[Archived] Rovers vs Aston Villa preview

[den]

Wow - in a season of poor results you can pin down Saturdays draw as the reason we will get relegated - I am impressed.

I could say you were in cloud cuckoo land, but I wont.

I would rather say you've been making some rather naieve points lately and struggling to defend them, using sarcasm instead.

[JAL]

A thoroughly depressing result, drawing at home to another struggling team Villa.

Definitely two points lost, but then again, one very late goal in 180 minutes of premier league football with the goalkeeper being man of the match in one game, whilst four goals have been conceded for our solitary one says it all really.

[Stuart]

First home draw of the season.

[DavidMailsTightPerm]

I could say you were in cloud cuckoo land, but I wont.

I would rather say you've been making some rather naieve points lately and struggling to defend them, using sarcasm instead.

Den - and I would say that we have differing perspectives - and that you obviously don't like somebody having a different opinion to you (because that is largely what it is - an opinion). But obviously your opinion must be correct - hence mine are naive and I struggle to defend them (oops - sorry resorting to sarcasm again).

My main point (and please feel to track back) has always been that the Bolton and Wolves matches were more important - and I am not the only naive poster to comment on this. I am sorry if that upsets you in anyway - but in a season where we have beaten United away, drawn with Liverpool away, and then got beaten at home by Bolton - any point is welcome.

P.S. Not in our situation. I guess you might look back DMTP, at the end of the season if we're relegated and say "well at least we got a good draw against Villa at Ewood"

does sound a little sarcastic - not struggling to defend your rather naive points are you

[JAL]

Den - and I would say that we have differing perspectives - and that you obviously don't like somebody having a different opinion to you (because that is largely what it is - an opinion). But obviously your opinion must be correct - hence mine are naive and I struggle to defend them (oops - sorry resorting to sarcasm again).

My main point (and please feel to track back) has always been that the Bolton and Wolves matches were more important - and I am not the only naive poster to comment on this. I am sorry if that upsets you in anyway - but in a season where we have beaten United away, drawn with Liverpool away, and then got beaten at home by Bolton - any point is welcome.

P.S. Not in our situation. I guess you might look back DMTP, at the end of the season if we're relegated and say "well at least we got a good draw against Villa at Ewood"

does sound a little sarcastic - not struggling to defend your rather naive points are you

Aston Villa match was THE important one and we partly failed.

[DE.]

Den - and I would say that we have differing perspectives - and that you obviously don't like somebody having a different opinion to you (because that is largely what it is - an opinion). But obviously your opinion must be correct - hence mine are naive and I struggle to defend them (oops - sorry resorting to sarcasm again).

My main point (and please feel to track back) has always been that the Bolton and Wolves matches were more important - and I am not the only naive poster to comment on this. I am sorry if that upsets you in anyway - but in a season where we have beaten United away, drawn with Liverpool away, and then got beaten at home by Bolton - any point is welcome.

You can't judge this result to be good on the fact we may beat Bolton and Wolves, though. In the context of our current plight one point is not good enough, it's as simple as that. Had we won we'd be three points clear of 18th now with superior goal difference. A draw means we're 3 points from bottom of the table and only out of the relegation zone on goal difference. Based on our current position as it is, rather than what it might be after Wolves and Bolton, the Villa result is not good. We've thrown away too many points at home already for a point to be a good result.

Even if we were judging the value of a single point on the basis of speculated results in upcoming matches - how many of the sides directly around us have we beaten this season? There's no logical basis to assume we'll beat any of them based on past results.

[DavidMailsTightPerm]

You can't judge this result to be good on the fact we may beat Bolton and Wolves, though. In the context of our current plight one point is not good enough, it's as simple as that. Had we won we'd be three points clear of 18th now with superior goal difference. A draw means we're 3 points from bottom of the table and only out of the relegation zone on goal difference. Based on our current position as it is, rather than what it might be after Wolves and Bolton, the Villa result is not good. We've thrown away too many points at home already for a point to be a good result.

Even if we were judging the value of a single point on the basis of speculated results in upcoming matches - how many of the sides directly around us have we beaten this season? There's no logical basis to assume we'll beat any of them based on past results.

I never said it was a good result - I always said that it was one of our more winnable matches - but I did say that in the scheme of things it may end up not being a bad result.

The match is gone - we have one more point to our total - and are out of the bottom three - whether it was a good point or not, we will know in May.

[philipl]

We 2/3rds failed by producing the most wretched performance (first half) of an abject season.

I completely lost all control watching that rubbish at home- thank goodness I was not at Ewood- the thought police would have had me arrested.

[DavidMailsTightPerm]

We 2/3rds failed by producing the most wretched performance (first half) of an abject season.

I completely lost all control watching that rubbish at home- thank goodness I was not at Ewood- the thought police would have had me arrested.

The first half performance was the poorest I have seen at Ewood for a very long time. I can forgive mis-placed passes, missed shots etc etc - but what I found particularly hard was the general lack of effort and enthusiasm. For me I had some sympathy for Formica - he didn't play well - but at least the effort and desire was there.

[DE.]

I think the one thing we can all generally agree on is that the players have (by and large) always at the very least put the effort in. It's very worrying to see the lack of effort in that first half... especially as the players would have known how important that match was.

