MotoMkali

3 minutes ago, Laughable Chimp said:

I missed the Everton game unfortunately, but was he really that good or was it a case of him being generally crap so when he finally had a good game everyone jumped at the opportunity to say look at how amazing he showed he could be.

Thing with the Norwich game is, it wasn't a flawless performance either. I remember being excited watching him play for us in that first half to complete a hatrick in the second but he didn't have a single shot on goal in the second half, so really it was more a great first half performance than a great whole performance. Secondly, his two goals were undoubtedly gifted to him. Not to say he didn't do anything, of course, but neither were exactly difficult to score. It was a tap in from close range and a mistake from the Norwich defended that left him on the 6 yard box with only the keeper to beat. Look, I get the argument that a goal is a goal, but if he's only been scoring because of the incompetency of the defence and our other players putting it up on a plate for him, did he really play that well? Especially when you consider he also had a medicore penalty that was saved.

Nah in that game he shat all over mina and kean. Single handedly created our 2nd goal and they really struggled to deal with him. Also him and mina nearly got in a fight which I think got him fired up.

Against Norwich whilst he did miss the penalty (which definitely wasn't great) he contributed quite a lot to our attack through his hold up play and passing. Took the ball down well with a good turn and finish for his first goal.

He does need to improve his movement which were at their best in these 2 games but the rest of the teams movement was also at the best in the Norwich game. I think that is the key though everyone needs to help each other because right now it looks like a team of individuals with wesley being a bounce passer for Jack when he has the ball. No one tries to take the game by the scruff of the neck except for Jack and the rest of the team need to at least grab the arms and help. 

3 hours ago, tomav84 said:

it's amazing how differently some see the game. i disagree wholeheartedly on the hold up play. in fact i'd say that to be one of his weaker attributes

I'd say think of it like this. Imagine if from an opponents long pass the ball was going to land at mings' feet with the striker standing over by our other centre back. In this scenario do you expect the striker to win the ball or would you expect mings to easily clear it as he should have plenty of time to get in a good position as the striker tries to get even remotely close to the ball.

Personally I think mings should clear over 90% of the time and that is thing. People on villa talk seem to think he should be losing the ball 50+% of the time. If mings lost the ball in this scenario it would be his fault and you wouldn't necessarily say the striker had done a great job because it is more likely mings had made a mistake with his positioning. 

If you look at it from the strikers perspective even getting a header on the ball is a win even if it goes nowhere. It isn't Wesley's fault he is getting poor long balls but when he does get the ball to feet or even a long ball played to him where he has already sealed of the defender he wins it the majority of the time which is what we should be looking at rather than blaming him for not winning the ball against a better positioned Premier league defender. 

15 minutes ago, Pimlico_Villa said:

Again, as no one has answered this - what are Wesley's key attributes? I just don't know what he does. 

This is a question directed at those who still think he'll come good. Just tell me what his attributes are!

I think he has got good link up play and when the ball is played to him and not just somewhere within 30 yards of him he has good hold up play. It is just often we don't find him with enough accuracy so he is 2nd to the where the ball will land so either he loses it or he fouls. He also generally has quite good vision and plays alright cross field balls. 

On top of that since he has come here he has shown significant improvements in his touch and strength and hopefully will continue to improve other areas of his game as well. 

Dont get me wrong he has a lot to improve like his off ball movement but so does our entire team. No one gambles for the ball or even comes short for a pass except for Jack so the coaching team needs to work on that.

I just want to make it clear that over the last 7 games we have played the current top 6. That is not a fair run for anyone. Hell if Liverpool had to play the current top 7 in a row I only see them coming away with 10 points. We had the worst run of fixtures of any team in the league. Our next 4 games though are probably the most important of the season. By the end of it we could be on 27 points (I reckon 23) but we need to beat Norwich and Southampton and at least get a draw against Watford to prevent any of them getting past us between now and January. 

Don't think his miss was his fault. He should have done better but he obviously though mcginn was going to finish it. 

3 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

Keep going MM. There are only a few of you left now. I admire your enthusiasm. 

Wesley isn't a great player but he hasn't actually been bad. I think a lot of you are going after him because you don't want to face the reality that our entire team except for Jack is probably relegation fodder. I also think Dean really needs to get his head out of his arse and change our style up when it isn't working. I thought we should have swapped wesley fro trez today at half-time so we could counter quicker but instead he brought off nakamba. I think he needs to be better with his substitutions and in game management. 

How anyone is blaming wesley for today's result I don't know. No one was good but and I'm sure people are blaming him for the goal but 5 of our players could have done better. Aside from that I thought he did alright he won lots of balls and created a couple of good chances.

Today our worst player was elmo at fault for a goal and kept putting us under pressure. Although all our defenders were poor. 

