Grumpy_Lion

On 26/02/2022 at 17:28, MaVilla said:

So, we beat Brighton.

I didnt mention it before the game, but....i honestly wondered if we would win, or at least get a draw today (versus Brighton away).

The reason in my head, which is an opinion i am developing about the team, is we get better results when we have 35-45% possession, we are forced to naturally sit deeper, defend as a unit, and hit teams more on the break, or in a more.....less intricate way etc, so we have less time to think and mess around on the ball.

Im not surprised we won against Brighton, as thats exactly what happened pretty much, as in we had less possession (34%).

I think our recent problems might actually be, that Gerrard is trying to play a possession style, and against Newcastle, Watford, and pretty much any other team we have more possession against, quite a few of the players are just like fishes out of water, they are slow on the ball, take too long, cant find the passes, and lack ideas in the final third when we are in dominance possession wise, this style also means we are constantly further up the pitch, meaning we are open to being sucker punched as many of our players just arent good enough for a possession based team, meaning we are then losing it and getting hit in the channels on the break more often that an possession team should etc.

In a nutshell, if Gerrard wants to play possession football, we need 3-5 new players who are capable of actually doing it.

This is pretty spot on. Going forward we ideally want to be playing a more possession based style but as you said, right now we just don't have the players. 

Under SG we've gotten much better results when we soak up pressure and counter. Deciding to drop buendia for the Brighton game was actually quite interesting, SG clearly decided we needed less of the ball and a quicker attack going forward. So essentially Buendia being too good at holding the ball forced SG to drop him out the side. I can't remember the last time a player was dropped for being too good at something  , it's a nice problem to have. 

it looked like a pen to me

42 minutes ago, sne said:

There is of course the option that most other Championships are doing by buying players from other leagues that are much cheaper, but potentially a gamble that may or may not pay off.

I'm all for that.

But getting in another expensive Championship striker, or an rotation PL player on massive wages and a 3-5 year contract, I just don't want us to do that, again.

That could be an interesting idea, i'd like to see that one followed up a bit more

35 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

If Samba is the answer I don't even want to know the question!

I guess the question was, who do we not want playing up front :-)

1 minute ago, sne said:

That is my big issue.

Last season we spent money like a PL club, and the years before that we were hemorrhaging money and had something like the 8th highest wages spend in the PL.

It will come back to bite us. But if Xia can offset the losses with his own money without care for FFP, them by all means spend it like monopoly money.

I suspect we are pretty much screwed if we miss out on promotion this season so might as well go down in flames.

 

You're right of course. My previous comments were all assuming we have the cash and can balance it but you make a good point. I think everyone would love to keep buying new and better players but that's not how things work. Being realistic I would be happyish with what we got but I do think we will struggle to score the goals we need to make a promotion push with our current lot.

19 hours ago, Czechlad said:

Jesus it's one match in godawful conditions. This was his first professional match at center back in a year.

I agree, he wasn't awful in that match he just had a few bad spells during the game. The weather made the ball really quick and I think he struggled with that BUT I am still pleased we have him at the club and I think he will be a really useful player for us this season.

7 minutes ago, Supervillan78 said:

I'd love another striker.

McCormack's unlikely to play for us again, Kodjia's still injured, Gabby has never been prolific, Hogan's lacking confidence and RHM's untested. So that just leaves us with Samba so...

Maybe Samba is the key :-D

Just now, sne said:

If we can get one on loan, sure..

Maybe, personally I'd like to buy someone but a loan could be one option. I'm of course assuming we have the money to afford someone else :-)

He looks like he has potential. We don't have many players who are willing to run past a few opponents, so i'm all for a player like this. It will be interesting to see him play against some of championship level players now.

5 hours ago, Delphinho123 said:

He's nowhere near good enough. He puts a lot of effort in though so it's hard to dislike him.

 

I agree. I don't dislike him at all, I just feel he isn't quite good enough. I'd love him to do well but I don't have high hopes. He reminds me of the lad you'd play football with at school, who was never good enough to make the team but would run around like mad trying to impress at training :-)

1 hour ago, Zatman said:

being criticised because he was played completely out of position. I bet he has probably never played left back ever in his career

I think he might have played left back for us at some point last season, for some reason I remember him playing there before when we had injuries. I could be wrong.

58 minutes ago, sne said:

More strikers?

Really?!

