mole86

Think he’s been pretty good first half, should have scored but that aside he’s worked hard and been involved in a lot of the build up

19 minutes ago, gwi1890 said:

Thing was, Bissouma wasn’t “next level” when he signed for Brighton, luckily he hit the ground running could have been different. Morgan Sanson for example was great value but has been unlucky with injury problems,  if he would have hit the ground running and not had the injuries to then we might be having a conversation about him being worth £40m-£50m now, I think we will continue to be shrewd in the transfer market as well as bringing our own youth players through, but we definitely know what we are getting if we sign Bissouma .

He really didn’t hit the ground running either, his first season was very inconsistent. As to be expected I guess

Yeah I loved it, really well done 

Thought he had a good first half last night and was a big reason behind our tempo and control of the game. That being said, he messed up the clearest chance to create a goalscoring opportunity when he overhit a pass to Cash, lot of effort from him but it's still just not quite where we want him to be. Second half he was struggling after kicking Idah's studs, but still put in a shift defensively and tracked back really well. Really hope it all clicks for him soon.

34 minutes ago, MotoMkali said:

Can also play cm. Which I believe was where he played against Liverpool in the FA Cup before setting up Barry. 

He didn't set up Barry's goal

Think Gerrard’s system would really suit him, the onus isn’t on our wide players to track the full back as much as it was under Smith

16 hours ago, Delphinho123 said:

It’s so true. Smith just got it horribly wrong (albeit hampered by injuries) with his formations. The 3-5-2 was purely to fit both Ings and Watkins in the same side and the 4-2-3-1 just left us exposed in midfield as Buendia looked a bit lost there. 

We’re not good enough with our current personnel to play anything other than a 4-3-3 with either Watkins or Ings up top and two from Buendia, Bailey, Young, Traore etc. playing as the wide-ish attackers. 

We messed up in the summer in that we heavily unbalanced our squad with our transfer activity.

Not only did 3-5-2 expose us in midfield, it also served to break up the most solid back four we've had in years.

Really impressed with our shape when we lost the ball on Saturday, McGinn did so much work getting back in position to help Cash with Zaha and Mitchell.

1 hour ago, Kiwivillan said:

Trossard smashed it close range straight at him but still good save 

Good positioning and reflexes but realistically the only way that goes in is if he ducked under it. Lamptey save was a good one 

30 minutes ago, Genie said:

The problem with people nailing their colours to the mast is that they’ll be forever trying to be shown to right which is exhausting for everyone else.

 

Therein lies the underlying narrative of every Manager thread (McLeish and Garde excepted) on here since O'Neill walked out

8 minutes ago, Peter Griffin said:

At the risk of you rewriting history, we brought Mings and Reina in on loan in the Jan window of that season.

No we didn’t 

13 minutes ago, Peter Griffin said:

Did u actually read my comment? I said "I will also understand that we do not know how significant as we don't know how game would have panned out."

Obviously a typo in that as it should read I 'do' as opposed to I 'will'

The relevance of the post I quoted was the strange lack of acknowledgment of the different stages of the respective matches in question. Just seems an unusual caveat for a Villa fan to be making when the context is clearly important to the discussion, everyone is aware that the Sheffield United goal crossed the line.

3 minutes ago, Peter Griffin said:

Not quite the Lansbury goal. It can be argued that goal shouldn't have stood, personally I think it was a goal but I can see why some would argue it shouldn't. Like many goals there can be debate regarding them. No debate with the Ghost goal

The clear distinction between the two being that one was the last kick of the game and directly cost us a point, the other happened in the first half and no one can confidently state the impact of it on the end result. It’s not a given we would have lost 1-0 had it correctly been awarded. Weird to have to point that out to be honest

5 minutes ago, VillaFaninLondon said:

Tuanzebe off for Sanson would be a smart move. Hopefully smith changes things quickly and doesn’t wait until the 80th minute again.

Which game recently did he leave it until the 80th minute to change things?

