Best Performance of the Day - West Ham at Villa

After time to reflect and having watched back the highlights on Match of the Day, I think it is fair to say that ours was the best performance of the day. That result away to Villa, with so many players out injured, was remarkable in itself, but the result was in fact earned, it was not as fortunate as I called it immediately after the game.

Let's be honest, Green didn't have that much to do at the end of the day did he? Now, to be fair, that is in part down to the profligacy of Barry, Heskey and Carew, all of whom should have done better from clear cut chances - goals are pretty big things and really international players should at least force a save when given a chance in the penalty box, never mind from on the edge of the six yard box (Barry) and especially from inside it (Carew)!

But we were not without our own chances. Stanislas did force a save after bursting through brilliantly and had Tomkins squared to Stanislas later, instead of scooping the ball over, I am sure Junior would have been celebrating his second senior goal. LBM flirted with the idea of scoring, Noble's deflected effort was tipped over and we played pin ball in the Villa goalmouth after Di Michele burst through. And actually Tristan did get a deliberate deflection on his header after all.

That is impressive against the fifth placed team in the Premiership. I know that position may flatter Villa but they have accumulated enough points to be there and they are something of a bogey team for West Ham.

Some will argue that Chelsea overcoming Arsenal to reach the FA Cup Final qualifies for performance of the day but that was on the back of two poor goalkeeping mistakes by their stand in Pole. For me, a virtual reserve team trading blows with Villa and coming away with a point, was the more impressive. In fact, that penalty claim apart, we were much the better team after that equalising goal. It makes you wonder what we could achieve with a forward or two worth the name!