If Mccormack is moving on and Kodja still out for a while I think we are quite in need of a striker. Look back at last season without Kodja, we really struggled to score goals. If Bruce thinks our young strikers are good enough, then we could look to them, if not then I do think we need to buy. Personally i'd like to see 3 main strikers, Kodja Hogan and someone new with Gabby as a fourth choice. We know how hard the championship is, you need at least 3/4 good stikers especially with the amount of games you play each week and injuries which occur from this.

1 minute ago, Czechlad said:

Defense is the only thing that is worrying me. 

We don't create or score enough goals, that's been our problem since the start of last season. Before today the defense didn't worry me at all :-) 

5 minutes ago, AshVilla said:

Do people still think were getting promoted seriously?

I personally think it's going to be a long old season :-) but I wouldn't judge our chances for the season on this game. We have mostly a second string side out in quite a wet pitch. 

1 minute ago, GNeeUs said:

Massively disappointing.

Bjarnason is shocking. Samba (who I really like) is having a bit of a mare.

Hourihane and Onomah need to get out of second gear. 

O'Hare looking good and Hogan just waiting for someone to understand his strength of a through ball (haven't seen one of them at Villa in a couple seasons). 

Fingers crossed. It would be nice to finish 3 or 4 goals ahead but in good old fashioned Villa it will be a butt clencher till the end.

I agree. The weather isn't helping but that's not really an excuse. Onomah is looking ok, the only player who really wants to dribble at them with the ball. I really wish we had someone who could feed Hogan in, otherwise he does very little. 

I've seen quite a bit of Bjarnason now and he really doesn't cut it for me, quite a poor player unfortunately. Samba just can't handle the skiddy service and anything on the ground has been a nightmare for him. 

47 minutes ago, Villan_of_oz said:

Forgive me for getting confused....

nothing to forgive :-). I was just at that game and remember it well :-)

Though i'm still trying to forget out last game :-) I was actually quite impressed with what Hogan showed. He seemed to find chances out of very little, which is just what we need in a team where we create few chances.

On ‎07‎/‎02‎/‎2017 at 13:41, mikeyp102 said:

Been one of our better players this year, but his last few performances show why he is only a championship player. Anyone with pace or movement expose him fully. 

I agree, the championship suits him well and I don't think there's any real shame in that. As you said, anyone with pace he really struggles with and it really showed in the prem but championship strikers tend to be different and I think he has been playing to a decent standard. He's made a few mistakes lately but as does every defender, I don't agree with some of the people suddenly calling him awful again.

17 minutes ago, Woodytom said:

Wasn't that game 3-2 to us?

yes it was, the post says it was a game when we won 1-0 which is incorrect. We may have beaten Man City 1-0 with Weimann scoring but the picture isn't from that game.

On ‎06‎/‎02‎/‎2017 at 12:43, Taxahunter said:

For me, it was miscommunication between Baker and Chester, not Elphick. In my opinion we can blame him for a lot of errors, but not the goals Nottingham scored.

In my opinion they were all at fault. Baker and Chester should both never be headering that ball but Elphick also has to cover there, he is ball watching and doesn't notice the free man. I just put it down to reaction time and being able to read the game. Too often these two attributes let him down, he is often slow thinking and it gets him in trouble.

So in my opinion you can say he was at fault for the second goal, I wouldn't say to blame at all but if you watch how he reacts to the situation is isn't the best.

according to sky sports, this is now done. 

The cost is relative to the demand and situation. January prices are generally higher, especially on deadline day and add that to a club that probably don't want to sell. We are in need of another goal scorer and you pay big money for goals, so I don't think the price we've put up is all that surprising really. I think we're good for it as well, so I wouldn't worry too much about the cost of the player just more what the player has to offer. 

I wouldn't want to lose him in general but especially not this late in the window. Any money we get from him is going to be hard to spend in January now, so if he had to go then early Jan would have been better than we could have sat with perhaps and extra £15 mill to spend on a few players.

It's hard for any player to express their feelings publically these days. Right or wrong, if a player comes out with a statement they tend to get judged on it very quickly. I think with Gollini it was probably just an off the cuff remark out of frustration of it not working out how he planned at villa. Just take these sort of things with a pinch of salt, we don't know the ins and outs. I'm not saying forget it, just don't be too quick to jump on the hate wagon.

He looked a bit sluggish to me against Preston, didn't seem his usual self. I'm hoping with our new midfield this will allow him more time to push on and do what he does best.