Ratings & Reactions: Villa v Leeds

[fifamad]

Garbage performance. We were lucky to be 2 up and still completely messed it up, even with help from the ref, Leeds should of had 2 pens, the score line flatters us, pathetic. 

[WakefieldVillan]

1 hour ago, sheepyvillian said:

Granted, we got beat and it  left me sick as a pig . I thought Leeds were class throughout the whole game and deserved their victory.  You usually get what you deserve in this game. We played our part in what was a pulsating game, a shame our defending proved to be an Achilles heel, yet again. Let's not get too downbeat, we've got to bounce back as quick as possible, it's not a time to wallow. I'm quite confident we'll be in the mix come the end of the season.

As for Villa fans who bet on us to lose, I don't care how you dress it up, shame on you. Nothing more than blood money.

I take that is referenced to me, which is fair enough if that's your opinion of what it is.

For me, I like the occasional bet and I will bet how I view how the game is going, regardless of it being for or against Villa and at 2-0 we still looked like we were going to concede goals and yes that is not a good sign and one we need to eradicate ASAP.

I would much preferred to be celebrating a Villa win this evening I assure you but unfortunately we came up short.  

[TRO]

It was interesting listening to the after match comments from Dean Smith, Biesla & Jimmy Floyd....also Adam Forshaw, who I thought was immense.

• Fitness was an interesting one, where Forshaw said we are very fit now....it showed...but it seems he meant they haven't always been...Their running off the ball was a lesson for us and a display of intensity, we couldn't match.
• Working Off the ball where Dean said "one of our worst games in that sense"....He was clearly rattled with our defensive offering....individual errors again taking centre stage.
• The stats showed quite a marked difference in favour of Leeds, having watched it back, they made more sense.

Despite all the plaudits going to Leeds particularly in reference to their " Ratting" and work off the ball, their closing down and pressing our better players to nullify the threat...we was 1 minute away from getting a draw from the top of the league team.....we are doing some things very well and others very badly.

We are like the curates egg good in parts.

There is too much work to do to get Auto's, but Play offs is still possible if we can cure our ills and play like a team who knows how to win.

I know we will buy players in January, I just hope they are ones who make a difference as opposed to making up the numbers, like we have done in the past.

The last 2 home games have seen 78,000 witness us struggle to contain 2 teams who have managed to score 5 goals against us.

We really do need to reverse this trend....roll on Jan 2019.

 

 

[TRO]

when you concede from superb play its disappointing, but when you get out muscled yet again from Pontus Janssen and Jay Rodriguez......(when does the penny drop and we get centre halves who can give us a fighting chance)......ITS GAULING

[Biskitt]

I agree with pretty much everything that’s been said so far but this game also showed how much we need someone like Janssen at the back. A tall, strong, physically imposing centre back who also organises the defence would do wonders for us

[choffer]

7 hours ago, Michelsen said:

Oh, and thanks for the plethora of useless right backs, Steve. Comes in really handy when we’re missing a CB and an LB and have no effing back up!

Thanks. That means a lot. 

[Davkaus]

1 hour ago, WakefieldVillan said:

I take that is referenced to me, which is fair enough if that's your opinion of what it is.

For me, I like the occasional bet and I will bet how I view how the game is going, regardless of it being for or against Villa and at 2-0 we still looked like we were going to concede goals and yes that is not a good sign and one we need to eradicate ASAP.

I would much preferred to be celebrating a Villa win this evening I assure you but unfortunately we came up short.  

I bet on us losing as well. I'll be damned if I let someone tell me I'm not a proper fan for being able to tell which way the wind is blowing. And 'blood money'?! Overreaction much?! 

I always want the Villa to win, even if I have money on it going the other way. A nice payoff sure eases the pain though.

FWIW, I bet on a Villa win and both teams to score, then cashed out at 2-1 and got very generous odds on a Leeds win. Couldn't have played it better. And I'm still **** fuming we lost, even though it was incredibly predictable.

 

[Junxs]

Can't believe the negativity on here, we took the game to the last kick of the match to lose to top of the table. In parts we were the better side but our defence let us down in the last minute of the game. Thought it was a very entertaining game.

Lets not forget that was a make shift defence with 2 regulars missing from it through injury, again - it was against top placed team in the league.

Some of the comments are just laughable, especially the person who said we cant shake the losing mentality - thats our first defeat in 8 games (and weve been playing nothing but promotion hopefuls during that run).

