VillaFaninLondon

7 minutes ago, Rugeley Villa said:

It weren’t that we played badly. We were also playing a decent team , BUT we do not do enough with the ball, and have no killer instinct at all. I do believe we are a hard team to beat though, but too many draws against mid table-bottom half clubs will cost us. We are desperate for a striker. 

Burnley are effective at making games scrappy and picking up points but to say they are ‘decent’ is wrong. Most boring team in the league.

Today has told me that, despite my early optimism, we’ll be struggling all season and will most likely go down. We just cannot see games out and while I think the quality is there, we just don’t know how to manage games and that is DS’s doing I’m afraid. 

Another disappointing result against a team we were leading twice against and once again we throw away a lead. Just so annoying and disappointing and there’s not a lot else to say.

Burnley are a tough nut to crack but this is the sort of game we need to be winning if we're to be safe this season. Therefore, we need to find a way to get in front and stay in front and not give them many opportunities from set pieces. Individually Burnley aren't great, but they're a very well drilled outfit who are comfortable sitting back. Two ex Villa players in their first 11 (Westwood and Lowton), safe to say they wouldn't get in our team these days but were always hard working pros for us at a time when Lerner was running the club into the ground. Dwight McNeil looks a talent, Burnley will do well to hang on to him, and we need to find a way to get through Tarkowski who is a very solid defender. 

Either way we need to find a way to win this one as another game without a win would be hugely frustrating.

2-0 Villa for me. 

2 hours ago, flashingqwerty said:

You must have missed the multiple posts from people saying DS is out of his depth, etc.  He is starting to lose the fans.

His decisions have cost us directly in at least 3 games now, and they are the same mistakes time and again.

Perhaps i'm being overly negative, but ive not seen any real improvement over 6 games, and that worries me.  Not that we are playing badly, but we reach 60 mins, players are clearly tired, which in itself shows a bigger issue, but DS then waits another 20 mins to do something about it by which time we've slipped a couple of goals and the game has gone.

Its frustrating.  If we fail to pick up points against our direct rivals (i.e. Burnley) then where will the points we need to stay up come from?

4 points from 6 games is only marginally better than our relegation season.  DS needs to start learning, and fast, or it'll be too late.  Not to mention his dillusions about our 'attacking intent', which, quite frankly, isn't evident on or off the pitch.

Tend to agree, even if it is still very early in the season. DS looks tactically naïve and it isn’t the first time he has as Villa manager (remember our woeful run of form between December and March last year when Jack was injured). He needs to sharpen up tactically because we need to start winning football matches. Arsenal have a very bad defence and we let them off the hook yesterday when we were 2-1 up, should have continued to get at them and made bold attacking subs earlier in the game to kill the game off. Trying to preserve a lead against Arsenal is not the same as doing it against Championship teams or lower level PL teams, Arsenal were always going to score. The last two games we’ve had a great opportunity to get 6 points and we’ve ended up with 1 – and we’re stuck in the relegation zone.

Next three games we must be winning at least 2, now is the time for DS to show he can manage at this level. These are massive games because Burnley, Norwich and Brighton will be in and amongst the relegation zone this season and it’s games like this we have to win, particularly the home games.  Fingers crossed DS can pull some results together because I really want him to succeed with us.

We've competed in every game so far this season, but managed to lose four times. I don't think we lack quality, but we definitely need to tighten up our game management and a lot of that comes down to Deano. Shouldn't have gone as defensive as he did against 10 man Arsenal, we needed to go for the third to kill the game off. 

Next three games imo are huge:

Burnely (h)

Norwich (a)

Brighton (h)

Need to be winning those games before a tougher run starts in late October. I'd take a 1-0 scrappy win in all three. Anything less than 2 wins from those games will not be good enough.

Was there in 2008 and 2013 when we beat them. I didn't particularly rate him but on both occasions Gabby was superb in those games. Completely tore their defence apart with his pace.

