jackbauer24

Losing faith.

It's like the kid who has the best Top Trump card who just keeps winning. The second they lose that card you realise they don't even know how to play. You can't be THAT much of a one man team, especially after the summer spending spree.

Line ups are poor, midfield is confused, tactics are none existent, substitutions are predictable and there seems to be no understanding of how the opposition play differs from team to team.

Thank you but you, like Mings and McGinn, have reached your ceiling. We need some proper quality now. You cant just have plan A being "let Grealish run the game" and no plan B.

Change at the end of the season if we have any ambition. No room for sentimentality unfortunately.

Didn't deserve anything anyway. Two awful teams playing error strewn horrific antifootball with an absolute dirth of any quality. Newcastle arrive awful and still shaded it, least theirs was a intentional goal!

Watkins, worst game in a Villa shirt, couldn't hold a thing. ALL of the midfield horrific. Barkley just gets worse and worse, it's farscial. Defence, Konsa onky one any good. Mings made Newcastle look threatening from nothing. Elmo and Targett can't beat a man. Elmo can't defend either.

Wrong team too. Just awful, awful, awful.

Glad it was a Friday, can forget this and have a football free weekend. The drop off in form has been horrendous and statistically im sure we must be a relegation tea since the turn of the year. Season done, delighted we have the points we do so relegation off cards but surprised if another win this season. We have nothing about us.

47 minutes ago, Dave-R said:

Benteke's would feel like having what we have already in Davis, Neither can score.

Yeah there's making a point and then there's ridiculous statements... Benteke rarely scores (these days), Davis will NEVER score! Benteke has five goals this season... Davis won't score that many in the Premier League in his entire career! He's only got two at Championship level so I wouldn't be confident he'll reach 5 in that league over is career either!!

Of course, he just needs a loan then he'll come back world class...

I don't think we're in with a chance of Top 4, but it's almost a little insulting we're not even in the conversation in the BBC article by Danny Murphy. Mentions West Ham, Everton, Arsenal and Spurs - all but Everton of which we'd be ahead of if we win our games in hand.

It's a bit like someone insulting your parents instead of you; I'm happy to point out our deficiencies but everyone else should have a little respect for what we've achieved to this point.

18 hours ago, StanBalaban said:

Both Kim and Terri Bauer from 24.

15 hours ago, rjw63 said:

Yes!

Kim so easy on the eye,lovely bit of clunge...but **** me if she wasn't always being kidnapped, shot, blown up, or generally getting in Jack's way.

Clearly some people missed my ever so subtle nomination on page 4... 

While it is to be expected, and the progression has been huge, our lack of depth is going to bite us on the ass for the remainder of the season and I'm thankful we have as many points as we do to leave us not worrying about relegation.

If our luck had held out we may have snuck in to a European spot but I think that dream will be dead by the end of March given the injuries and form. Grealish is an obvious loss but Cash is right up there as one of our biggest players with a massive drop in quality in his replacement. Barkley hasn't been good since his return and I think our minimal squad rotation is beginning to hurt - although looking at the quality of the squad you understand Smith's reluctance to use it.

Martinez will give us a chance in a lot of matches (lose him and I'd genuinely be questioning where the points would come from) but I can't see us winning many more games this season without Grealish or Cash.

Some teams we might be able to sneak a win against (WBAs), others we'll be resolute in our defence against and pick up a point but teams that we go at toe to toe will pick us off and destroy us!

I genuinely think Leeds are one of the worst teams we could play at the moment and can see it being embarrassing. If we were playing Man City I'd be more optimistic of a point. Leeds or Wolves at the moment are too fluid and energetic for us but not 'big' enough for us to get our mindset right like we do for the truly top teams.

Could be worse than reverse fixture.

My daughter, even I just wanted her to die every hour.

I'm not going to put that sentence in to context because it's creepier that way...

Just now, sidcow said:

If you look at The Lancet the trials began in April 2020 so the first injections took place 10 months ago. The second injections would have been delivered 7 months ago. 

Why so suspicious? 

Not suspicious, maybe it's phrased wrong. I'm more irritated by the press than the science behind it - it's just pumped out without clarity and understanding.

Press should explain complex issues to the public, not just publish articles like the first one that make no sense whatsoever, as you agree.

In fact, it's things like that which CREATE conspiracy and suspicion as it's so strange.

