Spurs 2-1 Aston Villa: Fan Reaction

Love how we are all begging for Heskey to be back. Sad, but true. He was amazing again today till the knock.

I totally agree about Heskey. I immediately lost faith as soon as I saw John Carew get out on the pitch, and I never thought the day would come when I would pick Heskey as our best “big man” striker. I think that might be why Houllier picked Carew over Delf, because of size.

The really worrying thing for me is that it doesn’t seem like some of our guys don’t seem to realize that we have some really good wide players. A number of times during the game, one of our players (the particular example I have in mind is of NRC) ignoring an open player on the side of the box and just blasting a poor shot in from outside the box.

Also, Rafael Van der Vaart is much better than anyone we have. Gareth Bale is outstanding as well. Despite how well we started, I’m not sure that we were really equipped to beat a team of that quality at their home ground.

Carew made sense. I think your complaint would be valid, if only it were a few weeks later. O’Neil was never flexible. I’ve loved what I’ve seen out of Houllier’s half time adjustments. Plus, even though we lost, the Villa looked way, way better than I expected against the Spurs. This is considering Heskey’s (still can’t believe I’m saying that…) absence.

Hopefully Heskey and Agbonlahor are fit when its over. Then Houllier will have options that don’t include Carew.

Aston Villa controlled the first thirty minutes and Spurs took control from there. I actually thought we starting to bet back into the game before Spurs scored the winner. I do agree that I like Houllier’s tactical substitutions. Martin O’Neil would run with the same XI unless somebody got hurt, or in rare instances he would throw out 4 strikers and nobody would know what they were supposed to be doing out there.

They NEED to have Ireland break into the XI. They need to give him a run of games and tell him that it is his spot to lose, relax, and don’t look over your shoulder if you don’t have a hat trick in the first ten minutes. They still could only create chances on the counter, and when they tried to keep possession the midfield and back four were kicking the ball back and forth with nobody getting forward or having any clue how to advance the ball to the final third.

NRC has done a nice job but is useless in attack. Petrov is not long for this team. If you look at Houlier’s track record at Liverpool he is not afraid to hurt feelings and rock the boat. The Captain has been subbed twice in a row and it is clear that the manager does not rate him. The priority #1 in January has to be a box-to-box midfielder, that is a strong tackler, and can play well with Ireland assuming they stick with the 4-2-3-1 and Ash is going to keep playing in the hole.