Rightdm00

2 hours ago, villa4europe said:

its not that bad

its a tough league, we have a new team, lots of players new to English football, if you look at the current climate its symptomatic of the clubs dip in form, confidence is low both in the players and the fans, if you look at the individual player threads around the time of their debuts and first couple of games most had glowing references, now everyone and everything is shit when in reality its not that bad, engels, luiz, nakamba etc theres a player in there definitely, just need to refind good form*, having to play a combination of them doesn't help, nakamba and luiz for example don't work as a pairing, wes will split opinions, im of the opinion that he's not great but our general play is making him look worse than he is

the transfer fees aren't helping, skewing expectations, ignore the money spent, it no longer represents value to the buying club its value to the selling club

if we were to go down I wouldn't personally point my finger at the new signings and say we bought badly, there's a better argument for pointing the finger at the previous regime and a manager who had "just get us up" as his remit, we should never have been in the position that we needed so many new players, same kind of thing as our previous relegation, it wasn't amavi, gueye and veretout's fault despite the "too many French player" nonsense, all good players gone on to do better things

*McGinn is included in this, was awful pre injury, you can make an argument that so was mings when he got back from England duty, its not a new signings thing, heaton and jack are our only consistently good players

I will beat that drum anytime someone talks about our summer purchases.  Our previous caretakers spent 40-50 million on players that aren't even in the squad any more. Sheffield United got Ends Stevens and George Baldock for a combined 900k. Norwich got Pukki on a free. I could go on. The time to build a team on the cheap was while we were in the Championship. The emoji Doctor pissed that all away. 

Leicester had six players in their starting lineup that had transfer fees of at least 20 million.  They brought a striker off the bench that cost 25 million. You look at numbers like that and our 1-1 away from home looks pretty damn good. 

4 hours ago, Delphinho123 said:

I’ll put my neck on the line here and say I don’t think he’ll become a very good player. A decent one perhaps, but he’s just too small and weak to really compete at this level. 

I’m just not a fan. I want to be, I just don’t see it. 

He's the same height as Fernandinho and Jack. You remember how small Jack was at 21. Douglas body wise is hardly a finished article. 

5 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

He's saying that Vassilev is the sort of player you'd get rid of on football manager.

He is probably on such a low wage. Are y'all really that cut throat when you play FM?

Nakamba is bad at the stuff Nakamba was never good at. Before he was in a midfield 3.  Now it's just 2.  That extra option to pass to is a big loss. While the 3-4-3 has made our back line more solid Dean is still playing that attacking 3 up top. This has caused us to completely cede the midfield once teams up their pressing game. 

This 3-4-3 doesn't suit our current crop of midfielders at all. The only one who is adequate is Luiz. Hourihane and Lansbury would all be non-entities in a 2 man setup. I'm starting to think we may need another CM option besides Drinkwater. Hopefully Mcginn doesn't have any complications in his recovery. 

1 hour ago, lexicon said:

I think he was too far forward and left at times in the first half - I think the half time talk reminded him to drop deeper and give him the chance to influence the game more. We really need him more central to orchestrate our play. 

Just did a rewatch. He started dropping deeper halfway through the first half.  Brendan countered that by putting on another more defensive minded midfielder, pretty much a Jack tracker.  Also, Leicester's CBs were almost coming into our attacking 3rd to win the ball back from Jack. They know he is our only threat. 

I pray Drink water can still hit those 40 yard over the top balls that Vardy used to run on to. The gaps will be there as teams put all their focus on nullifying Jack.   

Shock!  A defensive midfielder who has never looked good going forward looks out of his depth against the 2nd best team in the league. Our midfield was out numbered 3-2 the entire match. It was the sacrifice we had to make given our lack of a striker. And you know what it worked. We got a goal and were a Douglas error away from stealing a 1-0. 

We made a 3 goal improvement off the last time we played them. No way anyone in the defense had a shocker. There were mistakes definitely, but our midfield was under the cosh the entire second half.  With that type of pressure only the best midfielders would escape mistake free. 

In a 2 man midfield you need both your midfielders to be all arounders. Nakamba is not that nor was he brought in to be that. He's doing a job while Mcginn is out. It's not like he is failing at his primary duty.  He is still leading the team in tackles and recoveries.  The extra duties being asked of him right now may be a bit to much but how about we give him a couple games to get settled before we start tearing him apart. 

2 minutes ago, Kiwivillan said:

I wasn't meaning so much to have a pop at him only that there was slating of Nakamba in his thread. So much criticism of both on social media after a fantastic result on the face of it

I get you. Honestly most of the post in this thread have been positive. The Nakamba hate has been over the top but the level headed comments don't really come out til the day after a match. 

I'm still curious as to what type of performance people expected from our out numbered midfield. We all miss Mcginn doing the work of two men but this is all we got right now. Let's get behind them. 

1 hour ago, Lord Willard said:

Defends well but as a full back he makes us so useless on the left hand side. A decent LWB with pace and our defence is decent. 

Yep, my thoughts as well. Him and Guilbert defended fabulously all night but his complete lack of offensive talent just takes all the shine off his performance. Not even his fault really.  The requirements for a modern day full back have passed him by. 

At least all that buy back clause talk has stopped.  Wasn't at his best but this new formation ask a huge amount of him.  With Jack pushed up top and 2 wingers also on the pitch Douglas and Nakamba had an impossible task in the midfield.  I think, given the fact he was facing the 2nd best team away from home, he acquitted himself well enough.  Can't ignore the mistake but that's part of the growth of any young player.    Hopefully Dean gives him a little more help versus City. 

