Philosopher

Well Chelsea have Mount and Havertz. Both much younger but just as good. They don't need him. Mount and Havertz are both better long term. Barkley is quality, but for me he isn't top tier, he is slighty off that. This is why he is great for us. He's way better than almost any other player we could have signed, but not quite good enough for most top sides.

Actually I think he presses better than Jack. Jack needs serious coaching when it comes to pressing. I do believe both of them can improve dramatically when it comes to pressing. We'd be a much better team then. I remember one moment that epitomises Jack's pressing. Ball on the left side of the Arsenal penalty area with Holding. Ollie is closing down Holding. Bellerin runs past Jack to make himself available as Holding's got nowhere to go. Jack just stands and watches, when he should've blocked Bellerin off or been tight to him. Pressing has to be done as a unit and the best teams are relentless with it. Jack's concentration without the ball is poor, and he needs drilling. Barkley is a little better but not much. Having said that Barkley was covering a lot more ground than Jack so it's not so easy to tight to players and close down. Barkley had his best game for us last night. Definitely revels in the no10 role. The problem with this shape is it's great for counter attacking, but not many teams outside the top 6 will come at us and allow us to counter so prolifically. We need a plan B. Problem is with the pressing of Jack and Ross being rather hit and miss, it's hard to effectively play on the front foot.

Liverpool all over again minus the deflections and Salah. That's the application I want to see every week.

I think it should have stood. Leno could've been looking at the shot in 8k cinematic and still only would've been able to stand and watch that shot rocket into the top corner. Barkley standing there or not makes no difference. No keeper in the world would've saved that.

Dean Smith stated after the Liverpool result that he went with 2 6's and one 10. So two defensive mids and one attacking mid. Against Leicester we lined up the same but were struggling so he switched to one 6 and two 8's. Then against Leeds and the first half against Southampton he continued with one 6 and two 8s. The second half against saints we went back to two 6s and one 10. Hope that clears up the confusion!!

Didn't vote in the match poll as Villa didn't have a man of the match for me. They were collectively terrible until we scored our first. Then collectively decent. Plus Ward-Prowse's free kicks were sensational. They they alone easily got him MOM. Just didn't seem prepared to get stuck in and fight until it got to 4-1. Would've thought the disallowed goal at the start would have woken us up, but we got worse. Dean Smith got this badly wrong. Failed to get the lads properly up for the game, should have started Trezguet. Needs to have a word with Mcginn. Jack started pressing at 4-1 and we started putting them under sustained pressure. Jack needs to do that from the start. Just because you're the most skilled player on the pitch doesn't mean you can coast. McGinn had a stinker, lost count how many times he gave the ball away. He holds on to the ball too long and gets himself surrounded. Too many longs balls first half. We are far more dangerous when we play out rather than hit long. We don't have even have a big man up top for freaks sake. Mings always going bloody long pissed me off. But he did get our first goal, which woke us up. Barkley is a good player, but for me he is being a bit overhyped. I don’t see him being good enough to start regularly for Chelsea or any other top six team. Has improved us though. We lack a quality set piece taker. We have the most fouled player in the league but no one to provide quality deadballs. Conor is on the bench but we are considerably worse in open play with him. Traore shouldn't have started. We were always going to need Trezguet's work rate. Traore does seem to have quality though. Konsa had his worst game for some time. We MUST start our next match playing how we finished this one. With intensity.

Well Jack finally started pressing when we were 4-1 down. Love Jack, amazing player. Much better off with him, but Southgate does have a point about the pressing aspect of Jack's game and the effect that can have.

I don't mind the tracking back issue so much if he is pressing well. Or tracking back and protecting his fullback if he isn't pressing, but to do neither seems lazy to me. Also when Jack plays centrally he does that work. Last season he was doing more defensive work too. I'm not sure if it's tactical, feeling like he doesn't need to put that work in anymore, or if he is carrying an injury, but for his defensive effort wasn't good enough yesterday. These days the best players contribute both with and without the ball. How I would use him out of possession is to press high, but tell him to stay quite high and not track back too deep.