They are atrocious at the back but our front three looks dire at the moment, would expect to see Jota dropped for Trezeguet but otherwise think he'll stick with the same team. Don't get people saying drop Wesley for Davis, for one thing we're only 5 games into the season and for another Davis is not the answer. Hold up play is no better than Wesley and he could barely score in the Championship so he's not going to be capable in this league. If we get to Christmas and Wesley still hasn't improved, then we'll need to sign someone in January but right now we haven't really got anyone capable of replacing him in the team. 

We need to try to blitz them on the break to get a result, but even if we lose I don't expect a hammering - Spurs imo are better and we nearly got a result there but for some bad mistakes. Missing Lacazette for them takes away a major threat too but I'm wary Pepe hasn't done anything yet so knowing our luck he'll probably have a blinder against us. Their defence and central midfield isn't great so we need to have a go at them when we have the ball and put them under pressure.

Wish we'd been able to get Abraham back. Banging them in for Chelsea.

Wesley looks a carthorse to me. 

Just think we're really gonna struggle to score goals this season. We're not creating much but when we do Wesley isn't clinical enough to take the chances. First half he should have buried that Grealish cross. Surely a striker is going to be top of the January shopping list if things don't improve up top. 

Not convinced by any of our wingers either. Jota just looks a bit weak and lacking in quality at this level and gives the ball away too much. El Ghazi is too obvious in what he does and doesn't track back enough. Trezeguet could come good but hasn't looked up to it so far. I'm not sure if Benrahma would have made the difference there but he could hardly be worse than what we've got. 

Positives are the defence looks very good, I like the centre backs and Guilbert was a fantastic signing - was motm today for me. Marvelous fitted in well to the team tonight and apart from a couple of sloppy passes did a really good job anchoring the back four. 

Think we will be struggling much of this season unless we can pluck a goalscorer out the air. Wesley doesn't look up to it for me and we don't have any other options. Makes you wonder why we didn't get another striker in.

Need to get the first goal tonight imo, think whoever scores first will win the game. Need to start on the front foot if poss and really raise the energy levels, having the crowd behind us will certainly help.

Hopefully we can get a positive result.

UTV

4 hours ago, VillaChris said:

West Ham will finish top half imo so I'd say plan to pick up points against bottom half teams like Southampton, Norwich, Newcastle, Burnley, Brighton etc. It's not so simple though as I'd say Bournemouth and Palace will finish bottom half and we lost narrowly to both yet beat Everton who I think will be top 8.

Exactly. This is a game we've shown we can win, as we beat Everton who I think will finish higher than West Ham. Any side at home outside of Liverpool and Man City should be a game we aim for 3 points in, yes we won't win every one of course not and games against the other top 6 sides will be extremely tough to win but we are capable of beating anyone outside those two sides at home imo. And I still think West Ham are a midtable side who will probably finish around 9th or 10th, they have a strong set of attacking players but their defence is not as good as Everton's and we scored two against them. Also, while they signed Haller and Fornals, they lost Arnautovic, Hernandez and Perez who contributed 20 goals in the league last season. 

There's no question that we can't take West Ham lightly but I also feel that we need to believe in ourselves a bit more. We have a very talented team, yes it is new and still getting used to each other, but there is absolutely enough in this team to get a result against West Ham at home. And there's also enough in this team to stay up comfortably, the home form will be crucial to that. 

15 hours ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

This is at Villa Park right? I'd keep Luiz in. Nakamba on as a sub, then probably start Nakamba away. 

Any news on Target?

 

Targett out I think as SGC said. Quite frustrating as I would like to see a defence of Guilbert, Engels, Mings, Targett but Taylor will play again against West Ham I suspect. Most likely the only change from Palace will be Trezeguet out and El Ghazi in but we were awful against Palace so those players keeping their places need to play a lot better, especially the midfielders. Grealish needs to up his performances, as do the wingers and Luiz too. Can't keep giving the ball away so cheaply and gifting the opposition so many chances and we need to start creating more for Wesley. 

