Midweek Football; 27-28th January - *SPOiLERS*

[DanH84]

well benitez took my advice in the end!

 

[DanH84]

No idea who David Moyles is but O'Neil had had more money than Rafa has to spend since he took over at Villa.

his team was a lot worse though.

 

[DanH84]

Amazing finish from RvP considering he's been waiting 92 minutes for just one half chance. That's a true indication of world class ability, one chance, one amazing finish whilst under pressure from thousands of Arsenal fans. Decent result, don't know if Arsenal deserved a point though, hard to say Everton deserved 3 so a draw is about right ..

not really a good enough result for arsenal although everton are a good team undoubtedly. does that make you 8 points off the top with united having a game in hand?

 

[DanH84]

To be honest, what's O'Neill spent?

Petrov 6.5m, Harewood 3m, Young 10m, Cuellar 8m, Heskey 3.5m, Routledge 1.5m, L Young 4.5m (i think), Shorey 5m (again, i think), Milner 12m, Friedel 3m.. actually, it adds up when you think about it - but that's an entire squad. Most big teams spend that on 2 players.

O'Neill has done a brilliant job, you haven't been playing amazingly recently but then again no one has. You haven't made any superstar buys but they're working for you. Liverpool had a far stronger squad than you when O'Neill took over and in results at least you've closed the gap dramatically.

 

[DanH84]

Does that apply to Benitez too?

You had a far stronger squad than we did when Rafa took over (~30 points off the lead) and we've closed the gap dramatically

actually Baz that's kind of my point, it's an argument that you've used against united when arguing before about rafa's resources. you were much farther behind when benitez took over, well villa were further behind than you. and while i think they're still some way off liverpool they have closed the gap dramatically without any real marquee signings and in just 2 years.

 

[DanH84]

This might seem biased, I can assure you it isn't, but if I was the ref I wouldn't have given that penalty, tiny little tap and Koumas drops like a sack of ****, it's blatant simulation.

It's very similar to my view on Kuyts challenge on Hleb last season, yeah it was a foul but the player shouldn't be acting like he's just been shot.

i think the correct procedure in that instance os the foul/penalty is still awarding along with a yellow card for the player who was simulating. a foul is still a fould but the follow up can be punished as well.

 

[DanH84]

I've not disagreed with you that O'Neil's done a good job. I simply asked if the same applied to us as you could have easily swapped Liverpool for Villa and said that we've dramatically closed the gap too.

And isn't this O'Neil's 3rd season?

August 2006 iirc so 2 and a half years and 2 and a 1/3rd summer transfer windows

i'm not arguing that you've improved I'm just saying that when you mentioned that O'Neill had more money to spend since he'd been there was slightly specious with regard to arguments we've had before as to the comparitive quality of the united/liverpool squads when benitez took over.

 

[DanH84]

i think i'd have to go with obvious opinion here, maybe take torres off ok, but have Keane AND Gerrard on if you need to get that goal.

 

[DanH84]

I think people have taken my post about O'Neil and money out of context. As i said right away after, all i was saying was that andy's post about O'Neil and money was wrong.

Villa may not have signed anybody for £20m but they have spent more money (in actual terms) than nearly every other club in the league over the last few seasons. That's not a taking anything away from Villa as there's one thing having the money and another thing doing something with it as Man City fans could testify too.

fair enough

 

[DanH84]

Keane not coming on for Torres isn't much of an issue to me. Babel was more suited to playing the single striker role.

Taking Torres off in the first place was questionable and taking Gerrard off for the sake of 10 minutes after they scored was madness.

i'm only talking about the second sub, if Torres is tired then whatever take him off, although i personally would have kept him on. my point is that a draw wasn't good for you tonight, you really could have done with going all out for the win and relying on your superior personnel to keep wigan out. stick as many attacking players as possible on the pitch.



*edit once the equaliser went in i mean.