I think it was part of the plan to play long out to reduce the likelihood of losing possession in dangerous area when trying to play out. We have all seen how well Leeds press.

Well we beat Leicester. And Liverpool are renowned for their high workrate and pressing. We certainly lacked intensity i don't disagree. However I don't think we should've left ourselves as open as we did. I think if we had set up to be harder to play through and Jack had put in some decent defensive effort we could've got some out of the game. If you look at the first half it was even. We had a similar amount of chances and showed we could hurt them. The second half they started well again, got the goal, and took over is how I saw it. If we played against Leeds how we played against Leicester we would have got a draw at least. I'm shocked how no one (other than me) has even said anything about Jack's horrendous workrate and defensive effort last night. I saw exactly why Mount gets picked ahead of Jack last night. Obviously I love Jack and will back him to the hilt, but he did nothing without the ball, absolutely nothing!

I didn't see that. I see him jump into the air and go down like he'd been shot. I have twisted my ankle, turned over it and all sorts playing footie and never had a reaction like that.

From around the 15th minute to the 35 minute I thought we shaded them. Out working the hardest working team in the league isn't going to happen. When one or two press when the rest hold position, thats when those gaps appear. Leeds exploited that. Leeds press as a team which makes their press so effective. Our passing was poor and we never really tried to pass out from the back. Hitting it long appeared to be the gameplan. To not risk playing out for fear of being caught by their press. So I don’t think were dominated from start to finish. They did indeed stop us playing for large parts. Hitting long from the back, and looking for defence splitting through balls every time we got the ball as always going to mean gifting Leeds a lot of ball. So if that's how you are going to play you have to be organised and disciplined defensively. Make yourselves hard to play through. We didn’t do that.

Trezguet is the guy you expect to help cash, but he was never there as Leeds continuously drew him out and then played it in behind him. This was not simply Trezguets fault as Jack didn't press or track runners back and made it easier for the Leeds defense. If your pressing high up is getting you into trouble you restrict your pressing to your own half and get your wingers to hold their defensive shape.

They outnumbered cash. If it was Guilbert on the pitch it would have been done and dusted at half time. Well I thought Bamford should have seen a yellow for fouls on Konsa or the blatant dive in the box. I thought the ref allowed Leeds to be very aggressive and get away with fouls, and give a ticking off when a yellow was I order. So I do think the ref had an effect on the game. Not decisive however. It was a even game up until the first goal. The main concern before the first goal was how easy they got behind Trezguet and got one on one and two on one on cash. Deano should've made the adjustment but didn't. Also Barkley had to do Jack's defending which certainly didn't help.

The ref was poor. Martinez was decent. We got battered once we went a goal down and give Leeds the freedom of villa park. Smith should have had a word with Trezguet to hold his position and give cash some help. Instead he did nothing. Biesla changed their defensive midfielder on 20 minutes. Clearly Biesla owned Smith tonight.

Cash battled hard. But was over run why did he get over run, because Trezguet and Watkins were pressing high and Jack wasn't. This made it easy to play through our press and then Trezguet is in no man's land while Leeds are swarming all over us. This lead to our downfall. To be fair to the lads. Until the first goal it was quite an even game we also had a few good chances, and the first half was very even. I was hoping we would get out of the block fast in the second half, but we allowed them too jump all over us. Jack was poor tonight. Totally justified Southgates preference of Mount over him, with his lackadaisical approach to his defensive responsibilities. His passing was also poor tonight. We were out worked tonight, but we probably shouldn't have tried to match their work rate and instead made it harder difficult for them to get through us. McGinn also had a poor game. Their midfielders were fully prepared for his habits, and he passed to ball poorly. Since the Liverpool game it seems like McGinn is looking for that defence splitting pass all the time when he should be playing the simple ball more often. Douglas Luiz is the only reason it was only 3 In the end, as once we went a goal down we were wide open and gifting them possession. The ref was poor. Bamford was fouling Konsa persistently. The twist of the ankle (according to the rubbish biased commentators) from Bamford was actually a blatant dive and worthy of a yellow card. Deano got his approach all wrong. Why try to match the workrate of the hardest working team in the league? He should've been making us hard to play through and looking to keep possession as much as possible. Should've told Trezguet to hold position in front of cash and only close down in his own half. McGinn should also have been helping cash but was no where near him. Barkley spent half of his time defending the left flank in place of Jack. The discipline which was very good against Leicester was nowhere to be seen here. Douglas 7 Cash 7 Konsa 6.5 Watkins 6.5 Everyone else 3.

