Yorkie-Geordie

So was the right wing. Hmm, i beg to differ. Most of our play, infact all of our attacking play, progressed down the right-flank, adn we scored three goals. Milner's crossing wasn't great, but it was his free-kick that led to Huntington's goal. (I think).

I think Harper came through the youth set-up aswell didn't he? Could be wrong.

Tore Yeading to pieces.

No, there was a thread on the good version of Toontastic asking which date you think would be our first signing. I said 21st, and i stand by that!

Tbh, if Butt's goal today from a Martins pass had been an Henry goal from a Fabregas pass, it would have won goal of the month.

Done better since the team's picked itself. Thankyou injuries.

Aye, the one that did nowt attacking-wise today.

Exactamundo.

So, do we need defenders or strikers? tremendous win borne out of guts and character. From a footballing point of view, the performance did absolutely nothing else other than confirm - and unfortunately it STILL needs confirming to many people who clearly have no idea what they are watching - the team is woefully weak in holding the ball up front and in the support from midfield, putting the team under pressure and being pushed back. Anyone who cannot see this is blind. I'd like a stiker, definitely, i think we need one... but defenders are the priority. Well, stand by for more backs to the wall games like that then, and if Martins is injured I hope the new defender will be able to play up front.

So, do we need defenders or strikers? tremendous win borne out of guts and character. From a footballing point of view, the performance did absolutely nothing else other than confirm - and unfortunately it STILL needs confirming to many people who clearly have no idea what they are watching - the team is woefully weak in holding the ball up front and in the support from midfield, putting the team under pressure and being pushed back. Anyone who cannot see this is blind. With Sibi up top, aye. Martins and Dyer compliment each other marvellously, and the ball is played on the ground more when they are about. Searching for the head of Sibierski is pretty ineffective really. We ain't got problems upfront when it's Martins-Dyer; we score goals. Sibierski is slow and can't keep up with his strike partner, and erratic when it comes to holding the ball up. I'd like a stiker, definitely, i think we need one... but defenders are the priority.

Laughable, honestly. Huffed and puffed but did very little tbh. Did well in the last ten minutes with the defense but in an attacking sense he was a waste of space.

Shay Given - 7. Given's saves were absolutely top draw, and you had to feel sorry for him when some pathetic defending cost him another goal from Berbatov. His kicking was abysmal, though. Nolberto Solano - 6. Nobby certainly improved as the match went on, though he started fairly slow and defensively he was all over the place. But as the game went on, he became more controlled and made some very important interventions in the final third. Still slow on the counter-attack. Steven Taylor - 8. A superb, battling, harrying performance from Taylor. A real Captain's innings i thought, not for the first time this season. Did his job brilliantly. Peter Ramage - 6. Ramage was OK. He made one or two key tackles but was erratic all match long. He didn't stick to his position enough and his attempt at a challenge for their second was pitiful. Paul Huntington - 7. A good game from the youngster, i thought. He is showing so much promise and it's great. He sorted the likes of Lennon and Defoe out on several occasions and also showed a sly bit of cynicism, which i thought was intelligent and i liked. Well taken goal, too. James Milner - 6. Milner was frustrating in my opinion. His crosses seemed to revert to the crossing of earlier in the season. Consistently average. However, he linked up well with Dyer on a couple of occasions, but lacked a cutting edge. Nicky Butt - 7. Good performance from Nicky. He helped the defense and spreaded the play several times, and it was a well taken goal to give us the victory. However some of his passing at times was poor and slow aswell, and i think he was one of the main contributors to our sluggish counter-attacking. However, a good performance all round. Kieron Dyer - 8. The advance of Dyer changed the game for me. He was playing far too deep for the majority of the game, and it wasn't really working for him. He wasn't pushing forward and he wasn't over-lapping. However, in the second half, he pushed further forward and got more involved with the attacking play, and it paid dividends. He was a key part of both of our goals in the second half. Clearly Martins' best striker-partner, by a big margin. Matty Pattison - 6. Didn't do an awful lot wrong, but then just didn't do an awful lot on the whole. This lad is by no means a winger, not by any stretch of the imagination. He can't seem to beat players and his final ball doesn't look too good. His defensive capabilities were proven though, and it wasn't a bad performance by any means. Antoine Sibierski - 5. The worst player on the pitch i thought. He won very little in the air and didn't battle for the balls like he usually does. He was slow, couldn't accelerate when he had the ball, and passes seemed to bounce off him. I was crying out for him to be withdrawn tbh, no matter how much i like him. He helped out with the defense at the end but it just wasn't his day, today. Obafemi Martins - 8. When you pay £10m you expect that player to pull something out of the top draw, out of completely nothing, when you most need it. And he did that today. After a nothing sort of a performance for the majority of the game, he pulls out a thunderbolt of a strike and a fabulous through ball. Absolutely sensational stuff. Rightfully MOTM.

