QldVilla

Too slow, too static, too many touches... just horrid.

Ok Brutus...

If people realistically rated every current player, how many are truly up to compete at the level of a top 6 club? I come up with 7. IMO our GK, current back 4, Luiz and Grealish. I’m not convinced yet Watkins is a main striker, be better playing off a main striker or inverted LW.

Or, the squad is starting to look tired from a long season as they are a mostly young squad, with a season and a half of PL experience.

Your making the assumption that the squad is the finished article and that we aren’t short players in key areas. A manager is only as good as his cattle, the club is a work in progress. When your squad is limited, so are your options.

Fans are automatically blaming Smith, because that is all they know. I’ve said on here before that he isn’t the finished article he is learning as he’s going, he makes mistakes, but he learns from them. We don’t know where his ceiling is at. We’ve gone from a team with no PL experience, to a team that on its best day can compete with any of the top clubs. But as we’re seeing now, we can’t compete at that top level for 38 games of the season. COVID didn’t help, but was always going to happen. It comes down to the experience of the players. Next season will tell us whether this group can go again and play at a high level for most of the season. Dont get me wrong, Smith is at fault as well, as he should have been rotating some players to keep them fresh, something he is realising now.

That’s because they don’t have all the information from training, medical staff, coaching staff etc etc. fans just give their opinion after 90mins. If they had to do it in the managers shoes, their heads would explode.

Not as dumb as you think. All coaches can learn and adopt new ideas and methodologies, but they can get to a point where they don’t understand, or can’t conceptualise a new idea. You can be the best tactician in football, but if you can’t communicate that idea to your coaching staff and the players, it’s worthless. A manger needs to where many hats and continue to develop those many skills, but at some point they can struggle to continue to develop, otherwise anyone could coach the top clubs in European football.

It just reinforces how far away this team is from a top 6 finish.

I don't disagree, but think the pitch played a part in that as well. I would have liked to see Sanson starting as Luiz generally plays the conductor role and slowing down play and moving the ball around, we lacked that in the midfield and Sanson can play that role, just a little further up the pitch.

I don't necessarily agree with them looking stronger. We were happy to sit back after the goal and happy to say, go on break us down, they couldn't. Leeds have some weaknesses to exploit and Smith used them against them.

It's still early in his AV career, but always thought he would show his class and would prove to be a starter in the team long term. Will be interesting to see how the team evolves over the next 6 months and who fits in where?

He's never let the club down and is still a good enough player against the mid table and lower teams in the division. Played well last night especially considering the quality of Raphinha.

The team look balanced tonight, strong performance. Now to play like that when Jack is back in the team.

Do as I say, not as I do...

Don't think we'll be looking at those wide positions, but if the right player is available, maybe one gets sold and we get an upgrade. Not a fan of Barkley, but not prepared to write him off just yet, but will come down to price.

Geez... a lot of people have changed their tune on Barkley since he was first rumoured to be joining the club. Never been a fan of him, but not going to kick the lad while he’s down. He had a long injury lay-off and would have lost a lot of fitness. What has made it worse is Smith bringing him straight back into the squad, should have introduced him off the bench and got his minutes up slowly.

I was referring to formation, not personnel.

Interested to see the response after last week. Will Smith make some tweaks to change it up, or will the players respond?

A lot of supporters making comments for comments sake, who don't understand physical and psychological adaptation and think players should turn up week in week out and be excellent. I was expecting a win and a strong performance today, but in the back of my head, I also thought there might be a let down after a week off from playing twice a week for 3 weeks after Covid. It happens and we still got a point from the game. Yes I'm disappointed we should be winning those games, but we are either in a bad slump, or we will see a performance in the next game.

Terry is going to learn more exactly where he is and the opportunities that will come with remaining at Villa. He’s only 2.5 years into coaching, far too many rush their apprenticeship and get found out. Some will say he would want the Chelsea job some day, but personally think it would be a big noose around his neck. Can see him being the Villa manager one day, but he still has a lot to learn.

This is one of those games that will highlight whether we are a chance of finishing in the top 6. We are good enough if we play our best football.

There's degrees of fitness, not degrees of match fitness, your either match fit, or your not. When Barkley had 7-8 weeks off injured, he lost technically 20-24 weeks of fitness. So when he started training again he was maybe 50% fit, it will take 4-6 months for him to get back to close to full-fitness, hence his match fitness will get him through maybe 20-30 minutes of football before standards decline. Why, because he doesn't have the base to maintain his match fitness throughout the game. He would be more effective coming off the bench, but instead they have him operating at 75-80% during a game. Hence why he's not tracking back etc and doing more, because he would be gassed in the first 20-25minutes. I agree with your sentiment, just not the terminology.

Not sure what is confusing, it’s the basis for the theory and methodology of training and adaptation. You can undertake aerobic, anaerobic or anaerobic glycolic training on the training pitch ( base fitness), but you can’t replicate the intensity of match fitness on the training pitch. PS base fitness isn’t my term, read some books on fitness for sport, base fitness will jump off the page at least 100 times.

The point was made that Watkins is scoring again since Barkley is back in the team and it’s common sense as no matter what we think as supporters, opposition players will see Barkley as a threat, which frees up Watkins, Grealish etc. The threat and advantage he brings is countered by less defensive acumen. For me, he’s still showing glimpses of his quality. I thought he was very good before his injury so willing to give him the rest of the season to show his worth to the club. I think fitness is holding him back at the moment and think his little tantrum on the weekend was more frustration with his own performance. Sometimes think he’s over thinking things and just needs to get back to the basics.