Aston Villa V Liverpool pre match thread. Sat 24th Aug. 5:30 KO

Don't care how we play as long as we get 3 points. We stop Benteke, we stop Villa. But have to be careful with Agbonlahor, he's fast and dangerous. If we can stop the ball getting to Benteke and the link with Agbonlahor, their chances of scoring will be minimised. But we need to be more clinical in front of goal.   

Come on mighty redmen

Just browsed a Villa forum - they are VERY confident ahead of this match.

'Confidence' and 'Villa fans', are usually mutually exclusive.

Yeah my uncles are Villa fans and both are extremely cocky at the moment.

Just browsed a Villa forum - they are VERY confident ahead of this match.

'Confidence' and 'Villa fans', are usually mutually exclusive.

Thanks for some intelligence works, hopefully they have their guards down. Villa is not as compact as Stoke, hopefully it gives us the chance to create more openings.

They've got the same problem we have - couple of good performances and they start vastly overating their players.

Thanks for some intelligence works, hopefully they have their guards down. Villa is not as compact as Stoke, hopefully it gives us the chance to create more openings.

Compact as Stoke?

Stoke were absolutely terrible, Villa will be a lot better than Stoke. Their performances against Arsenal and Chelsea highlight this.

The players know this. We just have to be ruthless today. We have to take our chances. Can't be as wasteful as we were against Stoke because Benteke will take his chance if he gets it.

We must score our chances, because we will create chances. Coutinho, Sturridge and Aspas will be the three players that have to perform.

Compact as Stoke?

Stoke were absolutely terrible, Villa will be a lot better than Stoke. Their performances against Arsenal and Chelsea highlight this.

The players know this. We just have to be ruthless today. We have to take our chances. Can't be as wasteful as we were against Stoke because Benteke will take his chance if he gets it.

We must score our chances, because we will create chances. Coutinho, Sturridge and Aspas will be the three players that have to perform.

But he's right. Stoke are more compact. They always keep their shape where Villa are a more fluid unit. You can't guarantee too many goals in a Stoke match because of it although last week was the first time I remember us thoroughly outplaying Stoke even though we've beaten them by bigger margins in the past.

Compact as Stoke?

Stoke were absolutely terrible, Villa will be a lot better than Stoke. Their performances against Arsenal and Chelsea highlight this.

The players know this. We just have to be ruthless today. We have to take our chances. Can't be as wasteful as we were against Stoke because Benteke will take his chance if he gets it.

We must score our chances, because we will create chances. Coutinho, Sturridge and Aspas will be the three players that have to perform.

I'd put it down to we saw the game differently. Stoke defence looked a bit porous because we got better this year as compared to last year. We were quicker and the passes were slick and we moved into their box faster than before. Villa got very lucky as Arsenal misfired.

But he's right. Stoke are more compact. They always keep their shape where Villa are a more fluid unit.

Something that might play to our advantage I feel.

I'm off work for this so can't wait to get to see my first game of the season when it actually happens.

I'd put it down to we saw the game differently. Stoke defence looked a bit porous because we got better this year as compared to last year. We were quicker and the passes were slick and we moved into their box faster than before. Villa got very lucky as Arsenal misfired.

Agree, Rosicky missed at least 2-3 100% chances while Arsenal were playing with 10 men.
but still we shouldn't press too hard and avoid risky play because Benteke will almost surely score if he gets a chance.

Same x1 as last week, never change a winning team, Villa will be tough to crack I was impressed by how they have changed from last season, had chances V chavs also,

We will need to be on our guard against Benteke & gabby, and wary of Weiman, they are young and hungry & much improved,

Still, I reckon we will prove too much for them and sneak a 1-2 very hard victory,
Goals will come from Gerrard(again) & Aspas,

COYR.    YNWA

Well I hope the engineer can sort it quickly but the customer service so far has been appalling. We've called, emailed and used the online chat countless times and keep getting fobbed off with, "Somebody will look into it and get back to you". Yesterday it took a 50 minute phone call, including transfers to 3 different departments to get them to finally agree to sending an engineer!I know they can't just go to that stage every time a customer calls but this has been going on for a couple of months and our 76mbps connection has been at 2mbps this week and at one point, down to 252kbps!

