A lot has been said and written since the match on Saturday and I didn't do my normal after match post and not just because I had to rush for a beer, but because I wanted to think about it.
And it isn't all that bad. Three points after three games and a zero goal difference. It's almost as if we drew all three games. Had someone offered that before the three games, I might have taken it.
But Liverpool did their homework before coming to Villa Park and like it or not, they beat us at our own game. And if Liverpool know our game already, every other side in the Premier League will also know it.
Someone left a comment on the previous post about lots of passing, going nowhere, then back to Guzan to hit long to Benteke and while that isn't absolutely accurate, it is becoming a trend.
And Liverpool did what they had to do to keep Benteke in check. If they didn't, I'm sure we would have scored and in absolute accuracy, we were very unlucky not to score. Give Benteke another chance like the one he had and he'll take it, we were just unlucky.
And we had a lot more of it in the second half than the first. In the first Liverpool played the way they had to and in the second they played the way that confirms for me why Liverpool will not finish in the top four this season; they sat back like a McLeish side.
The missing link
But, like I wrote above, it isn't that bad and we are close. There are also a few days left of the transfer window and we are in desperate need of that player in the middle of the park. Don't get me wrong, I like Westwood and I'm a big fan of Delph, but neither are that player in the middle that we need right now.
We don't just need that older head we need that player that Delph is a season or two from becoming and who Westwood will be too. Before the season started I wrote about needing experience in the middle of the pitch, I should have gone further and said we need the finished article.
We need Paul Merson or and this wont sit well with some, Gary McAllister when he signed for Liverpool. We need that quality that goes against everything that the manager is trying to do, because that quality is actually all we're missing right now.
Yes, we could all put a shopping list of players that we would like, but I like what the manager is doing and these players do need a little more time, but in the middle of the park we're missing something.
And I suspect the manager knows this and I hope that the manager is looking at it.
But that is that, now we have a little break from the Premier League. We've got Rotherham on Wednesday and I suspect some of the players will get a rest before we play Newcastle on September 14th, which we'd all hope is three points.