14 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Don't know.  I've just read another article that states the same. 

Maybe they are missing something about these tests being done 6 or 9 months after injection or something? You can't have 76% which then reduces on second injection, I suspect the measure is taken several months down the line after both injections have occurred. 

Really confused and there hasn't been enough time between the vaccine being approved and them knowing it's effectiveness over time surely?

How can they know it's still effective 6 months later when people started being given them in late January?!

Once again, all this stuff gets pumped out in to the press but no one says 'wait a second, this doesn't make any sense...'

14 hours ago, sidcow said:

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-oxford-jab-more-effective-when-doses-are-delivered-three-months-apart-study-finds-12222938

 

I've read this article, in a few different forms, and it confuses me...

What it seems to suggest is get Jab 1 and you get 76% protection that doesn't drop for three months.

Get Jab 2 after 12 weeks and you increase your protection by about 5% (there's a question of value in that for another time)

But get Jab 2 after 6 weeks and your protection DROPS to 55%. How does that work?!

I almost feel we'd be better off losing one of these games to shake up the team and stop saying it was a hard won point because, Emi aside, it wasn't. Not a single player looked that bothered and we drew because Brighton aren't clinical. I don't have much time for the defence either tonight, they were just light years ahead of the most abject midfield performance of the last few seasons.

The defence were equally as sloppy, lazy and uninterested as everyone else, it's just they could throw in a last ditch tackle or a vertical header every so often. But jeez, Barkley, McGinn, Traore, Luiz and Grealish (in that order) all had awful games. I think they all had close to their worst games in Villa shirts, in the same game!

Brighton had 26 shots!!

I'm not going to depress myself but I'd dread to look at how many succesful passes we had, how many consecutive passes we had or how many touches we had in their half even!! The most one-sided draw in a long time. I'm genuinely amazed that ended 0-0.

And that's now 4 or 5 games where we have been atrocious... We are in for an absolute demolition soon unless we change that midfield. I was hoping the longer break may refresh us but we looked as flat as ever. Even Grealish couldn't control a ball or successfully create an opportunity. It's not a one off game, it's a pattern that's developing and we're looking devoid of ideas and, crucially, effort. We look like we've been worked out.

Martinez is incredible, could have been an absolute rout.

Martinez 10 - couldn't have done a single thing more

Defence 5 - head/body in the way... But any actual football on display?

Barkley & McGinn 2 - neither offered a damn thing. Maybe generous for Barkley, he didn't even run.

Traore 3 - Great ball For Grealish, nothing else.

Luiz and Grealish 4 - poor touches, no vision and couldn't get in the game

Watkins 6 - what can the lad do with that behind him? Not a single opportunity created for him. 

We've come a long way but that shows how much further we have to go.

1. SHA (obvious)

2. Leeds (more recent but they're not a fallen 'great' like I think of Notts Forest, they've always just been scummy)

3. Newcastle (the only 'big' team that have never actually been big)

4. West Ham (cheating to stay in Premier League, daring to wear Claret and Blue and for disappointing me on every holiday as a child when I thought I'd found some unofficial Villa merchandise at a crappy seaside store)

5. Grimsby (only knew one fan, he was a pr*ck - went to a Lincoln away game and place smelt of fish)

6. MK Dons (Want Wimbledon above them forever, never sat right)

7. Cardiff (for more non-football pitch stuff, the afore mentioned crassness at a player's death and the whole badge/colours thing)

8. Hull City (more disrespect from an owner, get what they deserve)

9. Aston Villa under the ownership of Xia (just embarrasing)

10. WBA/Wolves (same team in my eyes, just jealous and will never be the real biggest team in the West Midlands)

I'm worried they might get relegated. There is a chance they could enjoy next season and win a 'title' that they celebrate for the next 100 years. Is it not best to keep them in a perpetual state of depression circling around the drain in an unimportant league rather than even give them moments of happiness?!

But maybe I'm being unfair... I suppose they may sink down League One too and then be dissolved, ultimately selling their ground to Coventry City...

Think the ratings above speak volumes, 170ish votes for MOTM and only 4 of them are for a midfielder and none at all for Grealish. That's rare!

Think the midfield were largely anonymous today, defence superb and Watkins fantastic. Personally I give the MOTM to Cash as he nullified Arsenal's biggest threat.

