TrentVilla

This lad has huge, huge potential. Very young especially for a CB, needs consisten first team football at a lower level in my view but certainly one of the best young players we have.

14 minutes ago, tomav84 said:

could it be argued that this is the case with every position apart from GK? it does seem that CB, particularly mings, is singled out but realistically if we're saying champions league is our ambition, how many of yesterday's starting outfield 11 gets into a chelsea/city/liverpool side?

i have to disagree that your expectations, right now, are totally unrealistic

I literally said it applied to other positions in the post you quoted. I’m not in any way unrealistic, far from it. I don’t for one minute think we can compete for CL football for a start and it certainly isn’t my expectation.

What I do expect is a CB to be able to concentrate for 90 mins, something that is beyond Mings far too often.

Anyway I’m going to bow out of this thread and go back to VT hibernation.

Just now, lexicon said:

I don't think anyone can disagree with that but it happened to all our defenders yesterday and they all consistently make errors. My issue is that Mings seems to be the only one who gets it in the neck when he makes a mistake, as all the other defenders do too.

I don’t agree and we won’t agree so will leave it there.

5 minutes ago, lexicon said:

I just simply don't agree with you. Konsa makes mistakes too and Mings generally does more and takes charge in the defence - you have totally unrealistic expectations if you think we're able to have CBs who do not make mistakes against top class players at this stage of our journey. It's going to happen.

Which is absolutely fine, the game is about opinions but my expectations aren’t unrealistic. Neither do I think we can have CB’s who do not make mistakes, I just think if we are to have any chance of realising the ambitions we say we have then we need better than Mings. The same is true a number of positions also.

Lets not pretend that Mings got done by brilliant forward play yesterday it was just rank bad defending.

8 minutes ago, lexicon said:

Seems weird to purposefully come in here to talk about mistakes and not in the Konsa or Cash thread to do the same. We were undone by one of the best strikers in the world - this happens to a lot of teams.

If they made as many errors as Mings I’d be in those threads commenting in exactly the same way. 

Just now, lexicon said:

What about the mistakes that Konsa makes? 

Yep made a couple yesterday, they are rare though unlike Mings.

Just now, villa4europe said:

I dont think he's passed him on, I think he's tried to challenge the man and make him miss the header rather than challenge the ball, he's using his body to try and roll Lukaku and Lukaku was way too strong for him, someone like timo werner bounces off mings and doesn't get the ball but he misread it and chose the wrong option and like I said it made him look stupid 

He definitely tried to pass him on. There is an angle that shows it he wasn’t even watching Lukaku, it was one of the most embarrassing pieces of defending from a CB you would ever see absolutely awful from him.

He only tried to use his body like that because he wasn’t watching the man and was reacting too late.

9 minutes ago, cheltenham_villa said:

I do think this context is important though. Defending has changed, full backs are now wingers who spend half a game attacking. Centre halves are now expected to start attacks and pass the ball amongst themselves. Both of those factors contribute to the large amount of mistakes we see nearly all central defenders making these days. 

We all see the mistakes by Mings, I'm not sure who villa can replace him with that improves us though. I look across the club's around and above us and I don't see better.

I don’t think the roles of full back have anything to do with the mistakes Mings makes. 
 

Just now, Made In Aston said:

My point is that, unless we bring in a world class CB, then it would be a waste of time replacing him, as most other CBs in the league will make a similar number of mistakes. 

I don’t think they do, I don’t think you’d need a world class CB to improve on Mings. If our ambitions are genuinely to achieve European football we have to improve on him.

2 minutes ago, Made In Aston said:

Mings is a decent enough Premier league CB. He clearly isn't world class, but he's no more inconsistent than the vast majority of defenders in the league, its just that we don't watch other teams plays for 90 minutes every week so miss the errors. 

I don’t care about their errors, I care about the errors made by the players for Aston Villa and he makes way too many. 

My opinion of Mings after that game is no different to before the game or what it has been for about two years now.

He is a good but not great CB, massively over rated by many due to his performances in the Championship and the fact he is clearly a very decent bloke.

Had we signed him since promotion I genuinely think attitudes towards him would be very different.

On good day he can be a colossus but truth be told those days have been somewhat limited for a couple of seasons now. All too frequently they are punctuated by games where he makes frankly really poor and often costly errors.

Yes Lukaku’s movement was decent but lets not kid ourselves he did anything more than very basic one run for the defender one run for the ball movement. Truth is Mings did what you should never ever do with a player in the box, he passed him on or tried to. He tried to pass him and he took his eyes off the main goal threat in the Chelsea team. Then when he did see the danger he didn’t even jump it really was a pretty terrible piece of defending.

One of the issues I’ve often said with Mings is that he hasn’t played a lot of games, far from it in fact and at times it shows. He also simply can’t resist getting drawn into a physical confrontation with an opponent and he did that today and lost as he has done on numerous other occasions.

Mings has many positive attributes as a player and a bloke, he is the sort of person you want at your club. He is though error prone and some of them like today are just inexcusable.

It is a shame because there is so much to like but he just isn’t good enough or rather good enough consistently for me. 

LB, DCM, CB will be priorities zero chance we are going for a striker in my view.

