BG_Villa_Fan

The least bad thing. Others should follow suit.

Bullshit statement, presented as a fact, per par.

Lambert inherited a squad full of premier league players, so it's not comparable at all. Smith inherited half a squad, with only a couple of players who had ever played a premier league game. Plus Lambert never needed to make a full rebuild. That said, with hindsight, Lambert's job was OK in the first couple of seasons. His problem was he was going on an unmistakable downward spiral, whereas Smith overachieved massively to take this team up so quickly. If you don't think 17th is a great job, given the circumstances, then you're deluded.

It'd be incredibly stupid to gather unfit players and make them play some 10 games each every 3 days. Exactly how they expect this to work is beyond me. Not that I believe the coronavirus thing will be over in time to ever try pulling it off.

Spot on. Dean is in the incredibly rare position, as a manager, where in difficult times the fans would likely be prepared to give him more patience and backing than the board would.

How do you know they have even a quid to spend due to FFP?

I’d take Glenn Murray at this point.

Don’t tell me you’re one of those people who think you can’t have depression if you’re rich? Kodj has been through a lot with bad injuries derailing what looked like a promissing Maupay-type career. He’s got a lot reasons to be in a bad state of mind. It’s no joke.

It was so obvious how on a few occasions in the first half Grealish had the ball and tried to do everything so that he wouldn’t have to pass to Taylor.

There’s a world of difference between a teenager and a 30 year old man.

Truly hideous. Worst part is now I believe in the Murray, Hart, etc rumours as well.

Football in the Championship is terrible quality, however, it's proven there are very good players there - only recently there have been some nice players coming from there - Maddison obviously, Mount, Konsa, Webster, Maupay, etc. I think Bowen would be no more of a risk than these to make the step up, he certainly has more to his game than Hogan ever did and has done it over a few seasons. Problem is Villa have too many holes to fill and might not be willing to engage in a bidding war for him. If we didn't have all these injuries and only needed a couple of players, sure, but things have changed unfortunately.

Squad is getting dangerously thin with the injuries piling up. Time for them to have a second thought about that stupid self imposed ‘no loans’ crap unless there’s 100+ mil more to spend.

Because we play open attacking football and because the longest tenured regular defender/goalkeeper/defensive midfielder has been at the club for less than a year.

The kind of chastising a lot of the players get on the forum is remarkable. It’s a team with 10+ new players, young and most of them having their first full time season in a top league, what did you expect? They make mistakes of course duhhh. They’ll continue to make mistakes and learn. When the schedule was released that run of fixtures looked horrendous, it’s as tough of a run as any team will have and these are not the games that will make or break our season. The 6-pointer games will and we’ve done quite well so far. Loving what Dean Smith’s been able to build and how it’s a team willing to play good football in every game. Bar that Man C game we’ve been with a chance to get points from every game this season by the last 5 or 10 mins. I couldn’t have hoped for better, realistically, before the start of the season and was actually dreading it after the promotion and looking at the squad we had back then. Well done Villa and each and every player I say.

Dwight McNeil, I think he’s going to develop into a very good player. Would love him at Villa.

Better a statue in front of Villa Park than the career of another Mahrez type, right Jack? Right?

I hate football. Marvellous is marvellous.

They didn’t play as strikers, but they were far too wide and not for the first time this season. Feels like it’s a deliberate tactic, but with Jack drifting all over the place and Wesley not dropping back as much as advertised, it does leave an enormous gap in the middle between Wesley and Nakamba.

I agree but it’d still be cool if this was one of these 30-32 points keep you safe kind of seasons. That said, despite some poor results and missed points, we’ve been in every game with a chance to get points until the very end, I think it bodes well and hope it continues. I’m also a believer of the goal difference roughly showing the correct positions theory.

Things finally clicked and it's great to see. Hopefully they can continue the same way against Brighton in 2 weeks because after that there's a horrid run of games coming up.

Fair result. Played way too scared beginning of second half, instead of trying to control the game and it turned the flow of the game. Also, midfield is way too opened, McGinn and Hourihane played too close to the wingers and there was an enormous gap between Nakamba and Wesley. I thought Nakamba and McGinn were really good, everyone else meh.

Both Grealish and McGinn drift too much and expose the midfield, losing control of the game. Smith has to try moving Grealish somewhere else, even on the wing, just try something different. We insist on playing with wingers yet our wingers are the worst players in the team, bar Taylor, and he keeps subbing them each game but to no avail. Wesley doesn’t get any service at all. Easy to blame him but he’s on his own, perhaps he should drop much deeper too. Very unconvinced about the midfield 3 of Grealish, McGinn and a defensive midfielder. I’d like to see them play a bit more narrow once Targett is back - play both Nakamba and Luiz, with McGinn, Grealish further up and staying there, closer to Wesley. Don’t create that huge gap between midfield and Wesley, it just doesn’t work even when attempting to counter there aren’t enough bodies.

Nah. I’ve been critical of him this season too but he clearly has more tactics in his pinkie than a lot of our recent managers. MON - ‘Sit deep and hit em on the counter’ Houllier -‘Just pass it around. Merci’ McLeish - ‘Let’s get another 0-0 win lads’ Lambert - ‘Don’t lose 8-0 again, please don’t’ (cries) Sherwood - famousLeicester hands waving gif tactics Tim Garde/Black/Di Matteo - ‘Where am I? Who am I?’ Bruce - ‘Roll yer sleeves. Blood, sweat and piss.’ Smith is a breath of fresh air compared to this lot, albeit admittedly making some mistakes.

Ref is a disgrace. That said, it was a poor display, poor awareness, poor discipline, poor tactically. First 6 pointer lost this season.