Ratings & Reactions: Spurs v Villa

[newhavenhibby]

Good effort yesterday against a side who have spent mega, were in the top euro final and are strongly tipped to be the challenge to Man City and Liverpool this season.

Football is all about results and up to 84 minutes, even though it was all hands to the pump at times in defence, if the result ( even a draw would have been fantastic) had stood people would have been on here with great optimism about the coming season. OK Kane popped up and spoilt these thoughts but , similar to our own forums, it then takes no time for all the doom and gloom merchants to be in evidence and forget about the positives shown. People have mentioned Norwich being pumped at LFC but at least Villa were in the game to the last 5 minutes.

The one I would be taking would be the fact the defense looked up to top premier league opposition for a vast time in the game compared to much of last season. Goalie looked assured and I have liked Mings since he joined you last year.

It is going to be a steep learning curve in the PL so lets see how the manager does over the next 4 or 5 games but as always wish you all the best.

Edited August 11, 2019 by newhavenhibby

[foreveryoung]

23 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

This doesn't really stand up to rational thought. 

Bournemouth have been established at this level for 4 years now and have made continual and sustained investment, know what this league is about and have a clearly defined philosophy, benefiting from the continuity of having a capable manager at the helm throughout their premier league journey (and obviously well before that). 

The £150m outlay is required for us to simply have a chance of survival, that's it. Had we spent a fraction of that and entrusted the remaining players who got us here we'd be looking at going down with one of the lowest ever points totals IMO.

I agree that Bournemouth at home should be considered somewhat 'winnable', but it's clear that it's early days for this side and it will take a few games to get going. What I'm looking for is a better attacking performance and far better ball retention than yesterday, that for me would be a good signal, rather than getting doom and gloom over the actual result (as long as that isn't a heavy defeat of course).

Too many people are looking at the negative side of coming back up, "we will be lucky to beat Bournemouth", "no chance of competing with the top 4" etc etc. Maybe it's me, but I know for a fact most Wolves fans didn't see it that way coming up to the Premier league. There fans and manager went into every game thinking they could/should win it. We are going into games thinking we will be lucky to get a win. That's just not me, I expect to hit the ground running whoever the we are against. The fact we were one up against the "mighty" Spurs then lost 3-1 from thinking we can sit back and defend all second half is the negative for me, not the actual loss, which was a bit naive from DS. I hope he has realised you can't get away with tactics like this in the Premier League against the big guns.

[sne]

We could play Spurs a hundred times and 99 out of those we will get nothing from it.

This is where we are at the moment.

We played a good first half but were outplayed in the second. Fully predictable result, no shame in losing to Spurs.

Some positives like Heaton, Engels Trezeguet and Taylor of all players, some negatives like the overall lack of pace in the squad outside of Trez.

Early days, lots to learn.

Overall I think facing Spurs in the first game was a blessing as there was no pressure to get a result and I still think we learned a lot from this game.

[TRO]

2 hours ago, newhavenhibby said:

Good effort yesterday against a side who have spent mega, were in the top euro final and are strongly tipped to be the challenge to Man City and Liverpool this season.

Football is all about results and up to 84 minutes, even though it was all hands to the pump at times in defence, if the result ( even a draw would have been fantastic) had stood people would have been on here with great optimism about the coming season. OK Kane popped up and spoilt these thoughts but , similar to our own forums, it then takes no time for all the doom and gloom merchants to be in evidence and forget about the positives shown. People have mentioned Norwich being pumped at LFC but at least Villa were in the game to the last 5 minutes.

The one I would be taking would be the fact the defense looked up to top premier league opposition for a vast time in the game compared to much of last season. Goalie looked assured and I have liked Mings since he joined you last year.

It is going to be a steep learning curve in the PL so lets see how the manager does over the next 4 or 5 games but as always wish you all the best.

You talk such sense.

I think Norwich are a fine side, but they didn't have as many new faces to integrate as us, some of ours were still learning their positional play and other players of how to find them.

Like you, I think its ok to highlight the shortfalls, but it needs to be accompanied by the rationale of how early it is for us to be playing this type of opponent.

Edited August 11, 2019 by TRO

[TRO]

In summary.....Our defence will keep us up.

