Aston Villa Women

[Farlz]

I could quite easily see us winning our next 5 games in all comps until Man City at the start of December. 

Ward won't be sacked before that, we'll start winning and everything will be fine again. 

[HanoiVillan]

7 minutes ago, useless said:

'Ward's job currently will be under no threat whatsoever,' is what I actually said, if don't believe me watch what happens.

Of course if bad run continues then her job will come under threat and rightly so given the fixtures to come, but it's highly unlikely that we will be anywhere near as bad in those games, even allowing for the fact that they will now probably be tougher than they otherwise would have been because of lack of confidence, which is why I think the Sheffield United game in the week is now such an important game, need to get some confidence from that going into the Bristol City game.

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that she does not get sacked this week. Then let's assume that we lose to Bristol City, just for the sake of argument. Would she get sacked then? How about if we lost the next match, the next two matches, the next three?

It's a 22 game season; 25% of it has gone. Since covid, the teams that have finished bottom have scored 11, 11 and 12 points; this suggests that to avoid relegation, a team needs to win *at least* 4 matches. If we write off games against the top 4, we have 12 'winnable' fixtures remaining, including two against sides we've already lost to. Clearly if we keep losing, we will need to replace her with at least 8 or 9 'winnable fixtures' to go to give ourselves a reasonable chance to get 4 victories. So if you consider her job in terms of n, where n is the number of games she can afford to lose in the WSL now, n is almost certainly less than 4. If what you mean by 'currently under no threat whatsoever' is simply 'she won't get sacked this week', you *might* be right, but if we word this just a little differently and say 'she's no more than 3 or 4 games from the sack' then it's pretty obvious that means her job is 'under threat'. 

[useless]

What surprises me is that our woeful record at Bescot in the WSL doesn't get more attention, it's dreadful, since we started playing there, we've won just three games in the league since promotion, we won there only once in the league last season, when we had our best season ever, we've never won more than one home league game at Bescot in a season. It's a good job that our away form has been very good, and I think in general we do okay at Villa Park too.

 

[Zero7]

Give her one or two games, if we don’t pick up wins she’s got to go 

[Recircle]

1 hour ago, Farlz said:

Well it was obvious we'd get battered today

See, I didn't expect an absolute doing. I was thoroughly prepared for another loss, but a battling one, not a capitulation.  It's worrying.  Villa's season is already turning into a rescue job; wave goodbye to best-of-the-rest or better.  The big concern is that some of the marquee names will be looking to bail out (you imagine Daly would like a tilt at the Champions League before she retires).  Van Domselaar must be wondering what she's walked into - you can imagine her too re-assessing with an eye to exiting at the earliest opportunity via a release clause or what have you; the great reputation she's established for herself is rapidly becoming tarnished.  With her you can almost sense the longer term story before it's been played out: that she moves on to do well elsewhere and comes to regard the move to Villa as a complete misstep.

Edited November 4, 2023 by Recircle

[Xela]

She's gorrra goooo Franksie!

[Xela]

Its the manner of defeats recently though. I expected more fight today. If we'd have battled and lost 1-, or 2-1, then you can see crumbs of comfort. Steamrollered though. Conceding 4 at home to Spurs as well and a limp defeat to Liverpool. Not good enough. 

[Xela]

1 hour ago, villan95 said:

Not villa related but announced Hayes is leaving Chelsea end of the season to pursues opportunities outside the WSL

England maybe?

[villan95]

2 minutes ago, Xela said:

England maybe?

Yeah I had seen that suggested 

[useless]

We were always likely to lose today, so not sure why people are acting like they've got one over me after the result, of course us to Chelsea doesn't change my mind about Ward, I'd already factored in that we would probably lose this, and could get thrashed, into my thinking when making my previous posts, if people didn't realize that a result like today's was a possibility they they're showing their ignorance of women's football and the WSL, we won't be the only team that Chelsea do this to, last season we had our best season ever and it was widely celebrated as being a brilliant season but we still took a few thrashings, including 5-0 to Man Utd.

Ward's job currently will be under no threat whatsoever, so people wasting their time if they're expecting anything to happen in that regard, if you don't believe me wait and see what happens, although next five WSL games are Bristol City, West Ham, Everton, Man City, and Brighton, so will be expected to do much better in those.

I think the game against Sheffield United in the week comes at a good time, normally would have been a chance to give some squad players a game, but now has become much more important as we need to use it to try and get some confidence back into the team, so might now play a stronger team than we otherwise would have done.

Just to say, today's scoreline obviously unacceptable even with it being Chelsea, but it won't change anything with regards to Ward's future.

Just glad we've got those first five games over and done with, now it's time to look forward.

[Milfner]

9 minutes ago, Xela said:

England maybe?

USWNT. 

[Pinebro]

Her history with blues means she will get less patience from lots of our fanbase

[Recircle]

2 hours ago, useless said:

last season we had our best season ever and it was widely celebrated as being a brilliant season but we still took a few thrashings, including 5-0 to Man Utd.

Last season was fantastic despite one or two heavy-ish loses, but the idea this season was surely to close the gap against the top clubs somewhat. There's something next level horrible about losing 0-6. A team with the likes of Daly, Van Domselaar, Hanson and Pacheco in it shouldn't be suffering an abject hiding like that, even to Chelsea. Losing five games on the trot from season's start is really going to hobble confidence and momentum. 

Edited November 4, 2023 by Recircle

[Villanbee]

Comments on Sky about poor recruitment. Looking back, and seeing how the new players have been deployed, thinking seems disjointed. And it's seemed disjointed all season in regards to how the new signings fit in.

