Hard fought win

Maybe I'm being harsh, but we should have put the Villa to the sword tonight. They haven't won in 10 games but they put us under far too much pressure at times, usually down to our sloppy play or not wanting it enough.

Cant believe it was the same team that beat Chelsea except for Tevez/ Aguero swap... still any kind of win will do.
We need a Benteke kind of player IMO but Kolo and Nasty again were outstanding.

have to agree Belly....Kolo and Nasty were excellent....shame we couldn't say that about 'the big lazy one up front'

Ridiculous... We turn it on against Chelsea, but play like puddings against relegation threatened teams such as QPR, Southampton and Villa. I just don't get it, how come we can be so good, but not actually bother? If we'd put all three of these teams to the sword, we'd only be 7 points behind the rags and not twelve.

Still, at least we've finally recorded a win in that stupid grey and grey strip. We need to burn every record of it ever having existed and never, ever use it again.

Utd will probably end up with well over 90 points so we'd have had it tough whatever happened. We should have got more than 90 ourselves though.

Disappointed in the way we played. Apart from the odd move here and there we were sloppy and not sharp on the ball at all. In fact I was nervous throughout the whole bloody thing. Thought Villa would get an equaliser - they worked hard and we made a meal of it. A few exceptions in defence as mentioned above - and although Tevez didn't feature much in the first 30 minutes - he pulled us through.

Why did he take Tevez off? There were a couple of others I might have pulled off - but not Tevez.

Didn't see the game, too late for me here, couldn't even listen to it on radio as 5 live wouldn't work due to being out of UK ! Tried to follow updates until halftime before I zonked out, was it Rodwell's hamstring again? Does he wear those strips like Bale used to? If not, maybe he should
. Well, at least we won! I will try to watch the daytime repeat of the game over here in Mauritius on Canal +
hope Aguero is back for our next prem game!

It looked like a hamstring. Those strips don't work - it's all in the mind.

Tbh, i wasn't actually that nervous last night. Apart from the penalty Villa should have had, imo they never looked like scoring. We had 20 shots last night and should have won(with a bit more luck) alot more comfortably than the scoreline suggests.....despite only playing in 2nd gear.

Rodwell imo proved last night he's not worth keeping hold off, despite my confidence in him last week. Wrap the bugger up in cotton wool til the end of the season giving him 15 minutes here and there, then sell him to any mug willing to give over a million for him. I felt so angry last night when he walked off .

TBF Shaken...the lad looked devastated, almost resigned to the fact that Mancini will be thinking "FFS".

We knew all about his injury record before we signed him......so why did we?

blueboy wrote:TBF Shaken...the lad looked devastated, almost resigned to the fact that Mancini will be thinking "FFS"

Mancini was thinking exactly the same as us all blue .

Not only did we sign him blue, we paid £17m for him too.

It was an odd game, I wasn't in the slightest my normal nervous self because I was sat there thinking this game doesn't really matter. We are going to finish 2nd because we will raise our game against the spuds and beat them as we now do and then we have to play out the remaining games like this one. Probably just doing enough.

I would love us to play 10 cup finals till the end and close the gap to lower single figures just to prove we have some fight left.

If we play out more like this I can see the gap being the 19 points it was back to Arsenal from both clubs last year, which would seriously piss me off with the stick the plastics will give me (I did give it large when we won last year)

Next game is the test if we are up for it. Our new managers team away! It's his final job interview to replace Bobby and you can bet they are up for it.

PS. If they can fix Van Pussy they can fix Rodwell so I say keep for now.

I think we paid £12M for Rodwell rather than £17M. Feel sorry for the lad as he was starting to look worth it.

It was definitely £12m, not £17m. And as Blistering rightly says, they fixed Van Pussy, so don't give on Rodwell just yet. He is a great talent, and looks good when pushed up forward (where Yaya should be). Such a shame for the lad, who looked absolutely gutted.

