Three things we learned from Aston Villa 3-1 Barnsley
Oh and more chat and dissection of the match in the forum thread, we even have the shock of some Villa fans actually agreeing with each other: Click Here
1) Jack the lad can become Jack the legend.
Jack Grealish has grown from boy to man and from prospect to actually starting to deliver on the hype (not his fault there was hype, don`t read that as a dig!). He`s muscled up, he`s getting his shorts dirty (yes Jack, we noticed you had to have a clean pair for the second half…!) and is frightening the opposition. He is starting to line up the goals and with some more luck he`ll start getting regularly amongst the goals as well.
Question yet to be answered. Can he become our new Magic Merson? My thoughts at the moment. Yes, if he carries on like he is and he is played in his favoured position, he can.
2) Steve Bruce is a hard taskmaster.
Sitting by the bench as I do, I often watch Steve, he can be more entertaining than the match at times. Yesterday, even at 3-1 up, he was blowing his top when they weren`t doing what he wanted. Several times he shout move the f****** (no idea what that word means!) ball forward. It does make me wonder what he is like in the dressing room when we aren`t winning!
I do like Steve (only criticism I`ve had is the after match spats talking about social media meltdown, to be fair, if that is all that has tripped my wires, he`s doing ok!!!!!!!!) and think the addition of his right hand man Steve Agnew has worked wonders, it can`t be a coincidence – can it? – that we`ve started to play more attacking football and given Jack the license to get forward?
I was shouting at the ref their no 19 should get a red. Bruce said to me ‘was it?’ No I replied and kept shouting to the ref about his bad decision 😂😂
Vital Villa (@VitalVilla) January 20, 2018
3) If you feed them, they will score.
I`ve regularly argued that not every striker we buy who flops (so many in recent years) is rubbish. Scott Hogan is a perfect illustration on this. Ok, he wasn`t fully fit when he came and he has had injuries, however, if he had been played correctly from the start, he wouldn`t have had such a long goal drought. It`s not rocket science, strikers like him need service. He is not going to do a Ronaldo sort of long winding run though the midfield and defence to blast a rocket past the keeper. He`s a Gary Lineker, Robbie Fowler, even a Darren Bent sort of player. He makes such intelligent runs, now the players are starting to see the runs and get the ball to him. Nice to see Elmo provide one such cross / service yesterday for Scott. In fact, yesterday, Scott made a few more outstanding and intelligent runs only for our players not to look up and slide the ball through. I hope they watch back these matches, look at the runs that Scott makes and start to feed him even more.
It`s only a matter of time until Scott gets his hattrick. Oh and I also love the guys attitude. No moaning, no pointing the finger elsewhere, he`s just knuckled down and worked. Now he and we are reaping the benefits.
