We're in the final! Woohooo.... haha.
Seriously though, we deserved the win and a could have (should have) added more goals - but huge credit goes to Shay Given for an incredible save to prevent an equalizer from Brett Emerton!
A very competitive 'friendly' which both sets of players did very well under the extreme hot conditions.
Subs made were Albrighton, Delfoneso and Delph for Pets, Agbonlahor and Makoun.
Thought Makoun looked sloppy in first half and Delph looked alot better on the ball - Makoun was guilty of giving it away quite a few times and didn't look as calm on the ball as Id want. Very committed performance s from (MOTM) Collins, Dunne, L.Young (love this guy so much!) and Warnock. Delph too showed great desire with his tackles.
Albrighton looked lively-ish but I felt Bannan looked better (both played on the right) and 'Alby' showed, as he did a few times last season that he is still somewhat immature by playing through their striker which, save for a challenge by Collins could have cost us dearly. In the Prem with sharper strikers (it is pre-season afterall) we would have been punished...unless it was Mario 'ill backheel it 'cos im cool' Ballotelli.
Overall we looked solid at the back and a clean sheet is always a brucie bonus. The commentators (Tyler and Dion Dublin) mentioned again how they observed AM spending time alone with our CB's to deal with crosses etc - if this is the case and is something that continues (as we all know must do) then we could well have our defence that was so stern under MON's reign.
Positives: Great save from Given, showing just why we bought him. Very happy with this signing. Bent doing what he does best. Petrov, Bannan and Delph shinign for me as well as a tight defence.
Need few more players to build squad depth and hope AM addresses this soon, just bringing in Given and Nzogbia for me, isnt enough to cover all the players who have left (NRC, Carew, Downing, Young, Fridel etc). However hopefully Stephen Irleand will start to show why we expect so much from him - more of his through-ball passing which set up Bents goal the other day at Walsall showed me that on his day he could be a vital player - and hearing AM say that he has high hopes for SI at Villa gives me comfort.
Roll on Chelsea in the final!