Ratings & Reactions: Villa v Bournemouth

[thunderball]

Aside from the catastrophic start, bad luck (deflection) the two errors punished, considering we are finding our feet we were OK.

Needs to find our way in front of goal though. Not quite clicking.

Impressed by Luiz, looked composed and kept it ticking over. Wonderful goal. McGinn unlucky and played very well, I wish Jack had his drive.

Jota looked OK when he came on, Trez looked OK and needs a few more games, Wesley had a few decent moments, I don’t think El Ghazi is really good enough if I am honest. Jack needs to get up to speed, but was OK, he is finding his feet with the speed of this league.

Still confident, but would like to see more goals. Good attempts today, with more luck we ma

[Lerner's Driver]

8 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

Played well but there are not enough goals in this team. 

**** ourselves over with lack of attacking recruitments. 

Yup, exactly what we feared would happen is happening. Should have bought Maupay.

[bannedfromHandV]

5 minutes ago, Spoony said:

How were we better? They completely contained us and we barely looked threatening. They almost got a third. 

What game were you watching?

Ive just left the ground and we had plenty of opportunities 

[KMitch]

Individual mistakes cost you points in this league...  When you make 4-5 massive mistakes as a team in the first 20 minutes, you're pretty much going to be throwing away 3 points that game.  Also, the ref not red carding Billing for continuous fouling was egregious.  

Pros:

• Apart from Heaton's mistake, our back 5 has looked incredibly solid over the past two games. 
• McGinn is made for the Premier League.  His tenacity is going to catch so many opposition plays off guard.
• I thought Trezeguet was going to be a dud, but he's looked impressive so far, just needs some end product to his hard work.

Cons:

• El Ghazi has been extremely poor - worst player on the pitch in both the Spurs & Bournemouth games.  Needs to step it up because we're basically playing with 10 men right now.
• Grealish needs to do more.  Needs to get forward & take risks.  He's been impressive defensively, but we sorely need his forward drive and ability to get forward from the midfield.
• The lack of forward depth is already showing...  We don't have good options off the bench if we need to make a pacy change, and it's going to cost us points. 

[Xela]

[VlVA_LA_REVOLUTlON]

I think that was a tactical victory for Howe.

I love Smith as the manager and there is definitely going to be mistakes. It's a long journey and this is another 'lesson' as was Spurs. The shape was messy for the first 30 mins and I can't help having serious reservations about Taylor and Elmo. Against good wingers today we were so open at times.

Good desire . Trezeguet puts it all on the pitch and got mom from me. Bournemouth are a very well drilled outfit and our team cohesion understandably isn't quite there yet. We attack well and it's getting there.

We will be fine

[VILLAMARV]

Down but not out. Plenty there to be happy with.

Mistakes and deflections aside we controlled that from what I saw.

We lacked a clinical finisher. Jack could have had a hat trick today.

 

[briny_ear]

I think that was one of the 10 games we need to win to stay up, wasn’t it?

Some harsh lessons being dealt out in these opening games. We need to be learning fast.

[MNVillan]

Not sure whether to be encouraged by the performance or frustrated with the result.

Very nervy start today. Understandable, but it killed us in the end.

Need to clean up sloppy mistakes or we’re going nowhere in this league. If we can avoid those, though, I think today showed we can certainly be competitive.

Fair play to Taylor for his performance against Spurs, but he doesn’t do much for me. Hoping to see someone else starting in his spot going forward.

Much better from Wesley today.

McGinn all over the place again.

Trezeguet seems to be like a solid signing.

At the end of the day, it’s points dropped in a very winnable match at VP. Still not nervous, but can’t afford too many more of these results.

[GingerCollins29]

2 dodgy goals conceded inside 12 mins. We battered them for the rest of the game.

Grealish was terrible. No england squad at this rate for you jacky boy. El ghazi is not pl standard. Think we will have many games like this

[thunderball]

4 minutes ago, Brumerican said:

Mingels and Luiz were ok.

The rest were poor but Grealish was a shambles. That's 2 stinkers served up by our captain already.

Really don’t see how you are so critical of Jack, and I’m not a fan boy. It’s like you are watching different games. He’s been OK but can improve. Got the assist for the goal.

[privateer]

4 minutes ago, PieFacE said:

I feel we made a huge mistake not bringing in another striker and winger though. Jota doesn't look up to it and lacks pace. El-Ghazi was always going to be questionable at this level. Trez looks bright though. 

Agreed. I wasn't sold on AEG last year and he's done zero in these first two games to sway me from that view.

Jota I did have hopes for based on the pre-season friendlies but, as you point out, pace-wise he looks like he's running on a waterlogged pitch. He's given the ball away far too cheaply with wayward passes in a period of the game when retention and incisive, accurate passing was absolutely imperative.

 

I don't want to see AEG start again next week. In my estimation he wasn't effective enough last week to warrant the nod for this game.

[villalad21]

4 minutes ago, TheAuthority said:

63% possesion

22 shots on goal

7 on target

10 corners

We need a striker

[GingerCollins29]

Also. Smith needs to f*** sentimentality. Get guilbert and targett in

[GingerCollins29]

Grealish, trez and mcginn all should have scored, just not our day

[TheAuthority]

Just now, villalad21 said:

We need a striker

I think it was well known that we were in for one before the end of the window it just didn't come off.

If we are really struggling for goals come Jan I'm sure Suso, Wes & Nasir will act.

[thunderball]

It seems wrong to say “apart from conceding 5 goals in two games our defence looks decent”, but there, I’ve said it.

[MellbergsBeard]

2 lucky goals for them, but it is easier to play at 2-0 down with no expectation, need to be in these games for longer than 40 seconds. We will be fine though 

 

[El Zen]

I’m gutted we’ve walked away from that with nothing. We were the better team and created enough to have scored a hatful. We asked questions of them throughout. The only problem was that one of those questions was «how would you like to be gifted two goals?» 

Shame, because there were plenty of positives here.

[Sulberto21]

We had enough ‘easy’ chances to win the game. McGinn was brilliant. But I wanna talk about Douglas Luiz’s performance. He was easily the second best player on the pitch. 

He made a shocking mistake but then he showed his leadership qualities and grew in to the game. He demanded the ball every-time. He was telling players where to play it and where to go. And that goal. Brilliant brilliant performance. He wanted the ball but wasn’t given it at times because of the limitations of others around him or they were too slow. 

However I believe we will go down because we are in all very weak upfront. Im not singling out Wesley as I believe he will be a good player. It’s others around him who aren’t providing the attacking depth we need. El-Ghazi needs to improve as does Jota. Trézéguet looks good.

Also our strength is weak compared to other teams. The Championship is a joke league and it shows. Attacking players should never be bought from weaker leagues. 

We need to learn how to attack collectively and defend collectively. Have we got the time for us to get stronger? 

Edited August 17, 2019 by Sulberto21