VillaFaninLondon

That's all very well but at the rate we're going we'll end up finishing 14th or 15th after being brilliant for half the season. It's a massive comedown and will end the season on a sour note. I just don't accept this dire form and especially the performances, because we've gone backwards and are performing like we were last season before the virus hit.

Yes we have. Our XG is bottom of the table last 5 games. You must not watch any of our games.

I just don't understand how a supposed fan can accept mediocre performances from his team and not be frustrated by it. If we're on the beach with our feet up and not arsed then why bother watching any of our remaining games?

I've said it before, in 2021 we have been dreadful. You can excuse it for Man City away but not the woeful performances we've put in so far today, Southampton, West Ham, Brighton. Everyone saying Leicester are so good, are Southampton or Brighton so good? They're below us. We can keep blaming the COVID outbreak and use it as an excuse all we want, but I don't think any of them have long COVID and it was well over a month ago now. It's just not acceptable to keep performing like this and I'm afraid it's on the manager. If players aren't going to run, show for the ball, give energy to the team, then TAKE THEM OUT. Be a brave manager not a stubborn one. He should make 1 or even 2 subs at HT. Shocking performance and too many passengers. Nakamba on for Luiz and Sanson for Barkley. Get some control and balance in the midfield because at the moment we have none whatsoever.

Any decent manager would do something now. Change something, especially in midfield.Take the passenger Barkley off. But we know he won't.

Rubbish. This is definitely on Smith. We have had more days rest than them like last week against Brighton and yet are playing with no energy at all. It's indefensible to keep selecting players that don't work. Jack may not go to the Euros at this rate. Barnes and Maddison are moving ahead of him now especially with his injury.

This is tripe. Really dunno if I can be arsed watching any more of this rubbish.

F*** off.

Barkley literally trots rather than runs. Lazy c***.

Once again giving the ball away all the time. Not creating chances. We look like Burnley in current form.

I've had shin splints before and it was caused by not stretching the shin area after running. That's not to say Jack hasn't been stretching properly, though they're meant to be avoidable if you do. They effectively make running impossible because of the pain in the shin area. Once cleared he'll be able to come straight back in so it definitely won't be as long as the last significant injury he had in the Championship.

Yeah, the formation is ridiculous. Smith always plays a 4-2-3-1, why not go 4-3-3 and play without a 10 given how open we've been recently. It's one dimensional management. I hope Barkley is playing as more of an 8 today and actually bloody puts a shift in.

Agreed. I think people are just looking for excuses early. Jack missing will be a loss but others have to step up in his absence. We especially need Barkley to perform as he's our most creative outlet after Jack, though in fairness he is very lucky to start given his recent form.

Possibly but everyone was in meltdown anyway because of the rumours going round that he might be out. I'd rather just know things, rather than being in the dark. Let's hope he only misses this game and it's just a knock. I did sense something was up as he just wasn't in the game at Brighton, which is the only time you could say that about him all season.

Don't know why they bothered putting an interview out with him if he's not fit, or why it wasn't mentioned on Friday. It's obviously not good but it's about time our other players stepped up. I'm looking at you Barkley, McGinn, Luiz, Traore, El Ghazi. Leicester played Thursday night over in Prague with an almost full strength team. We cannot at the very least look less tired than them today.

The key points for me: Barkley looks off the pace, constantly gives the ball away, and fails to track back. There really must be a strong argument now for dropping him for the next couple of games and making him earn his way back in the side. I really missed him when he was injured and was desperate for him to come back, but he hasn't looked anywhere near good enough since he's returned to the extent that he is now disrupting the rhythm of the team and this desperately needs to be addressed. McGinn does ok defensively but is a liability going forward at the moment. Constantly gives the ball away and sloppy in possession, he's also no longer breaking forward with the ball and looks dreadful a lot of the time. Another player who DS must seriously be looking at wondering if he should be taken out for a couple of games (Nakamba has played well when he's started, does the basics right and has been very unlucky not to retain his place after he's stepped in). Luiz is a liability defensively. He gave away maybe 4 free kicks in very good areas yesterday and he's done it all season. I like him as a player but he just isn't a DM and when we're on the backfoot in games like we were most of yesterday it's really noticeable how many misplaced tackles he makes. Martinez deserves every praise he gets. If it wasn't for him we'd have lost comfortably yesterday, another top performance like so many others this season. I'm very concerned that we're not scoring enough goals. Our attacking play has dropped off since the new year. We've scored 9 goals in the last 9 league games, before that we had scored 27 goals in 13 league games. I'm also concerned that defensively we've become more open, tantamount to some of our games last year which is a real worry. In the last 8 league games, we have had 20+ shots against us in 4 games (Man City, Southampton, West Ham and Brighton). In the 14 games prior to that, only one team had 20+ shots against us (Leeds) and that was widely considered our worst performance of the season. I'm also concerned that too many players just aren't performing. Even Jack was below par yesterday and you can understand maybe one or two having an off day from time to time, but when Jack, Barkley, McGinn, Traore, Watkins, Luiz all don't perform in the same game it's just puzzling as to why. We've got some very good players in our side, if they all performed yesterday we'd have caused Brighton a lot of problems but none of our attacking players had a good game. Credit Brighton for how they defended too, but it runs deeper than that. I think some big decisions on selection have to be made. I'd put Jack to no 10 (he's been ineffective on the left recently and in a 10 where he can roam will be more valuable to us). El Ghazi on the left, Traore/Trezeguet on the right (maybe Trez now that Cash is injured and we need more defensive protection), and maybe Nakamba and Sanson or Luiz in the middle. I understand DS being cautious on changing the team and I know he's desperate for Barkley to play himself into form, but if we play like we did yesterday against Leicester and Leeds we could be in trouble. Luckily Brighton don't score a lot of goals but Leicester will murder us if we play like that against them and we've already seen what Leeds can do if you don't turn up against them.

