[Worldclassalbion]

I have to say I think The Sam Johnstone who the Villa fans loved has finally arrived. Superb saves and coming for crosses. Well done!!

As for luck well we’ve Deserved some after the last few games so I’ll take it. Blades should have won, the chances they missed we’re unbelievable.

Boing Boing

[wba13]

Shocker of a performance, but sometimes it's better to be lucky than be good.

I just hope how terrible we were second half - just sat off them waiting to concede - was down to low confidence as a result of not winning for 6 months and we'll not see that again now we have a win on the board.

Shout out to Sam Johnstone who I've been highly critical of numerous times for costing us points. He was excellent today and won the game for us.

That said, how we haven't conceded tonight is anyone's guess. I don't think I've seen any team miss so many absolutely sitters as Sheffield United. Our defending was basically none existent and Bilic's tactics were as shocking as ever. How he's taken Robbo off who was working his balls off and left Pereira on jogging about for 90 minutes is beyond me.

Would also be nice if Bilic actually told Pereira to stop p*ssing about on corners and just whip balls in. We had 14 corners tonight and about half of them were wasted either going short and then being immediately offside from the return pass or lofting a ball to the edge of the box to Gallagher which leave you in the sh*te if you are dispossessed with everyone the wrong side of play. On the rare occasions when he did a simple cross, it lead to the goal and our best chance for Bartley. Why Bilic sanctions so many tip tap corners when you had 3 centre halfs plus Furlong in the box is beyond me.

But a win on the board, onwards and upwards.

My heart tells me this is the start of a climb up the table, but my head says it's papering over the cracks of having a manager who is severely out of his depth.

This reply is utter rubbish it was not a shocker of a performance, We rode our Luke yes and except for some corners Pereira was superb.  For Robinson was out on his feet needed to be changed. I also have yet to see any prem keepers performing better than Johnstone he has been terrific all season.

[Baggiebob(BBB)]

I must admit those last 10 minutes (7 xtra time) had me by the curly's just wishing a late goal by them wouldn't happen. Well done Sam J

[Slick_Footwork]

Shocker of a performance, but sometimes it's better to be lucky than be good.

I just hope how terrible we were second half - just sat off them waiting to concede - was down to low confidence as a result of not winning for 6 months and we'll not see that again now we have a win on the board.

Shout out to Sam Johnstone who I've been highly critical of numerous times for costing us points. He was excellent today and won the game for us.

That said, how we haven't conceded tonight is anyone's guess. I don't think I've seen any team miss so many absolutely sitters as Sheffield United. Our defending was basically none existent and Bilic's tactics were as shocking as ever. How he's taken Robbo off who was working his balls off and left Pereira on jogging about for 90 minutes is beyond me.

Would also be nice if Bilic actually told Pereira to stop p*ssing about on corners and just whip balls in. We had 14 corners tonight and about half of them were wasted either going short and then being immediately offside from the return pass or lofting a ball to the edge of the box to Gallagher which leave you in the sh*te if you are dispossessed with everyone the wrong side of play. On the rare occasions when he did a simple cross, it lead to the goal and our best chance for Bartley. Why Bilic sanctions so many tip tap corners when you had 3 centre halfs plus Furlong in the box is beyond me.

But a win on the board, onwards and upwards.

My heart tells me this is the start of a climb up the table, but my head says it's papering over the cracks of having a manager who is severely out of his depth.

This reply is utter rubbish it was not a shocker of a performance, We rode our Luke yes and except for some corners Pereira was superb.  For Robinson was out on his feet needed to be changed. I also have yet to see any prem keepers performing better than Johnstone he has been terrific all season.

For me it's criminal to label Pereira's performance as "superb" when he's part of a midfield 3 and simply doesn't put ANY defensive shift in. I mean there was one occasion when Basham broke out of defence with the ball and Pereira couldn't be arsed to even jog back to push him wide. I can only assume you are only watching what he does on the ball, as his off the ball work has been shocking all season. There was another occasion when Gallagher went hunting for the ball high so Periera has to drop in next to Sawyers, but again couldn't be arsed to jog back so Sawyers had to cover 4 blokes. It resulted in Baldock missing a sitter.

But of course, who cares if we don't defend if they miss, right?

As for his corners, it just really annoys me when it's our best chance of scoring and we waste 5 or 6 of them. Our goal and 2 best chances (Bartley's header and Grant's chance on the swivel) came from corners, so why not just get back to basics? Had we whipped all 14 corners into the box rather than wasting 5 or 6 of them on "hollywood" routines, 2 of which resulted in instant offsides then we might've scored again and not been hanging on by the skin of our teeth at the end of the game. But I blame Bilic for that as he's the coach and should see corners were our biggest threat and just tell Pereira to cross it every time.

