trevor

Poor first half all round, too many petty fouls in positions that didn’t even invite attack from set pieces.

Lots of tired looking performances which together make it tough to get anything at this level.

Bad dismissal in terms of killing the rest of the game, wearing out players for 10 minutes added on time (where did that come from?) and not being available for three games starting the last 10 run in.

It was a horrible challenge, but it looked fast and clumsy rather than any bad intention, a Man Utd player would probably have got a yellow. Nevertheless it was stupid to give the ref a decision to make, very poor judgement from a team captain.

At least there is not much time to dwell on this with the potential for an unforgettably brilliant night on Thursday before the next league match. UTV

It’s always been the same with them, right back to the eighties in my memory. Presumably they were known to be away fans because they made it obvious. Most supporters of away teams in the home stands, watch the game and shut up, but not this lot and it’s not restricted to Villa Park.

Didn’t deserve to lose that. Sky got the result they wanted. Fail to comprehend how the same offence results in a yellow for us and nothing for them. They even wasted two minutes of injury time with subs and he added on 30 seconds.

If it’s an even playing field, I would still back us over them to finish higher. Their defence is garbage. We just need Konsa and Torres back quickly!

Channel Islands, managed to get over 3 times so far this season.

33 minutes ago, Deano & Dalian's Umbrella said:

 

I don't know how much difference 5db will make but if it goes back down to how it was before the last few games and I can hear the person next to me that would be good.

It might make a noticeable difference as the dB scale is non linear. For every increase of 3dB, the noise level doubles and vice versa.  

Bottlers, story of our season.

Pathetic coverage from Sky, cutting away to a meaningless Spurs goal while we scored the second.

Three strong substitutions helped them out, never mind, they will be able to make five next year.

The VAR was a joke, is he offside? No. Anything else can we look at? Did Watkins touch the ball? No. Anything else? Did Ings handball it? No Anything else? A block? That looks questionable. A technology that is not being used in every tie of this competition for errors that are Clear and Obvious, I despair. Otherwise happy with the performance and hope we do them on Saturday. One other negative is that they hardly created most of their own chances, they just waited for our midfield to give the ball away needlessly and counter attacked us.

A reminder that only goals matter in football, have as much possession as you like but if you can’t create much in the final third it counts for nothing. Don’t usually single out players but Traore was wasteful and as much as I love Trezeguet that dive was embarassing. Expect Gerrard to rip into them after this.

21 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

I do wonder how the last few weeks would have gone if we'd beat wolves 2-0.

Indeed, turnarounds of that magnitude do a lot of damage. The draw with Stoke when 2-0 up under O’Neill did a fair amount, but the reversal when 2 up at Leicester was significant that season. We went down (I know there were many other factors too), they won the League. That Wolves game could be season defining.

Smith need not worry about playing 3 at the back again, it will become unsustainable with all the bookings we pick up.

Hourihane got subbed in the first half when Jokanovic saw his formation was wrong on Tuesday, Dean should have also been as brave and made a change before half-time

His subs were correct though.

Referee set the tone for his abysmal performance and licence for Arsenal to play the way they did by booking Watkins in the first minute for simply giving as good as he got.

Sky commentator was appalling, another clown that means the mute button gets hit next time.

Arsenal ‘supporters’ treatment of Martinez was extremely classless.

11 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

And once again, the relevancy to both our game, and Dean Smith?

villalad21 worked that out easy enough, I’m sure you can too.

11 minutes ago, a m ole said:

the game was a draw, actually.

Which is why I wrote tie, not game.

3 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

I'm not sure of your point. Are you trying to say that we lost because we didn't play our first team? Because we don't have a £100M striker at the club. 

On paper Chelsea should beat us whoever we play.  

Next week Chelsea will more than likely take a full first team into a Champions League fixture. We don’t have a fixture. 

9 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

Not just 2nd stringers, but even 3rd stringers.

Chelsea had more 1st choice players on the pitch than we did tonight, including a 100m quid striker and a near enough 100m quid number two GK.

Yet we matched them, created more chances and played fantastic football.

And lost the tie.

6 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

Only following this by text on the BBC sports app (tried AVFC commentary but it was hard to get any sense of what is going on),

It seems we are dominating possession yet being overrun in defence.

Can anyone explain the paradox?

Try Watford’s official website, audio commentary is free, as it ought to be.

As long as we spend the money wisely, it won’t be the massive blow it currently seems.

I don’t begrudge him the move with the opportunity to test himself against teams in Europe, but if he was to go, I’d rather he went to Chelsea

I have no interest in watching Manchester City, it’s just soulless football, so I’ll only be interested in him as an England player.

