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Aston Villa 0 - West Bromwich Albion 1
oshawabaggie:Any kind of win over Villa is brilliant, but it's refreshing to be able to talk about some real improvement in our performance. To keep it in perspective, this was a woefully weak Villa side, but we still had to execute and execute we did. From the start we showed much more attacking intent and there was a balance about the team not apparent in recent games. I put this down to the inclusion of Mozza and Berahino, both of whom could hold the ball in forward positions and go at defenders. Rondon looked much less like Brown Ideye and more like a record signing. He could have scored with a lunging header in the first minute and had a couple of sharp long range shots which gave Guzan trouble. Fletcher looked up for it today and had a lot more involvement further up the pitch. Once again the defence was solid as a rock, with Evans showing great composure. One weakness is our speed, or lack of it, with balls hit over the top. Mac is particularly slow and we were nearly made to pay when Agbonlahor beat him and centred for Gil, whose shot was stopped by Yacobs family jewels. How long before Chester is given a run alongside Evans I wonder? Berahino showed, with his deft touch, why he is so critical for us. We need plenty of points in the bag before January. Let's hope we take this more balanced approach into the next game. Mark Koppel:'The Vile' 0 'Pride Of The Midlands' 1 This was a most satisfying result on three main levels: Level 1. Berahino proved that you sell your best player (especially a striker) at your peril. So to those who said sell him he's trouble, would you rather we didn't beat the Vile today? Without him I think we wouldn't have a got this magnificence result this afternoon. Level 2. Pulis proved to his critics that he knows what he is doing. He saw that Villa are vulnerable, and told the Team to go at them today, which they did first half. Level 3. Tim Sherwood proved he is an emotive, inexperienced people manager, who cannot cope when things go wrong. Thank god we didn't appoint him because when the chips are down, he just makes things worse. Player Ratings:
Subs:
In the end only our second league win at Villa Park in 36 years. Hope you enjoyed it half as much as I did. Brendan Clegg:It's always sweet to beat the Villa and I have calmed down a bit from last week. But I cannot buy Pulis's post match comments about it being the only week he's had these players and the sideshow of the transfer window. It is not a coincidence that switching to 4-5-1 with Morrison in the centre made us so much better - anyone watching us for the last 4 years knows this is the only way we can play. What frustrates me enormously is that we should be playing this way every game - we played at a high tempo and gladiatorial Rondon set the tone by rampaging, harassing, pressing and running his legs off again, with Morrison, McLean, Saido and even Fletcher being brave enough to back him up. It's how we beat Chelsea last year and is the benchmark. In truth, this was a very poor Villa showing and I think we could've given them a real drubbing today had McLean and Saido been played on the opposite wings and/or McManaman had been on the pitch. Whilst the balance was much better - the fact both Saido and McLean were on their wrong side often resulted in our promising break opportunities resulting in disappointment. I think even our fortuitous goal demonstrated this. I am not blind to the reasons - Saido did a great job on blocking Hutton going forward whilst giving him problems the other way and McLean's efforts in both directions against the more dangerous Amavi provided his best performance for us. I just think both players would have done as well defensively on either wing and would have been far more creative on their respective natural sides and we'd have scored 2 or 3 more goals. Pulis as we know is a man happy to keep things marginal though - and his ability to reduce football matches to margins and be on the right side of those margins is, in fairness, unquestionable. Despite their being 2nd best, there was only ever 1 goal in it and Villa arguably had an equaliser harshly chalked off. Still it would be churlish to dwell on these points - I will happily eat humble pie all season if we from now on keep to this formation and approach.
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