FoxLee

I'm probably going to receive absolute pelters on the back of this, but I'm not going to overreact like quite a few on here. Thankfully I have the ability to not act on emotion! 

I thought we played well today. As I said in the match thread, in the first half we defended resolutely and with discipline. All units had good distances between them and we encouraged Villa to play into wide areas where we were, for the most part, able to nullify them. 

Second half, all we had to do was maintain that discipline and shape. Unfortunately, a poor defensive header from Vesty coupled with Barkley being on his own at the edge of the box resulted in us falling behind. 

The second goal was poor decision making from JJ. Yes, Ayew could have used his body better to protect the ball, but in all honesty, most players would have by passed him and just dinked it forward into the channel. 

Those frustrated that we don't offer anything going forward. I'm afraid you cant have it both ways. Certainly not with our current crop of players.

The rate we concede goals is staggering, so the first job is to try and set us up to be hard to beat, and again, we did a reasonable job of that today. Yes I know, they still scored two, but both came from avoidable errors and there is nothing the manager can do about that. I stand by that the set up by Ruud was the correct one. 

We cannot play open and free flowing football. Its completely unrealistic to expect us too. We have to do all we can to stay in games for as long as possible and hope for an opportunity as the minutes wear on and the oppo try to push forward themselves. 

Games against Villa and the like are not "for the taking", especially away from home. We set ourselves up to frustrate with the HOPE of picking up a sh1tty point or three if we're lucky.

If my maths are any good, we still have 50 odd points to play for. So not all hope has gone. With the right additions (which is another matter all together), I'm confident we will pick up the points necessary to stay within touching distance of survival. 

Yes, it's all very frustrating, but what Ruud is doing is right. All eyes are now on our recruitment over the next few weeks. 

I understand the frustration at not creating chances, but we clearly have a game plan and are set up accordingly. 

We're defending well, the distance between the units is good so far and we're not letting Villa dictate. 

As poor on the eyes it may be in an attacking sense. This is a good away performance so far and a point here would've been welcomed by all of us before Kick Off.

Of course, we still another 45 minutes yet and I doubt Villa will be as pedestrian when we resume after the break, so it can change, but I'm encouraged by what I've seen in our ability to nullify them in that first half.