Work to do, elsewhere.

Question..... would Sturridge help?

[lt1974]

Think we played well considering who we were up against(champions league runner up, and a top 4 team for the last 4 years) , a wake up call for a couple of players that may have needed it, but looking at the big picture we will be ok

[lapal_fan]

1 hour ago, foreveryoung said:

Nearly £150 million spent, says we shouldn't be losing to Bournemouth, but who knows, according to some the money means nothing.

I'm expecting with the coach we have, to do a Wolves, not a Fulham.

And 25 million of that was to buy Bournemouth's 4th choice centre back.

£150 spread over 12 players doesn't mean we've bought guaranteed quality.

[thunderball]

Re-watched the match, we were actually pretty good in the first half. Trez has two very good chances in the 19th and 32nd minute at the end of some productive play. 

For those criticising Wesley, again he was tirelessly running pulling a couple of their players all over the park opening the pitch up for our running midfield, and got into the box on several occasions ahead of his man at the near post only for the cross to be over hit. Our interplay with him will come.

I don’t need to point out home advantage, the gulf in familiarity and ultimately quality, when you can bring on a £100m rated player in Eriksen who changed the game, had their new £62m midfielder running around and two of their goals coming from one of the best strikers in the world, please have a sense of perspective. 

Our season starts next weekend, and I think we are going to be alright this season, we will only get better and I am not sure all of our bottom half rivals can say this.

[TRO]

1 hour ago, VillaCas said:

Two points 1) “most thought” Jota was a stand out during pre-season so it’s not surprising DS gave him a run and 2) I would argue that the coaches who work with these players day in day out, have live performance monitoring data and can speak directly to the player have a better “opinion” than a fan watching on TV (or even watching live)

Not above criticism but I back the coaches to make a better decision on whether a 100% Kodija is better than a 80% (or 70% or whatever Wesley) than a fan can

I agree.

I called for Jota to come on at exactly the time that he did, Trez's tank was empty.

As you quite rightly say, on the evidence of pre -season it would have been a logical call for many......what is difficult to predict is how these players respond to a better quality opponent......we are now finding out.

on a positive Heaton,Mings and Engels have proved they can mix it with them.

[sne]

[VillaAlex]

I was really pleased with the performance and it was far more than I expected. Maybe I am not expecting too much but like others have said, we've been a Championship team for three seasons off the back of our worst season in history before that. We fortunately got promoted off an out of this world run of 10 games and have had to rebuild half the side as the squad was not ready to get promoted.

Since then we have brought in new additions to the side, however only one member of our side played Premier League football last season regularly and he is our goalkeeper. Therefore its going to take time for our players to adjust to the pace, especially when going away from home to top four sides and Champions League finalists like Tottenham. Their team is comprised of players who are dominating week in, week out for the most part and its difficult to match them for 90 minutes especially when its your first game back in the top flight.

We did extremely well the first half, and could arguably have got another goal. Thats not to say we deserved to be leading at half time but we held our own and restricted Tottenham to very limited chances apart from the Kane chances at the end of the half and Elmo losing his mind in the first few minutes.

The second half we ran out of steam, and Dean was right it was because we couldn't keep hold of the ball well enough. All the training you do can not prepare you for this level of intensity, especially when its a team like Spurs that have such a dominant midfield. Then it was inevitable we'd concede.

I thought there were very little negatives, the whole back 5 were excellent, with Elmo being slightly behind the rest if being critical, Tottenham stretched us apart in the second half and I feel the fullbacks in particular became isolated with 2 on 1s because the wingers could no longer track back as well. We tried to resolve this by bringing on Jota for Trezeguet, in hindsight this was a bad move, Trezeguet was having the better game out of him and El Ghazi and also seemed to have more gas in the tank, but manager knows best. This was then followed by bringing on Douglas Luiz and Kodjia for Wesley and Conor. I felt this was a really difficult point in the game, and maybe the subs were made slightly too late but the players we needed just weren't ready. In an ideal world we'd have had a fully fit Luiz, and Nakamba available but that wasn't to be. Again Davis probably would have been more suited than Kodjia but there was no room on the bench for him at the start of the game.