When Connor is asked to be the furthest forward of a midfield 3 he can be very effective. He has a very good shot and finish in his locker. He is a steady passer, and does work hard. The problem with him is he is lightweight in the tackle (far too easily brushed aside), slow and lacking in aggression. To me his current status as back up no 8/10 is exactly where he should be and in the last half hour of games his set piece delivery and nose for a goal could come in handy. I do feel like we miss a player that provides consistently good set pieces when he isn't on the pitch, but that need simply doesn't outweigh the effectiveness of a McGinn or Barkley when the ball's in play. I have so much respect for Connor, the work he puts in and the mental strength he has shown. When the day comes that he has to leave I will be sad.

Didn't even know this podcast existed till this morning. Just finished listening to the most recent edition. I must say I'm impressed. I'm a regular listener to the villa view and MOMS podcast. I have also listened to claret and blue podcast and 7500 to holte podcast. This has them all beat for me. In terms of analysis and opinion it easily has the greatest depth and most nuanced views. I found myself agreeing with most of what was said, I also found myself thinking 'i never thought of that' (which rarely ever happens with the aforementioned podcasts). I had many moment where I wanted to interject and be part of the conversation. I'm looking forward to the next one, the bar for Villa podcasts has been raised and I'm very glad it's from VT'ers.

Not trying to flog him at all. He is unsaleable in my eyes. What I am saying is there are only 3 teams in the world worthy if him. And City are only worthy of him while Guardiola is there. Villa are only good enough for him because he loves the Villa, and because the club is growing with him.

Them or Citeh! City's style of play is made for Jack.

I was saying for the last 3 summer transfer windows that if Jack leaves Villa it should only be to a Real or Barca level team. Man U aren't at that level anymore, thats why they couldn't get him. For me he is the best English footballer. Not Best player, but footballer. Because when it comes to having a football at their feet not one Englishman is fit to lace his boots. Now he hasn't reached his best form yet imo. He still has another level or two he can reach. When he truly learns when the best time to release the ball is, he will be a top 5 in the world player. If he can improve his shooting then goals will flow and if that Jack gets a team built around him that can bring the best out of him he becomes the best. He is the player that can make the difference from beaten semi finalists to world Cup winners for England. Jack's talent is nuts! But of course no matter how crazy his talent is, it means nothing without hard work, determination, belief and luck. I truly believe that with hard work, determination, luck and proper financial backing Jack can lead Villa to the top table in football.

Agree with the first paragraph. It's spot on. The second is rather cocky! We need to keep cool and not get ahead of ourselves It's only 4 games in!

I only pay attention to sky reaction, and even then with a pinch of salt. Gary Neville is pretty good. Motd is crap. Analysis is usually basic, dumbed down, clichéd trope.

If you know how I do my ratings then you know I'm hard to please. Anything above 6 is good. 7.5 to 8 is a very good. Above 8 is excellent. 10's don't happen, there's always room for improvement!

Exactly. Leeds look like a proper team, in terms of how they play. But for me they lack a little bit of quality to be a top half of the table team. We will have to be focused and show the same kind of application we did today. If so we have the quality to beat them quite convincingly.