CHOULO19

I think Torres was much better against Hull than Ba was yesterday. His movement is miles ahead. I think Fernando is our first choice ST at the moment and I fully expect him to start against Manu.

Big win for Nishea over Blue Bulls. Did not see this one coming. The league is starting to get exciting. But only because I just humped Stingray 4-0

LOL, I never learn. Btw, I just kicked your ass on xperteleven

Not cool, Tom! I was eating, man

It seems that the season has still not started for Mata. Between him, Ba and Lampard yesterday, we might as well have been playing with 8 men..

So he got stick for the first performance against Hull even though he was generally good, but no one says anything about his performance yesterday even though it was ten times worse?!

Woeful performance. He must have broken the offside record. But let's be fair a bit here. It was an incredibly difficult game for a lone striker to play in. He was always isolated with 5-6 Villa players around him. Our midfield and AMs created absolutely NOTHING for him. His performance can't be compared to Lukaku because we scored shortly after the Belgian came on and Villa then pushed forward to get an equalizer leaving spaces behind them while Ba did not have any spaces when he was on.

One of the few players that were actually good yesterday (along with JT and Cech). He was excellent on the ball. Off the ball I thought he could have been a bit better. He got turned a bit too easily in midfield a couple of times and he late to track the runner in a couple of occasions as well. But overall he's doing that holding role much better than I expected. But I still prefer by some distance his contribution as a box-to-box midfielder.

One of the worst performances I've seen in a Blue shirt. Got turned too easily one-on-one, his position was bad and his decision making even worse. He should have been sent off..twice! I don't want to see him at RB for a very long time after this.

That delivery for Iva's goal, as brilliant as it was, does NOT make up for that terrible performance. He had an absolute shocker. His passing was way off, his defensive contribution was almost nonexistent, and he wanted to play so high up the pitch he just ended up crowding the already crowded area where the three AMs are supposed to operate. He left Ramires complete stranded against a three-man Villa midfield. And all this was at home against Aston Villa. I don't even want to find out how he'll perform against a team like united or City..

Errrm..yeah, sure, of course :ph34r2:

They were the better side at 1-1 and creating more chances when we should have had a man sent off. They would probably had scored had the ref made the right call. Then that same man goes and scores the winner from an offside position. And he should have been sent off again after the goal for a second yellow but the ref booked Benteke instead for taking a kick to the head. Performance wise, Villa were the better side apart from the opening 10 mins. They defended much better and they created more than we did. They had 4-5 clear goal scoring opportunities and we were lucky that Cech made three excellent saves (and that three of those chances didn't fall to a striker). On the other hand, we scored from an own goal and an offside. I can't remember us creating a single chance other than those two in the first 80 mins. Only in the last 10-15 mins when Villa pushed for an equalizer and left spaces at the back did we manage to create something and even those were only half chances. It was a terrible performance, there are no two ways about it, and in a normal game where we do not get as much luck as we did last night, we'd most probably lose.

@Stingray, you have a favorite Lingerie brand?!

It was a MASSIVE result, imo. It puts a lot of pressure on united and Moyes because it will be a huge hit for them to already be 6 points behind us 9 days into the season, so they come into the game on Monday with more pressure on them than us. But performance wise, it was just terrible, there are no two ways about it.

We won the game purely by luck. Are you happy with that performance?

Tactics and team selection all wrong for tonight's game. He should share the blame with the players for the bad performance.

Villa were by far the better and more dangerous side when the score was 1-1. They probably would have score had we went down to 10 men as we should have. Iva should have been sent off, and his goal was offside, but I don't think that last ball was penalty. JT was clearly being pulled down by Agbonlahor which cause him to raise his arms. It was a Chelsea FK, imo.

Spelling Nazi!

Terrible, terrible game. Villa will feel cheated and with good reason. We deserved to lose this match. JT was probably my MOTM, Rami was decent and everyone else was terrible. Ivanovic should be benched for a months for this performance. Just want to forget this match..

There were no available passing options apart from that. The front four were mostly standing between three lines of Villa players.

Ivanovic is NOT a RB FFS! Would have expected Cech to do better in the goal. Offensively we've been beyon poor. Haven't managed to create anything. Not a single shot on target apart from the goal. The gap between the pivot and the front four is ridiculously huge. We'll continue to struggle to create anything unless that is fixed. Someone take Lampard off, PLEASE!!!

I'll bet anything that Torres starts if he's fit.

Tbf, that'll probably work better than Torres

Plan B is to stick with the strikers we currently have and plan C is to stick JT up top

From what I understood from some Villa fans is that he did not start against Arsenal because he missed Villa's preseason. He could start tonight, or Lambert could go with the same back four that did well against Arsenal.