roonst83

He’s possibly our most important player. He’s a great link between defence and attack, has a great footballing brain, a great eye for a pass, has great delivery and is tough as nails. He reminds me of a young Paul Scholes. And he helps provide another threat other than Grealish. His pressing is insane. Massive player for us.

Mind absolutely blown.

We definitely need Kodjia back amongst the goals but my worry with that is that he’s more obsessed with adding to his own tally than helping the team. Whilst he can get goals out of nothing, his often selfish mindset can cost the team in situations and that could, I feel, damage team spirit and morale which was so imperative to our success last season. That said, if he bangs in 30 goals and takes us up I’ll shut my mouth and simply applaud him. But I’ve previously found him a source of frustration countless times.

Further to my earlier post (when I counted that there were 2,200+ left on the live stadium plan on the ticket website) I now think that Villa haven’t released all the blocks. The reason for this is some of the blocks are listed as “tickets not available” rather than “sold out”. It also wouldn’t make sense for 20k season ticket holders to have taken 4 days to be sold and then 16k or so to have gone to the three home games or more punters in 5 hours. So my guess is there’ll be more than 2k left for sure. I’m not sure how many will reach general sale but I think tomorrow will be a busy day for the one home gamers.

Managed to get mine fairly swiftly earlier. Had to queue for around half hour. No queue at all now for those eligible, so I popped back on a few minutes ago to count up what was seemingly available. I counted 2283 remaining seats accordingly to the stadium plan. They will go fast tomorrow and unless the club release more then I fail to see how this will reach general sale. Im hopeful there'll be more made available.

I'm not eligible until Sunday but I wanted to check the booking system. Before and after I logged into the ticket site it said "coming soon" - can I assume this was because the online system won't allow me to attempt to purchase until Sunday as it knows I'm not a season ticket holder? I'm just worrying that come Sunday I may be greeted with the same "coming soon" tab after I select "buy now".

It’s the only thing ‘Boro got on target tonight. (P.s. Hope you’re okay)

Cant get Bradford out of my head. Mainly because a) I'm very superstitious about Villa, and b) I'm driving up to the game and back from London ... as I did for the home leg against Bradford (also, see point a) )

The most comfortable of games we’ve had all season. We looked tired and sluggish in the second half but we never looked in trouble. Probably a hang over form the other night. Chester man of the match for simply running the show at the back. All feels like an anti-climax and slightly frustrating that we threw away any realistic chance of automatic in the three games after Wolves.

Game of two halves for sure. Whilst Whelan did his best to bag himself a hat trick of own goals Johnstone made some fantastic stops to keep us in the game. Despite a positive opening three minutes we were much the second best in the first half and were very lucky to have been level at half time. Our passing was sloppy and there was no game plan going forwards. We kept lumping it up to Grabben who was being well marshalled by Bamba. Once again Hourihane and Adomah were largely ineffective and we’re at a crucial point in the season where we can’t afford to carry passengers. What was lacking in the first half was a decent tempo to our play as well as desire and commitment. We were second to the balls and were ducking out of challenges. Second half we were much much better. We played on the front foot and defended well. Chester was everywhere in the second half and led us superbly. Johnstone again did well. Kodjia added a different dimension to our attacking play and despite starting off a bit rusty he got himself into the game far more effectively and caused plenty of problems. He linked up well with Grabben at times and is a player we can feed the ball into and he can make things happen. Unlike in the first half when our attacks would break down constantly, Kodjia’s involvement ensured we asked plenty more questions of their defenders and after we took the lead we could’ve and should’ve added more goals. Now on to Jack. Absolutely superb again. He carries us forward and is just relentless with his positive approach. He was kicked all over the park all game and kept his temperament throughout. He was booed from the first whistle by the away fans and once again showed how he can handle that side of things. His goal was top top class and it’s such an amazing site to see him score in front of the holte. He carrried us forward and brings such class to our team. Just love him. Only down side is this all feels abit too little too late and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of a missed opportunity from our recent games. Hope we can get some momentum up for the challenge of the playoffs. We need more consistent solid performances to give us a chance of going up and need to try carry on tonight’s win on Friday.

Need to remember how to win football games again. Need a reaction after the last few weeks of absolutely dire performances.

Bruce’s **** up began with keeping the same team that beat Wolves against QPR. He admitted it himself and has been playing catch up ever since, to our detriment. Kodjia was atrocious today. Today wasn’t the game to ease him back to fitness. Certainly not at 0-0 with half hour left. Today smacked of a lack of intent. They know 2nd place has gone and they also think we’ve guaranteed playoffs. And played so turgid as a consequence.

Agree with this.

**** dire. Unacceptable and totally devoid of ideas,m and craft. Looked clueless. Have absolutely no idea how a team who dominated against Wolves could turn so bad. Bruce’s poor selection against QPR has meant we have blown any faint hope of automatic promotion. Worse thing is teams in the playoffs wouldn’t see anything to be fearful of through our last three games. Terrible.

Great to have him back purely because he's our only striker who can pull a goal out of his arse. What we desperately missed last season was other players chipping in with goals. Kodjia was our only outlet and the only player capable of scoring. My fear is despite Kodjia's knack of scoring goals I don't think he's the best fit for the team due to his poor decision making and selfish play. I hope Bruce has coached the selfishness and poor decision making out of him as if Kodjia lost that side of his game and developed more of a team ethic and footballing brain then he could potentially be a very important asset to our promotion challenge.

We absolutely need to get back to doing what we were doing well against Wolves. Hunting down the opposition when we don’t have the ball and press high and playing with a positive and fast tempo. In our past two games we have looked a total shadow of ourselves. Time for Bruce to fire them up for this very important game at the start of a very tough period of games.