Personally, I’m sad because I don’t remember seeing another Villa player like him in 50 years down at VP, and probably never will again.

This is a really big test for us in terms of recruitment and integration of new players and I expect that we will rise to that.

Unfortunately we have no choice but to become expert in this respect, because while that Champions League remains a closed shop, we are going to experience this sort of thing with the likes of Watkins and Martinez in the future.

Not sure that a World Cup Semi-Final and a Euros Final is mediocrity BUT if Jack was fit he certainly under used him.

I watched Mount closely last night (and I do rate him) but I could not see where he offered anything better than Jack. Then we get the ‘master tactician’ done by his own overthinking. First half Harry Kane doing a great job, England on the front foot, second half I thought Steve Bruce was in charge, roll wor sleeves up and dig in. No outlet to get England up the pitch with the ball going back to Italy cheaply and no attempt to disrupt the tempo. It must have been blindingly obvious at that point that the ideal candidate to affect this was Jack. But by then Southgate had become a victim of his own no risk philosophy.

Penalties in training with your mates ain’t the same as penalties in front a crowd in the biggest game in a generation.

I never expected Jack to be in the first five, but then again I never expected Saka either. I did expect Stirling, Phillips or Shaw though.

Saka had a great tournament, shouldn’t have been put in that position, think he has a brilliant career ahead of him. Last night though Jack should have been on before him.

21 minutes ago, ender4 said:

Sky Sports schedule from 5pm onwards:

5pm-5:15pm - Talk about Kane leaving.

5:15pm-5:30pm - Talk about Liverpool being the best club in the world.

5:30pm-5:45pm - Talk about Kane leaving. 

5:45pm-6pm - Talk about Kane leaving to the sexiest club in the world Manchester United

6pm-8pm - Talk about — wait there’s a **** football match on?!

7.30pm - Show Liverpool warming up. 

7.45pm - Talk about Liverpool.

8.00pm-8.15pm - Talk about Kane leaving while also creaming over the sexiest club in the world Manchester United.

6:32 Shrink match day screen to size of a matchbox as Villa take a corner to show Liverpool coach arriving

11 hours ago, barry'sboots said:

PL form table from last 12 matches:

 

Like TRO, I am not sure that was what the owners envisaged having spent £200m+ over the last couple of years! 

That probably paints us in an unfairly positive light as (1) the run in is tougher than those 12 games and (2) we have probably rivalled Sheff Utd as the worst team in the league over that period - performed poorly with the points gained largely attributable to our back 5 (that are top 6 quality imho).  There are a lot of sides that have been better than us for far more than a few games.

 

(3) Losing to 10 man Sheffield United

So apparently young people are losing interest in football according to one of the pro ESL voices.

Well that was a complete and utter borefest. I said it before a few years ago when we were away at Spurs under McLeish, again we looked like one of those demonstration teams that used to go out annually on the court at the Empire Pool Wembley in the 60s and 70s in order for the Harlem Globetrotters to strut their stuff. A May Bank Holiday treat for BBC1 viewers alongside Disney Time. It’s a good job we got points in the board cause this is currently relegation form.

2 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

Barkley, **** off. McGinn, **** off. Same to you Nakamba. **** off. 

A missed oppurtunity is basically the Aston Villa catchphrase. What a **** waste. 

Hope Trezeguet is ok. 

Neither of them three were as wasteful in possession as Luiz and Traore

Defended too deep, inviting them on much too often.

Why do all this playing out from the back possession nonsense when we are happy to give the ball away time after time?

Another soft give away for the first goal, I’m not certain but it feels like matches are more dependent on who scores first in this odd season.

Sanson subbed as soon as he started to have more of an effect. Strange?

Never a penalty, man had no control of the ball.

Toothless up front, could still be playing now and not score.

Looked like he was about to get involved more on the left and have an effect like where Jack creates, then got subbed, ridiculous decision to take him off.

2 hours ago, MarkLillis said:

Sheffield Wednesday have far more class.

I think they have a similar situation up there to what we have with Blues.

One a classic big club the other a bunch of knuckle draggers.

Although, I have been supporting Villa for nearly sixty years, I spent 20 years of my life in Sheffield and I can assure you up that you couldn’t be more wrong. The Blades are by far the classier football club by a mile and their fans are on the whole brilliant. Watching matches at Bramall Lane is electric, going to watch Wednesday is most certainly not.

Fantastic Goal

Bruce Out