We Go Again! The 2014/15 Premier League Thread

[Hammersmith harrier]

First topic message reminder :

Silva has just won me a tidy £640, next goalscorer and City to score at least five, woohoo.

[Mat]

Not sure I can manage two games with Villa in four days. Would take a point tonight, then hopefully a win Saturday. Winning both would be great obviously, but with the injuries tonight, think Saturday is our best chance.

[westisbest]

Fk it, i'm going for 2 narrow wins.
2-1 tonight and again saturday.

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Is villa-west brom the t.v. game?

[guildfordbat]

Is villa-west brom the t.v. game?

Olly - yes, on the lamentable BT Sport channel.

For those watching in Black and White, West Brom are the team with the ball. Sorry, Westy - variation on an old joke!

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Think I'll give this game a miss

[westisbest]

Not pleased that Gil and sinclair on bench.

off out now cmon villa.

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Knew betting on Villa would be a good move today, just had that feeling

[hampo17]

Good finish by Gabi, if he didn't miss 90% of those chances he could be a really good striker with his pace.

[GSC]

Ben Foster for England

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Ben Foster for England

Can't beat some good Ben Foster lolz

[Guest]

foster is poopie, need rid this summer. Pulis needs to sort this side out ASAP.

[Fernando]

Dame N'Doye turning out to be quality for Hull. Put them 1-0 up vs Blunderland

[Fernando]

Hull bringing the banter

[Mad for Chelsea]

very good half from Villa that, they could easily be further in front. Foster having a bit of a 'mare it must be said. Ref having a good game, and this goal-line technology is pretty good innit? Shame FIFA aren't more into this technology lark

[westisbest]

Christ we should be out of sight.
Cmon lads finish them off second half.
Thought we should of had a penalty to.

[Guest]

Christ we should be out of sight.

Should be two or three to Villa. We've been terrible. Said you'd take the league game & then Pulis would come back for the Cup game & tactically correct what went wrong tonight.

[Guest]

Get in there 1-1

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Knew betting on Villa would be a good move today, just had that feeling

Oh for crying out loud you useless bastards

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Ben Foster is so so bad

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Ben Foster 

[Guest]

shocking

[Mad for Chelsea]

Ben Foster is so so bad

that was sort of prophetic

absolute nightmare tonight, Foster.

[Fernando]

3 mistakes in 1 game......Awkward...

[westisbest]

Get in. Wooooooooo.
Cmon now villa push on.

Same again Saturday. Back to Wembley.
Knee deep in Guinness and loving it.

Great win.

[Hammersmith harrier]

Hull bringing the banter

I assume that's a photoshop?

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Ben Foster is so so bad

that was sort of prophetic

absolute nightmare tonight, Foster.

As Mat will attest I've always been on the foster is crap bandwagon

[Fernando]

Hull bringing the banter

I assume that's a photoshop?

No that's real

[Mat]

I've defended Fozzy to the hilt, and maintain he's been class for us overall, but had an absolute mare tonight. Myhill in for the cup game hopefully, and hopefully Westy's prediction of two tight 2-1 wins doesn't come true!

As painful as that was, can't deny that Villa didn't deserve to win it after that first half. We had a 20 minute spell in the second half but that was about it. Ideye obviously wasn't fit, and we missed McManaman/Sess in the wide areas.

On another note, Alan Hutton is not a footballer, bloke is a thug end of. Shame he's out of the cup game.

[Guest]

Time for Foster to leave Mat. Woeful tonight, his decision making is terrible & you always feel a clanger is moments away, slipping through fingers or legs, happened already with Miralles & Everton back in September. You only got to google the words Foster & Howler & you don't get some Lawyer firm, you get pages & pages of this geezer's foul ups.

Hopefully Pulis learnt something tonight ahead of the weekend.

[Mat]

Not for me mate. We've still got 10 clean sheets in the league this season, and he's more than played his part in those. Thought his form had generally picked up over the past few weeks but he was just awful tonight. No other way of putting it.

Thought we struggled with Villa's energy in the middle of the park. Mulumbu will probably come in for Fletcher, hopefully McManaman will be fit to come in for Gardner. And maybe play Berahino up front with Sessegnon in behind as Ideye looked a bit leggy today, not sure he was really fit tbh

[Crimey]

Yeah I think Ben Foster isn't that bad of a keeper, he makes too many mistakes but he's playing for West Brom not Chelsea, think he's decent enough. West Brom obviously just have to be careful about being complacent, it would be very easy to think they are safe in the position they currently are but could easily get dragged back into it. Big win for Aston Villa though, guessing both teams would rather have had the win here than in the FA Cup. 

Southampton keeping pace, putting pressure on Liverpool to overtake them again.

[westisbest]

Fk it, i'm going for 2 narrow wins.
2-1 tonight and again saturday.

Called it.

Yeah baby

[Dolphin Ziggler]

Im another who has long been on the down with Foster brigade. How Rob Green gets stick but Ben Foster makes England squads astounds me

[Crimey]

Im another who has long been on the down with Foster brigade. How Rob Green gets stick but Ben Foster makes England squads astounds me

I think it's fairly obvious that Ben Foster makes the squad because of his association with Hodgson and it's not like his inclusion in the squad is ever actually praised. It's also only the third keeper in an international squad, not a huge deal as whoever it is will basically never play.