[bazza]

I bet London to a brick says we've lost to Villa far more often than we've won over the last 10 years. They and West fricken Ham always do us.

It's the claret and blue, you know. Makes our players feel nauseous.

[Majiball]

I think the one thing we can all generally agree on is that the players have (by and large) always at the very least put the effort in. It's very worrying to see the lack of effort in that first half... especially as the players would have known how important that match was.

I reckon I'd perform ###### poorly if I had to listen to Keano drone on all week as well.

[DE.]

In some ways it's a testament to the players that they've continued to put in 100% effort despite having a total bellwhiff as a manager, a man who sets them up to fail each week. It's that effort that has ensured we haven't sunk to the bottom. You could argue that for the money they're paid it's the very least they could do, but that's another debate entirely.

If the effort begins to disappear, though, we are screwed. Kean's tactical nous certainly won't be enough.

[47er]

Wow - in a season of poor results you can pin down Saturdays draw as the reason we will get relegated - I am impressed.

I am hoping that at the end of the season we stay up by one point - and then I can say - at least the draw against Villa kept us up

Whereas we are on a really good run - weren't missing two usual first team players, have an excellent home record - and the fans are fully behind the manager.

It was one of our easier matches - but no match in the premiership is easy. Hopefully we beat Wolves and Bolton - and this debate melts away.

This debate would melt away if you were not so determined to defend it! 3 points at home to poor opposition is what we needed to get a bit clear of the "relegation 5" or the other 4 anyway.

The 2 fixtures you keep going on about are genuine 6-pointers but 3 points would have gone some way to compensate if anything went wrong there as its quite likely to do. Remember Bolton at home?

Its no consolation to me, that having drawn a home game we needed to win that there are 2 similar fixtures coming up! We might lose those too!

This debate started when the usual WUM described it as a "decent" result. It wasn't. It was more of the same that got us where we are.

[DavidMailsTightPerm]

This debate would melt away if you were not so determined to defend it! 3 points at home to poor opposition is what we needed to get a bit clear of the "relegation 5" or the other 4 anyway.

The 2 fixtures you keep going on about are genuine 6-pointers but 3 points would have gone some way to compensate if anything went wrong there as its quite likely to do. Remember Bolton at home?

Its no consolation to me, that having drawn a home game we needed to win that there are 2 similar fixtures coming up! We might lose those too!

This debate started when the usual WUM described it as a "decent" result. It wasn't. It was more of the same that got us where we are.

When you take it in context - a point may end up being a decent result - it might not be. I am sure that Bolton and Wolves (who were both beaten by AV at home) would be happy with a point !

We didn't need to win it - and nobody knows what the impact will now be on subsequent matches. Perhaps the draw will be the kick up the pants that they need to get a win at Wolves - perhaps if we had won against AV it would have made them complacent - who knows. I appreciate where you are coming from, as it was one of the more winnable matches - but to dismiss the point we earned as some form of disaster is a little OTT. At the end of the day Saturdays match won't decide our fate - it will be the other home matches where we ended up with nil points that will do that.

[47er]

OK--just to change tack slightly.

We're all going to invest a lot of emotional energy in the next few weeks.

Suppose we narrowly avoid relegation on the basis that there are 3 clubs worse than ourselves and we start next season with Venkys still owning the club and Steve ( I told you there was no way we'd be relegated) Kean as manager, thousands of fans not renewing (to add to this season's exodus), our best players gone------Hoilett, N'Zonzi, Robbo at a guess and facing the same prospects all over again with a weaker team---------will it have been worth it?

[Brfcrule1]

One thing though that was evident that needs highlighting is playing the Yak up on his own with no help was always a recipe for disaster and considering Rovers were at home the emphasis should really have been to attack Villa from the off IMO we really should have gone with a 4-4-1-1 with Formica, Rochina, Hoilett playing in the hole behind the Yak that would have been more effective it seems to me coco employs the wrong formations for all the games no disrespect to Villa but when you play a team struggling at home the 4-4-1-1 places more emphasis on attacking generally a 4-2-3-1 is generally employed by teams when they travel away from home to look more solid it just amazes me how coco has not figured that out yet also another startling discovery which totally baffled me everyone knows the weak link in Villa's defence is Warnock everyone can see this I was stating this before the match Hoilett should have been set to run at Warnock he would have terrified the life out of him and would have had more joy and Warnock would have not got out as much into our half creating things then maybe with the right tactics and formation we might have won that game as the villains were there for the taking and a decent manager would have noticed these things and rectified the problems but as have stated many times before we don't have a manager managing our team we have a clown who quite frankly I would not trust to prepare his own lunch let alone play around with a premier league team.

Rant Over!.

[nellybc]

He was the catalyst for our second half improvement. Every single move for the first 35 minutes of that second half started with him picking up the ball from deep and moving the ball forwards quickly.

I have certainly not been pedersens biggest fan by any stretch but i agree with you on this. The game and team moved around him having the ball deeper throughout the second half

[nellybc]

Id bet you anything that we get a more substantial fee for Dann than Hanley.

what does it matter who we get more for ?? Wont make the slightest difference as venky's will bank it all anyway!!

it matter who is playing better at the moment as we have around 12 games to save our @rses and i know who i want as my central defenders and it isnt dann!!