Some thoughts on yesterday’s game player by player.
Given: Again, a good shot stopper, but no control of his box. Wellbeck should not have come close to scoring despite the misses by Collins and Baker. I felt Friedel didn’t dominate his line that great, but, this year’s poor performances at corners watching Spurs allow Chelsea to score 4 makes me believe we really miss the American.
Hutton: I wish McLeish would watch the same commentary I did, to hear the analyst say over and over again that United can get at Hutton because while he is alright going forward he is a liability at the back and often switches off.
Collins: An okay game, by the big man, but why did he step away from that Evra cross?
Baker: He switched off too many times. He got lucky with some deflected blocks when out of position, but didn’t react to Collins leaving the ball. Every corner we win he seems to get called for a foul.
Lichaj: Settled down after a panicky start. Did a great job on Nani
Bannan: On 45 minutes he finally hit his target on passes 20 yds or more. Good thing he did as that one was back to Given. Don’t thing Siralex is shortlisting him for his replacement for Scholes.
Gardner: Out-gunned in midfield. Whatever happened to that kid we had in midfield last season alongside Bannan in the home game with Man Utd? Jonathon Hogg. He would have looked a better player out there than Gardner. Gardner was never available to Bannan for that short pass, forcing the Scot to play lots of aimless passes.
Clarke: Sir Alex said that his naivety caused the penalty and he’s right. Clarke is reminding me of Shorey and Ridgewell in his challenges in the box. Hopefully we’ll have more patience with this one.
Ireland: I noticed he was playing when he curled a shot that was inches away from being another highlight on DeGea’s 2012 saves video. I next noticed Ireland when he was joking with Rooney at the end of the game.
Weimann: Not much service to him and he was out of his league because of it. Again, could have used players to lay the ball off to as he was always isolated.
Agbonlahor: One of Martin O’Neill’s greatest mistakes was not finding a striker so that Villa wouldn’t have a dependence on Gabby. He has a lot of heart, but no real skill or footballing brain. He would have been a great reserve. Sorry Gabby fans, but when Samir Carruthers is thinking way ahead of you after playing less the 15 minutes of prem football, that is bad.
Heskey: There is nothing I can say about Heskey that hasn’t already been written.
N’Zogbia: I was sooooooo wrong about this guy. I thought he was going to be better than Downing, but he can be, but he needs an even more talented player to work off and we don’t own such a player.
Carruthers: Can I make a guy that was on the field 10 minutes man of the match? I am nervous to get excited about this player after we saw Albrighton start off like this too.
Former Player: Young: Still a brilliant player. Can’t complain about the penalty as he did the same thing in our shirt and we were happy with the points it earned us.