southcoastvillan

Went for Cash motm but no real standout performances. Found it a very odd game and difficult to assess. First half we were the better side and seemed to get into good positions in the final third but then poor decision making and a lack of composure or quality meant the ‘situations’ didn’t materialise into clear cut chances. Barkley a few times couldn’t get his feet right on a couple of occasions (as an aside Barkley reminds me of Rooney in his later career, when he still obviously possessed quality but didn’t have the legs, fitness or zip to get shots off quickly or give defenders a concern that they couldn’t get beaten one on one). Second half everton had the better chances but we didn’t play too bad. - Davis, loan him to the champ so we can actually know whether he can do a job or not, he needs first team football not another season where he gets 100 mins all season - back 5 is very very solid, organised and professional unit, gives us a chance in any game we play and credit to dean and the staff for the improvement this season - Bert and Anwar, sigh, so powderpuff, I know they’re wingers but they don’t half sheirk som challenges, a quality upgrade in the winger position is needed, let’s break the bank for Dwight McNeil - McGinn love the guys passion and endeavour what a bloke but please stop spraying the ball to the oppo, the passing lately has been woeful

Decent first half, rode the first 15 mins out, scored and then kept Utd at bay comfortably but not great second half, target motm got forward well and stood up defensively, very consistent season for him whilst other around him have dropped off. Konsa, McGinn, cash and Watkins acquitted themselves well but the others weren’t great (apart from berts brilliant strike). Luiz and Mings characteristic mistakes again. Another game where we have got our noses in front against a good team but not had the steam to stay in front, not the end of the world considering the opposition but plenty to work on over the summer.

Watkins motm great to have a willing centre forward who will chase everything it sort of reminds me of youth football, great performance from him and the rest of the team played great, quite happy to see that sort of football win lose or draw every week

Entertaining game and a better performance than in recent games but you have to take into account the standard of the opposition which when you do perhaps means it’s just as bad as it has been. positives: full backs played well; el ghazi looked lively and still has a role to play next season IMO; Watkins never stops, great to see Davis get his goal and so glad for Wesley negatives: traore awful again (twists and turns and never actually beats his man); midfield passed it better but still not good enough McGinn is so careless in possession; Barkley just go now mate - not fit enough and as a professional sportsman that can never be forgiven

Poor performance overall, 1-1 was flattering us. Worrying trend continued as with spurs and some other recent games where we have lost whilst our opponents haven’t played that well to win. I fear the City backlash next week. martinez 8 cash 7 Konsa 8 Mings 6 target 7 nakamba 6 luiz 5 McGinn 4 trez 7 traore 0 Watkins 8 Our defence, excellent goalie and workhorse Watkins are keeping us competitive in recent times but it’s a tough watch, the midfield and general forward play is just dire at the minute, no cohesion, no spark, no combination play. Dean and the coaches have lots to work on. Traore’s performance today was acrid, and the way he effectively subbed himself off was not good to see, must do better.

Had to go trez motm, still don’t rate him but big praise for his impact today, Davis too made a difference, he’s deserving of more game time and smith needs to stop being so rigid and mix it up abit with formation and team selection, the last 15 papered over massive cracks in our offensive play which has been slow and awful for weeks, let’s hope this result breeds some confidence for the matches ahead. Positives: cash looking sharp, back four solid other than Mings brain fart; subs coming good; winning from behind; Davis and Ramsey looking strong; traore is a maverick negatives: where’s our attacking fluency; Sanson, jury is out but not looking convincing; midfield pedestrian again with no spark; traore is a maverick

Konsa MOTM remainder not great. Why why why why why does deano wait until 67 mins to make changes when it’s clear we have the oppo under duress, it’s his only major blind spot imo and need to be addressed. Crossing was poor and deliveries were being put in from too deep, bread and butter stuff for their defence, We missed That bit of magic from jack in tight spaces and got that reason I didn’t agree with Bert being Subbed. all that being said we didn’t play awful and it was just one of those nights