Maybe he just needs to spend the summer strengthening that left hamstring. I'm not really sure how it works. Can you just have a week muscle that can go at any given moment? Anyway, give him the summer to work on it and let's see how the lad does next season.

I thought we did ok yesterday. I thought Villa played better than we are giving them credit for. Yes, we wasn't our best but we got the job done - which hasn't been happening a whole lot this season.

Anyone notice that Dzeko always has his back to the goal. ALWAYS. That is not how we play. I've always been an admirer of Dzeko but I just don't think he is for us. We have Silva, Augero, Tevez and Milner all running to the goal, trying to beat the back line and for some reason he is never facing the goal. Someone needs to tell him he is a striker FFS. And why was he on the wing for most of the game?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Rodwell

Ok, we paid £12m for him but that could rise to £17m.........knew i'd seen £17m mentioned somewhere .

Right, i'll barewith for the time being, but if he comes back this season and breaks down again before the end then that's it.

The hamstring is a tendon, not a muscle, so the issue isn't weak muscles, but the tendon itself being the issue. I pulled a hamstring once myself (it bloody hurt, too!) and I was given a load of exercises which would reduce the tension in it. Although I expect mine was less complex than Rodwell's, it's more or less the same principle - if the tendon comes under too much tension, it'll pull or, much more painfully, it could rupture or break altogether. They need to work on getting his hamstring healthy before they can work on training the muscles and it can be a long job.

As for Dzeko, I've noticed he spends way too much time outside the penalty area, usually out on the flanks too. When Rodwell went off and Tevez came on, it should've been patently obvious that Yaya was going back to DCM and Tevez was dropping deeper, leaving Dzeko up front as the centre forward. I was listening to it on the radio and I could picture Dzeko doing everything BUT being the target man up front. I don't get this. I know we don't play with much width, but there's not much scope for a striker to score goals from the touch line, so what the frig is he doing there?? As for the back to goal thing, I can't say I've noticed that before, but that's probably more down to me not seeing it than it not happening as I can well believe he does do that.

leopold wrote:They need to work on getting his hamstring healthy before they can work on training the muscles and it can be a long job

Is that not what they've just done for the last few months though?

Yes, but it appears that a few months wasn't enough and he needs a bit longer. And now it's gone again, I reckon he won't be back until next season.

He's a bad signing - one for the future or not, we're going to have to spend a lot of time, money and effort repairing the young lad, with no guarantees he'll ever improve.

Hamstring is a muscle.

I thought we played well enough after a shaky first 20minutes. Villa were set up not to lose after that and we pressed well and were unlucky not to score again when Zab crashed a great effort off the post after a neat one two. Their American keeper made some good saves too while i can't remember Joe having to make any.

We were also lucky not to concede when Tevez cleared off the line at the far post and then Villa should have had a penalty after Benteke was fouled by Nasty and it also struck him on the hand albeit unintentional.

All in all a good result against a team fighting for their Premier League survival and i'll take 0-1 wins anytime. We did not play badly and Kolo, Nasty, Tevez, Zab and Milner were all fantastic again. Garcia, Silva, YaYa and Cliche were below par and Dzeko is a waste of a shirt.

I felt sorry for Rodwell, he looked gutted and he and everyone at the club including the fans had hoped his problems were behind him. I hope he can strengthen his calf during the summer and come back next season but i am not convinced he will i'm afraid.

Don't be afraid MCM

I can't help it

Topdawg wrote:Hamstring is a muscle.

I've heard this said elsewhere today as well, which got me wondering if I'd misheard the physio or if time had made my memory of events hazy, so I checked it out. Apparently, it can be both, which is a bit weird...

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/hamstring-injury/Pages/Introduction.aspx

I didn't read too much of it as I find human biology makes me go a bit... odd.

it appears also that it can also be something to do with the lower back that can trigger hamstring pulls, This was a major problem with steven gerrard in his early days and also Michael owen. They then at liverpool revied their training methods to help these players.

It wouldn't surprise me. It seems as though any activity which uses the muscle groups around the thighs can trigger it.