v Rotherham

[VillaRosie]

Red Button Match


3 changes Axel,Adomah and Hourihane in for Hause (injured), Green and Whelan



Steer

ElMohamady

Tuanzebe

Mings

Taylor

Hourihane

McGinn

Grealish

El Ghazi

Adomah

Abraham


Subs

Sarkic

Jedinak

Whelan

Lansbury

Green

Kodjia

Davis

[westcountryvillain]

Well after a diabolical penalty from Tammy and looking a bit rattled with Rotherham getting at us, down to 10 men with an hour left.

What a 2nd half that was......, McGinn is some player and the team were just fantastic with their work rate - looked like we had the extra man. I'd have mixed feelings about going up with the wholesale changes we would have to make given the number of loan and championship level players we have but at the same time we have momentum & in such a competitive league the chance may not come round again soon.

Thoughts?

[samhubball]

Go up whenever possible. There's a lot of teams, including Forest and Leeds who have been in this league too long.

Wholesale changed BUT it does mean that Grealish will be given the opportunity to be a real Holte End hero and stay here, if we don't go up he will have to leave to further his own career. McGinn and Hourihane will stay. Kodija, Davies, Steer, Green, Adomah will be given time in the prem. The loanees have a better chs. Ce of signing for us permanently, Tammy (that'd be incredible), Mings, Axl and we already have signed the new left back who we loaned back out... Can't remember his name tbh. So thst would leave us needing what? 3 or 4 premier league class players???

Pilfer Mooy from Huddersfield, mitrovoc and Shurrle from Fulham, and Maupay from Brentford and its a strong PL squad.


Got to. Go. Up

[bongosdad]

Promotion is worth 200 million and on top of that we have rich owners. If we don't go up we will loose probably macginn and grealish and will make it again hard to get promoted. Promotion would be the best thing for us despite the fun were having right now. I imagine the likes of Hutton Taylor etc will leave but as long as we replace them with top quality youngsters like loftus Cheek we will be fine.

[TrianonDave]

Got to give Jed Steer a shout, done a great job in between the sticks. One fantastic 2nd half save kept us in the game.

[wrinkly]

I am fairly sure that all of us Rotherham fans probably accept that you deserved the 3 points last night.
The main disagreement is as to whether your second half domination was down mainly to excellent play from your lads or an under par second half from us. I think that our team let us down in the second half, although your overall play and game management was very impressive.

One thing that all our fans agree on is that Grealish is an exceptional talent - outstanding in this league, but why on earth does he have to spoil it by cheating. Absolutely disgusting the way he tried to get Will Vaulks sent off last night.
I am not posting this as a bitter loser. You deserved the win and I'm full of admiration for Grealish's skill. I hope he is not going to tarnish that skill with such antics on a regular basis.

[TrianonDave]

Good post but when it comes to Grealish, everyone jumps on the fact he cheats. He is officially the most fouled player in this league, people constantly Hack at him because they cannot get the ball off him. If you think he is cheating, wait till he plays in the prem whether thats with or without us, he will join players who collapse when blown a kiss let alone a tackle. He rides tackles so he does not get hurt, WBA battered him which led to him missing 3 months of the season. He is exceptional talent and is destined for a massive future, we have placed 50 million on his head, thats just how much we value him.
Anyway back to the game, there is one guy you could not handle and he was the difference, super John McGuinn.
We will take the 3 pts but had to work very hard for them, credit to Rotherham and i wish you all the best, hope you stay up at Birminghams expence!

[bongosdad]

I would put him at 80m

[wrinkly]

Good post but when it comes to Grealish, everyone jumps on the fact he cheats. He is officially the most fouled player in this league, people constantly Hack at him because they cannot get the ball off him. If you think he is cheating, wait till he plays in the prem whether thats with or without us, he will join players who collapse when blown a kiss let alone a tackle. He rides tackles so he does not get hurt, WBA battered him which led to him missing 3 months of the season. He is exceptional talent and is destined for a massive future, we have placed 50 million on his head, thats just how much we value him.
Anyway back to the game, there is one guy you could not handle and he was the difference, super John McGuinn.
We will take the 3 pts but had to work very hard for them, credit to Rotherham and i wish you all the best, hope you stay up at Birminghams expence!

Thanks Dave for your very reasonable response (I thought I might get a few pelters tbh)
I should say that my judgement of Grealish was not coloured by any pre-conceived prejudices. In fact I thought he dealt with his assault by the Birmingham City ar5ehole very maturely apart from that I've not really followed any perceived reputation he may have.
It's just that the particular incident on Wednesday - thrashing about as though he had been injected with something to try and get a fellow pro sent off, left a considerable stink on the night. I can't remember a worse example of that sort of behaviour in any of our matches. If that is part of his personality I would hope (naively I'm sure) that someone would have a fatherly word.
Anyway - on to McGuinn. Yep - unplayable in the second half. The sort of player we desperately need but can only dream about. I was not happy with the ref though when he backed into our player so much he was 2 yards from the ball he was supposedly shielding. Another of our players nipped in to steal the ball and the ref gave you a free kick (you may possibly disagree)
Thanks for your good wishes. Same to you. You are the form team and as good as anything I have seen this season and your support is well noisy.
I think City will probably survive but, hopefully, we can make them sweat a bit by beating them at NYS. Obviously I would be happy for any team to claim the 3rd relegation spot instead of us.
All the best
.

[westcountryvillain]

Grealish is destined for a big future in the game and will get better, I too hope he doesn't become the next Ashley Young who himself drew many fouls but went down too easily. JG is now powerfully built and would I think do more damage staying on his feet, perhaps he's been coached to do what he does as we're quite good with set pieces.

Wrinkly - I was impressed with your lot first half, played on the frontfoot and never let us settle on the ball, felt the pen was harsh on Mings IMO. Better finishing might have saw you go in with a bigger lead, we did the same in the 2nd half and got the breakthrough which swung the momentum our way. We knew we had to up the tempo and apart from some sloppy passing at times, the work rate without the ball was phenomenal.

Good luck for the rest of the season and on another night we don't win that game.