I just don't know how you look at the last two or three games and decide it is Luiz who needs a rest/is the problem. Or maybe DS read the news wrong and thought it was our Luiz that wasn't available...

I can see the argument for leaving the team completely alone find their form again but this change is odd. Furthermore, in the few positions we have choices, he's chosen less defensive players against a very attacking Arsenal - Traore really needs to work today otherwise we'll be overrun, we can't afford 5 minutes of sublime attacking touch and 85mins of watching the game pass him by...

Personally I think Ek Ghazi and Barkley are battling to see who can have the worst half of football this season. McGinn was in the race but accidentally made one succesful pass... The midfield is anonymous, the defence are sloppy and the team are devoid of ideas and effort.

Watkins only player to come out of this with credit so far.

2 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Good post but I doubt the level of improvement will ever be that great we’ll be challenging for the title. The gap is just too big to fill. I think we can become a comfortable top 8 team again though. 

I thought using a hashtag #sarcasm was a bit unnecessary in my post - but no, I don't think we'll be challenging for the title next season! I meant more the jump was significant this year and really you just need to keep improving.

My mind always goes to F1 when talking about improvement actually, or cars more precisely. I give you £1000 to modify your car and you can probably get it around a track a minute quicker (vague example!) but for every improvement after that it gets harder and more expensive... F1 cars now spend millions to shave 0.01 seconds off a lap time. The same will apply broadly to a team, throw money at a poor team and big strides will be made in a short space of time but the higher we get the more expensive and harder it will be to push forward so steps become smaller and smaller.

17th to, say, 10th would be good. Next year 10th to 6th. 6th to 4th. 4th to 3rd... You see what I'm saying. Just keep showing progress, and that might not even be measurable in direct position - stabilising in top 10 for a few seasons has to be considered great progress based on the last decade.

But I'll dream of a title sometimes... (When I sleep which this post clearly demonstrates I don't do...)

The league is beginning to just show a few cracks where the battles will be.

We seem to have a top 4 which are just beginning to get that consistency and make a little gap start forming (points in the bag vs games in hand)

Then 5th to about 12th where a mini run gets you dreaming of Europe and a blip in form makes you feel like the bubble has burst.

13th to 17th are probably focusing on not having a mare of a second part of the season and know safety, without drama, is their aim.

Then you've got the bottom three who are adrift and hoping to be the one team that escapes with a minor miracle.

We're clearly in that second band - 5th to 12th, so even finishing middle of that pack in 8th/9th would be big year on year progress and I'd be happy if a little anti climactic after our stunning start to the season. Make the same strides again in 21/22 and you're fighting for the title!

We've got 1 point against Burnley this season. Hold that up when delusions of grandeur rears its head again. Ming is the worst culprit, he's been awful all season and we can't keep carrying him. They should never be getting a corner for the first goal, he's complacent and increasingly lazy. You can't keep a player in first XI because he shouts a bit.

Could see this result coming a mile off, not clinical and trying to be too clever. We actually have good players who play well in spells but the complacency today was clear for all to see. Barkley clearly not fit either.

Davis was embarrasing but he won a prize to get that cameo didn't he?! Clearly not a footballer. 

Villa basically freewheeled through that match, Newcastle are horrific based on that performance!

Konsa (MOTM), Nakamba and Watkins all played really really well. Barkley looked shattered from about the 40th minute. Most other players strolled through the match. Weakest link, and even that might be slightly harsh, was Mings who lost the ball a few times and was helped out by Konsa a lot. Shows how far we've come quickly when Mings is now our worst player in the back four.

Solid, easy three points. Almost like a preseason run out which is kinda what we need at the moment!!

12 minutes ago, It's Your Round said:

Just watching his goals back and hearing his song again, I’ll miss the loveable Irish rogue. 

 

Two things to take from that video...

1) The second Norwich got relegated, we didn't need Conor anymore!!

2) The editor needs to step away from the 'effects' button!

36 minutes ago, Kiwivillan said:

Wesley back soon and Traore at CF 71 games 38 goals 11 assists

If that stat is accurate, surely he should be playing there now! That's averaging over a goal every two games...

I can't confirm but I suspect this is the youngest average age starting XI in the FA Cup as well as the most first team debuts in one game?

Would love some stats like that to be proven! Well played, Revan looked particularly impressive.