weedman

If the palace goal criticism was justified why has he not been criticised for playing the ball short yesterday to a player under pressure? You know, the one we went straight down the other end and scored from? No criticism for that? At first viewing I did think the wall was a bit off, so I can understand the match day reactions, but having seen it again it looks pretty bang on to me, and there was obviously nothing he could do with the 2nd Did he roll it out in the exact same situation? After just defending a corner, with a few mins left, away from home, with their best defender the one applying the pressure to the defender the ball was being played to? Surely the fact that independent experienced pundits have criticised it shows its not some sort of hate on Guzan. His positioning was fine. Did it go over? It didn't look like it from my view at the game and I didn't think the MOTD replays showed it that clearly. I'd like to see a behind goal view. Well the "exact same situation" would be very unlikely to happen again, however it was a few mins from half time, 1-1 Sunderland were pressing high up the pitch and he played it out to a player under some pressure, so it's not a completely different situation. The main difference being the player he passed to didn't lose the ball

If the palace goal criticism was justified why has he not been criticised for playing the ball short yesterday to a player under pressure? You know, the one we went straight down the other end and scored from? No criticism for that? At first viewing I did think the wall was a bit off, so I can understand the match day reactions, but having seen it again it looks pretty bang on to me, and there was obviously nothing he could do with the 2nd

If they stand in the middle everyone would just smash the ball the other side and avoid the wall altogether. Keepers would be being beaten on 'their' side all the time and would be getting crucified on forums like this. You only have to look at the reaction when a keeper anticipates the shot and makes a slight movement then gets beaten on his side to see that

So what does everyone think of Guzans mistake yesterday that led to Sinclairs 2nd goal?

We've not seen enough of Traore in the Prem yet. Sinclair Grealish Gil and Traore as a sub i'd imagine. I don't think Traore is ready to be regularly starting PL games, I think he'll give the ball away too often. From the very little I've seen I'd say Gil is the better player, of course it's impossible to judge really until they've both had a run of games

Despite the facts that he gave away the free kick that led to the first goal, because he was behind the play and secondly was responsible for the breakdown in play that led to the second. Rule 1: defenders need to be good at defending. Going forwarding he was excellent, he made some great tackles BUT he was partly responsible for both their goals. Although clearly he is one of our better players atm, VT does make me laugh sometimes. Goal last week, Guzan rolls ball to Amavi, Amavi loses it - Guzan thread jumps 10 pages with people calling for him to be replaced and at fault for the goal, Amavi thread jumps 2 pages with people gushing over him being our best player despite 1 little error. Goal this week, Amavi caught out of position needlessly fouling a player 25 yards from goal and the resulting free kick flies into the top corner - Guzan thread jumps a few pages with people bemoaning his awful positioning, and he was at fault for the goal, Amavi thread continues to be filled with people gushing over him being our best player and only 1 person mentions his part in the goal Us football fans are a funny lot sometimes

I think Grealish would have done more than Adama to win the game, they defended deep so guile would have been more likely to "unlock" them than pace

I completely agree with your whole post barring the Gestede part. We are certainly improving, and we were missing key players. I don't want to jump on Gestede's back too much as he may come good given time, and it is early. But a lot of his flick ons went to nobody, and as others have pointed out, the amount of times he was on his heels and was beaten to a pass by the defenders was infuriating. In fact that very thing was what got them the ball to attack for their second goal, if he's not gonna score and is gonna cost goals too then I think he's gonna struggle to be a success. You may be right, the stream I was watching on wasn't great so I may have missed some things, he did have a few neat touches though, which is a little promising considering he's still adapting to the league and our team. Hopefully he will improve as the team gels

Am I the only one that thought Gestede did alright? Some nice lay offs which really got us going attacking wise a number of times, should have done a bit better in front of goal really but otherwise a solid enough performance. I think there are plenty of positives today for sure, lots of chances created but just that final ball lacking but with some of our main attackers out (Gabby, Grealish and Traore with Ayew still settling) that are will surely improve once they're fit? Worldy free kick for their 1st, not much anyone can do about that and Clark at fault for 2nd but only in via a deflection. We will continue to be inconsistent for a good few months while everyone adapts and gets up to speed but on that showing they are beginning to settle a little. Onwards and upwards

To be honest I'm not really a huge believer in using stats too much, was more trying to point out that our defence has been probably the best part of our team, and one of the better defences in the league, I'd say that makes us more likely to keep a clean sheet than most at this current moment

