Premier League 2019-2020 Thread

[useless]

Before the season started people were using the fact that Mings, Grealish, McGinn, and El Ghazi would all be getting regular game time as an argument to rubbish suggestions that all the new signings might mean that we would struggle, and that was without realising that Elmohamady and Taylor would also be playing regularly. Another argument that was put forward was that a lot of our other signings have already played together previously, Nakamba, Wesley and Engles at Club Brugge Koninklijke Voetbalvereniging, Jota and Konsa at Brentford, Targett has played with Grealish at U21 level for England, and of course Hause, Mings, and El Ghazi were already at the club last season. But now we've had a poor start to the season it's suddenly being used as an excuse. Of course it takes a while to bed players in, but we can't use that as a reason for bad results forever.

[villalad21]

1 hour ago, Zatman said:

What mistakes did we make vs West Ham. Was a 0-0 game with little chances

Are you serious mate?

Not taking advantage of 11 vs 10. Any other team in this league would have utilized it better.

[Demitri_C]

We went down to ten men and almost immediately conceded . Yet we have had two opportunities to take advantage and we have failed. Arsenal was alot worse than West ham. Two concede three is a bloody joke.

[Zatman]

1 hour ago, villalad21 said:

Are you serious mate?

Not taking advantage of 11 vs 10. Any other team in this league would have utilized it better.

Crystal Palace drew with 10 men Wolves and Everton this season. United couldnt put away 10 men Southampton

so not every team in the league unless another OTT dramatic post just like most of last season

[VillaChris]

15 hours ago, AVTuco said:

Me too. Looks like we're getting back there soon though.

Fair enough if you want to win a few more games but we'll also be getting a whole new saga with FFP which I'd prefer to avoid. And also probably losing Mings, Grealish, McGinn etc.

The club is generally in a good place again. To go straight back down would be a disaster and must be avoided at all costs e.g. signing some proven final third players in January instead of more potential.

[VillaChris]

3 hours ago, villalad21 said:

I keep hearing we're a young, new team and will improve and learn.

But in the West Ham and Arsenal games we've done the same mistakes twice now and that's evidence that shows we aren't learning at all.

Worrying as hell.

This start reminds me of Lambert's first season.

We had similar points total after 5-6 games. Showed some promise that got people excited but also showed ability to also collapse. We were 1 up to promoted Southampton at half time and ended up losing that 4-1.

We muddled along to December when we looked to be really improving with a fantastic 3-1 win at Liverpool. Everyone knows the game that followed that...

Just when we looked dead and buried in March we sprung back into life with a fantastic front three firing us to safety.

I can see similar happening this season with us getting more consistant from the new year but difference this time is I don't see a great front three at the club so we will need to bring two decent forwards in January imo.

[Wainy316]

It does seem that once a Villa side goes down to 10 men it's a guaranteed defeat.

Just doesn't seem to be the case when we're a man up though.  Aside from the recent two, the PO final against Fulham, the West Brom semi and a frustrating home draw in the Championship against Boro spring to mind.

Edited September 24, 2019 by Wainy316

[Wainy316]

Double Post

Edited September 24, 2019 by Wainy316

[abdulaziz1]

1 hour ago, useless said:

Before the season started people were using the fact that Mings, Grealish, McGinn, and El Ghazi would all be getting regular game time as an argument to rubbish suggestions that all the new signings might mean that we would struggle, and that was without realising that Elmohamady and Taylor would also be playing regularly. Another argument that was put forward was that a lot of our other signings have already played together previously, Nakamba, Wesley and Engles at Club Brugge Koninklijke Voetbalvereniging, Jota and Konsa at Brentford, Targett has played with Grealish at U21 level for England, and of course Hause, Mings, and El Ghazi were already at the club last season. But now we've had a poor start to the season it's suddenly being used as an excuse. Of course it takes a while to bed players in, but we can't use that as a reason for bad results forever.

Well, I'm happy with :

Heaton, Guilbert, Engels, Mings, Grealish, McGinn and probably Nakamba, potentially Luiz as a starters at this. I don't think we had 7 on pitch at a time in the last 10 years that I'd prefer to those. It's just we need more protection to the midfield and we need Targett to step up and be another Guilbert. We'll then focus on our main problem which are wingers and striker.

I'd definitely say that we had an ok window. 

Heaton, Guilbert, Engels, Mings, Nakamba are already up to standard. Luiz showed potential. Targett to get his chance. Konsa is a backup (and one for the future), Hause is a squad player which is an ok option. Our failures so far are the front line. Wesley, Trezeguet, El Ghazi and Jota. 

Jota came to be a squad player so what we saw from him was impressive in that case. We had a return of 2 goals from Wesley, a goal and assist from El Ghazi. That's with them being so bad.

I don't think Wesley and El Ghazi contribution of goals are poor so far. Its their general play and not creating enough. 

When you consider also that El Ghazi haven't started two or three games, then thats something to recognize.

However I'm not defending him as he's dreadful. He's losing confidence and every ball he have I doubt he'd do anything good with it. His decision making is bad. But Trez in the other hand is terrible in terms of decision making.

I don't want to have an early judgements, but only Wesley which I'm really disappointed with (which is the most likely that would turn it around from those). I didn't expect a lot from Trez or Jota, and wasn't sure about El Ghazi in this level.

I think Trez has the ability, but he's far away from ready, and I don't know who was the last player to have a similar decision making as him. Even Hutton looks better.

I think the current answer is changing the formation. 

We're a good team, we aren't playing badly and aren't getting smashed. We're defending greatly (with some costly errors). Gladly these errors aren't because of our defenders being bad, or that they are liability. It's just a case of usual mistakes, but we getting punished for it regulary. 