Deserved to lose. Once again a lack of movement. Shit defense from set pieces we need to **** sort it out.

We still have yet to play watford and Soton so hopefully that will help us put some day light between us and the relegation zone but we need to get something next weekend to boost our confidence. 

He wasn't good on Wednesday but once again I think title for worst player on the pitch has to go to mcginn or hourihane. Mcginn did 1 thing all game at least wesley had some alright link up play with Jack. On top of that I think mcginn should have been marking mount as it seemed like trez transfered mount to mcginn so he could mark pulisic (?). We also lacked movement almost the entire game except for that lovely passing maneuver that led to our goal.

For me deano has got to be drilling in every day pass and move drop to create space.

Again Wesley was poor but it was one of those games where suarez could have been playing for us and we still would have lost 2-1.

Didn't think anyone really deserved the award so I gave it to Luiz. At least he looked like scoring.

The ball just didn't stick in midfield. Once again we lacked movement in the middle. We need to be much more aggressive as a team and far less passive at times it look like we wanted Chelsea to score.

I think that is our main problem we just lack movement and give the ball away really easily.

1 minute ago, zab6359 said:

He's a big unit defenders should bounce off him into a crumpled mess!

The problem is if that happens 9/10 times they will win a foul. In the prem you have to balance strength with weakness. You can't just body players and get away with it. Now wesley is being refereed incredibly harshly with a huge double standard and I don't think his size is doing him any favours. 

16 hours ago, ferguson1 said:

I just find Dean Smith so infectious and a pleasure to listen to.  Open, honest and everything he says makes perfect sense.   Don’t think i’ll ever tire of listening to him.  

Dare I say it, but could he coach England one day?  Some way to go in his managerial and coaching development, but I think he could.

Why would he take the England job? The best managers manage clubs not countries. 

4 hours ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

Example please. 

Think at about 20-25 minutes against united he played a cross field pass to trez. 

9 hours ago, Laughable Chimp said:

Morelos would go for cheaper than whatever Mitrovic costs I feel.

But tbh, I'm starting to think we don't need to dip into the market for a forward this Jan. We're scoring goals after all and I feel we're our squad is good enough right now to avoid the drop. Funny how everyone seems to think we need a striker and a winger when we've been scoring so many goals yet there's scant mention of going for a defender when we've been conceding so many.

 

Rather we do our research amd go for a hidden gem out there next summer instead of being forced to pay big money for reinforcements we don't really need.

To be clear, I still don't think Wesley is good enough right now. I just think our forward line and our midfield contribute enough goals in spite of him that a new striker may not be our priority.

It is quite simple really. Goals keep you up. You can still finish top 6 with a crap defence look at Liverpool before last year, arsenal and Chelsea. You only need to be a good defensive team to win the league every other competition it is just about outscoring the other team. We are currently doing that but what happens if el ghazi, jack or McGinn have to miss extended time. We need another player who can create for themselves like bowen.

I also think we need another midfielder to help the ball stick in the middle as well. But I think that may have to wait until summer. 

28 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

Give examples of him dribbling with the ball, beating a man, heading the ball towards goal and creating a yard for a shot.

80% of the posters on here think he's dreadful but you're desperately trying to justify his quality/purchase with stats like '3rd highest sprint speed' and a couple of decent cross field passes. His overall play is dreadful and you know it! 
Like I said in a previous post, he will be replaced in January and all this nonsense will go away. You'll remember what a decent striker looks like soon enough  I trust the club to get it right.

You don't have to be good at beating men to be a good player. I think he beat a man at Newcastle but that isn't his game. He is supposed to receive the ball to feet and pick a man out with a good pass. He has been doing that and if we nearly had a couple of goals from these passes in the past few games so he is doing something right.

As I have said he does need to improve but scapegoating a player is ridiculous. He clearly wasn't intended to be the only striker we signed or had but unlucky injuries and an inability to get a player over the line has left us with him. Complaining about him isn't helping especially when half the complaints are we are only playing with 10 men and he drops to deep links up play but doesn't get in the box. These are contradictory statements. Yes he needs better off the ball movement but so does our entire team. He hasn't had a huge number of shots lately and he and the team need to find him in dangerous positions. 

54 minutes ago, tomav84 said:

we can all use statistics. 9.25km. the distance ran by wesley on sunday. the lowest of all outfield players that started the game (aside from el ghazi, obv). trez covered more ground despite only playing 72 mins.

In the other hand he is a striker and our wingers are expected to pull double duty when defending. So whilst he didn't run as far as anyone else him even getting close to the others show how hard he worked. 

53 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

Ok mate.

He’s poor in the air.

He’s slow.

He’s weak.

