david-avfc

20 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

Which top class CDM is coming in to sit behind Kamara on the bench? If we have a limited budget why would we blow all of it in a position where have a legitimately world class option? 

Kamara is out until October, at best, and who knows when he will be fully fit and back in form, we’ve seen with Moreno and Ramsey the injury can cost more than just the initial recovery time

If we don’t sign a solid player to cover defensive midfield it’s lunacy, it’s clear how much we’ve struggled without one in the last couple of months.

Pau is a lovely player to watch and I'd rather have him in the villa side than some of the cloggers we've been forced to endure of the many years I've supported the team, but as good as he is on the ball I never get the impression he's going to put his body on the line to stop a goal, he is too passive on the defensive side of things at times and today unfortunately all 3 goals he is culpable for not doing anywhere near enough to deal with the crosses coming in 

26 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

While we're beating up on him, something I just spotted...

Dougie has the most Villa Premier League appearances (171) of any player in the current squad, ahead of McGinn (163). And he's second on overall Villa appearances, as McGinn has a Championship season, and Mings surprisingly has fewer Villa apps despite the extra season.

And he's still only 25. Think we underrate his contribution sometimes. He has a very tough job to do in the middle there with Kamara out.

 

No one is questioning his ability or how good he has been for us... but that yellow card, 10 seconds of the allocated stoppage time left to play and he leaves his foot in like that... it's beyond moronic. Perhaps Emery should have subbed him (especially as he got away with one a few minutes earlier) but the player shouldn't be that stupid, especially that late in the game what was he hoping to achieve such a careless foul that late on

Looks like he'll be a really good player, he beats opponents with ease with the ball, can also compete physically but then best of all for a 21 year old has a decent end product too, When we signed him not many people got it, even Boro fans were surprised, but seems like we've unearthed a gem with this lad

According to whoscored stats we have the 3rd most bookings but only the 11th most fouls, and we’re fouled more than we foul others. Something seems amiss doesn’t it.

4 minutes ago, mikeyp102 said:

Konsa has also turned away from it, the ball is actually closer to Konsa. 
Yes Zaniolo should improve there but he isn’t the only one to blame. 
 

 

 

It’s only closer to Konsa because of how far Zaniolo jumped out of the way! He played well on everything else but there’s no excuses for the job he did in the wall, was something you’d expect in a kids game, kids jumping out of the way of the ball, shouldn’t be seen at PL level and it cost us as a goal at a crucial time of the game. 

1 minute ago, Tom13 said:

When he plays regularly, he still makes mistakes. Passing is supposed to be his best attribute, yet he misplaces so many and always has. I'm sure he's a lovely guy, but he is rubbish at this level.

When he was playing regularly for Gerrard he looked OK, overall he is an OK player for a low end Prem team but we’ve moved on from that level since we signed him

Not a great performance and mistake led to a goal but to be fair playing on average once every three months isn’t going to get the best out of anyone, need to part ways for both parties sake in the summer

Really nice goal both the finish and build up play. Could be a top striker if he keeps developing and remains sensible 

1 hour ago, cheltenham_villa said:

tactically i agree, personally i really dont believe any of the BS around bias and team selection. I dont think he hates villa, every message board in the country has a thread where they are astonished that X player has not been selected and believe GS has an agenda.

Personally i think its a tough job, no longer dominated by the best managers in the country and he bases selection on performance, suitability, player personality, flexibility a whole range of things.

I think Ezri and Ollie are both in a great position to be selected for squad that will only have 23 players in it. 

I don’t think Southgate “hates” villa but it’s abundantly clear he has his biases towards the big clubs, impossible not to see if you watched England for the last 6 or 7 years. It’s always the case that players outside the Sky 6 clubs have to do at least twice as much as those who do play for the chosen clubs To get in the squad or start games.

I don’t think Watkins will ever suit Southgate’s style, pass it around sideways and hope someone does something. Watkins has a lot of great attributes but generating something out of nothing isn’t one of them, he needs a proper team structure behind him but having a detailed plan how to attack the opposition isn’t how Southgate operates

19 hours ago, Sulberto21 said:

The worst scenario for me would be Ramsey going to someone like Newcastle and getting someone shit like Longstaff in exchange plus a token gesture of £10-15m.

I don’t think Ramsey is going anywhere 

We have a small squad and Ramsey is one of the only viable “home grown” players we have. If we sell him we literally cannot replace him because there’s no available positions in the European squad for non-homegrown players, it would be shooting ourselves in the foot if we sold Ramsey just to immediately run into issues with squad restrictions 

Would love us to re-sign Grealish, our best player in my lifetime. Unfortunately he’s 29 next season and would probably cost £40m at least, or a huge loan fee. I can’t see there being any value in it unless Grealish really pushes for an exit and Man City unexpectedly allow him to return home on the cheap

A total non-story, I saw the clip and he was asked a stupid question and he did he best to answer it out of respect to the interviewer, he never said he wanted to leave just that playing for certain clubs raises the profile of Jamaican football which he sees as a good thing 

3 hours ago, thabucks said:

Logo is quite inoffensive … 

Looks so much better than the vile BK8 or whatever it is, even though it literally has “bet” in the name it doesn’t look like a cheap betting company shoved in your face

1 hour ago, gabby_2010 said:

What do mean? It’s a fair question

I think it was a joke about saying thanks

30 minutes ago, avfc1982am said:

 

There is also a lot of difference between Rogers and Zaniolo, one has played at the highest level in Europe for several years, the other has played in the championship.  

