QldVilla

Great listen again.

Jack showed enough to Southgate to earn at least a slot off the bench next game. If the game is in the balance, he will be a threat off the bench coming on in second half.

It’s all speculation regarding Luiz. Maybe Luiz decides to stay at the club if Man City ever invoke the buy back clause?  There’s probably still caveats around his work permit, which Man City may never meet?

As long as we keep improving and he’s improving as a player, find it hard to believe he will want to leave.

Seen a couple of articles where he’s talked about the club, comments like Villa believed in me, wasn’t too hard to get a permit etc etc. Believe he values what Villa did and as long as the club matches his goals, he will stay.

2 hours ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

Nope, completely disagree. You could see Luiz had something from the start, but he needed time to adjust (like you get at I guess). But Wesley was completely different. Luiz looked composed, great touch, good movement, vision etc. and needed to adjust to the pace of the English game, the physicality, his team mates and the tactics. Ray Charles could spot Luiz was a big talent that needed time. 

Wesley on the other hand looked like he lacked the very fundamentals. Poor movement, lack of runs, poor shooting, poor heading  poor jumping. He had good passing at times and work rate was normally okay (even if he sulked at every challenge) I'll give him that. But ultimately he looked like a lower league CAM forced into a striker role. 

The idea he was showing the same promise as Luiz and thus will develop accordingly, well lets agree to disagree. 

It’s ok to disagree, but you didn’t bring up any valid points to change my opinion.

Looking forward to Wesley proving you wrong.

2 hours ago, villalad21 said:

Luiz was always much higher rated though. Highly regarded by Pep even.

Wesley wasn't even prolific in Belgium.

In regards to Trez improvement. He was also much higher rated. Most Egyptians ranks him as their 2nd best player next to Salah.

It doesn’t take away from the point that several of the new signings were struggling not that they weren’t good players, but they lacked PL experience and needed time to adapt.

A lot of fans were bagging Luiz, he needed time. Wesley is a different type of CF he is still,learning and not the finished article. We weren’t creating a lot for him before he was injured, people seem to have short memories, but he was showing glimpses of a quality player.

Supporters can form their own opinions, some have, but I believe there’s a player there and confident he’ll show it given the opportunity.

Said over the weekend thought we’d get something from Arsenal, they don’t have the quality or depth of squad to play twice a week.

Really solid performance, not going to get too carried away, as Arsenal were flat.

We should be better and better as the season goes on, great result.

Luiz was my MOTM today. That pass to Barkley was world class.

Ive been forming the opinion for a while that he is a deep sitting playmaker more than a DM. Will be interesting to see what Smith does, as he keeps getting better and would love to see him playing more a McGinn role.

3 hours ago, Sam-AVFC said:

We were still better in the 2nd half even if it's because Southampton sat back more.

We were better, or they let us be better?

I was willing to write the Leeds game off as a blip, they’d been waiting to play us for two seasons,  and as predicted Leeds lost the following week.

But we weren’t good against Southampton. I don’t agree with the we were better in the second half, we were down 4-0 , Southampton switched off.

Ive always said I don’t believe Smith is the finished article as a manager and at times it shows on the pitch. He’s put good people around him to help make good decisions and we need to support him and believe this is working.

I believe we can get at Arsenal in the next match for the same reason we rolled them late last season, backing up 3 days after a match. They still don’t have the depth of the Top 4 sides and may be a good time to catch them. I’m expecting a reaction and think we might get something from the game.

3 minutes ago, ozvillafan said:

I'm trying to think of what Smith could have done to change things up - and I could only think of 1 bold move: Replace Barkley with Nakamba at the 60 minute mark.

Our shape wouldn't change too much, but it would push McGinn forward and stop their midfield running through us. Often in the second half Barkley watched as the opposition either passed or ran past him. He rarely pressed from the front and he wasn't tracking his man. He was playing more like a 10 than an 8, and it wasn't working. 2 more defensive midfielders, McGinn box-to-box and Grealish with more room to roam and who knows?

I don’t think your too far wrong in your thinking in freshening up the squad with 2-3 changes, it was Leeds they are still relatively a Championship squad, having others play for 50-60 minutes sends out a message to the squad.

The other possibility was treating the game like a cup game with the players to get them up. If you noticed that’s how Leeds played it. They and their supporter base have been carrying round a large grudge ever since that notorious game 18 months ago. They’ve been waiting to play us. The only negativity to this is we probably are down for the Southampton game. Will be interesting whether Leeds can get up for their next game.

