we were lucky

but i'll take it!

dzeko was poor, silva turned fools gold tonight and mancini got some things wrong.

why can't we just stick our best team out there from the start? milner was decent when he came on but we can't keep going on like this.

aye, villareal were no better than a team like swansea... I really don't understand why this happened...

I can't understand why we don't play Richards and Clichy as the full backs. I mean, I'll take Zaba at right back now and again, but Kolarov? And Johnson was a big gamble - anyone know if he was injured, or was he swapped for Barry because he wasn't cutting it?

Still, it's three points. Shame Bayern didn't dispatch Napoli though, that's not done us any favours.

Worked in the end I suppose so at least Micah and Clichy are rested for Sunday. Thought Johnson was just poor, doesn't seem to contribute anything when he plays from the start.

Frustrating game considering the shouts of 'ole' heard against Villa, and we couldn't even string three passes together tonight. Silva was off form too I thought.

Got the result though, hopefully we go into the derby taking the positives, tonight wasn't a good reflection of how we have played so far this season - Yaya was much better when pushed forward, but his distribution was still awful, think he will be cream-crackered if he starts against United on Sunday.

I suppose in the end, rotation worked against Villa and not tonight, Mancini and the team are probably still finding their feet in that respect.

Hang on, Villarreal were superior to Napoli on tonights showing - I can't remember one of their passes going astray and they were like lightning on the break. Despite some dreadful passing and lack of imagination at times we still won and that's what it's all about.

What we do need though is a replacement for Tevez ie someone who is prepared to run at defences and have a go as this tippy-tappy stuff on the edge of the box is starting to do my head in.

Are you all mad (except Boris) Villarreal were no slouches. We looked like Barcelona when we played Spuds but Villarreal were far superior to them. Kolarov played well, so did Zaba - got a great pass through for the winning goal, Barry made a difference and Yaya played really well. Thought Dzeko played like he did last season and that's the only criticism. We won and we are learning to play in the Champs League. Bob's learning too.

3 pts on Sunday and job's a good un.

Kolarov played very well going forwards, putting in stacks of crosses. the left is where most of our attacks came from.

johnson didn't play badly at all and was the unlucky one for mancini's incorrect set up. he gave way for barry so yaya could go forwards which seemed to work well until NDJ was subbed and yaya dropped back and was shit again.

yaya is ok when bombing forwards but he is no use when the other team get the ball back as he just lets them waltz past him far too easily.

the tippy tappy stuff can be a bit frustrating but can also be a joy to watch with the shirt first time passes around the box creating chances. for that to be fully effective, we need aguero, silva, nasri and dzeko/balotelli playing.

Dzeko was very poor, with nothing sticking. rotation can be a good thing but he hasn't scored since august now. balotelli is in form and his confidence is sky high so he is above dzeko for me at the moment.

Just because Villarreal were touted as the weakest team in our league doesn't mean we've a given right to beat them, they proved at times they're more than capable of knocking it about freely. Anyway this is my take on last nights preceedings:

I thought Zab and Kolarov did ok really, both were getting forward at every opportunity and both contributed to the goals. Just wish both could get back quicker after they've bombed forward and we've lost the ball.

I actually thought AJ was just getting into the game when he got subbed, seemed a strange decision at the time to me.

I didn't think NDJ played that well tbh and his piss poor tackle lead to the goal, could Hart not have pushed the 1st shot furhter away from goal/around the post? (not seen the goals on TV yet)

Imo Barry made the difference to the team when he came on (maybe it was a good substition then ). He looked solid and rarely lost possession or gave the ball away.

Dzeko should have had a hat-trick but his overall game was very poor, there was no hold up play, shit control and i lost count the number of times he passed straight to their players.

Nasri and Silva were reminisant of the Napoli game, in and out of it far too often. I honestly forgot Nasri was on playing in the 1st 20 minutes.

I know it's easy to critisize but overall i did think we played some good stuff without actually looking brilliant, Villarreal were always going to have spells in the game, which i think we coped with pretty well. The win was achieved in the end though......just, time to move on to Sunday me thinks.

i thin k hart could have pushed it further sideways but where the fuck were our defenders?

same happened in munich if i remember correctly. no defender following up after hart pushes the ball out.

there should be a designated defender that chases into the box just in case.

We conceded a sloppy goal, then created chance after chance.

Firstly

Richards and Clichy give us speed down the wings, and another attcking dimension, I've said this before, it's bleedin' obvious! Mancini underestimated Villareal, or tried to save his best for sunday.

Dzeko was awful, Silva was average, it was a poor team display, sluggish and pedestrian, Mancini MUST learn from this game!

We deserved the win, if we'd scored early on, it would have been 2,3-0

Let's play our best at the weekend eh Mancini!?

I half agree with Beware. Mancini seems to get it right in the PL, but the CL he seems to want to rest players that have all of sudden hit form.

Yes - we want to win all 4 comps - but it ain't going to happen.

PL - MUST BE NUMBER 1

FA - 2

CL/EUROPA - 3

CC - 4

Yeh, it was terrible goal to concede - from Silva's inexplicable decision to tap the ball back when he was running into space - to DeJong who I don't think was expecting it but nevertheless put in an uncharacteristic 'challenge' more suited to somebody called 'Nigel' - and then no one seemed to have learned from Munich to anticipate Hart to save.

But they're allowed one or two scruffy performances - as long as there's a Villarreal outcome, obviously...

Just think of the games when we would have just thrown in the towel.
We scored in the last ten seconds,how often has that happened?
We had a poor night,hopefully we will not have a poor Sunday.