Delphinho123

This, unfortunately, is probably our best team. Our negligence in not sorting the central midfield area means we can’t showcase our attacking talent in matches. Unless we sign two central midfielders or one unbelievably good one, I don’t think we can get away with playing anything other than a 4-3-3 at present.

I’m starting to see a lot of the excuses that were used when Hogan was at the club!

I fully believe it won’t. Ings as a 10 is a daft idea and our midfield 2 will become more overrun than it would with Buendia playing there. People seem to get caught up on the fact that Ings is a number 9 who likes to come a little deeper to get on the ball and assuming he can play as a 10. He’s never played as 10 anywhere he’s been previously. He’s an out and out striker and a very good one at that. We’re going to have a few problems this season if the club insists on playing both in the same side, unless Watkins plays on the left and rips it up out there. We badly missed Watkins in that no. 9 position against Watford. His pressing and ability to stretch the defence and provide an out ball is key to the way we play and whilst Ings may work hard, he doesn’t have anywhere near the same effect on our performance as a team. I’ve flip flopped a lot on the Ings signing. One minute I think he’s a very good player who we should be lucky to have, the next I think it was an unnecessary signing that didn’t need to be made. £25m and £100k a week in wages (I assume) is a lot to spend on a position where one of our best players already plays. I eagerly await the Newcastle match where Smith plays them both and we look an excellent, well oiled unit

Our midfield deficiencies have been clear for all to see over the last 24 months. People expressing concern on the topic isn’t short termist, nor is it overly pessimistic, it’s realistic. We’ve just lost to a team that will almost certainly be relegated. A team that, once again, exposed our weaknesses in midfield. As much as you’re annoyed by the ‘overreaction’ on here, I get slightly annoyed by the posters telling people who are accurately criticising the squads failures, that they’re overreacting. Whether you want to accept it or not, we’ve been very much a one man team for the last 3 years. I’d argue Grealish is the only reason we came up and then stopped up. He’s not here anymore and I apologise if I’m expressing slight concern that we haven’t improved as a team with our transfer dealings to date. Be my guest though. If you want to ignore the ‘couple of data points’ and pretend we’re a more balanced and improved squad from last year, that’s fine too.

Looked miles off it. I can forgive a bad game, but he doesn’t look fit at all. Needs to hit the gym!

Honestly, I’d take him for 5m. Him, Doucoure, JWP. Loan Ramsey and Chuk out. Sell Nakamba. Sell El Ghazi. It would improve us.

The Sanson thing is all a bit ‘Engelsy’. Wasn’t it just a knock at first? He’s been out for 6 months. Is there more to it? And yes, I did just coin ‘Engelsy’. You’re welcome.

I think they have a plan but things don’t always go to plan. I’m certainly going to give them the benefit of the doubt, but right now, we have gaping holes (Kenneth GIF) in our squad and a negative net spend. There is work to be done in the next 2 weeks and if they can’t see that, then they can kiss goodbye to the European dream because this squad isn’t good enough. This isn’t based on yesterday’s result either. It’s based on last season too. We haven’t got a central midfielder at the club that is good enough for a top 10 team and there is no way you can compete at the top end of the table without a decent one.

Fair point. But I envisage it. Buendia didn’t shine as a 10 and I worry we’ll shoehorn players in out of position.

Who’d have thought we’d have problems with three right sided forwards and no left sided ones

Should be indeed. I always found it a strange signing and I’ve not been overly impressed with what I’ve seen. Hopefully he does well because we need him to!

I’ll be honest, that’s a concern. We’re probably just about ok with our attacking options albeit we still haven’t replaced Grealish on the left. The real concern is the central midfield. It’s a complete mess. I’d argue we need two better players in there.

I’ll get a massive ‘I told you so’ from @Kiwivillan but I thought he was excellent when he came on today.

I started this topic back on February 6th and we’re no closer to fixing the problem having spent a lot of money. Whatever money is left needs to go on two central midfielders otherwise we’re in for a frustrating season.

Yep. Smith has a major headache trying to fit Watkins, Buendia, Ings and Bailey into the same team. Not only that, but Traore played very well when he came on yesterday. I’m a big critic of his but also a firm believer that if you play well, you keep your place. If bringing in two players that play in his position is the fire he needs to perform, I’m all for it. I genuinely have no idea how we line up against Newcastle. Our midfield is so weak that it probably means we need to play a 4-3-3 but good luck picking that front 3. Be awful strange having 50/60m worth of attacking players on the bench for a team that will probably finish around 11th. Its about balance. And we don’t have it at all at the moment.

The team not being fit and ready is surely on the manager?

Spot on. They absolutely will. Personally, we’ve got it wrong with our transfers this summer in terms of balance but the board will absolutely say, ‘you’ve spent x and we’ve given you these players, why isn’t it working?’ Hope Dean can turn it around.

A fair point. The only thing I would say is, there were alternatives today, whichever way you dress it up. The fact he was picked worries me more than the performance! (If that makes sense).

Money, results, performances, whatever. His record without Jack Grealish is absolutely abysmal. And he‘ll know that. And he’ll know most people are looking at that. The big difference this year is, he won’t come back from an injury to save us. His record without him lingers. It just doesn’t go away.

Yeh, agree with all of that. Is he not fit? The thing that struck me most was, Sarr wasn’t even doing anything particularly special. Most of the time he was just knocking it a few yards in front of him or cutting inside after feining to shoot. He was superb last season, but today reminded me of the first few matches when we signed him. He clearly needs to be at peak physical condition to perform and maybe that’s the reason he was poor today. Either way, slightly worrying. Hope he gets back to last years levels.

It’s simple. We lose our better players. The harsh reality is that we need to keep progressing in order to avoid the ‘Grealish Saga’ like we did this Summer. In the short term, Smith will lose his job, which would be a shame because I like him. However, it’s difficult to have sympathy at times when his team selection and tactics are so rash.

Maybe I am, but my post was to outline options. We have options. At no point should El Ghazi be the answer to any question in our starting line up.

Before I say what I’m about to say, let it be known that I voted him as our POTS last year and think he’s a very good player. But. That was possibly one of the worst performances I’ve seen from a Villa fullback in a decade (Relative to level). Utterly pathetic. To be dragged off at half time is an embarrassment. How often does that happen? Is he not fit? I know he isn’t the quickest but he looked slower than ever today? Young will start ahead of him until he sorts himself out. So surprising.

He’s still our best central midfielder. And not because he’s particularly brilliant, but because the club refuses to sign a decent one.

Not going to judge off one performance but let it be known that he was absolutely f****** dreadful today. The worst thing is, he wasn’t anywhere near being our worst player.