Winners and Sinners!!

September 22, 2009 by Steve Orchard
Filed under: Aston Villa 

The winners were clearly Aston Villa, over a very ordinary Portsmouth side, and, of course, Martin O’Neill over Nigel Reo Coker after their little spat last week. NRC is now back in training and has apparently said sorry for the kerfuffle.

Portsmouth had a few shots on goal without really testing the new Villa defence that much. I like the way the partnership between Collins and Dunne is shaping up. From five games, Villa have the best defence in the Premier League, clean sheets are coming thick and fast. Let’s hope that continues. Carlos and Warnock are also doing their bit as well. Maybe, MON knew what he was doing after all. Ordinary players, or so we thought, but he has them playing really well as a team.

At the minute, Villa need Nigel Reo Coker as much as he needs us. He joined the club with a bit of a bad air hanging around him from his West Ham days with the Hammers scapegoating him for just about everything but the writing of the match day programme. NRC has been played out of position a hell of a lot and it was refreshing to see how well he was performing earlier in the season when he moved back in to the centre of midfield. He still gets taken off too much for my liking but MON clearly sticks to a game plan and this has to be accepted by Nigel. That said, I think he’ll be gone come next summer as there can be only one winner in issues such as these.

We entertain Cardiff City tomorrow night in the Carling Cup. I hope we take the competition seriously as I think we have a great chance to do really well in it. Apart from the likes of Spurs, Man City and Everton, the other, so-called big four clubs tend not to take it that seriously in the earlier rounds. If we can beat Cardiff and then get one of those four clubs at home in the next round, we’ll be laughing all the way to the final!! A repeat of the last two years, particularly with no Europa Cup to think about, would be a massive waste of an opportunity. It’s a day out at Wembley and a guarantee of european footie next year regardless of our finishing position.

Great to see Gabby finding the net. He can be a bit of a glut scorer. Will bang in four or five in quick succession and then go seven or eight games without a goal, but, he seems to be working very hard at his game and, for once, is over-shadowing John Carew.


Comments

Tell me what you're thinking...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!