Aston Villa v Man City

[Slater582]

Aston Villa:

Friedel

Cuellar - Dunne - Collins - Warnock

Milner - S Petrov (c) - Sidwell - A Young

Agbonlahor - Carew

Subs: Guzan, Shorey, Beye, Gardner, Reo-Coker, Delph, Heskey.

Man City:

Given

Zabaleta - Toure (c) - Lescott - Bridge

Wright-Phillips - De Jong - Barry - Bellamy

Tevez - Adebayor

Subs: Taylor, Richards, Sylvinho, Ireland, Johnson, M Petrov, Santa Cruz.

Referee: Mike Dean

[MLSn00b]

Ah, watching City on TV is so much better than watching it on a stream:D

[Slater582]

Is it on ESPN in the US, Noob?

Given has already made a smart save.

[MLSn00b]

Yeah ESPN2.

And marking? Dunne with an open header... ouch.

[Slater582]

It was Gareth Barry he beat in the air.

[MLSn00b]

Oh the irony?

[Slater582]

Tevez is shooting from distance quite a lot.

Not really troubling Friedel though.

Villa must be the hardest working team in the League.

Stiliyan Petrov has been booked, as has Nigel De Jong.

[MLSn00b]

The attack looking good, but just not good enough in the final third to get it in the net. We've got a good grip on possession as well so that's encouraging. Just got to keep it going in the second half and hope to score.

[Fevernova99]

lol but dunne wasnt kicked out because of barry though, i think the fans and media and making too big of a deal for dunne v barry, more like barrys return

[MLSn00b]

True:D

[glennaldo_sf]

of Dunne scored then Barry is bound to score too....

[Slater582]

'50 Stephen Ireland replaces Nigel De Jong (a close up shows the physio putting ice on his ankle)

'58 Shaun Wright-Phillips is booked.

[Fevernova99]

looks like tevez and santa cruz are coming on really soon, hopefully petrov will give us a boost

[Slater582]

Great eqalizer.

Awesome start to the season for Bellamy.

[MLSn00b]

Great match, Bellamy saves the day once again. Fair draw great match by both sides.

[chinesefootballfan]

not a bad result on the road, against a very good team.

i am happy for dunn. it would have hurt me a lot if his goal turned out to be a winner.

someone who watched the game, please give me some details on how each player performed

[NER_MCFC]

Wow, we looked better after Ireland came on. Did he not start for a reason?

[MLSn00b]

I think everyone had a pretty good match.
Barry was a bit shaky at times. He was beat by Dunne, had a few give aways, but did a good enough job.
Toure and Lescott did a good job in the air and tracked back well whenever the defense as a whole seemed to be caught out of position a couple of times.

Brigde and Zabaleta did well against the speed Villa had coming down the wings, brought the ball forward effectively and with danger.

SWP was SWP. Did well going forward and back when needed.

De Jong had a few good winners, but that foul against Young was in a very dangerous area, much to close to the penalty area. Also seemed to hurt himself on that play.

Ireland looked better than he has in the season so far, still looked a bit slow at times, but possed more of a threat to the defense this time. Was involved in the goal scoring play.

I have mixed feelings on Ade. Sometimes he looks like he's just wandering around on the pitch other times he very active. Did well to win some balls in the air well forward, sometimes didn't pass all too well, other times he did (including the assist to Bellamy).

Tevez was active as usual. Had a couple of good attempts from distance.

RSC was ok. Still seems to be a bit slow getting re-acclimated to the game with the injury riddled year he had last season.

Given really didn't have too much to do during the match in terms of saving balls, but the couple of times he had to come out, he did so decisively.

And of course there was Bellamy. He was all over the pitch. It just amazes me that he can keep such a high energy level with all the work he does.

[Fevernova99]

Bellamy has been the surprise of the year I think... although I still want to see Petrov be given a chance to play on the wing, hes a more natural winger on the left instead of Robinho or Bellamy.

[flamepruf]

Bellamy looks great this year. I think it's important for him to be smiling and having fun.