Otherwise, Jack made the mistake that led to the second goal, but I don't think Dean will criticise him for the mistake, thats the way we intend to play and it will reap its rewards long term. Until then mistakes will happen and the players will need to learn when they have the time to do so at this level, and when they don't.

Wesley also had it difficult but as others have mentioned at least he put himself about, he was in several duels and even if he came off them badly he at least went in for them which is extremely positive going forward. He is probably just another player who needs slightly more time to adjust, although then concerns can be raised that we don't have an able stand by to help him.

Next week is where it matters, I watched the Bournemouth game before ours and they were quite poor, they have several players out injured and its a great time to pick up our first three points.

[Pimlico_Villa]

Didn’t mind being outclassed, but no excuse for our fitness levels being so low. 

Have been saying for years that we need proper ore-seasons that build fitness, intensity and tempo. 

[VillaCas]

40 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

Too many people are looking at the negative side of coming back up, "we will be lucky to beat Bournemouth", "no chance of competing with the top 4" etc etc. Maybe it's me, but I know for a fact most Wolves fans didn't see it that way coming up to the Premier league. There fans and manager went into every game thinking they could/should win it. We are going into games thinking we will be lucky to get a win. That's just not me, I expect to hit the ground running whoever the we are against. The fact we were one up against the "mighty" Spurs then lost 3-1 from thinking we can sit back and defend all second half is the negative for me, not the actual loss, which was a bit naive from DS. I hope he has realised you can't get away with tactics like this in the Premier League against the big guns.

Your “quotes” are made up and misleading. “We will be lucky to beat Bournemouth” No - we have every expectation that we can give Bournemouth a decent game and (with some luck) can put some point(s) on the board. What people are saying is that we shouldn’t go into the game expecting that we will walk over Bournemouth as if they are the poor relation. 

“No chance of competing with the top 4” No - we showed yesterday that we can “compete” but realistically we should see points against the top teams as a real bonus not an expectation

DS did not instruct the team to sit back and defend, that’s just how it panned out! We’re playing £5m,£10m and £20m players against £30m, £50m and £100m players - it’s obvious we will be on the back foot for much of the game

A really good performance, with a new team, at a completely new level, against one of the top teams in world football and people are already playing the “lack of ambition” and “naive” cards - beggars belief 

[PaulC]

48 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

And 25 million of that was to buy Bournemouth's 4th choice centre back.

£150 spread over 12 players doesn't mean we've bought guaranteed quality.

Bournemouth are now an established Premier League side but Sheff Utd gave them a good game so no reason why we cant. I know people are happy with 3-1 but when you are 1-0 up with 20 mins to go nobody should be. We caught Spurs on an off day and yet second half we just sat back and tried to defend a one goal lead. That's not the way to get results in the Premier League. 

[VillaCas]

32 minutes ago, Pimlico_Villa said:

Didn’t mind being outclassed, but no excuse for our fitness levels being so low. 

Have been saying for years that we need proper ore-seasons that build fitness, intensity and tempo. 

We competed all over the park and tired a little towards the end as you would expect chasing world class players all over the park. 

I thought we looked fit and sharp 

[VillaCas]

Some of the comments on this thread - i’d be ashamed for DS, the team or the owners to read some of this. 

[Sulberto21]

I think people should be allowed to have their opinions without people trying to bait them and having digs at them. 

Me personally am more disappointed with the referee. El-Ghazi didn’t dive you numpty he had a clear run or shot on when he got bumped. Mcginn penalty was 50-50 but his shirt was pulled enough for him to lose momentum. His shirt isn’t pulled I believe he has an easy shot at goal. 

Grealish was clearly fouled for their goal. Spurs dominated exactly like Leipzig did but for longer than they managed.  But the decisions could have changed the flow of the game. 

The strength of our players though was poor. They got muscled off it too easily throughout the game. They need to improve this fast , same with fitness. If we stay up then we need to have pre-seasons with the likes of Leipzig, Napoli, Celta Vigo etc teams who will physically and technically outplay us but strengthen us. Then we can nick some of their better players. Running rings around Walsall and Shrewsbury is not good preparation. 