He can’t shoot.

He can’t dribble.

His hold up play is average at best. 

 

Give examples. That is justifying your opinion not just going he is bad because I said so. For example he clocked the 3rd highest sprint speed for a villa player on Sunday so he isn't slow. Lingard struggled to stay on him so he isn't weak. And he played some excellent crossfield passes to trezeguet who should have done better after not particularly great balls came into him so his hold up play and vision are good. 

20 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

Not sure that regarding any criticism of Wesley as “hating” is the most sparkling display of rational logic either.

Yeah except the people who do the hating don't actually rationalise why wesley is poor. They say he can't finish and is a donkey when in reality he has the best finishing rate of any of our players. Maybe if they properly justified why they think he is crap. 

We will take loan deals as long as we have a reasonable option to buy at the end. If we take iheanacho (for example) we would probably demand a 15m option to buy at the end of the loan. 

2 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

Probably the last time too good to go down was arguably Newcastle in 2009, had Owen, Viduka and Martins as their strikeforce and Duff out wide. Barton and Nolan were also there and were great for them in the championship the following year. Coloccini and Jonas Gutirrez made the Argentina 2010 world cup squad while in the championship I think.

Or even their 2016 version which had Mitrovic, Wjinaldum and Sissoko in their regular 11 although I didn't rate that team much.

Coloccini was a beast and was Newcastle best player this decade. Led them to success and remained a stalwart defender throughout his time there. 

If you look at the league as a whole and the good young players coming through they are almost always at a top 8 club. Occasionally you will get rare exceptions who are actually quality coming through at a lower half club like grealish.

The players at the top 8 aren't better they are just easier to put in the side for 1 or 2 games because they could play 10v11 against most teams in the league and still win. The reason why lingard seemed like he had so much potential and failed is the same he played for a big club so the game was easier for him, when asked to do anything he hadn't improved since he came through so he was shit. 

51 minutes ago, VillanousOne said:

against Manure he won the ball and held it up well, the times he fell down without getting a free kick were a lot less than previous games, he won more balls and laid them off well from deep. He also worked hard and covered more of the pitch.

He draws defenders towards him and leaves gaps for other players. As long as we are still scoring goals we can just about justify letting him continue to get pitch time and get up to speed, but that doesn't change the fact he still has to improve and become more of a threat in front of goal.

This is what the people hating on wesley should be thinking. He has been alright, has had good holdup play and been creating good opportunities for our wingers. Yes he does need to work on his finishing and everyone agrees on that but it isn't as if he is a bad finisher it is just his off the ball movement (a problem that our entire team has except for el ghazi and grealish) is poor. That is something that can easily be worked on and trained. It isn't as if he is missing something essential to be a striker it is just his game is a little rough and he hasn't fully refined it to suit the prem. Like in the first few games he couldn't use his strength or he was pulled back for a foul now he is learning to use it better and is making himself a handful for every defender he plays. 

Greg Evans has doubled down saying that unless we sell kodjia to bring in funds we are only. Going after a cheap winger or striker in January. Said No bowen or Morelos.

Whilst I think this may be the club trying to lower the price for players we inquire after it does seem reasonable that this could be true especially if Davis comes back raring to go. However we currently have 2 spare squad slots to me that says we are going to sign at least 1 more player after they worked out what we were missing and potentially the last one free for either a loan recall or good free agent signing. If we do sign a championship winger I think we should recall Green and send him back on loan as a sort of placeholder. 

For the first 60 minutes the squad is as good as him it is the last 30 that let us down. Partially it is conditioning as a lot of our players haven't played in a league even close to this intense and struggle to keep up with the pace of play.

The other part is poor substitutions we need to make them Early and the right choice. Against united we should have Brought nakamba on at about 60 when it looked like we were losing control of the game. Instead we brought Lansbury on at 80 and we continued to struggle. We needed nakamba to come on and win the ball to prevent them from getting anything going. 

2 hours ago, tomav84 said:

no...so when a club sells a high earning player, it's quite common that the buying club do not want to pay the wages said player is currently on. therefore, an agreement is put in place for the selling club to pay the rest until the end of the contract (or you just pay the player off). It happened with us when we bought shay given i believe. also with stephen ireland (but think he was just given a chunk of cash by city). in fact a few city players that have not made it there have then been sold on with city paying part of their wages until end of contract i.e rodwell too

First if grealish goes he will be on ridiculous wages because he is that good. 2nd because there will be so many suitors we won't have to pay that because that takes out of our signing fee. Say it is 50 thousand a week difference that is 2.6 mill a year. Why would we sell grealish in a scenario we are essentially giving the club an additional 7.5million. Hardly a smart maneuver and would never happen to us under our current administration.