Firstly I think that any players we signed needed to, in every case but Ebony Salmon, be an upgrade on what we already had, moving some of last year's preferred 11 into squad and rotation positions. That's how you progress 

Then consider the two loan signings made permanent means you are essentially signing players to stand still. Nothing that can be done about that if you want to keep them.

In terms of the players new to the club, my  interpretation was...

We'd brought in Salmon as a much needed second striker, backup to Daly and tactical option if we want to go with 2 up front. No issues there.

We'd brought in Leon for the right wing position as an upgrade on Lehmann. Except Leon doesn't seem to be the preferred choice. So that seems strange.

Then the defence. We make Patten's loan permanent and bring in Lucy Parker. So I think Parker will play central defence with Patten alongside. Building for the future etc. Especially as Dan Turner is essentially a left back who played central defence last year.

But then we make Rachel Corsie captain, which suggests that we are going to be playing her more often than not.

So, I'm thinking we maybe intend to go back 3 of Corsie, Parker and Patten with Pacheco and Mayling as wing backs and Turner (who is 32) moving to a utility squad position.

This could cover the issue of upgrading the defence from last year and move Mayling into a position further forward, where I believe her strengths lie. I think she's suspect defensively. But it would also diminish the point of signing Leon and retaining Hanson.

But come the start of the season, we seem to want to shoehorn all the central defenders into the team without playing wing backs, with Parker in a CDM role. Pacheco on the bench and Turner on the left. We then tinker with playing both Pacheco and Turner in a back 5 against Arsenal before moving Parker to right back in a back 4 against Spurs.

As of today (appreciate she was injured today) the new central defender we brought hasn't actually played there.

Today, we drop Corsie to bring Turner back to central defence even though she's played on the left all season so far.

So against Chelsea we put together a back line that has not played together all season. In fact, we reverted to the back line that we wanted to upgrade from last season.

Against Chelsea.

Hardly surprising it was a shambles.

That's my biggest issue. I appreciate we've been without Hanson and Dali, but there's been far too much tinkering going on. There doesn't seem to be any identity on how we play or what our playing style is.

Compare this with how well drilled the men's team are.

Edited November 4, 2023 by Villanbee

[useless]

No doubting that losing first five games is a terrible start, despite fixture list and injuries; I knew it would be difficult, but was thinking we might get between two and four points, either a couple of draws in the Liverpool and Spurs games, or win one draw the other, which probably wouldn't have been seen as a good start by many, but for me given the fixtures, would have been decent enough, and today's result isn't acceptable, in a way despite it being Chelsea, it's probably the worst result of the season, as whilst defeat was always the more likely result, we shouldn't be losing by that amount.

But Ward still has an incredible amount of credit for what she's achieved with us, and other factors will be taken into account all of which have been mentioned numerous times already, so not going to go through them all again.

Would be strange to sack now also, just for the fixtures we have coming up, we always knew, or at least should have, that these first five games were going to be incredibly difficult, and that in the following games we would be playing catch up, so she's unlikely to be fired now those 'easier' games are upon us, she will be given those and a chance to turn our season around.

We need that first win, Bristol City a big game next week, at the start of the season that fixture would have been seen as one of our easiest of the season, maybe the easiest considering how much better we are away from Bescot, but now because of the pressure we're under, and that we won't be as confident, it suddenly looks a lot tougher and will be a lot more nerves surrounding it, not that any of that will be a good enough excuse if we don't get three points, we simply have to, just to get our league game kick-started.

Big week coming up for us now, need to use the Sheffield United game to get some confidence back - that game itself won't be as easy as it would have been, but need to put out a strong team now and get a result, if we can get a confidence boosting scoreline even better, and if we can do that hopefully that will help us going into the game next weekend against Bristol City.

[Recircle]

18 minutes ago, useless said:

No doubting that losing first five games is a terrible start, despite fixture list and injuries; I knew it would be difficult, but was thinking we might get between two and four points.

This is the way I thought it might go; an odd point here and there.  It's one thing to broadly contemplate a 'worst case scenario' when you draw a tough run of fixtures, to hypothetically write-off five games on the bounce, but to have that scenario turn into a reality: five played, five lost, sixteen goals conceded, margin of defeat getting bigger, that's quite a hole to have to climb out of. 0-6 is the sort of defeat that can lead to players pointing fingers in order to try and save face; disunity can break out.

[thejoker]

I wonder if there is a female Unai Emery out there somewhere!?

[Leeroy]

The Tottenham and Liverpool games were both winnable, we finished above both last season, and quite frankly losing 6-0 at home to anyone no matter how strong they are is unacceptable. We had a great season last season and this season we were expected to progress further towards the top 4 and try to take one of those places, but we’ve gone backwards and not just a little bit but so much so that we’re now fighting with Bristol City to not be the worst team this season and end up back in the division below.

 

The next 5 fixtures are make or break for Ward IMO, fail to get a reasonable amount of points (eg 10+) and get ourselves up to midtable and I think they should be looking at alternatives to Ward. I’m not sure what credible options there are but they need to find a female equivalent of Unai Emery.

[thejoker]

4 minutes ago, thejoker said:

I wonder if there is a female Unai Emery out there somewhere!?

To be fair, Unai could probably do it as an evening job. 

[Villanbee]

Except it doesn't have to be female. What any new coach needs to be is the best attainable person for the job.

7 of the 12 current WSL teams have a male head coach/manager.