I'm sorry but our 1st choice defence has conceded 3 goals in 3 games, the joint 5th best in the league. Over 38 games that's 38 goals (yes, I'm THAT good at math) which last season would be the joint 5th best as well. Only a tiny sample size, but indicates that defence has not been our problem this season so far

I don't think it's necessarily personal abuse, it's more way over the top criticism as people who don't rate him get frustrated that they can't change the minds of people that do. Phrases like "waste of space", "stealing a living", "league 1 at best", "never a footballer", "bench is too good for Gabby" etc get banded about by the same people that claim "it's nothing personal, I just don't think he's good enough for us". Well, say that then! There's a big difference between saying "I don't think he's good enough for us any more" to "he's nothing more than a sprinter, never a footballer and he's been stealing a living for years, time to go Gabby, let's cancel his contract and he could get picked up by Tranmere or someone, although they may be a bit above him", and if you can't see that then you must be an ostrich! I still think he is good enough for us. The first few games he's been as bad as I can remember him being, but since Sherwood came in he's been pretty decent, not a world beater for sure, but good enough for a mid table team. People have to remember for this season this is basically a new team, and it's not just the new players that need to get used to playing with new teammates. I also feel that this season starting earlier seems to have had an impact on the league, I'd say 50% of all players aren't fully fit and that's resulted in some odd results - Chelsea being rubbish, Leicester looking like Champions etc. I think after the international break something resembling "normal" service will resume and after that is when players should start being analysed more

Looks like Sherwood cares about this competition as much as the TV broadcasters then!

Carragher saying it doesn't make it true, pundits opinions aren't any more valid than anyone else's you know? We were all complaining earlier when all our season previews all the pundits predicted we'd struggle as we hadn't signed anyone and sold our best players despite us signing loads of very promising players. Pundits aren't always right, hell they aren't even often right

Its very easy to say now that "it was the wrong decision" after Amavi lost the ball and they subsequently scored, I wonder if it would still be the wrong decision if Amavi had breezed passed Dann and suddenly we had a counter attack on with players bursting forward and our left back and best player recently well in advance of their center back? Point is, it's not a clear cut thing, Guzan taking an extra 3 seconds to ponder his move probably wouldn't have made a difference, and if passing to a player is considerd wrong if there's an opposition player within 15 yards of him then Guzan was at fault, if passing to a player with an opposition player within 15 yards is completely normal (as it is) then he cannot be held accountable for it - otherwise, like someone said earlier, whoever passed the ball back to Guzan before his mistake at City would have to take some of the blame for that goal too

If Guzan's thinking about the win, why has he not played the ball beyond their CB that has pushed up into our half? He's not thinking, and that's the problem. He's neither protecting the point, nor starting an attack. Schmeichal back in the day, used to know how to start an attack with quick distribution. This was nothing like that. Played the ball up beyond their center back to who? Counter attacking isn't about launching the ball forward aimlessly and keeping your fingers crossed someone gets on the end of it

With everyone saying we would have had a point otherwise I should say, we (and by we I mean Tim Sherwood and therefore the team) didn't want a point. We weren't playing for a point, we were going for a win. Guzan was not thinking, "how can I play this safe so we have the least chance of conceding", he was thinking, "let's get this going quickly and we can counter...oh look there's Amavi". If Amavi had played it into midfield quickly and they had brought the ball forward and scored no one would complain about the "risky" pass This is a Tim Sherwood team, everyone is being trained to take risks and to try and score rather than try and not concede. You want aimless (safe) long balls forward every time we potentially have a point against a mid table team then we should have just kept Lambert. 5 mins to go, 1-1, 2 choices, try and win or try and not lose? Tim Sherwood will try and win virtually every time and sometimes that will mean we lose, but it also means that sometimes we'll bang in an 89th minute winner in everyone will be ecstatic Back on topic, there's no way in a million years that was a mistake by Brad

Exactly right. I made the point earlier. If he'd given that ball to Hutton, or Joe Bennett, or Cissokho then it wouldn't even be mentioned. I'd also say that if Bunn had done it it wouldn't have been mentioned either. Genuine question, has anyone seen any pundit, commentator or reporter even mention Guzan when talking about this goal? Even on the other side if he'd rolled it to Bacuna it would all be down to Bacuna, easy to criticise a player you don't rate, and slack off on a player you do

I do wonder how much blame would be given to Guzan and what the general reaction on here would be had it been Gabby that he'd rolled the ball to, who has subsequently lost it and we conceded a goal. I largely suspect that Guzan would be given approximately 0% blame for the goal, and Gabby would receive approximately 0% of the leeway Amavi is getting, just my thoughts

