Indigo

Not that it's news to anyone but Souness really is a dreadfully lazy pundit. Gets asked about Coutinho playing for Villa and the best he can muster up is saying he doesn't reckon he tries hard enough when he doesn't have the ball, they proceed to wax lyrical about Son who incidentally has lesser defensive stats than Coutinho. Total parody at this stage.

Not that it'll ever happen but I wouldn't mind seeing something like: Martinez Cash-Chambers-Mings-Digne Luiz-Nakamba Bailey-Buendia-Coutinho Ings/Watkins Possibly speaks to being stuck in mid-table obscurity but I've haven't been paying attention enough to even know if Digne or Ings will be back involved, think it's a way of getting both of the most creative attackers in while also not completely sacrificing pace in the process.

I'm not suggesting that he shouldn't be given time or that it isn't the case that the players are more so the issue, but there's only so long you can hang them out to dry while also making questionable decisions yourself. I actually think he's been good on the whole and it's reflected in how Villa have climbed the table, but there are plenty of coaches out there that get more than the sum of their parts out of a team, whilst Gerrard is making a bit of a habit out of getting overdramatic and attributing every poor performance to the lack of mentality or whatever else in the players. It'll wear thin quite quickly is all, particularly if he does get whatever overhaul of the squad he desires and the results don't come with it.

I'm a bit fed up of all this whinging about the players letting him down to be honest. What if he gets given this brand new - and presumably hugely expensive - squad and the same issues persist?

Great player and changed the game today, but it becomes a catch 22 then starting him because it'll only happen with Coutinho and then we suddenly lack any kind of pace and are terribly open out of possession. Actually think he could work well as an 8 but not sure I can ever see that even being experimented with.

World class at gesturing that everyone else is letting him down.

Not even having a go at him but I don't think I've ever seen the "doesn't get service" excuse used as much for a player that misses the chance he does.

It genuinely isn't a coincidence that Villa look half the team without him there.

At least we'll get a half time team talk filled with "home truths" and probably some nice soundbites in the post match interview to make up for the performance.

I know folk want to single out the player they have a particular dislike for but this has just been a general disasterclass since the goal.

Interesting one, no real natural sitting midfielder in there but I like that Sanson is getting his chance regardless.

Not being English, from the outside lookiing in it should seem mad that a player with something like 13 clean sheets and only 4 goals conceded in 16 caps gets as much stick as he does. It's a shame that it seems par for the course instead considering what he gets at club level, much less international.

All of the theorising would be fair enough if we hadn't seen him actually play well on the rare times he's had an opportunity, but we have and as it's the only evidence we have to work off it's fair to say it's at least strange that he hasn't gotten more of a chance.

Reduced prime Messi to rubble.

Carlos Sanchez as well, probably a couple of others in there that could be argued too.

We've had loads of defensive midfielders since NRC to be fair, whatever about the relative quality of them but we've had them alright.

I'm a big fan of both McGinn and Ramsey, but yeah, it's terribly difficult to maintain control or possession in a game when they're making up 2 of a 3 man midfield. Ramsey is young so will probably get there eventually, but his main strength has been his ball carrying. As tends to be the case for young lads games often pass him by and he doesn't see a huge amount of the ball, and subsequently makes less passes etc in the process. McGinn is a great player on his day, so all-action and dynamic but the guy just doesn't move the ball quickly or play short passes, he's something like bottom 2% for the latter and it shows. We obviously have further issues - lack of width, Konsa seemingly being unable to play out from defense and so forth - with being able to build out and control possession properly, but I don't think the qualities of the midfield outside of Luiz hugely aids it either.

I'm not normally one to get too hung up on the injury history of players but Gomez is the sort of case where I'd draw the line and be concerned about it to the point I think it wouldn't be worth it. He's had 4 or 5 lengthy injuries, some of which are recurring. It's a shame as he's a quality player and otherwise would represent a big improvement, then again we probably wouldn't have a chance of getting him otherwise.

Whatever about the merits of whether or not Villa should have signed him, but I've found some of the stick he's gotten on here before to be bizarre.

2022 and we're still taking the opinions of selected groups of other sides fans as gospel on players. WHEN WILL IT END ROBBIE.

Does make for quite grim reading for a "ball playing defender".

What makes it even worse is that it's not even a "tackle", he's literally making a pass as Villa are the team in possession of the ball and Saka comes into him as he plays it. Such a blatant non-issue.

I don't doubt that there are certain players that can and will be upgraded upon, but I think it's a bit cheap to be digging them out when it isn't as though yesterday was some one-off occurrence where it was clear that it was solely down to them not doing what he wanted. He played a system where we've previously struggled to have any form of control of games or ability to play out from the back with and stuck with one or two out of form players in the process. I massively rate this Araenal team and think they've gone largely underrated because of how relatively poor they've been in the last couple of seasons, but to have a colossal struggle getting out of our own half against them at home until they decided to sit in speaks more to getting tactically undone to me than it does certain individuals failing to pull their weight.