I liked the way Van Der Vaart and Reo-Coker spoke about us very eloquent and balanced.  Also after yesterday I would look in to bringing in Ribery or Sturridge on a short term deal. Ribery because he is a legend and the players will learn so much from him and Sturridge because he can on a short term basis provide competition and a genuine option for us. His finishing is still lethal. Then we can revisit our targets in January. 

We Have to stay up. Relegation is not an option. 

Edited August 11, 2019 by Sulberto21

[Spursy]

It's always fascinating to read what opposition fans think and it's interesting how so many people can watch the same game and have different views on what happened. From my perspective we got hit with an early counter attack goal and then Villa parked the bus quite successfully and we had no answer to it (and not for the first time - our lack of guile when teams defend deep is nothing new and you're not the first team to exploit this weakness). Poch admitted the first half was "his fault" as the formation wasn't quite clear and he sorted this at half time. To be fair we had 7 first choice players missing and fielded an 11 who had never played together before so I suppose it was to be expected. Our success in the second half was purely down to the change in formation and our fitness. Still can't get used to being referred to as "Champions League Finalists" - that does feel weird. Even though yesterday we only started 6 players who played in the final.

It's great to have a big club like Villa back in the Premier League. I think some in this thread are being over critical - you've got some good players and we were properly tested yesterday. I can't see you having any problems staying up if you play with that commitment and attitude for the rest of the season.

[Sulberto21]

9 minutes ago, Spursy said:

It's always fascinating to read what opposition fans think and it's interesting how so many people can watch the same game and have different views on what happened. From my perspective we got hit with an early counter attack goal and then Villa parked the bus quite successfully and we had no answer to it (and not for the first time - our lack of guile when teams defend deep is nothing new and you're not the first team to exploit this weakness). Poch admitted the first half was "his fault" as the formation wasn't quite clear and he sorted this at half time. To be fair we had 7 first choice players missing and fielded an 11 who had never played together before so I suppose it was to be expected. Our success in the second half was purely down to the change in formation and our fitness. Still can't get used to being referred to as "Champions League Finalists" - that does feel weird. Even though yesterday we only started 6 players who played in the final.

It's great to have a big club like Villa back in the Premier League. I think some in this thread are being over critical - you've got some good players and we were properly tested yesterday. I can't see you having any problems staying up if you play with that commitment and attitude for the rest of the season.

Its amazing to think for so long we were ahead of you in the league. Then you guys bought Van Der Vaart and suddenly you shot up the table. He was always the difference in our games then we just plopped. 

We were mocking (lads watching the game) Ndombele as he was a little confused but once he got the goal he looked like he was a £65million player. Harry Kane is the best forward along with Mbappe in the world. RonMessi don’t count.!

If you keep Eriksen you will challenge for the title. 

[TRO]

9 minutes ago, Spursy said:

It's always fascinating to read what opposition fans think and it's interesting how so many people can watch the same game and have different views on what happened. From my perspective we got hit with an early counter attack goal and then Villa parked the bus quite successfully and we had no answer to it (and not for the first time - our lack of guile when teams defend deep is nothing new and you're not the first team to exploit this weakness). Poch admitted the first half was "his fault" as the formation wasn't quite clear and he sorted this at half time. To be fair we had 7 first choice players missing and fielded an 11 who had never played together before so I suppose it was to be expected. Our success in the second half was purely down to the change in formation and our fitness. Still can't get used to being referred to as "Champions League Finalists" - that does feel weird. Even though yesterday we only started 6 players who played in the final.

It's great to have a big club like Villa back in the Premier League. I think some in this thread are being over critical - you've got some good players and we were properly tested yesterday. I can't see you having any problems staying up if you play with that commitment and attitude for the rest of the season.

Thanks.....but we too had so many new players to integrate on the back of 10 years of demise and a promotion season that was all back end of season success......Around October 2018 we was in the lower half of the championship table, just to put this game in to perspective.

We are far from the finished article, so parking the bus was a necessity as opposed to a choice.....aspects of your play was far in advanced of ours but nevertheless we was 1-1 at c 85 minutes.

We only want to stay up this year and I think we are capable of that on this showing alone.....I think we will get better and so will you.

We only have 3 teams to do better than......you have 2 teams to surpass.