I'm still buzzing with excitement despite the defeat and look forward to every game

 

[El Zen]

42 minutes ago, choffer said:

Thanks. That means a lot. 

You’re welcome. I hoped it would. 

[stegzy]

Disappointing today. Real shame that O’hare wasn’t involved as I believe he is the only player that can take over, like for like, in the Grealish role. Although he hasn’t played that role before, neither had Grealish until he took it on. Someone in the middle with composure and ability to hold the ball is so important in this system and I think he is the only other player that could possibly do it.

Was also disappointed he didn’t put Revan in as although he has only played youth team matches before at least he has played a lot of matches in that role and knows it whereas Bree has probably only ever played a handful of matches in that position. 

Also thought the Hogan change wasn’t right and it was the same last match as we lost a lot of creativity after he came on.

still loving it since Smith came in and I can understand he had a game plan knowing our depleted teams best chance was to nick it off them and rely on our attack to score goals, but it’s a shame to not see us really on the front foot, going for it like we have been in his other games.

lets just prey that Grealish and Tuanzebe are back sooner rather than later as until then I believe we may struggle. UTV!

 

[The Fun Factory]

47 minutes ago, Junxs said:

Can't believe the negativity on here, we took the game to the last kick of the match to lose to top of the table. In parts we were the better side but our defence let us down in the last minute of the game. Thought it was a very entertaining game.

Lets not forget that was a make shift defence with 2 regulars missing from it through injury, again - it was against top placed team in the league.

Some of the comments are just laughable, especially the person who said we cant shake the losing mentality - thats our first defeat in 8 games (and weve been playing nothing but promotion hopefuls during that run).

I'm still buzzing with excitement despite the defeat and look forward to every game

 

I think it is negative on the fact we are 11th in  our third season in Championship and points wise worse off than at the same stage last  year. 

[jjaacckk91]

11 hours ago, sir_gary_cahill said:

He’s class, that’s why (the kid on the wing)

I won't deny he looked a good player, I was fuming when I wrote that. 

But I just watched their goals back after a sleep,

1st one he picks the ball up at the edge of the pitch, and Elmo just stands off and lets him inside the box and keep coming inside, his positioning and body shape is all wrong, he should be forcing him down the line.

The third goal I'm not even convinced he needs to touch the ball it looks to be going out of play, but if he does the option he chose makes absolutely no sense, he can see the play in front of him, where our players are, it's just a poor header to set their player up.

 

Point I'm trying to make is, no matter if the kid was the next Messi, it wasn't his brilliance that made those goals, it was poor decision making from Elmo both times.

[romavillan]

It's a bit of both for me, Clark was great and I think will be a good player. He was well up for it, as were all the Leeds side. Elmo was poor too, bad combination for us down the right!

Leeds are the best side in this league for my money, Bielsa has done a very very good job there. He has had a preseason and Smith hasn't. We are still putting the staff together to get things right and they went in to the first game prepared. Bruce sabotaged our season by crippling the squad and leaving us with a very unbalanced group of players. At half time I don't think there's a lot of money on 2-3 even from die hard Leeds fans if they're honest. It was a look at what Smith and O'Kelly and some good support staff could do for us and it was a good game till we got knackered. At about 75 mins in we were spent and they were STILL full of running, we should poach their doctor

Not too down heartened for the long term but that was massively gutting, all the frailties we knew had been created in the summer came home to roost big time, since the end of the transfer window we've mostly all been saying we had no cover in central defence and left back and needed a better keeper. When we were a couple of goals up against a very good side that all came home to roost, as did the difference in conditioning between the sides, that's longer term and down to how they worked with their players in the summer and it'll be nearly impossible to catch up in that regard now.

Longer term though we are finally going the right way about it, we will be addressing the problems with the squad so we won't always be fighting with one arm behind our backs.

[ChrisVillan]

Obvious Bluenose is obvious  

[AstonMartyn88]

It was interesting that Jansson in particular (and probably others but that’s who the cameras were focussed on) was regularly taking an energy supplement type thing during the game. I wonder if we do that? If not maybe we should as it might help us avoid being knackered after 70odd minutes. 

[Brumstopdogs]

Overall an entertaining game but Leeds looked the better team on the day and if anyone deserved to win it was Leeds.

We missed some real key players (Grealish / Axel) and  if we had them the result could well have been in our favour.