Against Arsenal Smith ought to be thinking about bringing in Nakamba and Targett by then I think but that's a discussion for that match thread. I'd quite like to see us go 4-2-3-1 because currently we're not creating enough and we're gifting the opposition a lot of chances worryingly, with Nakamba alongside either Luiz or McGinn. 

Hopefully we'll start to see how strongest team and formation in the coming weeks.

Mings is unlucky not to play, both England’s CBs are terrible.

The Spammers def have a few dangerous players but are weak at the back and we need to play with the same intensity going forward against them as we did against Everton. We could do with a win as we go to Arsenal on the Sunday and even if we were to draw we'd have picked up only 4 points from 5 games and defeat at Arsenal could leave us in a bit of bother. I don't think West Ham are as good as Everton so we are capable of winning, I'm fairly confident with the defence but going forward we are just not scoring enough. I think it's 4 goals scored from 4, and all of them have been different goalscorers. For them Haller looks a real handful and they have a number of good attacking midfielders like Lanzini, Yarmolenko and Anderson plus some options off the bench. So not an easy task for our defence so our attackers need to be on their game because West Ham's defence (especially their full backs) is not top drawer and they leak a lot of goals. 

Interestingly, according to the Fifa 20 ratings, this is our strongest team (player rating in brackets):

.........................................Heaton (80)...............................................

Guilbert (76)..........Engels (76)..........Mings (74)..........Targett (72)

....................................Marvelous (76)..............................................

.......................McGinn (75).................Grealish (77).........................

El Ghazi (74)..............................................................Trezeguet (77)

............................................Wesley (79)............................................

Wonder how long it will be before we see Nakamba and Targett in the team. 

33 minutes ago, Andy81 said:

Well that’s just not true at all. 

I don’t know what being in league one has to do with our current squad which has one player in it from that time.

Absolutely no one thinks we’re Barcelona, but we’re rightly enthused about the last couple of seasons and the trajectory we seem to be on.

Theres plenty of negativity on Molineux Mix. I’m sorry you can’t stand us. I think you’re all great. 

You seem one of the decent ones, but the ones I've encountered on social media have just really hacked me off. I don't mind friendly banter and bashing, but some of the comments have been plain hostile and aggressive and for absolutely no reason as far as I can see. We've never really been rivals up to this point.

Villa fans on Twitter been nowhere near as bad as Wolves towards us on Twitter or on that Molineux Mix. If you saw some of the comments you'd think they were Barcelona and not in League 1 only a few seasons ago. I guess that's what money does to some clubs fans.

Glad Everton beat them today, can't stand them. 

13 hours ago, MaVilla said:

West Ham have some very good players, this will be a tough game.

Every team in the league has good players, that’s my worry, we’ve spent over £140mil this summer and most teams still look better than us, our first 11 probably only contains 4 or 5 current internationals.

West Ham probably won’t finish higher than 10th so we have to target a win from this, not a draw, a win. We beat Everton who are better so it’s do-able.

Already lost to 2 teams we should be getting at least a point from if we’re to be comfortably safe, Grealish looks out of his depth, our best striker will do well to get into double figures. Hopefully my worries will be eradicated as the season goes on and the team starts to look good, have my doubts though.

Scandalous refereeing. So what the ref is saying there is you are not allowed to go down off balance otherwise it's a dive? What an absolute pr1ck!

Perfectly fine goal disallowed, there's no simulation because Grealish has not tried to win anything (free kick, pen), he went down off balance and then played the pass to Lansbury who scored. Surely this decision has to be overturned but as it's Villa it won't be!

We were crap today and didn't deserve anything, ultimately we must improve, but if the referees actually work against us and conspire to stop us getting what legally we were entitled to is basically going to make this a long and hard season. 

Well deserved call up for Tyrone, he’s been great for us since January and has carried that form over into the PL. Hopefully he gets some minutes in at least one of the games and shows what he’s capable of.

