doaflip

Up the Trez.

Honestly, I think he's just ok. There's an argument that ok isn't good enough for where we want to be.

Average but there are not too many decent left footed center halves out there.

Don't think we really looked like scoring. Big second half needed or risk the season fizzling out. Not that I'm complaining, great season all being said!

Spurs look terrible and we've still not created anything against them. Not good enough. I also have to wonder why people are watching if they're just happy for us to stay up. I see it everywhere people saying that perspective is needed whenever we underperform. Crazy really.

The players he's got aren't great tbf. He's done well to fix the defence and improve some players but without Grealish we really don't look like scoring.

Think I'd be pretty happy to never see Ross Barkley play for us live. Garb.

Dreadful. No less than Newcastle deserved to be fair to them. We really are shite at the moment.

That's a bit like where I'm at with it. But, we have had a habit of bouncing back from disappointing results well. Not that the Wolves result in isolation is a bad result at all, but the players didn't seem happy with a point so I'm hoping there's a 'reaction' so to speak. Either way. We have a good enough squad and they're depleted. Roll the dice!

Nothing at all seems to come off for him right now. Its really strange to see after how good he was at the start of the season. Gotta wonder what combination of things it is down to.

Poor. Martinez wins us another point. Just long punts forward second half. Dunno what was said to them at half time.

Still, a wee bit of a harsh response

I'd say so, yeah. There's still time for that to change but Burnley, West Ham, Brighton, Leicester and now Sheffield Utd games we look a shadow of what we did earlier in the season. Like we've lost the courage and conviction we had. Even the Leeds and Southampton games we didn't really look the better, more confident teams in those matches. That's how I define bottling it anyway. Im not sure on the official definition. Edit: Looked up the term..maybe saying they are bottling it is harsh. My reasoning, granted, is largely due to frustration.

I think that sometimes. Or that we are coached in a way that is too reliant on one particular floppy haired magician. I'm sure this article has been on here before: https://statsbomb.com/2021/02/aston-villa-2020-21-deep-dive/ It just highlights how much we rely on a direct game to Grealish or Watkins on that left hand side. When we come into a game where we can't play directly to Grealish or Watkins we come unstuck. I.e: 1. Jack Grealish is out injured. 2. Our opponent is in a low block defending a lead. We really have no other way of playing. I think it's why we tend to win when we score first or lose when we concede first.

I appreciate the progress that has been made, and credit to the coaching team for that, but in football I think it's important that you take the opportunities when they are presented to you. Take Sheffield United for example, they have a different level of ownership and different ambitions as a club but I don't for a minute think they would be in a relegation battle had they been able to continue their march for Europe last season. They're unlikely to get an opportunity like that ever again. My concern is that this season fizzles out because we struggle to win the matches we 'should' win and we finish 11th, 12th after a good start to the season. Expectations are then raised, fans come back and the wheels come off. It doesn't matter what happened last season, you're only as good as your last game. Not too long ago we had games in hand that if we won would take us to 4th. They're bottling it.

0-0 or 0-1 Really can't see anything else. We rely on individual brilliance or moments of luck to score goals and we don't seem to have either in abundance at the moment.

Really don't know why you get stick for posts like this, I completely agree. Right now our style of football isn't completely at odds with what we played under Bruce. Defensively stronger but lumping it into the channel or box. I like Smith and if we are happy mid table then he's probably a safe pair of hands, but I can't see him being a top 6 manager. Will have a similar career trajectory to Eddie Howe in my opinion.

Think we only have 3 or 4 players good enough for a European push. Massive investment needed in the summer and I include replacing the coaching team in that if we intend to progress.

We are scraping wins when we get them and then ending up with results like this in other weeks. Saw this result coming a mile off. We are horribly inconsistent and only where we are because of what I'd consider an elite level goalkeeper. 8th-12th probably our ceiling with this coaching setup. Which is fine considering where we were last year.

Just a feeling really. We seem to play well and get a good result and then fail to turn up the next game. Our consistency isn't great. To me, it feels like tonight could be similar to the Burnley game following the Wolves victory. A nice confidence boosting win followed by a frustrating game. I've seen a few posts saying that Sheffield United dont tend to lose by too many goals and I just think they could keep us out. Hope I'm wrong though.

Have a feeling it will be a 0-0. Can't see them scoring but, equally, I feel like we may struggle to break them down.

I know it's been mentioned a few times already in this thread but my word that pitch was one of the worst I've ever seen. How can that be allowed? Surely there must be some standard that it has to adhere to?

Same style of football as last year but with a very good goalkeeper and a good striker. Lack of plan B or adaptability. We are cack really.

Yeah me too. I honestly think our game plan is so based around Jack that we could really struggle without him at this level. Hopefully it is just a rumour though and he starts tomorrow.

Feel like I see it all the time where 'ITK' people on other forums know about injuries and stuff early. Not a stretch that there are the odd tidbits on Twitter that would slip under the radar of the media.