Harry

Can we recall him?

Who?

Blaming the keeper when the whole side was basically dogshit? Really?

Well that was a couple of hours of my life I won’t get back. A few thoughts in no particular order: 1) Poor team section at the outset. Freddie should have started as should have Marvelous.Tactics were all wrong. 2) Douglas Luiz (spelling?) is shit. For every good thing he does he makes five mistakes. 3) Drinkwater responsible for three of their goals. Ok he did some good stuff but should not have started today. 4) Lets not forget we were playing £500m of Man City players. 5) We conceded the first two goals with pub side defending yet again. 6) Our midfield was non existent today. No defensive cover at all which put pressure on our defence. Man City just ran through us unopposed. 7) Not impressed by all the Smith haters out tonight. He called in all wrong today but who is a viable and gettable alternative? The real problem is the quality of the squad, Given we lost 13 players at the end of last season I think over the summer you cannot create a premiership squad for £130m. What we have is a very good Championship grade side. ’8) The most worrying bit for me was the way heads went down after the second goal. We were there for the taking and it was a matter of how many they scored. My money was on 8 so it was a bit better . We need too be much tougher and fight. Not sure if that is down to Smith and coaching or having players not up for the fight. 9) A lot of people were going on social media about how good the support was from the Villa fans despite the result. Well we are at the back of the Holte and loads of fans left at half time. We were quiet for big chunks of the game and the singing was pretty sad: John Carew, Benteke, European Champions, shit support (the away section was sold out!!), etc. Gallows humour at best and nearly a fight between two Villa fans next to us. 10) Sadly we will be relegated.

So not much of an over reaction.

I suspect we will sell Chester and probably put Hause out on loan so maybe self financing?

Looks like a total animal, sign him up. Especially for the suggested fee.

Is that the same Westwood who has been one of Burney's best players? Anyway its a no to me with Drinkwater, way too much baggage.

Sorry but in what alternative reality was that in? Rodger was never touted as coming to Villa except on VT. Similarly there is a less than zero chance of getting Poch. Were we to sack Smith our options for a new manager are probably really limited, probably Houghton at best. I doubt even Alladyce would come as a fill in for a few months.

Welcome to Villa Talk.

Agreed....faking an injury to come off...really!!

There is a very long list of players deemed to be not good enough by the club and very particularly the fans who have gone on to be good or excellent at other clubs. Ashley Westwood anyone? A figure of hate on this forum I seem to remember

Not sure we saw anything that might be termed ‘good shape’ today

If that’s the case the others were even worse than I thought.

I would agree, its amazing the number of players who are deemed not good enough for Villa who apparently pretty good for other sides.

Agreed......sadly as I would like him to turn it around.

There is no way Poch would come to Villa, however big a war chest. He is being talked about as the next Real Madrid manager!

Per DS in his radio interview he has been taken to hospital for an x-ray so its looks bad. Completely self inflicted too with his reckless hissy fit tackle.

Smith is under real pressure now. I like him and want him to succeed but we are going backwards. His Plan A is not working and I am rapidly coming to the conclusion he has no Plan B. He made his tactical substitutions much too late today. In the last 15 minutes of the game we put them under real pressure once those changes had been made so why not earlier? I don't want to see him sacked but unless we improve very quickly he will be.

For the first time this season it dawned on me that we are real relegation candidates. We are just so easy to play against. Keep it tight in midfield and close us down quickly, double mark Grealish, and wait for us to make a mistake. Added to that we sat way too deep and resorted too many times to hoofing it up the pitch toward a striker who is so out of form its embarrassing.

Sadly yes.

A player entirely unproven in the Championship let alone the Premiership. I would love to see him come good but to be honest I have never seen a game where he's played well IMO.

That's FB for you I exited all the Villa groups I was in a few months ago as I got sick of the extreme views and the abuse if you had a different opinion to the pack.

I'm a big fan of DS but the reversal from our much more fluid passing style smack to me of manager desperate not to lose - Steve Bruce anyone? I don't think Wilder is mini me of Klopp but boy does he organise his side. Something DS did do but he has retreated into his shell. How we approach the Southampton game will be telling. A loss and it could get ugly at VP. Beating Liverpool in the CC would be a start too.

You don't need hindsight to see we were foolish to rely on Kodja and Davies as back up too.