Guys just block him. Your life will be better for it. 

The next step in the 3-4-3 is to figure out how to counter attack out of the low block.  I know he doesn't have much of a choice but bringing on hourihane away from home in this formation just doesn't work. We need a pacey option that will threaten the back line of the opposition. Hopefully they address that this month.  

His shot stopping is elite right now. His distribution out of the back could use some work. Overall excellent performance. 

3 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

You'd never find ANY of our players in a position like that....

I'm so glad Jack got better friends. Notice barely any pics from his multiple day promotion bender ever turned up. Thank God camera phones were barely a thing when I was around his age. 

8 hours ago, BOF said:

I was curious to re-visit the pre-season accusation of many rival fans and pundits that Villa would 'dO a FuLhAm' this season, by checking how both sides have done up to gameweek 21.

If it wasn't already obvious that we're not doing a Fulham, I think we can put it to bed now.

At this point last season Fulham had 3 wins.  We have 6 (+100%)
They had 14pts. We have 21 (+50%)
They scored 19.  We have 27 (+42%)
Conceded 47. We have 37 (-27%)
Fulham were 19th and 4pts from safety.  We're 17th and have spent 6 out of 21 weekends in the relegation places (and even they were only just).  They had spent 15 out of 21 in total, but more significantly they had spent the previous 13 weeks inside it (and would never again get out).

That's not even the worst for them though.  From gameweeks 22 to 33 inclusive, Fulham were about to go on a run of 11 defeats and 1 win.  That would put them on 17pts after 33 games.  In fact it took Fulham until the 20th of April (gameweek 35) to get more points on the board (23) than we currently have now (21).

Their mini-run of 3 'garbage time' wins from gameweek 34 thru 36 was far too little too late, and put some artificial gloss on a turd of a season that was, in reality, done and dusted by February.

We may or may not end up going back down, but we've not done a Fulham.

Completely agree all that Fulham stuff can be put to bed.  Not to be buzzkill but I think the team we are more closely tracking is Cardiff City. They had a difficult time drawing they either won or lost (10W 4D 24L). At this point in the season they had 18 points and were 16th. They to had an issue fielding a prem quality striker (their leading scorer finished with 5 goals). They spent a sizeable sum on a striker from Nantes but I think we are all familiar with what happened after that. It's likely if Sala had survived that plane ride they are still in the prem right now. 

So let also hope we don't pull a Cardiff City as well. 

1 hour ago, Genie said:

Why has everyone decided it’s fact that he is on £110k per week and Villa are paying all of it?

Even if it’s true it’s £2m for a Premier League winner from Chelsea (reserves). Not a fortune really. We bought plenty of players for £10m+ then wages on top from Championship teams on 4 year deals that were not up to scratch. 

 

We aren't paying anywhere near his full weekly wage. Burnley were paying about half and we got roughly the same deal from Chelsea. Drinkwater cancelled his loan with Burnley and agreed to the Villa loan deal the next day. If he wasn't looking for a challenge he could have happily stayed at Chelsea and trained with the reserves the rest of the year. 

I think Dean has earned the benefit of doubt. He picked Ming's when he was fifth choice at Bournemouth this time last year and now we are above them.  

Still think some people have completely over reacted to this Fulham defeat. Just check out Pearson's reaction to his "b" team blowing a 3 goal lead to League 1 relegation battling Tranmere. He couldn't care less and it's look like he will have that same attitude in the replay. It's all about premier league survival. That's it. 

https://www.espn.com/soccer/report?gameId=560393

50 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

How can you blame the others for the ease in which he allowed knockheart to literally walk past him? 

He's our solid defensive midfield player. 

He reminds me of carlos sanchez. Loads of hype about how good he is but we never see him defend well and a liability with how casual and slow on the ball he is. 

I'd have hourihane with luiz in the 3-4-3 set up. 

He was already on a yellow which he got because of an awful pass by Nyland from a goal kick. He dives in on Knockart their and he is off. 

He is first in successful tackles and 3rd in interceptions on the team despite only making 14 appearances in the league. The 4-3-3 pretty much left him hung out to dry defensively. There were games where Mcginn's average position was further forward than Wesley's.  Can't do alot of midfield work when you are playing as a second striker. That left Nakamba overwhelmed time and again in the middle. It's no surprise how much better he looked with an extra CB to help out in the middle vs Burnley. 

Let's see if this works. 

1 minute ago, briny_ear said:

Doesn't mean a thing in the here & now. All that counts is what he has achieved this season.

This season is about survival and so far he is on the mark. 

Wouldn't have started last season in the championship so his performance is the least surprising of all. 

Has a bet going on how many goals he can score while covering as little ground as possible.  Doesn't do near enough goal scoring to justify his complete lack of effort in all other phases of play.  Can't wait til he moves on. 

....And nothing new was learned. Glad we don't have a replay.  Watford screwed themselves royally. 

1 minute ago, villalad21 said:

Back to 4-3-3.........

If we can't defend a championship team with 2 centerbacks we have far bigger problems. 

Just now, Dr_Pangloss said:

Have to say, if the injury is that bad he didn't appear to be in excruciating pain, he's a tough bastard.

That's exactly what I was thinking during the game. Honestly I didn't start worrying til I saw the pictures of the tackle. He look so calm. 

When I tore my ligaments I would have cut my leg off if given the choice. It hurt that bad. 

https://twitter.com/andrew_raeburn/status/1212693347183267840?s=19

Seen this from a few different sources. Needless to say this is the biggest January window since the Darren Bent one. We have to get this right.