TRO Posted September 23, 2019 Share Posted September 23, 2019 (edited) 18 minutes ago, MaVilla said: Whether we will or won't stay up I don't know, but let's not forget for example, Newcastle were in the relegation zone after 10 games last season with zero wins (2 points I think?), and they survived. Whether we will who knows, but we can survive if we can improve and click.....if we don't...... We could have won every game and go on a losing run and go down......We owe it to ourselves to stop the talking ourselves down and get behind the boys at Villa park especially ( but think the away fans are amazing too)....as we are to date. We have no idea that season will mirror the last 6 games...We might go on another run. I see errors in our play......but I also see the good bits too, despite the defeats, the goals for at Spurs and Arsenal were Premiership class.....We are a gnats wotsit away from a complete performance. Edited September 23, 2019 by TRO 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted September 23, 2019 Share Posted September 23, 2019 I thought Liverpol was our fourth fixture, but if we win the next three then with that momentum we can get something from the City game, not expecting it, but I wouldn't completely rule out either. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post gurru991 Posted September 23, 2019 Visiting Supporter Popular Post Share Posted September 23, 2019 10 minutes ago, MaVilla said: Whether we will or won't stay up I don't know, but let's not forget for example, Newcastle were in the relegation zone after 10 games last season with zero wins (2 points I think?), and they survived. Whether we will who knows, but we can survive if we can improve and click.....if we don't...... Leicester were at the bottom of the premier league for four & a half months in 14/15 but managed to win 7 from 9 at the end to finish 12th. It is early days yet and back to back wins can change everything very quickly. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRO Posted September 23, 2019 Share Posted September 23, 2019 3 minutes ago, Zatman said: You think we can win or take a point at Man City So shall we save all the expenses and give them the game? Its a good job Norwich went in positive.....if you think you can you can, if you think you can't you can't......its simple but true. We had a game against the mighty Liverpool at Villa Park many moons ago ...the forward line of 3 was all around 20 years old, we went 5-0 up and ran riot.....until Ray Kennedy got a consolation for them......that's what a fighting spirit can deliver. It doesn't matter what happens this year.....We must not under any circumstances take a defeatist attitude in to the stadiums.....on the pitch and off the pitch, home or away. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRO Posted September 23, 2019 Share Posted September 23, 2019 (edited) 38 minutes ago, VillaCas said: This time last year the team were 13th in the Championship under Steve Bruce and were booed off the pitch after losing 1-2 at home to Sheffield Wednesday Just 12 months later we have a young passionate manager who is a fan, a young developing squad who are trying to play attractive attacking football and we are playing in the PL after an amazing record breaking run and an incredible play off final victory What a turn around - We should be eternally grateful to DS for the incredible job he has done in a few months and we should be right behind him as he tries to steer a path to safety in the PL - season after season we begged for a team that even if they didn’t win would at least play open, positive football - we’ve got one now and are we happy? Are we f***!! Dean Smith has a free hit from me this season - and if we should go down ( which I don’t think we will) he will have my full support to bring us back up next season Im absolutely shocked at the level of criticism after the Arsenal game and I’d be ashamed if DS or one of the players were to read the comments - unbelievable Frustration moves in mysterious ways.....I am not going to pretend and insult peoples intelligence.....the errors are galling and I would guess the players themselves would agree, but.... There are many things to be cheerful about.....We are not being torn apart....its mainly running out of steam....and there is some fine moments of football we are to be credited with. We are much better than last season in our general play....despite the results, just need to turn that corner and collect points.....we are not far off, it will soon come. Edited September 23, 2019 by TRO 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomaszk Posted September 23, 2019 Share Posted September 23, 2019 33 minutes ago, VillaCas said: This time last year the team were 13th in the Championship under Steve Bruce and were booed off the pitch after losing 1-2 at home to Sheffield Wednesday Just 12 months later we have a young passionate manager who is a fan, a young developing squad who are trying to play attractive attacking football and we are playing in the PL after an amazing record breaking run and an incredible play off final victory What a turn around - We should be eternally grateful to DS for the incredible job he has done in a few months and we should be right behind him as he tries to steer a path to safety in the PL - season after season we begged for a team that even if they didn’t win would at least play open, positive football - we’ve got one now and are we happy? Are we f***!! Dean Smith has a free hit from me this season - and if we should go down ( which I don’t think we will) he will have my full support to bring us back up next season Im absolutely shocked at the level of criticism after the Arsenal game and I’d be ashamed if DS or one of the players were to read the comments - unbelievable What