A superb team performance. The spine of the team was exceptional... Given, Taylor, Butt, Martins. Absolutely brilliant. THAT'S why you get the checkbook out and pay £10m. Do very little all game, then in the space of three minutes - score one goal and set another one up. And what a goal; what a goal. He was drifting further and further wide and never once looked up at the goal, and just unleashed one of the best strikes i have ever seen from a Newcastle forward. Absolutely exceptional. Thought Sibi was poor. Won very, very little and the ball bounced off him all game long. Still, superb team performance and when you consider the starting line-up, that's an excpetional result. Absolutely magnificent.

I rarely predict a defeat actually, and i'll rarely post it if we do. But that's N-O... i'm on Toontastic here where nobody knows me.

------------------------------- Given -------------------------------- Solano --------- Taylor -------------- Huntington ------- Edgar Milner --------- Parker --------------- Butt --------------- Emre ------------------------------------ Dyer ---------------------------- ------------------- Martins ------------------------------------------ Subs: Harper, Pattison, Lua Lua, Sibierski, Carroll The starting line-up for this game is a tricky one to dictate, having not a single out-and-out left-winger in the squad. The natural person to play there would be Milner, and to put Kieron Dyer on the right. However, i feel that this game, up against a good Spurs defense, should be all about Dyer from our perspective. Martins has really shown what a good player he is recently, but needs an affective partner. Dyer helps Martins to blossom when he is played in an advanced position. Sibierski is fairly immobile, and Martins needs a fast partner, basically to keep up with him - as daft as it sounds. Plus, i feel that Dyer is totally ineffective on the right-wing and it is a waste of a position if he is played there. Emre will really have to be on the ball in this game. He played in this position in the home game against Tottenham, and was left wanting at times. He needs to watch his defensive capabilities, or incapabilities - because Spurs have Aaron Lennon and we have David Edgar. We're going to have to rely on the likes of Emre and Butt, also a key factor if we want to stop Lennon, if we want to get anything out of this game. I'm not feeling overly optimistic about this one. We've got a poor record at White Hart Lane. Spurs 2-1 Newcastle

The current squad at Villa is one worthy of a place in the bottom four or five to be honest; O'Neill simply overachieved in the first half of the season. They were never going to qualify for Europe this season, and they still won't, simply because their squad is rubbish. O'Neill has the nack of turning poor players into average or good players, which is why one or two particular players like Angel have done better, and why the youngsters have shown so much promise. And this is why they shot to the top half of the table earlier on, added to the fact the whole hype which pushed them up a gear or two. However, the likes of Angel are still bad players and it has shown through. This is O'Leary's squad of crap and it'd be unfair to slate O'Neill, because he's already done a superb job effectively cementing a place in the Premiership next season, and bringing the youngsters through. He is still an excellent manager and his track record merely proves that. It's the squad and the first team at Villa, aswell as injuries, that have left Villa in a lower position - not O'Neill. Still a far, far better manager than Glenn Roeder.