about 3 wins in 19 games or whatever it is now would we.

The worst bit is last season our hopes were raised so far, but all of us if we could divorce ourselves from the hype knew we were winning scrappy games with OG's and an obscene amount of penalties or nicking them one nil. Our performance was poor throughout and it was only a matter of time before we imploded. So in January we signed Heskey. Apparently could've had Zaki but wouldn't meet the fee, were in for Downing but wouldn't meet the fee etc so we didn't strengthen or bolster the squad or give us options and then to add insult to injury we again started persisting with a formation to that doesn't suit our strengths.

Liverpool aside I still don't see any changes that allow me to think 'fresh slate' yet. If that comes I'll give the fresh slate, at the moment last night was a fantastic and much needed one off. If we carry it on to Vienna, if we see sensible formations, player selections etc I'll get happier. But the other side is Monny seemingly taking every opportunity to dig at the fans (because he of course wants to forget last season and focus on finishing 6th) after Wigan when he doesn't seem to understand the irony that our moans whether intentionally or not he listened to against Liverpool and we won. He did exactly what we have been screaming about for months last night. Yet it's the fans fault for being unreasonable when what we wanted secured 3 points lol

But as said elsewhere I woke up with a smile on my face for the first time after a match today and I so hope I do the same on Friday morning.

Some people seem to be trying to take credit for our win.

Lol Pk, apparently it's our fault when we lose, surely we get some credit for the manager doing what we've been screaming for and we win! The irony is lost isn't it. Those damn anti Mon boo boys picking tactics that win us games....PMSL