a **** brilliant year. Incredible. I think it's probably the most enjoyable I can remember fully. And I wasn't really concentrating for the first few months, I was out of Villa big time, Dean Smith has brought me back. Come on though, we aren't running a charity here. Dean knows that. If it was to fall apart and by May we were getting trounced every week putting in nothing performances, he wouldn't complain at getting the sack. I don't think we'll ever reach that point, the players look to be too up for working hard to slip back into the coma. We're nowhere near that anyway and that's where part of my frustration comes from. We're on the cusp of playing really well but haven't yet. It's right there and only a few tweaks are needed for us to click I think. Even without playing well we should have at least 4 more points. VAR doing us up the shaft a few times isn't helping either. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villalad21 Posted September 23, 2019 Share Posted September 23, 2019 (edited) 27 minutes ago, Tomaszk said: What a **** brilliant year. Incredible. I think it's probably the most enjoyable I can remember fully. And I wasn't really concentrating for the first few months, I was out of Villa big time, Dean Smith has brought me back. Come on though, we aren't running a charity here. Dean knows that. If it was to fall apart and by May we were getting trounced every week putting in nothing performances, he wouldn't complain at getting the sack. I don't think we'll ever reach that point, the players look to be too up for working hard to slip back into the coma. We're nowhere near that anyway and that's where part of my frustration comes from. We're on the cusp of playing really well but haven't yet. It's right there and only a few tweaks are needed for us to click I think. Even without playing well we should have at least 4 more points. VAR doing us up the shaft a few times isn't helping either. Glory hunter detected. You stick by your club through thick and thin. Edited September 23, 2019 by villalad21 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAMAICAN-VILLAN Posted September 23, 2019 Share Posted September 23, 2019 1 hour ago, useless said: I think we can take ten points from the next four games. If that happens things will be looking a lot better, and might shut one or two up (no offence). None taken, i'm one of the "More intelligent ones" 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillanousOne Posted September 23, 2019 Share Posted September 23, 2019 The team worked so hard against Arsenal and genuinely for large spells of the game we either matched them in terms of our attacking play or looked the better team. McGinn, Trez and Grealish worked so hard to track back, but I think we try so hard to defend as a team and close players down that we forget we need outlets further up the pitch to pick up possession and keep it. Dean clearly expects his attacking players to defend as well as attack but this backfires when we are trying to withstand large periods of attacking pressure, we press, close down, get possession back then lose possession, time after time until someone makes a mistake. We don't push out quickly enough and have developed a suicidal mentality of giving away possession in dangerous areas late on in matches. Anyone who doesn't think this is down to the way Dean has us playing is baffling, our work ethic is both one of the best things about the team and the thing that is holding us back because we can't react when things change on the pitch and we lose concentration too easily. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave-R Posted September 23, 2019 Share Posted September 23, 2019 1 hour ago, VillaCas said: This time last year the team were 13th in the Championship under Steve Bruce and were booed off the pitch after losing 1-2 at home to Sheffield Wednesday Just 12 months later we have a young passionate manager who is a fan, a young developing squad who are trying to play attractive attacking football and we are playing in the PL after an amazing record breaking run and an incredible play off final victory What a turn around - We should be eternally grateful to DS for the incredible job he has done in a few months and we should be right behind him as he tries to steer a path to safety in the PL - season after season we begged for a team that even if they didn’t win would at least play open, positive football - we’ve got one now and are we happy? Are we f***!! Dean Smith has a free hit from me this season - and if we should go down ( which I don’t think we will) he will have my full support to bring us back up next season Im absolutely shocked at the level of criticism after the Arsenal game and I’d be ashamed if DS or one of the players were to read the comments - unbelievable I feel the exact same, spot on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillanousOne Posted September 23, 2019 Share Posted September 23, 2019 I doubt anyone wants to see Dean Smith not succeed or blame him for what has happened so far, but it's a forum, we will always discuss what is happening, especially what is going wrong. I always thought we would be lucky to get to January in a position of safety, we have an almost completely new team, all of whom are just starting to gel and work together, but each game I see more improvements. But I also see a lot of worrying habits and issues that can't be ignored, there is no room for sentiment and precious time to get things right. I hope and believe Dean can get things right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave-R Posted September 23, 2019 Share Posted September 23, 2019 (edited) You could also make an argument that when rebuilding a squad that a certain percentage of those players brought in won't actually work out. We pretty