Really poor performance. Take the point in the end but what Emi says is right, the performance wasn’t good enough. A week off and that’s one of the worst performances of the season. Brighton absolutely deserved to win. When teams press us we just look unimaginative and tonight we made so many sloppy passes. We need to improve drastically if we’re to make an unlikely push for Europe but we’re still in with a chance. We are so much better than tonight and we need to get back to how we were playing 2 months ago ASAP.

Grealish can’t even control the ball. Barkley is just woeful these days. We just look so poor, I can’t work out where the team from before Christmas has gone.

Absolutely shocking performance so far. I really can’t believe how poor we’ve been recently. 1 shot against their 12, it’s appalling.

Fair's fair. I don't want to get offside with people either to be honest. I probably came across as very entitled which I never meant to do. We've come a long way in a short space of time and sometimes you have to take a step back and realise this is a process that is going to take time. I did actually say at the end that DS has done a very good job on the whole this season. My post on the whole probably didn't give him enough credit though, you're right. I think I'm still disappointed and angry about our result and performance last night.

You said this in response to me saying that this season he has done a very good job which I'm guessing you agree with. So it's actually you who talks twaddle.

Erm, ok. Don't feel what I wrote was extreme enough to warrant you calling me out on it, but whatever.

I think Smith often takes the plaudits for keeping us up, and for what we have done this season, but I think that ignores the fact that he's been heavily backed. Yes he's had to build a team and that's not an easy thing to do, but I tell you it's far easier to do it when you've got fabulous owners like ours who have invested very heavily in the playing squad and backed him in pretty much every window (FFP exempting). He was also given time when we were struggling badly last season which most managers wouldn't get given given the amount of money spent and was allowed to recruit key men like Shakespeare this summer who have helped massively on and off the pitch. This season he has generally done a very good job and on the whole we've played attacking football and been great to watch, but there are still many things he can improve on if he's to push us on to that next level.

I agree we must discuss this, in fact we learn so much more after a defeat than a win. It just feels sometimes that if you post something negative or constructive criticism about the manager or players you get shouted down and told to support the team. The whole point of this forum is to offer valid criticism as that is what we as the fans are for. Relegation form in the last 6/7 games but also if you go back to the first 4 games when we took 12 points, we've since taken 20 points from 16 games and that included a fabulous run of form in December. Take away December's run and our first four league games and ultimately our average points is barely any better than last season and I sometimes still feel we have the same problems that we had at times last season. The consistency is the biggest worry for me, you just don't know which Villa is going to turn up on any given day. Quite often it depends on how the opposition play, if they stop us you just know it's going to be a bad day at the office.

They harried and hassled us all game. At HT I thought there has to be a response from us but it just continued in the 2nd half before the inevitable happened and they scored and then we just gave up. Lingard was so bad at Man U, he hadn't played a single minute of PL football this season and had a grand total of 1 league goal in the last 2 seasons, yet turns up there and scores 2 goals on his debut. Overall no one is denying the season has been positive, 32 points from 20 games is good, especially when we just about stayed up last season, but my concern is our form at the moment is really poor. In 2021, we have played 6 league games, won 2 and lost 4. 6 points from 6, that's relegation form. OK, two were against Man U and Man C, but Burnley, Newcastle, Southampton and W'Ham are all winnable games and we only won twice: once against a completely out of form Newcastle and once in a very fortunate win against Southampton where the decisions went for us. Whether it's COVID, too many games in quick succession, who knows. The manager continues to not use the squad properly and yet when people point this out they get told to support the team, it's ridiculous. My plan is to avoid discussion of the team for a while. My hope is they can find some consistency over the coming months and stop losing games we shouldn't. So many players are below par for us at the moment especially in midfield (Barkley, McGinn, Luiz, even Martinez who was at fault for 2 of the goals yesterday) and when you have too many players not performing then you just ain't gonna win football matches.