Looking at the stats:

Shots on target: Villa 2 Leeds 7

Pass success: Villa 60% Leeds 79%

Aerial Dual Success: Villa 48% Leeds 52%

Tackles: Villa 9 Leeds 18

The players with over 25 passes: Villa (Nyland 44, Elmo 32) Leeds (9 separate players)

Leeds are playing the way we want to play - let's just hope given time Smith can implement his ideas to get us there.

UTV.

[WakefieldVillan]

10 hours ago, Davkaus said:

I bet on us losing as well. I'll be damned if I let someone tell me I'm not a proper fan for being able to tell which way the wind is blowing. And 'blood money'?! Overreaction much?! 

I always want the Villa to win, even if I have money on it going the other way. A nice payoff sure eases the pain though.

FWIW, I bet on a Villa win and both teams to score, then cashed out at 2-1 and got very generous odds on a Leeds win. Couldn't have played it better. And I'm still **** fuming we lost, even though it was incredibly predictable.

 

That's exactly how I see it, in fact usually if I back the other team when we are winning, it turns out more comfortable a win You played it very well and like you I am hurting this morning, living fairly local to Leeds, they are all coming out of the woodwork to give me grief, guys I haven't spoken to in years.

I would love their bubble to burst and for revenge in the play offs with a stronger defence and Jack! 

[TheStagMan]

Wow! The over-reactions in here are mind blowing.

Yes we lost, and i am as pissed off as anyone, but we lost to a last minute winner against arguably the best team in the league. A team that are relentless and have been working on this style of play all season and during the mythical pre-season. A team in a fine run of form.

We on the other hand have been trying to recover from a dysmal srart to the season and turn things around and we still managed to give them a good game.

And thats without our two most influential players in Grelish and Tuanzebe. Our defence as we know is shaky and we have a keeper who would struggle to catch a cold. We had to play a player who isnt deemed good enough to play in his natural position in a position he is even worse at, this left our defense even more of a mess than usual.

What can Smith do about that? I see people criticising him for being too gung-ho, but being all defensive under the last manager didnt work either, so i am all for the try to outscore the opposition approach.

And to my mind thats what we did, we threw everything at them at the start of the second half to get the third. It didnt work, but it was a worthwhile gamble, unfortunately it sapped all our energy and for the last 25 mins we looked knackered, yet we were still going for it right up to the end, until piss poor defending cost us the point.

We had limited options on the bench, with two that came on just back from injury.

I'm more interested in how the next few games pan out and what Smith does in the window.

Edited December 24, 2018 by TheStagMan

[Rugeley Villa]

I honestly weren’t convinced at half time that we were going to win. I knew we needed to go 3.0 up to properly kill the game off. They got the important 3rd goal of the game, and we completely went to pieces. It was embarrassing to watch tbf. Awful second half apart from first 5 minutes where I thought we had them by the bollocks. The last twice now we’ve been poor, and don’t look the same team going forward. 

[striker]

11 hours ago, stegzy said:

Disappointing today. Real shame that O’hare wasn’t involved as I believe he is the only player that can take over, like for like, in the Grealish role. Although he hasn’t played that role before, neither had Grealish until he took it on. Someone in the middle with composure and ability to hold the ball is so important in this system and I think he is the only other player that could possibly do it.

Was also disappointed he didn’t put Revan in as although he has only played youth team matches before at least he has played a lot of matches in that role and knows it whereas Bree has probably only ever played a handful of matches in that position. 

Also thought the Hogan change wasn’t right and it was the same last match as we lost a lot of creativity after he came on.

still loving it since Smith came in and I can understand he had a game plan knowing our depleted teams best chance was to nick it off them and rely on our attack to score goals, but it’s a shame to not see us really on the front foot, going for it like we have been in his other games.

lets just prey that Grealish and Tuanzebe are back sooner rather than later as until then I believe we may struggle. UTV!

 

Agree with most of that until the last sentence of the last paragraph. I don’t think Villa will struggle over the next set of fixtures. Repeat the general performance level shown in the previous fixture list against the best teams in the Championship and Villa will go on a winning run which should see them close the the gap at the top.

I have also been very disappointed that Smith has not started O’Hare over the last two games. As stated above he is the only player Villa have who is comparable in style of play to Grealish. Marcelo Bielsa wasn’t afraid to trust his younger players in a very important game yesterday and it paid off handsomely for him.

I haven’t seen Revan play but by all accounts he is yet another young Villa player who’s improvement is rapid and maybe would have been a better choice than an out of position Bree?

I just hope that DS isn’t letting the pressure of getting Villa promoted interfere with his footballing philosophy intergrating young players into a pass and move style?

Edited December 24, 2018 by striker