much replaced a first eleven and filled a subs bench with new players, dont know about you guys but i knew not everyone were going to work out. We have done pretty well so far, i would say so for a squad put together from just over 100 mill. At times we have more than held it against opponents and they have much better quality compared to us. We have a squad which is trying to figure out if they can become the next bunch of elite footballers in the toughest league in the world, it's certainly not an easy thing to accomplish by any means. All the games that we've played I would say our downfall in games has been officiating, fitness and pressure. We can't control the officiating, however our fitness levels need a dramatic rise as well as applying pressure and dealing with it quickly. I will say that at this level in our circumstance with a new squad that after 6 games, you can't really expect a newly formed squad to deal with that pressure for a full on 90 mins, nor just magically have the fitness to match the quality, it has to be raised overtime. Our squad is complete different to Norwhich and sheffield utd, they have not had to have a full remake like us and in keeping the majority of there squads together, they have more than kept a core going. We maybe very late adaptors to the other two clubs we went up with and that's fine if we just survive. Our player have the ability to adapt, but back upto the top where I said not everyone who we signed will be cut out for this jump, January will be the perfect time to hopefully put right some of the positions we have got wrong. It's more than looking like we will need to spend big on the wings and a striker, plus a left-back, if we need to do that to raise the bar then so be it. I don't see the point in getting on anyone's back though as there are to many factors coming into play. We all knew or should of known that the Prem was going to be tough for us especially, if we pull through this season then im happy but im also happy for Smith to try bring us back up of we do go down. Smith earnt my patience and loyalty, yes its frustrating being turned over by an arsenal team we had in the bag, we need to calm down abit about it and keep the support flowing. I bet Smith himself wasnt to happy about it all, he will know how he and the players went wrong. Working through that kind of problem of dealing with that kind of pressure of being an extra man up, twice, in two games now is not something i would like to have to try and work our swuad through and get out of them. It must be very tough to try and route out bad habits our squad seems to of picked up and you can see that we have picked up one hell of a bad habit in the way of sitting back and letting teams get at us when we are tired. If we can deal with the fitness level where 20 mins of yesterday game we had shut down and they took it to us, if we can deal with that then hopefully it will cut out that pressure were inviting onto us late in the game. Glad I'm not a Coach or Manager dealing with the problems of a whole squad, bet it's some tough work. Edited September 23, 2019 by Dave-R 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuffolkVillan Posted September 23, 2019 Share Posted September 23, 2019 4 hours ago, VillaCas said: This time last year the team were 13th in the Championship under Steve Bruce and were booed off the pitch after losing 1-2 at home to Sheffield Wednesday Just 12 months later we have a young passionate manager who is a fan, a young developing squad who are trying to play attractive attacking football and we are playing in the PL after an amazing record breaking run and an incredible play off final victory What a turn around - We should be eternally grateful to DS for the incredible job he has done in a few months and we should be right behind him as he tries to steer a path to safety in the PL - season after season we begged for a team that even if they didn’t win would at least play open, positive football - we’ve got one now and are we happy? Are we f***!! Dean Smith has a free hit from me this season - and if we should go down ( which I don’t think we will) he will have my full support to bring us back up next season Im absolutely shocked at the level of criticism after the Arsenal game and I’d be ashamed if DS or one of the players were to read the comments - unbelievable Couldn't agree more. Well said that man 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LakotaDakota Posted September 24, 2019 Share Posted September 24, 2019 (edited) 4 hours ago, TRO said: We are losing too many games, but they are so close......its not far away from clicking, but we do have to work on our shortfalls......some of the positives are definite improvements, they are just not transferring in to points. The worrying thing i guess is despite being generally abysmal in the season we went down 13 of our defeats were actually "close" by 1 goal, Of those 13 we scored in 8 games & we were actually ahead in 3 of those 8 games before going on to lose. We were also involved in 5 score draws, we were ahead in 2 of those before going on to draw. Of our 27 total defeats only 5 were by more than 2 goals so it's not like we were getting completely hammered every week and the odd goal here or there could have made quite a difference over the season as a whole. Had we managed to hang on in those 5 games we were winning it wouldn't have been enough on it's own to have any chance of staying up but a win can do wonders for the overall confidence and who knows maybe we would have got something out of a few of those games we lost by 1 had we won the previous game rather than going into it after throwing away a lead. I know you have to take every game as it comes and prepare accordingly but imagine the difference between going in to training this