[westisbest]

Hopefully saturday, Gil and Sinclair start.

Would like to see Grealish start to. Showed a bit of heart.

What we need to do now is show the fight.
Benteke scoring, aside from a win is what we needed.

Sunderland next up in the league.

Gotta beat them. Said nothing less than 6 points.

Not getting carried away.  But hell a big relief.

Gotta say love watching Sherwood. Shows the passion that some managers lack.

[Mat]

Im another who has long been on the down with Foster brigade. How Rob Green gets stick but Ben Foster makes England squads astounds me

But that's just because you're anti anything West Brom

[Dolphin Ziggler]

He's just not that good. It feels like he makes a mistake every game

[Azzy]

I've defended Fozzy to the hilt, and maintain he's been class for us overall, but had an absolute mare tonight. Myhill in for the cup game hopefully, and hopefully Westy's prediction of two tight 2-1 wins doesn't come true!

As painful as that was, can't deny that Villa didn't deserve to win it after that first half. We had a 20 minute spell in the second half but that was about it. Ideye obviously wasn't fit, and we missed McManaman/Sess in the wide areas.

On another note, Alan Hutton is not a footballer, bloke is a thug end of. Shame he's out of the cup game.

I was going to post something identical this morning. Sherwood had Villa buzzing, their closing down was fantastic and they really exposed our ponderous defence. Quite why Brunt continues at LB rather than Pocognoli, Baird, Pulis himself or my mum, I don't know.

As for Foster, he has a stupid tendency to go crazy. He does earn us a lot of points and is generally solid, but no matter how well you play, you're one Ben Foster brain aneurysm away from a loss like last night. The second the ball was crossed in, the second it left the guy's foot, I screamed at the TV "leave the fudge alone Fozzy". Shame he didn't listen

[Azzy]

He's just not that good. It feels like he makes a mistake every game

You don't follow Albion closely enough to know how many points he's saved us, entirely by himself. The season we finished 8th, for example, my group of Albion fans counted 18 points he won for us single-handedly. He's a far better keeper than any we've had in my lifetime and to get a keeper of similar quality, you'd be spending £15m for an English keeper or £8m-£9m for a foreign one. Better to keep him and buy defenders with pace, rather than playing two decrepit CBs, a woeful LM as a LB, and a slow CB at RB.

[Mat]

Incline to agree with you Azzy, he's saved us a lot of points, been player of the season twice in his first three years at the club. This is his fourth season and it's definitely been his worst, won't deny that.

Like you said, we watch Albion a lot where as anything Foster does wrong is likely to be the only thing you see about him from the outside, unless it's in a game on TV or against your team (Foster had a shocker against Norwich one year)

Dolph prefers Green, Olly prefers Ruddy, maybe as you've seen them save you points or win games, like I have Foster with us.

[NickisBHAFC]

Im another who has long been on the down with Foster brigade. How Rob Green gets stick but Ben Foster makes England squads astounds me

Rob green single handily cost us the 2010 World Cup though. He wrecked everything.

[Guest]

In reality, he cost us two points in a group we got out of

[Azzy]

For me, England have one great keeper - Hart. They have one good keeper - Forster. Then they have a selection of backups such as Foster, Ruddy, Butland. But Rob Green should be nowhere the discussion. I'd rather have David James in my side.

[Stella]

Hart isn't great. He is our best, unfortunately.

That said, Hart hasn't had the luxury of a good defense like Seaman and James had.

[mystiroakey]

Hart is a very good keeper- Not world best- but good enough for most top teams and Forster is also very good. Foster had a mare yesterday.

Good game though- I knew TP would make WBA look 10 times better second half(he works out the opposition so well and counters it).. And that ball from Sado was really nice and welcome to see that he has that extra asset to his game.

But I am pleased for Villa- They really needed that

[Stella]

I want Villa to stay up, and think they will, just.

[Soldier_Of_Fortune]

In reality, he cost us two points in a group we got out of

Which then meant we didn't top the group, then we had to play Germany, rather then Ghana.

Ripple effect..........

[Dolphin Ziggler]

Cos his one mistake was why England couldn't score more than one against the U.S. and were turgid every game.

Rob Green is having a better season than Foster right now, and whilst I wouldn't see the point picking him, he should be above him in he pecking order currently.

[Azzy]

One thing that really struck me was that Villa played like 10 Tim Sherwoods - energy, closing down, very physical. Teams will struggle to beat them if they play like they did last night. And their fans were incredible.

[westisbest]

Yeah we were very good first half.

Hope we can continue that for the remaining games.
We play like we did first half we should be fine.

Was impressed with Gabby, he was certainly up for it.

Watched Sherwood in a few interviews, he seems like a good guy.
Hope Sinclair and Gil get some more game time.

Next 2 league games

Sunderland a
Swansea h.

Again play like we did first half, hopefully we can get 6 points.

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