Jack will be disappointed he’s not in but hasn’t shown enough yet to justify being in, his time will surely come if he up his performances a bit more. Having said that, not quite sure what Jesse Lingard and Harry Winks have done to deserve selection either other than the fact they play for Man U and Spurs 

27 minutes ago, rubberman said:

To be fair, it is very likely that the majority of our games will be losses.  I agree this should be one of the more winnable, but Palace and Newcastle showed that this league is very unpredictable.  

The side that beat Everton looked very resilient, can't see us losing more than 19 games over the course of the season. Yes we've lost 2 of 3 so far, but the side hadn't fully settled or adjusted to the league and probably still hasn't in all honesty. 

No one can say for sure how many we'll win or lose, but Wolves lost 13 last season and Fulham lost 26. I'd say we'll lose possibly 16 or 17 and win a dozen or so games with the rest draws. I think if we lose more than 20 we'll be lucky to stay up. 

To be honest, this is a game we should rightfully be going in to looking to win. Just beaten Everton, a better team than Palace, albeit slightly fortuitously you could argue. Our second string has just battered a team 6-1, even if they are a League 2 side. The positivity running through the club at present is at its highest for 10 years. Palace are also pretty poor at home, with just 13 points from their last 12 home games. 

They did win at United but they're usually pretty good at playing the underdog because they're so good at countering teams. United dominated for much of it, Palace were clinical. Against us being at home their fans will want them to go for it so they can't sit back, which will play into our hands. We need to watch Zaha who is head and shoulders above anyone else they have, but he clearly doesn't want to be there and that's affecting his performances currently. Ayew and Townsend blow hot and cold, but more often than not aren't great. Benteke looks past it and has been poor for two seasons, definitely wouldn't get in our side. Meyer is their creative player but looks too lightweight for this league. So all in all, unless Zaha turns up, I'd hope our defenders can handle their attacking players, particularly as we've just contained Richarlison, Sigurdsson and Bernard. 

Would take a draw, a win is achievable and should be the aim. Definitely don't think we should be losing this one.

12 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

Mellberg and Laursen never really played enough together as a combination despite both being here at the same time for four years. Injuries to Laursen of course but also when he was fit MON decided to sign Davies and Zat Knight and move Mellberg to RB.

Anyway completely agree with Engels. I loved the look of him in pre season, calm under pressure, good passer, fantastic reader of the game. Biggest compliment I can pay him is he's playing the premier league like it's pre season. You've got him who can drop off and read the game and Mings who will win most in the air and can also move forward and pass.

Delighted with the clean sheet. Back 5 deserved it as we really weren't 5 goals in first two games bad, just individual mistakes.

A long way to go for Engels and Mings to be compared to Laursen and Mellberg, but they looked rock solid tonight and I've been impressed by them. Both good ball players as well and don't panic when in possession. 

They were mightily unlucky to come away from the first two games with five conceded and I'm delighted they got a clean sheet tonight. They look like a partnership that could really blossom and tif they keep the consistency I could certainly see Mings in the England squad and Engels strutting his stuff for Belgium.

Let's see how they go over the next few games 

6 minutes ago, Enda said:

Hi, I'm Enda, and I predicted we'd lose. It was a completely reasonable prediction.

How's your ma?

Well keep predicting we'll lose, seems to be a good omen  

I always back us to win, just the way I was raised i guess...

Where are all the people who predicted we'd lose?

Great win nonetheless, hopefully onwards and upwards. Very capable of beating Palace and going into the international break with 6 points from 4 which is a very decent return. 

Wesley looked good tonight and hopefully that goal is the first of many, many more.

23 hours ago, villalad21 said:

What i would go for as well.

All played well except El Ghazi so he fully deserves to be dropped. Pressure on Wesley also imo, he need to improve or Davis or Kodjia when back fit should get they're chance.

Thank God Smith won't be as knee jerk as you.

17 hours ago, hippo said:

0-2 is all I can see.

Hope Davis gets a start

Why? So we can see why he hasn't score a goal for 2 years.

Our only hope up front is basically Wesley and at a push Kodjia, if either of those can't hack it we're gonna be shopping around in January that's for sure. 

Hopefully Wesley bags one tonight.