Long shot but does anyone have any interest in two tickets to see White Lies tonight at Camden Powerhaus (formerly Dingwalls)? Having to self isolate due to my Son having a temperature, face value £40 a ticket

We had the youngest squad in the league last year and have already released the three oldest/most experienced players in the last few weeks.

Getting someone into the dressing room with Young’s knowledge and experience can only be a benefit, I bet Cash, Targett, El Ghazi etc are all looking forward to working with him and Grealish must have idolised him as a kid.

I know everyone got very upset with him winning a penalty against us but as far as I remember he’s always held a real affinity for Villa since he left. Remember him being present at Villa Park a few times to watch us.

56 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

This defensive improvement could be under question also. I mean, have we improved that much, the shots are still getting past the defence, it's just Martinez saving them all, his stats for saved goals are up there with the bottom 3-4

The 14 clean sheets would suggest the defence has improved

5 hours ago, Tomaszk said:

Dwight McNeil would be such a good buy.

Can play RW, LW and has excellent delivery.

Dunno what's going on with Burnley's new owners, but he'd probably cost over £40m.

 

Completely agree, gives us the option of moving Jack inside as well. Would much rather pay a bit over the odds for McNeil than buy Barkley

1 hour ago, birdman said:

For reasons only known to Connor, the effort just wasn't there for us most of the time. He has ability of course but just didn't apply himself for us when the going was tough. Too often anonymous when given the chance, of which he had many. It's great he's doing well now but the reason he's doing it for them and not us is down to him.

I don’t think lack of effort is ever something that he could be accused of. Lack of pace, strength or even ability at times would be fair but he always gave his all for us

21 minutes ago, a-k said:

Everton lost both matches to Newcastle, lost at home to Fulham, and are currently on course to take one of six points against Burnley. Let me remind you they are ahead of us in the table. Sometimes it happens. We are a team who are in their second year back in the Premier League and clearly struggling for form/consistency after the covid outbreak. That latter part seems to be forgotten sometimes.

We are also the youngest team in the league, inconsistency of results and/or performance can’t be a surprise

Mings and Watkins have both been abysmal tonight

3 minutes ago, Rodders said:

That's a fair post. Our batters in most conditions are fine. But the skills gap to spin does seem larger than it has ever been even allowing for that.

Still Bairstow is the only one who can clearly piss off. Burns to come back, albeit his form last year wasn't great either so I think longer term questions on his place are valid. 

Most importantly protecting the confidence of the likes of Pope after this is going to be important. 

Also it's been nice to see Dan Lawrence fare better down the order. Asking him to bat at 3 beforehand was very cruel. Hopefully for his sake he can personally show some form with a tidy score, Foakes too knowing he'll be dispensed with regardless after this, hope he can end with a few runs.

 

 

Pope’s been the biggest disappointment for me the last few weeks, he’s obviously not coming in at ideal times of the innings but he has been all over the place

7 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Back to the drawing board, again.

Going to India is super tough, that’s a given, but we’ve been dismissed here like a second rate test side in the past 2-3 games.

I hope this is the last time we see Bairstow in the test team, he’s had plenty of opportunities, Sibley is not international standard and if we didn’t already know it our spin bowlers are average at best.

I just think reactions like this completely ignore how rare it is for teams to win away from home in test cricket, particularly in ‘alien’ conditions. Not saying we’ve not been humiliated but it’s literally been going on for decades so it can’t be a surprise. 
 

Root had won 6 tests away in a row after the 1st test, India were never going to produce a pitch like that after we won that game convincingly.

It really isn’t back to the drawing board with regards the home tests, Woakes will play and be great, same for Broad and Anderson. Leach has had a really good winter, Bess is the one who is clearly out of his depth. His five for in Sri Lanka was one of the worst/luckiest you’ll ever see.

13 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

You're probably right, but even in these conditions, Sibley's last five innings have only gathered a total of fifteen runs - there should surely be questions about him on that basis?

He's averaged less than seven in his last seven innings.

 

Absolutely, his ability against spin is a massive concern. I just don’t think that really has any bearing when considering the side for the home tests, or Australia. I do worry about Burns against the short ball in the winter.