As for Sam Johnstone, he was excellent yesterday and 100% responsible for the win. He's had some good games this season, but I disagree he's been terrific all season. If you look back at the Everton game, they scored headers in the 6 yard box where he was rooted to his line. Chelsea game he cost us 2 goals and a win, Tottenham game cost us a goal and a draw. My comments are based on more than just the last couple of games and are based on his entire time at the club. At the tail end of last season he made vital errors like costing us a result against Huddersfield which put promotion in Brentford's hands. But I call a square a square, he was superb yesterday. If he performed like that more frequently - the main change being actually punching some crosses - then I wouldn't have question marks about him. Let's hope he keeps doing it and then we will agree about him.

But yes, I stand by my comments that it was a really poor performance as a whole...

We had a good spell, but it was sandwiched between starting and ending slow. First 3 minutes we should've been a goal down as Sheffield missed 2 guilt edge chances. At the end, we were so deep that we were almost on Sam Johnstone's toes and they made a good 3 or 4 chances to equalise. The fact Sheffield Untied couldn't finish their dinner does not mean our performance was good, I'm afraid.

But onwards and upwards. The main thing is to get a win on the board. But we will have to perform with more belief to replicate that.

To put a positive spin on my post, I will say that there were some decent performances. Callum Robinson was again excellent and IMO should be a nailed on starter. Gallagher was again energetic and although his goal was fortunate, at least he was calm enough to keep it low rather than lashing at it. And the best of the lot was Romaine Sawyers who was really good on the ball yesterday. Obviously with Sawyers, he's going to perform better against teams who don't press much, and Sheffield United are probably the least energetic side in the league so that worked in his favour.

[wba13]

Shocker of a performance, but sometimes it's better to be lucky than be good.

I just hope how terrible we were second half - just sat off them waiting to concede - was down to low confidence as a result of not winning for 6 months and we'll not see that again now we have a win on the board.

Shout out to Sam Johnstone who I've been highly critical of numerous times for costing us points. He was excellent today and won the game for us.

That said, how we haven't conceded tonight is anyone's guess. I don't think I've seen any team miss so many absolutely sitters as Sheffield United. Our defending was basically none existent and Bilic's tactics were as shocking as ever. How he's taken Robbo off who was working his balls off and left Pereira on jogging about for 90 minutes is beyond me.

Would also be nice if Bilic actually told Pereira to stop p*ssing about on corners and just whip balls in. We had 14 corners tonight and about half of them were wasted either going short and then being immediately offside from the return pass or lofting a ball to the edge of the box to Gallagher which leave you in the sh*te if you are dispossessed with everyone the wrong side of play. On the rare occasions when he did a simple cross, it lead to the goal and our best chance for Bartley. Why Bilic sanctions so many tip tap corners when you had 3 centre halfs plus Furlong in the box is beyond me.

But a win on the board, onwards and upwards.

My heart tells me this is the start of a climb up the table, but my head says it's papering over the cracks of having a manager who is severely out of his depth.

This reply is utter rubbish it was not a shocker of a performance, We rode our Luke yes and except for some corners Pereira was superb.  For Robinson was out on his feet needed to be changed. I also have yet to see any prem keepers performing better than Johnstone he has been terrific all season.

For me it's criminal to label Pereira's performance as "superb" when he's part of a midfield 3 and simply doesn't put ANY defensive shift in. I mean there was one occasion when Basham broke out of defence with the ball and Pereira couldn't be arsed to even jog back to push him wide. I can only assume you are only watching what he does on the ball, as his off the ball work has been shocking all season. There was another occasion when Gallagher went hunting for the ball high so Periera has to drop in next to Sawyers, but again couldn't be arsed to jog back so Sawyers had to cover 4 blokes. It resulted in Baldock missing a sitter.

But of course, who cares if we don't defend if they miss, right?

As for his corners, it just really annoys me when it's our best chance of scoring and we waste 5 or 6 of them. Our goal and 2 best chances (Bartley's header and Grant's chance on the swivel) came from corners, so why not just get back to basics? Had we whipped all 14 corners into the box rather than wasting 5 or 6 of them on "hollywood" routines, 2 of which resulted in instant offsides then we might've scored again and not been hanging on by the skin of our teeth at the end of the game. But I blame Bilic for that as he's the coach and should see corners were our biggest threat and just tell Pereira to cross it every time.

