Aston Villa News 24/7Gérard Houllier and Gary McAllister watched their new charges labour to a disappointing draw from the stands today and will know that they have an awful lot of talent at their disposal, but also have their work cut out for them.
It started extremely brightly with Villa absolutely dominating the opening 30 minutes or so, much like the first game of the season against West Ham. Marc Albrighton was having a field day down the right flank and it seemed like it was only a matter of time before he’d be a provider or scorer himself.
Ash opened the scoring in the 13th minute with a well struck free kick and I fully expected the floodgates to open. In fairness to Bolton, although a little overly physical at times, they fought well and clung on long enough to impose themselves on the game during the final 15 minutes of the half.
Bolton had two decent penalty shouts turned down during the first period. Warnock with the first one, turned inside out by Chung-Yong’s deft touch and left an inviting leg out as the Korean dashed into the box. Richard Dunne also made his own life difficult by failing to clear his lines and left himself little option but to dive in, the small amount of contact may have been enough to concede a penalty on another day.
Kevin Davies equalised in the 35th minute, the result once again of shambolic defending, blasting in from close range past a hapless Brad Friedel.
KMac brought Cuellar on in place of Richard Dunne for the second half, but without any real protection, Bolton continued to push for a second goal and the back line were frequently on the scramble to keep the scoreline level.
At the other end, Stephen Ireland went close with a delicately placed shot that ran just wide. Ireland struggled to impose himself on the game, frequently showing that he has a great eye for a pass, the execution is just lacking at the moment. He needs some time to settle and to gel with his new team, but I was concerned before kick off that he and Petrov would struggle in the centre against Muamba & Holden and once Bolton began taking care of Albrighton and Downing with some of the physical stuff, our midfield failed to function.
KMac brought Carew on in place of Ireland in the 73rd minute, shifting Ashley Young into the middle, which was an odd decision for me. Personally, I would have made a double change, Reo-Coker on for Ireland and Carew in for either Downing or Albrighton.
Carew’s best contribution, perhaps, was nodding Cuellar’s left sided cross down for Gabby, whose first touch let him down as he attempted to turn and fire in what would surely have been nailed on goal. But that was a sign of what we were missing, as was the case at Stoke, Gabby really has struggled to lead the attack on his own so far this season.
And so the game just dwindled away into another scrappy, uninspiring affair that either side could easily have stolen, but neither really deserved to win, aside from Villa’s bright opening spell. Over the course of the last two games, based on the performances, that’s five points dropped I’m afraid.
Now the Houllier era begins with an intriguing first game at home to Blackburn on Wednesday in the Carling Cup. After that, it’s a little trip to Molineux and then White Hart Lane. I hope he likes a challenge.
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13 Comments to “Aston Villa 1 Bolton 1”
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It’s not very exciting is it?
you’re not enthralled now martin o’neill’s shackles have been removed?
We made Bolton look decent.
Enough said.
And how we got away with Warnock’s stupid trip, god only knows.
We were lucky to get a point out of that.
No midfield again.
Why does it seem that everybody is beginning to get sick of saying that?
We’re so lightweight in the middle, it’s untrue.
Just play some bruisers against us and you’re almost there.
And we don’t look like scoring, regardless of any openings we create either.
Thoroughly disappointed today, as if you can’t beat the likes of bolton and stoke, we have no hope.
And yes, I know Spuds didn’t do very well against them last season.
Yet more stupid dropped points, ARGH!
As you can probably tell, I’m in a dark place atm.
Didn’t see the game, but all accounts seem to suggest we were fortunate to get a point and were poor in midfield. I think Coyle did a good job getting his boys motivated for the game – all week long in the media I’ve seen Bolton players pointing out how poor their results have been at VP and how they were looking to put a stop to that, and fair play they did.
The midfield is an issue for me in that we do not have a central midfield combo that allows us to play just 2 in there. Petrov plus anyone else just gets overwhelmed, so we only ever look half safe when we have 3 central mids which obviously means we have to sacrifice elsewhere. NRC is our only real “defensive” midfielder, but he is very very short on actual footballing/passing ability and leaves us short in the quality department when he plays.
Must look at MON for the poor squad. He was absolutely brilliant at getting every last drop of effort out of this group, but when a team wants it more than us we just don’t have the quality to win it seems.
can’t disagree with any of that fellas.
i only had time for a very brief preview this morning, but stumbled on the fact that muamba & holden are first & second top tacklers in the prem respectively.
the thought of ireland, who hasn’t had chance to settle yet, in there with petrov was definitely a cause for concern.
on that basis, i think you’re all spot on. i’ve just put the statshack up and pointed to the lack of real penetration, but didn’t explore the root cause.
i think that’s exactly it, we’ve no pivot point in the middle, no one to control distribution and possession. without that, i feel all our attacking players are running around, spreading themselves too thin and not achieving what they could with focus and disciple which is only facilitated by quality possession in the middle.
it’s like a wheel without a hub.
Spot on. Stab can do it IF he has space, but in the Prem he just does not get it. We need 2 quality midfielders in Jan. We COULD be in a relegation battle this season.
Stan not Stab
I’ve now decided that a 4-3-3 (which is what I think we look to play) simply doesn’t work for us.
We can’t pass the ball with enough quality against proper teams to make it happen imo.
One top quality holding midfielder to replace Petrov, a grafter along the lines of Roy Keane and a Lineker-esqe striker and we’re sorted.
Should be quite easy.
Hmm, welcome to the Villa me old bog-eyed mate
the interesting thing is that shape is frequently defined by the personnel as much as what they seem to be doing on the pitch.
for instance, there will be debate about whether we’ve been employing a 4-4-1-1 of late, of whether it’s a 4-2-3-1, a 4-4-2, or even a 4-3-3, as you suggest.
for me, today was more of a flat out 4-4-2, but it’s not really about that as much as highlighting the type of player we’re missing and/or how we’re ironically compromising to accommodate players that don’t fit the system in the position we’re playing.
ultimately, you’re right, whatever we do, the biggest gap in quality seems to be in the middle. fix that and the rest will follow i think.
Also, are we seeing evidence of why MON tinkered (often bizarrely) with defence and people out of position. This season with two CB’s a real LB and a real RB (basically the exact back four that in many people’s eyes MON was CRAZY not to select every week) we have looked awfully fragile.
occurred to me too.
i was also going to point out after the stoke game that pulis played huth, a centre half, at right back while leaving andy wilkinson, a right back, on the bench. huth scored the winning goal didn’t he?
irony meter exploded.
I have a conspiracy theory. KMac is actually selecting teams and tactics based on the expert opinions of verbose blog fans. He is doing this under the direction of MON who is sitting in a bunker slowly crossing off unsettled scores.
plausible.