A professional job at best first half but 2nd half we just invited pressure for the majority of it.
Mears coming on appeared a forced change (cannot understand why we didnt have Tosin on the bench when all our other fit centre halves were playing and why Montero came from nowhere when Edwards who has shown glimpses didnt make the squad at all)
There seemed to be an outlet and game plan first half even if we did play a bit too deep but 2nd half we just kept giving them the ball back and our midfield which isnt exactly a bundle of energy anyway just ran out of legs. Johansen was the pick, Phillips looked rusty and if you play Brunt you have to try and keep the ball, although not a centre midfielder, Brunty does have a football brain so you have to get him on the ball and have legs around him, 2nd half we did none of that and your asking a 34 year old to spend the game chasing and closing down which eventually will catch up with you.
The worry is we dont really have a great deal of other options for Tuesday, maybe Field could come in but i expect to see us lineup with a team that looked dead on its feet, especially in midfield.
I thought Villa were very average at best, but they were better than us which says a lot about us, the way the media (and many Villa fans) have been talking you would think we were coming up against a Liverpool or Man City, we werent, they are a very average side who are in decent form and having a lot of the rub of the green at the right stage of the season but they are more than beatable.
I would hope we will actually take the game to them on Tuesday, actually have some of the ball and try and do something because if we do i fancy us to beat them, yes it will leave us open a bit but i dont think we can approach the game the same as we did today, we gave Villa too much respect, especially 2nd half.
As much as i think Dean Smith is a decent coach, he is whiney t**t as well, every interview he does he puts in some little dig about other teams, he still refers back to Jrods hand ball every opportunity, but he played it clever today. As soon as Gayle had been booked, there was a nothing incident by the benches involving Gayle which he had a cry over and got the refs attention, from then on it felt like the ref was waiting to send Gayle off, if he cant go in for a challenge like he did with the keeper then football is pretty pointless.
I think the ref was poor today, not just that he got the sending off wrong and we should of had a penalty, those things happen, we have benefitted from those this season, what i didnt like was i felt he was very inconsistent, it felt like if a Villa player stopped and appealed, they got the decision, i think we had 5 booked today and there was 1 bad challenge all game? I think the size of the crowd and the occasion got to the ref and he was poor, i wouldnt say the atmosphere got to him because i think Villa park was fairly quiet until they scored, certainly wasnt intimidating or loyal backing from the home fans.
Its over to us on Tuesday, i would hope we do make it a hostile atmosphere for both the ref and Villa as big occasions clearly do influence refs, listening to many Villa fans they really do think they are at wembley and they do really think they are something special, they arent, if we show some initiative and get at them i think we would beat them, but i expect a repeat of todays performance, the big difference is we dont have Gayle tuesday but instead of changing our game plan i think we will try and blag it and it will cost us.
