OxfordVillan

I think it was Carol Vorderman. And some bloke, somewhere, who isn’t very good at maths, is absolutely furious at the facist maths bastard. It just doesn’t add up.

I find myself dribbling with laughter at someone getting so worked up about a football player “liking” something on a social media platform Imagine having the opportunity to sign a prime Ronaldo, but turning it down because Ronaldo once “liked” something that someone thought unpalatable! **** hilarious stupidity

Boring. And the grammar is appalling.

Aston Villa are never signing a player of Mbappe’s standing. What I’m alluding to is that with Jack Grealish, Aston Villa have a player of the type of talent that they could never ordinarily sign. And homegrown players like Grealish really are produced very rarely.

Talk of searching for “the next Grealish” is nonsensical. Grealish is a once in a generation player, you can’t buy them as they don’t exist. Our very best hopes of any sort of success are to retain Grealish and add some stardust around him. We need 3, more likely 4, really good talents to come into the 1st team, that would give us a chance to compete in amongst the top clubs. We need a top level LW, CF, DM as a minimum. A really good CM would be a bonus this summer. It’ll be harder to improve from here on, and more expensive. We won’t see the same size progress that we’ve seen the last 2-3 years. I’m very content with our 1st choice back 4, I think they can compete at the sharp end. I think McGinn can’t go any higher, he’s reached his ceiling, Ditto ElGhazi, Trezeguet. If we’re to continue to improve then those 3 would be stand ins next season. I think we’ll see further improvement from Traore, he can definitely be a match winner/game changer. Then we need real competition/alternative for Watkins. The final part of this season and summer transfer window will be pivotal to our ambitions/expectations

Luiz is a very good young player who is simply bang out of form. He’s “hit the wall”, as a marathon runner might say. Not uncommon in players of his age and experience, I’m sure he’ll bounce back in due course.

After a positive 1st half we finish the game thankful of 1pt after an abysmal showing in the 2nd half. Completely out thought 2nd half, embarrassingly so. It was surely clear to 99.9% of ppl that we needed to win the ball in midfield, and that the player most likely to do that for us is Nakamba? Douglas Luiz is bang out of form, so is Ross Barkley. I don’t really care for the reasons why they are, I just care about giving the team the best chance. If Sanson has picked up a knock then replace him with Ramsey. The game is passing Luiz by, it was screaming for him to be replaced with Nakamba. Poor Keinan, he’s looking every bit a player being asked to do something he doesn’t do, and with no semblance of form or confidence to call on. Dean Smith has got plenty of credit in the bank, but my god he’s had a stinking couple of games. An awful coaching 2nd half where the game was played almost exclusively in Villa’s half.

Is our manager pissed? We can’t get hold of the ball and so he replaces our RW with a non scoring CF?

How long is Dean going to watch the game passing by Luiz?

For me it displays a lack of confidence when you cannot be straight with a players injury. I’m assuming it’s shin splints again and that it’ll need maybe 2-3 months, similar to the last time. I just think the mental message it sends to the rest of the squad is negative, that you have to try and play games with the opposition over whether he plays or not because you lack confidence in the rest of the squad. I simply don’t buy the, “it’s a strange one, we’re not quite sure, we’ll be lead by what jack says”, nonsense. Have confidence, put the constant questioning to bed by letting ppl know what the injury is and the predicted timeframe. Then focus the rest of the squad on stepping up and winning football matches. In short, just put a stop to the circus that surrounds Grealish and his injury. The club keep trying to say they’re fed up at being labelled a one man team, yet send mixed messages.

I’d be sticking with Nakamba at DM. Think I’d probably put McGinn on the bench and bring in Luiz and Sanson to play ahead of Nakamba. Rest of the starting 11 at Sheffield United stays the same........or maybe throw in the wildcard that is Kessler in place of Elmo? Elmo really hasn’t contributed anything positive in his games, so I don’t feel we have much to lose there.