1 hour ago, spiezels said:

As opposed to other CB’s that routinely never ever make an error or 2 in a game like. 

Sigh. Yeah, that is exactly what I’m saying, no other CB’s ever make errors.  
 

2 minutes ago, MrBlack said:

I'd agree. He has indeed been a key part to our recent victories. He's made some truly vital interceptions and tackles. He's also got away with a couple of mistakes. 

But, he clearly lacks composure on the ball. I'm not sure it's something he can "learn", and sure it's a position that could be improved. I do think to upgrade him we're going to have to spend a lot of money though. Someone that does what he does defensively, and has an eye for a pass or the ability to shoot, is a rare and expensive commodity.

 

I agree but that is what we need to continue to improve.

7 minutes ago, MrBlack said:

We had injuries to Watkins, Bailey, Sanson, Bunedia, and others, and a variety of those that were fit also coming back from injury. Why

Also, a severely hampered pre season.

It wasn't an excuse at the start of the season, it was reality. It probably was one towards the last few games of Smith's era, when our first choice 11 should have been up to match fitness, but did it really irritate you?

It's clear from Gerrards interviews that he's put more of an emphasis on fitness/stamina in training though, so there is an argument Dean could have done more of that, but for whatever reason felt afraid to.

Yes I know who we had injuries too, I didn't say we didn't have injuries I said they were used and excuse, because they were used as an excuse.

Today showed that it is possible to perform far far better than we did in the early part of the season with players absent.

20 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

Exactly how it started with Ramsey this time last year. Think he got a start v Wolves but was mostly 15-20 minute cameos for a few months.

Surely Carney is bright enough on his own to see him starting most weeks and holding his own rather than just listening to whatever agent he has.

Personally I think he is far better than Ramsey was at the same stage.

I fully expect him to stay despite the articles floating about.

Just now, KentVillan said:

Yep Mings is brilliant at head tennis, and it’s the one area where he is a fair bit ahead of Konsa IMO. Just that ability to get his head on the end of stuff, even if he has to put his body in an awkward position.

He did make a couple of mistakes today, and on another day they might have been punished. But he was mostly very good.

He will always make an error or two I think, it is just in his game.

16 minutes ago, av1 said:

Do you not think we need some cover at RB or do you believe Kessler (sp?) will play a part next season?

I really like Kessler but hard to judge if he can make the step up so I'm a little on the fence with that one plus Konsa can cover there if needed.

4 hours ago, NurembergVillan said:

He's just had another shoutout in the post-match interview from Ezri Konsa.  He's doing something right.

Think it is set pieces.

6 minutes ago, smg said:

Why ? We haven’t got past Christmas and in the last 3 games he has been outstanding, what if he carries on like this, why replace him ? Who knows how good he might be. ? But yes get rid of him, if we had kept Gueye we wouldn’t even have needed him. But we didn’t because he was sh*t apparently. Let’s spend a fortune on the next ‘big name’

Because he is a limited player and because we need a player in that role with a better all around game in my opinion. I didn't say get rid of him, but I think we need to try and improve on him. 

As for Gueye he went because he wanted to go, as for 'next big name' I struggle to get the relevance of this comment to what I posted.

2 hours ago, villalad21 said:

Norwich are conceding too many goals and don't score enough goals.

That's a bad combinations of things if you want to stay up.

Zero chance they stay up.

2 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

First half he messed up a bit when he chested it thinking Emi was right there and Daka hit a poor shot.

Thought he was brilliant last 10 minutes pretty much heading away every set piece and cross.

The game in the later stages was very much his sort of battle, must have been infuriating for Leicester fans watching them hump it into our box and him getting on the end of it every time.

Just now, WHY said:

Just thought it was interesting he mentioned it. Usually keep this type of thing in house. I’m more than happy for him to say something though. I’ve always got the impression BMH could be a bit laid back at times. I’ve often questioned the fitness of the players. One of thing biggest things I’ve noticed under SG is that the players fitness levels have improved.

More interesting is the fact he hasn't referenced fitness levels, a favourite usually of an incoming manager as it affords them a few bad results and points the figure at their predecessor but as I've said previously Gerrard hasn't gone down that road.

That to me is intentional and all part of deliberate phycology on his part. If anything he has talked up Smith and his work, therefore cleverly removing an excuse for players but in doing so putting additional pressure on himself. In his post match comments he is soliciting even greater buy in from his players. Gerrard is using psychology on his players and challenging them at the same time.

1 hour ago, OutByEaster? said:

I love the street smarts he brings to the team, he knows when to quicken it and when to slow it down.

Right at the end today, a little row broke out - Ashley kept it going because every moment Leicester were arguing with him was a moment that the clock was ticking. That won't have been an accident on his part - he's a very, very clever footballer.

 

Interesting, I actually thought he had really lost his cool it didn't look staged to me but I agree he is a very astute character.

1 hour ago, OutByEaster? said:

Pleased for him. He's being trusted to do a job in big games and as he relaxes into it, I think we'll see more of what he can do. 

A couple of nice touches today, one to put Cash in off a little run that particularly good. 

He's developing; all is as it should be.

 

Agreed, very assured on the ball, makes good decisions, protects it well, calm in possession and as you say being trusted in big moments in games. Promising.