BG_Villa_Fan

Would have been if we were finishing 6th. As it is we’re nowhere near.

Wait until Las Vegas Villans is created.

It's weird Gerrard is so dead set on sending Bertie away. He's exactly the type of maverick player who could come up with a moment of brilliance and win points that the manager's 'system' wouldn't otherwise be able to. Bruce, for all of his faults, realized this and would give freedom to offensive players like him for that exact reason. Anyway, wish him luck, perhaps next manager will give him a chance when he's back from his loan.

The wonders of having a manager with a clear idea of how they want to play against the particular opposition and players understanding basic playing patterns like channeling everything down the flanks and easily defending the countless useless crosses. Parker wiped the floor with Gerrard and won them 3 points, probably their easiest game of the season as well.

We had the right man for where we are, but we thought we were better than him and sacked him. Smith had a couple more years at the Villa and should have been replaced only by a significant upgrade, say a Poch or similar. It's bad karma what they did to him.

It's not a tactic - it's a formation, we're playing roughly similarly positioned players, only worse. Tactics are much more than this though - they're patterns of movement on and off the ball, players covering some space when another makes a run, players getting to a specific position when someone else gets somewhere, etc. etc. We do none of this, no one moves, everyone stands and waits expecting the ball to find them. Which has obviously resulted in a ton of useless crosses going nowhere. This isn't even the bare bones of a thought out tactical approach, it's simply the result of 11 players not knowing how to play together. This is why I don't think any changes in the first 11, formation or even bringing in more expensive players would change much.

No tactical nous, no shape or identity, 11 players on the pitch not knowing what to do and waiting for a moment of magic from someone, throwing players under the bus, sulking when the going gets tough, snapping at the media. Only fan criticism left to complete the Bruce bingo.

Which is the last Villa team you remember that regularly dominated the middle?

I’ve been a Villa fan for more than 25 years. In that time I don’t remember a Villa team able to control the midfield. Been countless of players and managers. I don’t expect Gerrard of all would be able to achieve this.

Survive the transfer deadline and he’ll outlast the manager who’s dropped him. Is what I expect must be on his mind.

It’s not about the players and it’s not about the formation either.

Not even close tbh.

Surely the game plan against Bournemouth is to get it out wide and keep crossing the ball. They’ve been doing it over and over again and it’s not like they’re under a ton of pressure so it must be deliberate. How they’ve looked at the players and consciously decided to do it is beyond me. They must have stolen the opposition game plan and tried to apply it.

Ehh I'll go against the grain on this one and predict this will have a positive effect on the performance of both Mings and McGinn. I expect John to step up and have a great season.

This is true but it might not be as simple as Smith vs Gerrard, might be due to the stage the club is in - under Dean we were a newly promoted club that had to buy a whole new squad, rebuild with younger players and survive, whereas now we're an established PL team that needs to make the next step. Whether they're doing it right or wrong only the future will tell. It's certainly a more risky strategy but one could argue that had we continued building slowly with young players the path to top 6 would have been nearly impossible, especially seeing that certain snakes would leave unless you bring instant success, thus setting the club back over and over again. I'm not sure the younger players at the club are ready to step in the way JJ did. First of all, most of them are still under 20 and they all definitely need a year of playing regular football somewhere, bar KKH perhaps, who's already done that. I don't see signings like Augustinsson setting back the development of Chrisene and the like because I don't think they're ready at all. The Augustinssons, Youngs, etc. are just placeholders for the young guys who need to mature physically and mentally in order to be able to step in. Besides, there's a difference between JJ being given a chance in a team that had finished 17th the year before and these guys growing into rotation players for a team that appears to have ambitions for 6th/7th or so. Perhaps not, we can't know this, but their continued spending on the youth setup is a good indicator that they're in it for a long time, not for just a quick shot at it like Lerner. Personally I'm not worried about this at all. Critchley seems more than capable enough to replace Beale. In fact I'd be more worried that he's overqualified and would be poached as well. We've performed badly against the top teams under all managers for the last 30 or so years, it's not much of an indicator at all.

They measure both standing and vertical leap. That said, there's long been conspiracies about players suspiciously measuring lower on standing reach ( no idea how that happens ) in order to stand out on the verticals. Keon Johnson, being one example but there have been others in literally every draft.

I like the fixtures. Balanced, no horrible run of difficult games, always an appropriate game around the corner to end a bad streak, etc.

I agree.

It was always coming back. Entirely UEFA's fault though , because they were too afraid and weak to punish them properly.

no he's not.

If they're paying 13 mil for Burn then Targett's worth 30.

While I don't want to see any of the best players leave it's encouraging that Villa now receive proper offers for their players. Shows what a good job they've done building this team from the nearly empty shell that Dean managed to promote. If they can move players like Luiz and Cash for premium prices and replace them with players they think would fit better then fair enough, I trust them to make the right decisions.

Not an exciting signing but a sensible one on a free. I'm surprised it's not a loan but a long term deal, Gerrard must rate him. Wouldn't be surprised if he's sold to a Burnley or a promoted team within a year and a half for a tidy profit.

Even with a flicker of hope they'll still not spend a penny in the transfer window to help themselves? They need at least two players to have any chance of survival.

Phew! Definitely taller than Tommy Elphick then.