week to prepare for Burnley after beating Arsenal away and being in 13th place on 7 points compared to going in on the back of getting beat by 10 men after being 2-1 up with less than 10 minutes to go and now being sat in 18th, 2 points off the bottom of the league. This league can be very unforgiving and it is quite easy to find yourself in a bit of a hole that is hard to get out of Edited September 24, 2019 by LakotaDakota 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rightdm00 Posted September 24, 2019 Share Posted September 24, 2019 (edited) Just re-watched the game and I still cant figure out why dropped so deep in the second half. It just kind of happen. After Mings run down the left Arsenal got a couple minutes of sustained possession and we just kept dropping deeper and then stayed there. We tried to play out of the back a couple times in that span but the ball stopped sticking. Smith definitely could have taken that moment to shore up the MF or throw on Keinan to help provide another outlet up top. Having watched how drastically our performance changed 1st half to second I am fully convinced that it's a fitness issue. There were a couple of attacks early in the 2nd half that not one of our midfielders got anywhere near Arsenal's 18 yard box. Arsenal didn't even really up the tempo we just kinda let them have it. Third team (Spurs, Everton, and Arsenal) where our defensive line was almost forced into our own 18 yard box. If you want to say its a nerves thing, like as the game goes on we just try hold what we have, I can believe that but I definitely feel our stamina is not where it needs to be. Edited September 24, 2019 by Rightdm00 Fixed bad english 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zab6359 Posted September 24, 2019 Share Posted September 24, 2019 7 hours ago, useless said: Well he or any other manager is going to be partially judged against how much money he's had to spend on players. If we were to get relegated having spent £100m plus it will be seen as a massvie failure. Why? some clubs spend that on 2-3 players we totally refreshed the squad as we had no squad left we were starting with the bare basics we had to make wholesale changes and fortunately with the play off win we had the money to do that.......if we had come up automatically and has limited money to spend kept the same squad as we had last year I would have betted on us being certain to get relegated, as we are I'm fairly confident we can give this league a good crack. But if we go down playing well and putting up a fight it is what it is and I'd trust DS to get us back up. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A'Villan Posted September 24, 2019 Share Posted September 24, 2019 9 minutes ago, Rightdm00 said: Just re-watched the game and I still cant figure out why dropped so deep in the second half. It just kind of happen. After Mings run down the left Arsenal got a couple minutes of sustained possession and we just kept dropping deeper and then stayed there. We tried to play out of the back a couple times in that span but the ball stopped sticking. Smith definitely could have taken that moment to shore up the MF or throw on Keinan to help provide another outlet up top. Having watched how drastically our performance changed 1st half to second I am fully convinced that it's a fitness issue. There were a couple of attacks early in the 2nd half that not one of our midfielders got no where near near Arsenal's 18 yard box. Arsenal didn't even really up the tempo we just kinda let them have it. Third team (Spurs, Everton, and Arsenal) where our defensive line was almost forced into our own 18 yard box. If you want to say its a nerves thing, like as the game goes on we just try hold what we have, I can believe that but I definitely feel our stamina is not where it needs to be. Stamina plays a huge roll in the latter stages of play. Don't know if that's part of the issue (it might be). In any case Smith states post-match he wanted us to get men forward and press on for more goals, where we decided to sit deep instead. I think Smith got a lot right if I'm honest. We had more shots on target than Arsenal and we had the lead, why change things by adding to midfield or bringing in Davis? Smith brought on Elmo after we regained the lead, which I think was actually a good substitution, if not a really good substitution. Here's why.. Arsenal had been constantly getting to their left side byline, despite subbing of the left attacking midfielder when their RB was sent off. Perhaps a tactical ploy.. Whatever the reason, the heat maps show it was their left side byline in their attacking third seeing the action. So bringing on Elmo meant a few positives in my opinion, they are.. We kept our formation, our wide outlet options, we had a defensively capable winger with fresh legs there to cover, as well as being able to provide crosses (8 assists last season?) You've got to remember we're winning the game and despite Arsenal's threat and control over ball retention, we're creating some real chances. McGinn could've had a hatrick. We've made two individual errors, with Engels playing the man and not the ball in the penalty area, and Mings making a half arsed clearance that fell to an open man in the box. Honestly, on another day, with a bit more composure and confidence, we walk a way with 3 points and no questions are really asked about what went on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A'Villan Posted September 24, 2019 Share Posted September 24, 2019 1 hour ago, LakotaDakota said: The worrying thing i guess is despite being generally abysmal in the season we went down 13 of our defeats were actually "close" by 1 goal, Of those 13 we scored in 8 games & we were actually ahead in 3 of those 8 games before going on to lose. We