Good performance, defence very solid and midfield hard working and competitive. Smith gets top marks for me, saw we needed to tighten up the midfield and chose the players and tactics accordingly. Never been a fan of pushing players up the pitch when we we don’t have the ball for the sake of it, having three orthodox central midfielders helped keep things compact and kept the spaces tighter and suffocated Leeds, we kept them at arms length with ease really. Shout to the ref, good display I felt. nakamba motm, honourable mentions to el ghazi and Ramsey , sanson pushing for a start too. Good signs

Targett motm for me, solid defensively. Barnes had elmos pants round his ankles all day. First half hopeless, second half better, when the second goal went I thought it could get messy so it was good to stay competitive and put up a fight to get back into the match. Ramsey and sanson deserve more game time, Barkley, Luiz and mcginn deserve less game time. Barkleys bank has run outta credit.

Rubbish on the whole, no cohesion going forward and the midfield were dominated throughout. Brighton were very good in their all round play but impotent in the last third, which saved us almost as much as Emi who put in another great display. ross needs to sit on the bench for the next game, he’s got worse since his impressive debut v Liverpool, looks totally off the pace and chasing shadows all game. All things considered good point utv

Nyland 3 hause 3 konsa 2 mings 6 taylor 2 elmo 2 hourinhane 0 luiz 1 drinkwater 2 jack 5 el ghazi 5 i will reserve full judgement until after next weeks game because as saints and Watford have proved this season sometimes it’s possible to come back from an absolute mauling better and prove a point. My fear is that I don’t think most of our lads have it in them. City are an absolute joy to watch, they play football how it is meant to be played, pass and move, quick accurate passes and constant movement off the ball to create angle and options, and without the ball they work quickly and as a team, shutting the opposition out with vicious pressing. but that said and as good as city Are we never once put a tackle on them, tried to rough them up and take them out of their stride, if we’re in a dog fight then I’m afraid our dog has no fight. midfield is a joke right now, hourihane who looks so pissed off every time he comes on as sub because he’s been left out of the first 11 needs to watch the video of this game as to why the manager nor most fans trust him, lazy, heartless passive, disgrace - if you’d have told me he didn’t play today I’d have believed you

Best off out of it but wouldn’t it be great for the individuals in the 2nd string to put up more of an argument for their inclusion in the first 11. Lansbury is such a disappointment, a 5 or 6 out of 10 every time he plays, not awful enough to ever be really singled out as a scapegoat but he never delivers in any meaningful way, it comes across like he’s happy to deliver mediocre performance and pick up his money

heaton 8, Elmo 7 konsa 7 hause 9 targett 5 nakamba 5 luiz 6 jack 8 trez 2 el ghazi 5 Wes 6 conor 7 Hause motm as he won lots of aerial duals and stepped into lead the defence well in a big pressure game, really like his simple effective no nonsense approach to defending and think he may be a good partner for Mings in the long run. game was poor quality fare but when coming off the back of a series of defeats it’s never going to be champagne football, and it comes down to toughing it out, taking a chance when it falls to you, the goalie playing well and riding your luck, I’d say we succeeded on all those fronts today (slightly playing devils advocate but I only remember two quality saves from heaton, many intimating he had an absolute worldie game today, which was not necessarily my view, as well as he did play). Most fans have their scapegoat player (or two or three) who can do no right and maybe I’m dogmatic but mine is trez, wtf does smith see in this guy, total waste of space, no pace, seems to tire very quickly and generally poor fitness, ‘cheats’ all the time with his closing down and defensive duties when running up the pitch to take himself out of the zone of defensive duties whilst never getting near to Nicking the balls or challenge a defender, no end product. reinforcements needed in the winger and CF positions is a must on 1 Jan

Heaton 8; Elmo 6; konsa 6; Mings 6; targett 7; nakamba 6; hourihane 4; mcginn 5; trezguet 5; grealish 6, wesley 3 Poor performance in summary, although we managed to stay in the game until the end, on the balance of play we were some way off it. It’s an indictment of the weakness of our bench that a few (Wesley in particular) are seemingly immune to being hooked; mcginn too needs a breather as his form has dropped lately. Conor proved today why smith ultimately does not trust him, off the pace, shadowing their players without ever effecting the ball. All that said we have a very good core, a few tweaks in January and I think we will be absolutely fine.