100%. Barnsley simply won’t win enough games to challenge Blues. Blues smashed Hull the other day and I expect them to overcome a poor Ipswich at home tomorrow and they won’t drop into the bottom three again, in my opinion. Monk was a rest appointment for them.

Weak and invisible.

No heart. No fight. No desire. Bolton wanted it much more and had far more determination. We were tremendously sloppy in possession and were always under pressure from Bolton. We win the games where we hunt teams down, press the opposition and have a good shape across the park. We did none of that this evening. When you lose the midfield you invariably lose the game and we were easily beaten in the midfield today. Bruce’s substitutions were out of sheer desperation and, as such, the team had absolutely no shape or plan and it all turned to shit. We played into Bolton’s hands tonight and we look a shadow of the team that convincingly beat Wolves a week ago. I’ve has my doubts about second place all season. We’ve spent a day or two there at most and we always have some spectacular fall from grace around the corner. Need to turn things around and quick else the play offs will be hard to stay in. That said, I can’t see us getting past the teams that are likely to be there.

Problem i don’t think Barnsley will be able to get enough points to keep challenging Blues. There’s only one relegation place up for grabs as both Burton and Sunderland are doomed.

Quite simply, we need a reaction.

Got what we deserved tonight. Best team won. They were much hungrier than us, first to the ball and sharper. We looked massively complacent, sloppy and had no drive, energy or tempo to our play. Need to ensure this doesn’t turn into a slippery slope. Second place looks a very tough ask, third will be a struggle in my opinion as both Fulham and Cardiff look unstoppable. Very tough game against Bolton next.

Last night's game was the very best of Aston Villa and an amalgamation of the Bristol City and the Blues game, through the atmosphere in the stadium, the hunger and work rate of the players and the fact that even at 3-1 up we were still hunting them down and pressing them. Absolutely magnificent. I always felt, and indeed stated in the pre match thread, that we needed to be at our very best to get something against a very very good Wolves side, and we showed that. We had them rattled, both by scoring early and by hounding them and pressing them whenever we could. I think Bruce had his tactics spot on today. It was the right team, the right shape and the right approach throughout. I remember sat watching as a nervous wreck at 3-1 (I was strangely more nervous at 3-1 than 2-1 for some reason, perhaps because it was when the third goal went in I dared to believe we would win this) thinking one goal for Wolves and we could crumble. But then I thought we're not that Aston Villa anymore, we're made of much stronger stuff and the likes of Terry and Chester show no signs of crumbling ever. We're a team with great belief, one who is more united and together in team spirit than I've known for years. With Fulham and Cardiff both winning (again!!) I wasn't confident we'd win this one. Having seen Wolves a few times this year they look a cut above anyone else in this league, until last night that is. Wolves showed their class on a few occasions last night and certainly have players that look Prem class. But we showed that we can play it around well too and when we're on it we can look very fluid with our attacking play. I remember seeing a tweet the other day from a Wolves fan mocking us for our praise of Grealish and said "you wouldn't catch him anywhere near the Wolves 18" to which Matt Kendrick replied with "will any of the Wolves 18 catch Grealish though". Last night showed to everyone watching just how exceptional Grealish is. He was the best player on the pitch, no doubt. He gets away from his markers with ease, glides across the park and can perfectly weigh a pass. Just love the guy. Jack was fairly subdued for the first 20-25 mins but towards the end of the first half he came into the fold a lot more and drove us forward with class. Second half we were truly excellent. Our intensity, tempo and energy was just fantastic and Wolves couldn't contain us. Snoddy's great delivery for Chester was inch perfect and Wolves looked rattled. The ground was rocking and belief was in the air. Albert delivering for a fantastic striker's finish by Grabben sent the place wild. Wolves, to their credit, kept playing some excellent stuff and could (and should) have had two penalties. We rode our luck and the icing (excuse the pun) on the cake was Thor's fantastic individual goal. Absolute scenes. What I loved most was seeing how each goal galvanised our boys and we were looking for a fifth. Just fantastic. Bruce's tactics were spot on I believe. His substitutions were absolutely correct as Albert and Hourihane were on yellows and in a game where we were likely to need some last ditch or cynical fouls to break up Wolves' play as they pressed to get back into the game, it was a wise move to protect those players and bring on some fresh blood. All the players gave their all and worked their socks off. Grealish was sublime, Snoddy was endlessly persistent, I thought Taylor had an excellent game against a difficult opponent and drove forward well (unlike midweek where he kept playing it backwards and safe) and made some great challenges, Terry and Chester controlled the back so well, Elmo worked fantastically with Snoddy and showed great positional awareness too and I thought Jedinak swept things up very well too. Adomah continues to do what he does best in being there at the right place at the right time as well as constantly drive at the opposition. And Grabben was an absolute handful for their defence all game. All our players were excellent and our fans were too, making a huge impact on the performance as the place was simply rocking. We made a big statement of intent last night as we continue to push for that second spot. Tuesday is a massive opportunity for us to make it count.

Expected Cardiff to win but was chuffed to see Fulham were drawing at Preston in the dying minutes. Devastated to see them win. If it’s not us, which I don’t think it will be, then I absolutely hope Fulham get second place as I dread facing them in the play offs.

Massive game and huge test for us. Fulham did a great job on them the other week and deservedly beat them. They have class throughout their team and we absolutely need to be at our very best to trouble them, in my opinion. We need to hunt and press them all over the park as we did against blues and Bristol City. Hopefully we start Grealish as he brings class, drive, creativity and craft to our forward play. It’s imperative we win the midfield as if we let Wolves’ midfield dominate then we’ll be hard pushed to get something out of the game. We haven’t played well enough for our capability over the past four games, despite getting some wins, although we did show great perseverance against Sheff Weds so we need to be at our best as Wolves are a cut above most in this league.