Reading a lot about how we didn’t get our tactics right, Smith should have done this or that. It’s a mute argument if the team isn’t emotionally up for the game. It’s happened to nearly every PL team this season in COVID with no crowds, that teams are just having an off day. Having teams emotionally ready to play week in week out with no crowds is very hard to achieve artificially, game day, the opposition and the crowds play a huge part is this response. If you don’t get it right, you look lethargic, slow to the ball, poor decision making etc etc.

We had that day today and when that happens it doesn’t matter whether your tactics are right or spot on, your going to get towelled up.

The Villa team that beat Liverpool and Leicester doesn’t get beat by Leeds today.

Let’s get ready for Southampton.

We knew what we were getting with Barkley, he can be brilliant, world class, but consistency week in week out has always been an issue. But everyone was off tonight, it’s going to happen in the current climate and we need to put it down to an off night, rather than critiquing Individuals.

I think people are reading too much into the performance. We’ve had our off game like every other PL club this season, bar Everton. It’s going to continue while crowds aren’t in the stadiums. We’ve had a great start,  it whatever happened this week, we were flat today. Hopefully the coaching staff will correct it for Southhampton.

Like every team in the PL this season, we are going to see these type of results. We’ve been able to manage the excitement levels for the first 4 games but it was quite obvious that we weren’t up for the game tonight. Getting the physical and mental preparation balanced to perform is an art, be off by 1-2% in the current climate and you can be well beaten.

We were off the pace, hopefully it’s a one off.

Well done guys, had a good listen to the last episode and really professional and offering something different to the other podcasts. Keep it up.

There all winnable games, think we’ll get around 10 points from those games. If we just had those 3-4 quality players on the bench to rotate the squad, you would be really confident. It’s just keeping those excitement levels in the squad week in week out.

12 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

That's where whoever made the Bale comparison was spot on, he's got the football side locked down, now he's increasing the physicality and speed

Bales close control whilst running at full speed was incredible but he wasn't doing that in his early 20s 

We just need to define speed properly. I believe he is deceptively faster than people believe he is, but more importantly he travels with the ball at his feet far quicker than most players. So when it comes to people like Southgate I believe it is a wrong narrative that Jack is slower than others, I’ll back him over most players with the ball at his feet.

When pundits talk about speed, maximum velocity in an athlete is completely different to speed of play, when you have a ball at your feet.

Jack isn’t the finished article, he is still improving. Anyone who watches him regularly as we all do can see the improvements in his games, year on year. There’s still parts of his game that need improving, the coaches know that and more importantly he knows that.

While he continues to improve the club need to put better players around him and we will see the benefit of these improvements. It’s a dream at the moment but to be playing regularly in Europe at the highest level is where Jack will be someday, let’s just hope it will be with Villa.

Just outstanding so far.

Have to give credit to the lad, thought he was quiet during the game, but that bit of quality and courage made up for it. Plus to hear he was 50-50 in playing just adds to the performance.

I like Wesley a lot. You could see the snippets of quality in his play similar to Luiz, he just needed time. It’s going to take a while to come back from the injury, but with Watkins we can slowly introduce him until he gets up to full fitness.

4 hours ago, Dave-R said:

I messed my foot this morning (no joke), just after 2. It was very dark and after losing three gallons of liquid at the toilet, I walked into my bedroom and kicked the speaker boombox I forgot to move. The pain was that excruciating that I was rotating like I was doing some new dance, hands on feet, trying to find my bed. It was like I was on hot coals but couldnt move forward to reach the end, with steam coming out of my ears like a tom n Jerry cartoon.

Anyways now I'm at the point, where I've woken up and I feel as though im putting weight on one side all while my bad foot is  trying to turn me round in circles.

I dont know what this has to do with ACL injury, it does not in anyway, I just thought I'd share my pain while were talking of injurys

Sorry my knowledge is limited to sports medicine, not when your drunk as f@#$!!

4 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Can you really limp off with an ACL?

Yep, depends on the severity of the tear, it’s supporting rotational movements of the knee/body, so that’s where the instability occurs.

2 hours ago, mikeyjavfc said:

Liverpool have just lost VVD for the season (ACL injury) after a horror tackle from Pickford in the derby. First game after the window closes  Wonder if that will ruin their season. Shows what can happen if you have bad luck with injuries. If that were to happen to Watkins or Targett I would cry, although there is always chance to strengthen in Jan.

PL have to do something about these tackles they go unpunished, look at Wesley, no different.