Well done lads! That was a tough test but fully deserved in the end against a team that defended a lot better and more resolutely then their goals against column suggested they might. Taylor seems to have come in for some stick but I thought he played pretty well. Conner kept the ball ticking over nicely too. one of the main issues for me was our reluctance to whip the ball into the box quickly and our inability to get past the full backs. We kept turning back into traffic in the middle where the opponent was comfortable. I also thought the game was crying out for Kodja much earlier, with little defending to do he could’ve made the difference having been given more of a run out. RM remains the big weak point lets hope dean has something up his sleeve for that in 10 days time

Phew, not pretty but got the job done and fully deserved. Jack motm. went with ‘average’ for Smith as he got the two selection toss ups (whelan/hourinahe; Adomah/green) wrong imo and should’ve hooked whelan at HT. Thought we controlled most of the match and certainly the whole second half and credit to the lads not to panic and keep plugging away especially when faced with some tough defending and some cynical time wasting from the opposition. mcginn was flat today and looked jaded, just didn’t affect the game like he normally does. very positive for Tuesday now, a proper game of football with more spaces in the midfield and forward areas will suit our game more so than theirs so I fully expect us to score, and I don’t expect them to out score us especially with Gayle out. UTV

Really good win and a great feeling going into the international break in the playoff positions. Thought Boro were woeful, predictably they turned up for a draw but their lack of ambition was shockingly bad their fans must be pulling their hair out with pulis! Nonetheless we dealt with the task at hand with professionalism and composure with really good performances throughout. whelan MOTM, his professionalism and attitude can never be questioned but today he was better than a mere old pro he was everywhere, putting a foot in and then distributing well, totally bossed it and still going strong after 90 mins. Mcginn awesome again and took his goal very well with another laser like left foot strike. Defence looked solid again and another clean sheet will boost confidence even more. Jack well he’s just a wonderful footballer, even on a day where he goes about his business quietly like today he still oozes class on the ball, not sure there’s many better in world football at keeping the ball in tight spaces. Constructive criticism: thought Tammy was quiet again and green didn’t do much, I really want to see him come through but wonder whether he’s good enough (I may be in the minority but I prefer Albert in that position). roll on the next match, with players coming back from injury, this really is getting interesting now. Well done dean and the lads for turning this around when many of us me included thought this season had gone! UTV

Went with Mings motm but grealish equally deserving. Ref was good I thought today for a change for the usua championship standard. If we’re nit picking the quality of our passing and forward play was pretty poor overall but I thought we managed the game well, toughed out the first half and then began to grow into the game and take over in the second. Great to see us ride out the last ten minutes with guts and abit of luck and let’s hope that as other players come back we’ll go on a run. With jack in the team we can beat anyone. Mention for mcginn too, that ability to hold men off and to bite into a tackle and win balls he’s not favourite to win is just so satisfying to watch! My work colleague (who supports villa but doesn’t really like football much) said the other day, “blues fans really are just a lower standard of human” - pretty much summed it up there

We’d have more points under Bruce, fact. Really think the situation needs to be monitored carefully now. Always been a DS fan but if this trend of hopeless abject performances continues then I can certainly see a scenario where we say “thanks but no thanks Dean” come end of season. Questions to be asked: - why did we fail to sign a CM with physicality, legs and a pass in Jan? - where is the intensity in our performances ? - why does he continue to flog the dead horse that is 4-3-3 - Kalinic ? Did we not learn anything from the damp squib that was nyland, we now have a bigger damper squib in goal - what are we doing in training? Lots of questions to answer dean ps the whole “no one out footballs Brentford “ comments in midweek were straight out of the Steve Bruce self preservation manual, you’d be best advised not to do that dean