 

Do you watch the games or just judge players based on their reputation?

I want all players to do well for us, really happy Zaniolo scored yesterday and has shown signs of improvement in the last few weeks, but it’s clear he’s not had the desired impact this season hence his game time has been limited in the last 3 or 4 months, regardless of who he has or hasn’t played for previously. Rogers is obviously still raw, but he’ll be playing PL with us next season, not sure any PL clubs will pick Zaniolo up to be honest.

55 minutes ago, Tommo_b said:

Didn’t think he was that bad at all, looked to have something about him at times, really not seeing what all the detractors are ripping him to shreds over.

Yeah he was one of our better players in the first half, some people need to throw their toys out of the pram whenever we drop points though so it’s obviously all Morgan Rogers fault this week 

3 minutes ago, GingerCollins29 said:

Always feel more confident when he plays ahead of moreno, even though i rate moreno

Moreno has been disappointing  this season but similar to Ramsey, I think coming back from injury half way through the season it's just so difficult to get back up to speed. Digne has been excellent though, fair play to him 12 months ago many were wanting to get rid of him (myself included), but he's starting to justify his millions of pounds per week in wages

4 hours ago, lapal_fan said:

If you watch the extended highlights, you'll see Zaniolo run from about 25 yards, after starting pressure Romero at CB.  Also, LB's/RB's should be following the runs and midfield "pass" the runner on. 

Moreno steps up to tackle Porro instead of letting Zani go for Porro and him go for Kulseski or whatever he's called. 

By the time Zani "stops trying", the ball is 5 yards ahead of him.  He shouldn't throw his arms, but he did his job, Moreno didn't do his. 

We play that way on the right too, the RB goes with the runners, the helping midfielder goes to the ball. 

This is just men wanting to tack blame on something to fix a problem that isn't there.  

Sounds like a lot of excuses to be honest. None of the players covered themselves in any glory yesterday, Zaniolo included - he ran around a bit, great, we still lost 4-0. 12 touches and a pass accuracy of 25% in 40+ minutes on the pitch, he was as bad as everyone else. 

Hopefully Champions League brings in a load of extra cash and then we can get by with some wheeling and dealing around non-core players

I don’t agree that Luiz is so easily replaceable, he is a top quality player hence the potential high transfer fee, and he’s crucial in how we play and progress the ball centrally.

On 28/02/2024 at 20:39, VillaChris said:

Has he even been named in any squad, he's certainly not in our european squad and not sure if we named him in the premier league one.

Chambers wasn't named in our euro squad either which is interesting call given how congested April could be and we needed a half out of him at the weekend. With Kamara and Donk not around either it's going to be an issue if we progress through Europa and we don't have two CBs available at any one time.

No he’s not the PL squad and we left 3 squad places empty which lays it out pretty clearly where the club stands on this issue. 

I don’t believe he’s been “strung along” as some have suggested, the writing has been on the wall for a long time as he was loaned out last season and there was a big dispute when we refused to take him back at one point, and then he was never registered in any squad this season even as a back up of last resort.

Ultimately he kind of brought this on himself by signing an extension under Gerrard when he was clearly right down the pecking order. A bad decision by the club to deliberately waste money keeping an unwanted player and a bad decision by the player to deliberately waste his own career

29 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

Another badge better than ours to add to the list.

Is it good? No.

Does it have to be to be better than that blue smudge we have? No.

Looks like a knock off Ajax badge with the minimalistic black and red circular design on a white background 

21 hours ago, HKP90 said:

He moved to Turkey because he had a falling out with the management, not because he was rubbish.

He was sent to the Coventry of the Mediterranean.

I thought he fell out with the fans more than anything, and that’s because they thought he was rubbish for ages, and then he fell out with the whole club. It seemed like he was treated poorly and especially considering the injuries he’d suffered. 

We took a gamble on him based on his successful spell at Turkey, sometimes these things work and sometimes they don’t. But perhaps in hindsight buying a player based on 10 good games in the Turkish league after several seasons of injuries and poor form is probably not a good idea. £5m for Philogene Bidace or £5m+ for Zaniolo for one season, unfortunately it seems like the club has dropped a clanger. 

He seems like a decent enough guy, hopefully he resurrects his career somewhere eventually. You can see he has talent but trying to rebuild his career in the intensity of the PL just isn’t going to happen from what we’ve all seen of him so far.