The only times I remember us being rubbish for a whole match was at Palace. Apart from that we gave Spurs a good first half (haven't seen the second), Bournemouth only played for 16 minutes and punished us. Everton we all know (although they started the game well until we scored). Then West Ham didn't show anything, but again even Utd failed to score against them.

[abdulaziz1]

25 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

Fair enough if you want to win a few more games but we'll also be getting a whole new saga with FFP which I'd prefer to avoid. And also probably losing Mings, Grealish, McGinn etc.

The club is generally in a good place again. To go straight back down would be a disaster and must be avoided at all costs e.g. signing some proven final third players in January instead of more potential.

I agree. Even if those signings were loans.

Edited September 24, 2019 by abdulaziz1

[Demitri_C]

After the Brighton league game our fixtures are horrendous so it's vital we pick up wins in the games leading up to that. If we don't we will be talking massively behind in the bottom three.

[VillaJ100]

I remember the man u game years ago when they went down to NINE men.... And we still didn't even have an attempt! 

[villa89]

Expected points table which is based on expected goals for and against has us 5th last. We are staying up!

 

[KentVillan]

26 minutes ago, villa89 said:

Expected points table which is based on expected goals for and against has us 5th last. We are staying up!

A couple of caveats:

• Teams with better keepers and finishers tend to outperform xG. We have a good keeper, but our finishing has been poor compared with the likes of Bournemouth and Norwich.
• Some teams have had harder fixtures than us (e.g. Norwich have already played Man City)

But I do think this table gives a fairer reflection of performances. Palace have been extremely lucky and are a relegation contender IMO. Norwich's win against City was superb, but they were comprehensively outplayed.

The genuine success stories so far have been Sheffield Utd and Brighton. We'll have to hope that they hit a bad spell of form, as it would be good to have them in the relegation mix.

[KentVillan]

On 24/09/2019 at 10:38, Wainy316 said:

It does seem that once a Villa side goes down to 10 men it's a guaranteed defeat.

Just doesn't seem to be the case when we're a man up though.  Aside from the recent two, the PO final against Fulham, the West Brom semi and a frustrating home draw in the Championship against Boro spring to mind.

You're seeing a pattern where it doesn't exist. Red cards are rare. Most people are thinking of 2 or 3 matches max and then drawing massive conclusions about some kind of red card curse this club suffers from.

Re: the "guaranteed defeat" thing:

• Mings was sent off against Rotherham last season and we won 2-1.
• Chester was sent off against Preston last season and we drew 3-3.
• El Ghazi was sent off against Leeds last season and we drew 1-1.
• The Palace game was, in any sane world, a 1-1 draw.

So in fact the last 4 times we've played with 10 men haven't been a guaranteed defeat at all. Anything but.

Re: playing against 10 men:

• Fulham final totally irrelevant. Different manager, different players, we were already 1-0 down, they were a better side.
• West Brom semi-finals inconclusive - they lost a man in both games, we won one and lost the other. We totally dominated both games and forced the red cards.
• West Ham game was a draw, so not the end of the world.
• Arsenal away is just a very tough fixture, even with the man advantage.

Lots of teams struggle to capitalise on a sending off. It's a common feature of football.

So can we drop this idea that there is something unique about the way Villa play with / against 10 men that is some special problem we should be working on day and night to fix? It's a pointless distraction from the key question of how we play 11 v 11, which is how the vast majority of our matches will be played this season.

 

[villalad21]

When i look at our starting XI i see a good team on paper and i feel we should be nowhere near a relegation battle with that team.

[Wainy316]

16 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

You're seeing a pattern where it doesn't exist. Red cards are rare. Most people are thinking of 2 or 3 matches max and then drawing massive conclusions about some kind of red card curse this club suffers from.

Re: the "guaranteed defeat" thing:

• Mings was sent off against Rotherham last season and we won 2-1.
• Chester was sent off against Preston last season and we drew 3-3.
• El Ghazi was sent off against Leeds last season and we drew 1-1.
• The Palace game was, in any sane world, a 1-1 draw.

So in fact the last 4 times we've played with 10 men haven't been a guaranteed defeat at all. Anything but.

Re: playing against 10 men:

• Fulham final totally irrelevant. Different manager, different players, we were already 1-0 down, they were a better side.
• West Brom semi-finals inconclusive - they lost a man in both games, we won one and lost the other. We totally dominated both games and forced the red cards.
• West Ham game was a draw, so not the end of the world.
• Arsenal away is just a very tough fixture, even with the man advantage.

Lots of teams struggle to capitalise on a sending off. It's a common feature of football.

So can we drop this idea that there is something unique about the way Villa play with / against 10 men that is some special problem we should be working on day and night to fix? It's a pointless distraction from the key question of how we play 11 v 11, which is how the vast majority of our matches will be played this season.

 

Fair enough, but when was the last time we beat 10 men?

[KentVillan]

3 minutes ago, Wainy316 said:

Fair enough, but when was the last time we beat 10 men?

It's literally in my reply. West Brom, play-off semi-final, first leg, May 2019.

[Wainy316]

4 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

It's literally in my reply. West Brom, play-off semi-final, first leg, May 2019.

Wasn’t he sent off in stoppage time?  Not really the point I was trying to make.

[villa89]

17 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

When i look at our starting XI i see a good team on paper and i feel we should be nowhere near a relegation battle with that team.

When I look at our team I see a side that I would expect to be in a relegation battle and finish 16th/15th. I think Sheff Utd. will go down despite their good start and I wouldn't be suprised if Brighton went down too. There's a long, long way to go.