were also involved in 5 score draws, we were ahead in 2 of those before going on to draw. Of our 27 total defeats only 5 were by more than 2 goals so it's not like we were getting completely hammered every week and the odd goal here or there could have made quite a difference over the season as a whole. Had we managed to hang on in those 5 games we were winning it wouldn't have been enough on it's own to have any chance of staying up but a win can do wonders for the overall confidence and who knows maybe we would have got something out of a few of those games we lost by 1 had we won the previous game rather than going into it after throwing away a lead. I know you have to take every game as it comes and prepare accordingly but imagine the difference between going in to training this week to prepare for Burnley after beating Arsenal away and being in 13th place on 7 points compared to going in on the back of getting beat by 10 men after being 2-1 up with less than 10 minutes to go and now being sat in 18th, 2 points off the bottom of the league. This league can be very unforgiving and it is quite easy to find yourself in a bit of a hole that is hard to get out of This is a good post. Highlighted part resonates with me. I think there are some key differences to that season though. The first being that Alan Hutton was our best defender that season. That is not the case now. We had a GD of like -50, 20 something worse off than the next team. The second being that Micah Richards was club captain that season. That is not the case now. We have a leadership quality within the group that will bring out our best. While losing Benteke could be seen as a parallel to losing Tammy, and the general upheaval of personnel throughout the squad similar. It's such a different case. We also lost Delph that year and Vlaar who seemed like a reasonably good captain to have. But I take your point, it's not enough to just be in every contest, we're going to have to win our fair share too. Fulham is actually a good case for a team that performed reasonably well but got shat on by results (while Jokanovic was at the helm) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave-R Posted September 24, 2019 Share Posted September 24, 2019 2 hours ago, A'Villan said: Stamina plays a huge roll in the latter stages of play. Don't know if that's part of the issue (it might be). In any case Smith states post-match he wanted us to get men forward and press on for more goals, where we decided to sit deep instead. I think Smith got a lot right if I'm honest. We had more shots on target than Arsenal and we had the lead, why change things by adding to midfield or bringing in Davis? Smith brought on Elmo after we regained the lead, which I think was actually a good substitution, if not a really good substitution. Here's why.. Arsenal had been constantly getting to their left side byline, despite subbing of the left attacking midfielder when their RB was sent off. Perhaps a tactical ploy.. Whatever the reason, the heat maps show it was their left side byline in their attacking third seeing the action. So bringing on Elmo meant a few positives in my opinion, they are.. We kept our formation, our wide outlet options, we had a defensively capable winger with fresh legs there to cover, as well as being able to provide crosses (8 assists last season?) You've got to remember we're winning the game and despite Arsenal's threat and control over ball retention, we're creating some real chances. McGinn could've had a hatrick. We've made two individual errors, with Engels playing the man and not the ball in the penalty area, and Mings making a half arsed clearance that fell to an open man in the box. Honestly, on another day, with a bit more composure and confidence, we walk a way with 3 points and no questions are really asked about what went on. I think you hit the nail on the head there. Our opponents are making the most of there chances and more attempts are going in than what it is for us when we attempt on goal. Again we could of had more than the two goals we had, Mcginn a hatrick, Wes at least two goals, Jack a couple of goals, Mings certainly should of had one with that header, simply they just don't seem to want to go in. Alot of the time we seem to be firing blanks and there's two times that is unforgivable, during football and during sex. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pimlico_Villa Posted September 24, 2019 Share Posted September 24, 2019 I can understand the success of last season fuelling the optimism for this one, but we’re pretty much playing a different game this year. The PL punishes inconsistency and technical incompetence severely, this isn’t a league where you can get by on heart. This is why I don’t share the optimism. For all the talk of great support and getting behind the team, that counts for nothing. We lack quality, composure, fitness, pace and tactical nouse. Beneath our starting XI we have players that have no right being anywhere near the PL and Elmo coming on on Sunday epitomises this perfectly. All round, Smith and these players are just too green. He said on Sunday “...to close games out by going to get the next one”, in which he is referring to goals. That to me shows he doesn’t understand the PL. To close out games in this league you don’t need to score another 5, you have to be intelligent in possession and manage the game. It’s an honourable approach, but not for the PL. For every positive development we make, this inexperience and lack of quality means we’ll get an Arsenal-like situation. Unless Smith gets up the curve quickly and we supplement the team with proper quality and pace in January, then I just don’t see the optimism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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