Didn’t see the game so can’t comment but aside from that I can’t abide by the whole ‘rip up the plan and start again’ and ‘we need a clear out’ and ‘it’ll be better when smiths had a couple of transfer windows’ bollocks. These people expect the stars to align, everything to go our way magically somehow. Football doesn’t work like that. Hey it’s great that we’ll shed some utter dross deadwood players in the summer but guess what we’ll also be losing Abraham, Mings and most likely grealish, just how last season we lost sonograms and terry. The churn will continue to happen. Do people think cardiff hatched a 5 year master plan of ins and outs to crack the league last year!!! No!! They got the best out of what they had and fostered a team spirit and way of playing that was much greater than the sum of their parts, why oh why can we not aspire for that. We need to stop waiting for something to happen and get the best out of what we have, and that starts with the manager!!! Earn your money smith.

Wow, football, marvellous, isn’t it totally out hustled all over the park for 70 mins and then Sheff Utd got all jittery and gifted us a couple of goals. Mings very good again, Elphick good, Hutton good. Tammy anon today but was feeding off scraps. midfield poor again, said on Saturday that the lack of athleticism; physicality and intensity is very worrying and same thing again tonight, completely overrun. Passing was also woeful, jedinak particularly bad! lets hope this is the turning point. Oh and that ref can f*** right off

Disappointing result. Reading out a decent first 11 out imo so don’t agree that they are “the worst team in the division” or that we’ve faced etc etc. MOTM Elphick for me closely followed by Mings. There were some positives, the defence looked much more solid, Hutton was his usual committed best and despite some naysayers on here Taylor didn’t play that badly and isn’t half as bad as he’s sometime made out to be. Elphick was more assertive in his play and a couple of good sliding challenges caught the eye and Mings looks a class act. If this is the start of a solid settled defensive line up then today is a good first step. Thought Kalinic looked better today and his kicking was mostly accurate. The main problem for me, and a constant theme with the current midfield three, is how easily we concede control of the middle of the park in games. The first half today was a prime example. McGinn bless him (and he was great again today) goes off chasing the ball meanwhile hourinahe and whelan are dropping off way too deep behind and then standing off players when they have the ball. In general the lack of athelitism and physicality of the midfield causes me massive concern. Hourinahe just coasts for me, choosing the easy option time and again with or without possession. Whelan’s legs have gone, so whilst it’s clear he wants to get close to people and put a foot in, so simply can’t get there so is forced to jockey. Really don’t think Carroll is the answer either, on first view, albeit a brief sub appearance, he looks so slight and weak. Hope he picks up. second half we stepped onto them more, pressing together and upped the tempo, it was better and we definitely shaded the half but still no real chances creates expect Tammys header. for me there’s definitely goals in this team so if we can continue the theme of being more solid and resolute, whilst also creating and scoring chances then the playoffs are still very much in reach. A win vs sheff Utd is a must now

Good result good performance and much needed. Smith is already putting his stamp on this team and you could almost see Taylor and Hutton fighting the urge to chip aimless balls up to the front men at the start such was the engrained Bruceball percentage football mantra that had been drummed into the team. Smith is drilling them to pass the ball on the floor first and foremost and without the ball there is much more intensity in our pressing. Ultimately we should be beating Bolton at home every day of the week and tougher tests are to come, but so far so good and the direction of travel is very pleasing to see. plusses - tuanzebe really finding his groove; Chester back on top form, Tammy really looking the complete forward but for his miscontrol at the start of the 2nd half; mcginn appetite to tackle is immense minuses - can we put in a sustained challenge with such a dodgy goalie?

Hi there Been a Villa fan for many years, former season ticket holder from 2002-2008 but now living on south coast. Go to approx five to ten games per season. Keen follower of the forums on VT for the past 12 months and would like the opportunity to post and discuss all matters Villa. Mike UTV