I think what Hourihane could have provided last night would have been better deliveries into the box. But I’ll counter that by saying that I’m in the camp that don’t think he’s quite good enough for Premier League. Also think you’re correct on McGinn, endeavour only gets you so far.

Agree with you on McGinn, I think he’s been average in most games, and poor in a few. I’d agree that if Villa are to improve then McGinn needs to be viewed as a backup in the squad rather than one of the 1st names on the team sheet. I think this summer could be a pivotal window. If we’re to try and make the next step into the top 6 then we now need real quality. We need to start signing players that are sought by the likes of Spurs and Leicester etc. We need real quality at LW and DM, I wouldn’t be against going in big for Neves at the dog heads at DM. There are 2 or 3 LWs in Germany that we could go after. These are players that would cost in the region of £50m each, but if we’re to continue progressing then that’s the market we have to trade in. We need another CF as well. We’ve much to do.

Nothing can be pinned on Barkley for last nights team “performance”. I’m absolutely convinced, though, that he can’t be part of our future, when the loan deal ends we wish him well on his way back to Chelsea.

Davis is unfortunately being suffocated at Villa, he’s never now going to play anywhere near the amount of football he should and needs to be playing. And it’s become unfair for us to expect anything from him when he sporadically gets a few minutes here and there. He has no experience or pedigree, and it’s impossible for him to find any sort of form as things stand. He needs either a permanent move away in the summer, or at least a season long loan somewhere. He needs to do this for his career, and the club need to let this happen.

I’ve said this before, getting to mid table/tails of the top6 is the relatively straightforward part for clubs with a bit of money. Staying there, let alone climbing higher, requires next level spending and next level quality. We’ll see in the next 12-18mts whether Dean Smith and Villa can continue to climb. Villa have been distinctly average and inconsistent since the turn of the year, and I think I’m right in saying that its a trait of Dean Smith teams to tail off during jan/feb. We have to hope for a Spring bounce reminiscent of our promotion season, though ppl obviously attribute that to the Grealish return.

Yep.

I’ll leave it at this.

May as well get Davis on in place of Traore, who is having a poor game. Can’t get a cross in and constantly losing the ball

We’re showing every sign of completely neglecting defending

Absolutely zero quality in the final third.

Have to say, I think McGinn has been poor and seems to be untouchable against being subbed off. Yes the effort is there, but very little else apart from huff and puff.

Well done VAR. Correct decision given how blatant it was and the distance to the last defender. Undoubtedly denial of goal scoring opportunity. We’ve now got to ramp up the tempo and play the game in their half. And from somewhere we need to find a bit of quality into the box. Push the FBs up and get bodies into the box. Now might be the time to replace Nakamba with Sanson.

On what basis are people ppl calling for Barkley to come on? Is it wishful thinking, or maybe based on hope? He’s been woeful for a number of games, culminating in his dropping to the bench. He isn’t the answer against a hard working Sheffield Utd. Our problem lays with a lackadaisical group of players who have approached this game as I feared, that being it’s a game they seem to think they should win. That said, we’ve still pretty much controlled the game without looking anywhere near good. Sheffield Utd lead through a miss hit shot that found its way to an unmarked McGoldrick, lord only knows what Elmo thought he was doing. We may have to look at bringing on Sanson for Ramsey for 2nd half, I think we give it 10mins of 2nd half before making changes. Our FBs haven’t been good thus far.

We have as good a chance as a few clubs to get top 4, better than most for European football. Like anyone we’ll need a little luck with injuries to help us, but we’re as well placed as anyone to give it a good shot. It’d be nice to have caught up with our games in hand before the end of March so we can see exactly where we stand going into the home straight, we always seem to have been a step behind this season. If we could get 6pts from our next 2 fixtures then it’s very much game on for top 4, especially with 4 fixtures against Everton and Spurs still to come. It’ll be vital to not lose ground to either of those two, we have Chelsea at VP to come as well. We could do with West Ham hitting some sticky form.