But the point is surely that he hasn't been one of out main strikers? He's been predominantly played out wide. Last season he scored 6 with 1 assist compared with say Bolasie, who scored 4 with 6 assists which is pretty similar, Bolasie is priced at £20m and Gabby is considered someone to give away for free? There are other parts of his game of course, but everyone keeps going on about his goal record even though, for a wide player (especially when you consider how defensive all our players have been asked to play under Lambert) it's actually not bad, and at very least comparable to other players in similar positions in similar strength teams. Raheem Sterling just had his best ever season and earned a £49m move to Man City and he scored 13 goals while playing about 20 games more. I'm not sure what people expect? Eden Hazard? Gabby is at worst a bang average winger in a bang average team. Maybe he's not good enough for where we want to be, but for where we are he is good enough. Maybe better players will come in and displace him as we move up, that's the dream, and if it happens that will be great for us as we're progressing, but we're not there yet, and Gabby is still part of our team trying to make that progression happen, he's scored some big and important goals for us over his career, and at the very least he deserves a bit of respect from people even if they don't rate him.

Please find example of someone "bumming him because he's Villa through and through". The only people that bring up the fact he's Villa through and through or "one of us" are people moaning about other people saying that...even though no one does!

The worrying thing is no manager has ever dropped him for more than a game or two. He has had a free pass for the past five years and so far under Sherwood (albeit a limited time) it's continued. It's like he manages to be shit for maybe 6-7 games and it looks like he'll be dropped and then he decides to have a good game and scores a goal and we win. Rinse and repeat. Get Gestede fit and into the starting lineup instead of Gabby as soon as possible. I know, it's almost as if these professional managers earning tens of thousands of pounds a week who's only job is to judge players ability and who see those players every day know more about them than we fans do? Madness Weedman with due respect, there are so many supporters on here these days all saying the same thing that he's not good enough, we simply all can't be wrong. Houlier would have had him out if he had not fallen ill. We all know he got lucky last year when Benteke got red carded against spuds, and Sherwood didn't pick him for the cup final, he's also signed lots of players whom one of which will shortly be having his place, so i think there's a pretty strong counter argument here Well supporters thinking he's not good enough doesn't exactly disprove my point though does it? I mean, an argument could be made for 1 manager simply having him as a "favourite" who plays regardless, but how many managers has he worked under now? It is not simply a coincidence that all these managers continue to select him. He hasn't been great in these opening 2 games, but he didn't have much of a pre season and is still getting up to speed (like a few other players) and a lack of match fitness is always more noticeable with a physical player like him or Ayew. Your points about Houllier getting rid if he'd stayed or he would have been dropped if Benteke hadn't gotten suspended is no different from me saying he will score 12-15 goals if played as a striker for a season. I genuinely believe that as I'm sure you genuinely believe he would be gone if not for a few lucky breaks. The point is it's all ifs and maybes. I think he didn't start the final as he was injured for the semi final and Sherwood wanted the same team out there, but it could be that he was dropped and it was the beginning of the end, no one really knows No one is ever going to claim he's the best player we have, or the player to fire us into the Champions League, but he is quite simply nowhere remotely near as bad as he is made out to be on here, and his continued selection in the team for various different managers throughout his career shows that. If one of our newcomers replaces him then great - that means they will offer more to the team than he does and that's a good thing for Aston Villa considering what Gabby does offer the team. Personally as I like Gabby I hope he will step up and improve and continue to play his part for us whether thats as a squad player or a starter, but if not I'm confident Sherwood knows what he's doing, and it'll be because the new boys are better.

The worrying thing is no manager has ever dropped him for more than a game or two. He has had a free pass for the past five years and so far under Sherwood (albeit a limited time) it's continued. It's like he manages to be shit for maybe 6-7 games and it looks like he'll be dropped and then he decides to have a good game and scores a goal and we win. Rinse and repeat. Get Gestede fit and into the starting lineup instead of Gabby as soon as possible. I know, it's almost as if these professional managers earning tens of thousands of pounds a week who's only job is to judge players ability and who see those players every day know more about them than we fans do? Madness

He, along with Veretout and Gabby, have barely had a pre season and are all clearly off the pace. The only way to get that sharpness and improve is by playing. I'm sure the same will be true of Grealish and Gil when they come in (although as Grealish relies far less on physicality he will most likely get up to speed quicker - hopefully at least)

Ha I noticed that. Some people just don't follow what happens outside of their own team though, and the rest of that forum seems good. Quite refreshing when compared to the Leicester one!