Let me just edit what I said, didn't watch the Liverpool match last week because they couldn't get it on the vision box in time (I could watch it online on there site which confused me, because the box gets the signal from the bb, same as my pc, but there you go), it came on on Monday after the engineer sorted it out along with sky sports 1&2, just checked ready to watch todays match (sports 1) and lone behold its not on, just got off the phone with bt myself, "the order wasn't put through" so I said it was working fine yesterday, to which they said it'll be on Tuesday, to which I said what about the match today, they said that's the earliest we can do it, no explanation to why it worked yesterday but not today, I did ask is it a thing to stop me watching Liverpool to which she just giggled........to which I said, thank god sky is still connected and hung up. Staring to thing I've made a bad choice swapping, the BB is great faster than the Virgin line I had, but the T.v and more importantly the customer service is appalling. Now time to reconnect sky to the tele.

But he's right. Stoke are more compact. They always keep their shape where Villa are a more fluid unit. You can't guarantee too many goals in a Stoke match because of it although last week was the first time I remember us thoroughly outplaying Stoke even though we've beaten them by bigger margins in the past.

Stoke under Tony Pulis, sure. But under Mark Hughes they're trying to change their game, and I don't see how they were compact. Their defence was all over the place last week.

I think we'll create less against Villa then we did against Stoke.

I'm really not sure about this game. I feel their defence is weak and exploitable - I'm still wary, however, about whether we're clinical enough without Suarez. I have every faith in Sturridge, Aspas and Coutinho to create chances, but I'm not sure how many goals they'll score.

I am, though, purely basing this on the game against Stoke which is definitely a terrible thing to do considering it's Stoke.

I do fear their pace and Benteke's finishing, but I'm going to go for 2-1 - more because I want that to happen than I think it will, but I also think it's pretty realistic.

Villa have improved and will offer a better test than stoke, going with a 2-1 victory to the Reds.

Kolo & Aspas to score.

Agree, Rosicky missed at least 2-3 100% chances while Arsenal were playing with 10 men.
but still we shouldn't press too hard and avoid risky play because Benteke will almost surely score if he gets a chance.

Arsenal gave Benteke too much space in the 1st half and they almost ran riot. In the 2nd half Arsenal got a player to stick to him like a leech and his wings were somewhat clipped. We do the same today and we should be ok. More importantly, stop the ball from getting to Benteke and we'll do alright. Most probably we should crowd the midfield to neutralise Benteke's threat while we bombard them at their end. Good that we have seen what Villa is capable of against Arsenal and Chelsea and we should be better prepared. Villa's over confidence is their own worst enemy.

 Apart from being wrong about both matches though he was spot on.

Should be a good match. Lucas will need to be at his best vs their counter attacks and Kolo and Danny need to be at their best vs Benteke and Agbonlahor.

Going to be tough but think we'll win this.

Arsenal gave Benteke too much space in the 1st half and they almost ran riot. In the 2nd half Arsenal got a player to stick to him like a leech and his wings were somewhat clipped. We do the same today and we should be ok. More importantly, stop the ball from getting to Benteke and we'll do alright. Most probably we should crowd the midfield to neutralise Benteke's threat while we bombard them at their end. Good that we have seen what Villa is capable of against Arsenal and Chelsea and we should be better prepared. Villa's over confidence is their own worst enemy.

This is a game where Mascherano would have been of absolute importance!

We need our back four to play extremelly well today. Kolo need to repeat his last week performance, Simon to take control of balls in the air, if he catch a few crosses with autority, that will settle everybody.They have plenty of pace in front and Benteke is just a little devil and score for fun.

I'm not worried about our attack whatsoever, we will create chances, we just need to bury them and after the scare of last week I predict our little men to do just that!

My head says a painful 1-2, my heart a 0-3.

Come on you REDMEN!

If we can get those first 20 mins behind us and get a grip on the game i'd like to think Coutiniho could start weaving his magic and cut them open.We have to be positive and attack and when we do get a chance we need to be finishing it off..
There's no doubt they'll be flagging second half with the midweek game at chelsea so we need to take advantage and exploit and destroy what really is a crap team...
3-1 with all our goals in the second half...

C'MON !!

know its away game bt im lookin forward to see sterling for Hendo,very low possibilty though bt i think its high time for us to finishing off games in first half like scums do..hendo looked good in pressing and provide balance in attack n defence bt he couldn't beat the man niether with pace nor with technical ability specially first half...probably his wide position and first game nerve caused it..bt still i'd rather start with sterling and replace him with hendo with considerable lead.

Have the goo now for this game now. Hope we see a few early crunching tackles going in on Benteke and Weiman put the marker down and not just Lucas or Toure want to see Hendo Stevie Agger getting stuck inhard

We can't do what we did against stoke.

Crucial we get that 2nd goal.