As for Sam Johnstone, he was excellent yesterday and 100% responsible for the win. He's had some good games this season, but I disagree he's been terrific all season. If you look back at the Everton game, they scored headers in the 6 yard box where he was rooted to his line. Chelsea game he cost us 2 goals and a win, Tottenham game cost us a goal and a draw.  My comments are based on more than just the last couple of games and are based on his entire time at the club. At the tail end of last season he made vital errors like costing us a result against Huddersfield which put promotion in Brentford's hands. But I call a square a square, he was superb yesterday. If he performed like that more frequently - the main change being actually punching some crosses - then I wouldn't have question marks about him. Let's hope he keeps doing it and then we will agree about him.

But yes, I stand by my comments that it was a really poor performance as a whole...

We had a good spell, but it was sandwiched between starting and ending slow. First 3 minutes we should've been a goal down as Sheffield missed 2 guilt edge chances. At the end, we were so deep that we were almost on Sam Johnstone's toes and they made a good 3 or 4 chances to equalise. The fact Sheffield Untied couldn't finish their dinner does not mean our performance was good, I'm afraid.

But onwards and upwards. The main thing is to get a win on the board. But we will have to perform with more belief to replicate that.

To put a positive spin on my post, I will say that there were some decent performances. Callum Robinson was again excellent and IMO should be a nailed on starter. Gallagher was again energetic and although his goal was fortunate, at least he was calm enough to keep it low rather than lashing at it. And the best of the lot was Romaine Sawyers who was really good on the ball yesterday. Obviously with Sawyers, he's going to perform better against teams who don't press much, and Sheffield United are probably the least energetic side in the league so that worked in his favour.

We will have to agree to disagree on both Pereira who was given mom by sky and numerous papers the same with Johnstone who is a really god keeper, agree Sawyers had a decent match and did you notice as soon as Townsend went off they created a lot of chances down our right,for me it shows just how much Townsend has improved.

[Slick_Footwork]

We will have to agree to disagree on both Pereira who was given mom by sky and numerous papers the same with Johnstone who is a really god keeper, agree Sawyers had a decent match and did you notice as soon as Townsend went off they created a lot of chances down our right,for me it shows just how much Townsend has improved.

I think those who work for Sky are basing their man of the match on what someone does on the ball, rather than the whole picture.

On the ball, I think we all agree that Pereira is our most creative player. We barely created anything from open play yesterday, but the one chance we did create from a great ball over the top from Pereira to Grant. The goal and other chances came from his set plays. My issue is, I'm not sure these moments of quality are enough to justify the fact he is probably the laziest player in the league when it comes to defensive contribution. Of course, I'm not asking him to be running around like a headless chicken, but at the same time, if you're part of a midfield 3 I think it's a prerequisite to at least jog back into a defensive shape if one of the opponents centre backs are marauding forward with the ball to create an overflow or a team mate is caught out of position upfield.

I think Pereira either needs to get better at providing at least a bit of defensive cover or Slav will have to sacrifice one of the 2 forward players as better teams will punish us if we were as open as yesterday. That would be a shame as both Grant and Robinson really bust their balls to help out defensively when we look short. Which IMO is why our best performance was against Spurs when Pereira was out.

Agree on Townsend that he's come on leaps and bounds compared to when he was signed. Still not sure he's good enough defensively for this level, but he's certainly got a lot better. Not too sure what the idea was in bringing Phillips on when Townsend went off injured. I assume Slav thought that might push us up the pitch, but it seemed to leave us extra exposed. I thought it would've made more sense to bring O'Shea on, who at least also contributes with defending balls into the box. Phillips seemed to leave Bartley exposed, which is always suicide as he's a baby elephant when teams run at him on the floor. Luckily we got away with it.

[drewks]

I'm afraid I don't analyse our game quite as much as some do, but I thought that we looked extremely comfortable with the ball in almost all areas yesterday. Movement etc was excellent but dried up a bit when in the final 30m.
BUT! We looked so open when not in possession - surely this has got to be a lack of pressing further up the pitch and not just a 'back 4' issue.
Pereira is a wonderful talent in possession but maybe he IS a luxury we can't afford in certain games? Difficult one. Maybe he's one to pick in home games only?

All in all it's about time we had a bit of luck and let's build on this win. Another 2 before the New Year would be great!

[Blue Baggie]

Is it a coincidence that Sam has improved as our defence has? He looks more confident with those around him. His shot stopping has always been excellent. He decisions have always in question, but I honestly believe he is worthy of an England call up with his current form.

[Baggiebob(BBB)]

Back in the relegation zone at present with Fulham winning 2-0 at h/t agin Leicester.

[Blue Baggie]

Interesting Grosicki scored twice in an under 23 game this week. Also saw Harper - Austin - Phillips - Edwards play