Ratings & Reactions: Villa v West Ham

[smg]

There are no easy games in the premier league, how can you be sure we wouldn’t have scored against Derby or Norwich yesterday. 

[BOF]

Wesley worries the shit out of me. I'm already fearful we'll be looking back in May thinking it was him trying to find his feet which ultimately relegated us.  He needs to improve immediately or we are in trouble. 

[AVFCDAN]

The spine of our team looks good to me.

Engels, Mings, Heaton, Guillbert, Mcginn and Grealish all good enough to stay in this league. We have looked comfortable against two top half teams from last year already. We have foundations to build on which is a good sign.

The only worry is the positions around that aren't up to scratch at the moment. Jota has gone from looking really good to absolutely useless in 2-3 games, Anwar is also in and out of games and worryingly looks like a good championship player but not much cop in the premier league. Wesley still finding his feet but if he scores more than 10 league goals this season i'll be surprised. 

Edited September 17, 2019 by AVFCDAN

[wilko154]

I put this in the PL Thread but probably should have posted in here first...

 

More doom and gloom on here I see. Quick to jump on the negatives but fail to appreciate the positives.

We played well for the majority of the game and deserved the 3 points slightly more than West Ham. But a point against a team that finished 10th and spent 40 million on a striker over the Summer is never a bad result. The game was end to end throughout and we tired in the second half just as the red card came about, pushing for the winner in the last 20 minutes unfortunately finished us off and we looked leggy for the last 10 minutes.

 

Positives 

• Nakamba looks really classy, calm on the ball, breaks the play up and has a real engine on him. Can be forgiven for missing a few passes on his debut and after not playing competitive football for a while. He will improve in the next few weeks.
• The defence was again absolutely solid. Only three clubs have conceded fewer goals than us and no side has kept more clean sheets (two). Engels and Mings look like a real force and Guilbert was impressive although burned out in the second half.
• Going forward we looked good in patches, there were some brilliant breakaways but we weren't clinical enough to take advantage. Again this will improve with more game time.

 

Unfortunately there were a few negatives but they are things that Smith can now work on and try to iron out. We panicked with the ball at times which lead to misplaced passes, wrong passes and poor touches. The major problem is the lack of goals up front and for me Wesley didn't do enough, unfortunately we don't have many other options currently. Hourihane is also a big loss currently and shoehorning him into the team, especially at home, could be what we need to spark us back into life.

Overall it was a disappointing night but once again we haven't embarrassed ourselves and have shown signs of what we can do. With another solid defensive display on Sunday, we need to work hard at getting at Arsenals poor defense and we have a chance; it's certainly not over yet!

[sidcow]

10 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

Tough to blame Dean there. We made the wrong decision every time when they went down to 10.

Ref was naff too.

Disagree. I put Smith down as poor. 

Why when playing 10 men did he take off one defensive midfielder for another? 

At Palace Hourihane and Lansbury turned the one way tide for us, gave us attacking options and should have got us an equiliser yet neither got on today 

I didn't understand why Smith took so long to make substitutions against 10 men when it clearly wasn't working and we needed fresh ideas and legs, when he did make changes it was too late. 

I also thought the ref was good. 

Other than that I agree with everything you say

[sidcow]

10 hours ago, R.Bear said:

Utterly toothless in the final third as we have been in pretty much all games. 

Taylor is a waste of space, never ever crosses so what the **** is the point of him getting down the left?

2 points dropped.

We nearly conceded a goal because instead of taking an easy and obvious crossing opportunity he turned back, fannied about and lost it leaving them to bomb through unnoposed 

I really don't understand our reluctance to cross. 

[Raver50032]

An incredible and hard fought point against West Ham... an established Premier League team who we can only hope to emulate in years to come. Well done. Absolutely stoked.

Right, that's appeased the 'beta-people,' now I'll say what I really think. Guilbert was my man of the match - one particular track back in the second half after had lost the ball showed wonderful resilience and determination to right a wrong. As much as I have come to dislike Mr Dean, I thought he did good. The cynical part of me thought he might have been on the wave of 'look after Aston Villa, but don't make it obvious' FA intent following the Palace debacle.

Looking at the BBC stats, it seemed to be a reasonably even game, both teams seeing the ball, both teams having chances, although its arguable that Villa actually had the better chances (the on target stat). Our passing second half was very wayward and we conceded possession cheaply far too often. Into this, I have to call Grealish - a frustrating performance from him I have to say. He can't be here, there and everywhere for the whole game. It's not sustainable. If we are relying on him to do that all game, every game, we're doing something wrong somewhere else on the pitch that I can't quite put my finger on just now.

Taylor, sorry to say, seemed quite ineffective, and in combination with El Ghazi having a dicey game, left us pretty toothless down the left. I can understand why Mighty Mings took him to task.

When we had the ball, our approach play was okay, however our lack of quality across the front three did tell. Whether it was being muscled off the ball, questionable/misplaced passing/crossing etc, it looks like it's going to be a proper toil to score a goal. Some of it is 'gelling,' some it is finding their feet, and I'm sure some of it is confidence. But it does look like being proper hard work for them this season. Time will tell.

West Ham went down to ten players with about 25 minutes to play. That's a long time and a lot of potential to create a winning moment. We toiled... we panicked... and made very hard work of it, very nearly conceding a goal/penalty on the break in the process. We didn't take control and we fluffed our lines - passing straight to the opposition several times. It was frustrating to watch. In truth, I thought we looked tired from around 70 minutes. Maybe that tiredness resulted in the ramshackle nature of our passing and decision making going forward? I just don't know.

Anyway, I said before the game, I would take a point... but we had chances to win. So another 'could have, would have, should have' game. Especially with that one player advantage with 20 minutes to go. Just wasn't meant to be, or we just weren't good enough.

Shout out to Fabianski, who showed that committing physical assault in the box, intentional or not, can go unpunished.

Just my opinion folks, if you don't agree, that's your prerogative.

On to Arsenal... another established Premier League team. As some allude to, we should feel lucky to be back in the Premier League, and we have no rights to points at the Emirates. Feels like a dead rubber. Our wonderful defence will be key.

[Mic09]

52 minutes ago, smg said:

There are no easy games in the premier league, how can you be sure we wouldn’t have scored against Derby or Norwich yesterday. 

It's my opinion because we hardly created a solid goal threat in the last 30 minutes when we played against 10 men. 

[Unused Sub]

On last nights viewing, I’ll rip your arm off for 17th place right now.

In contrast to last season, the backline looked steady while the midfield & forward line struggled.

An additional problem for me is that Jack & McGinn will play almost every minute as the midfield central pair. When they’re hot and in form that’s great, but like last night when they’re off form and giving the ball away a lot, we need to change them. Either shovel them out wide or sub them off.

Last night I would have preferred Luiz to come on and let Marvellous loose as he looks like he’s got legs and can drive forward, with Jack or McGinn cutting inside from a wide position.

[Demitri_C]

Taken a bit of a break from villatalk for awhile but I will give my initial thoughts over not last night but the season so far.

I think defensively we look very good - great in fact. Engels gilbert and mings have been mostly excellent so far. (Makes me wonder why we never brought Gilbert in championship he would have torn that league apart)

Taylor has been Taylor not bad not great but going forward non existent and pretty poor.

Moving on to midfield grealish has been good but his passing has become really sloppy at times. He is getting better.  Mcginn I think has been excellent and luiz looks like a player to me. 

Moving on to the wings this is where the first problems I can see. We have some major problems here. El ghazi looks very inconsistent and lost esp when he starts for us. Yesterday he struggled bad. Jota looks decent at times but a lot of his movement is predictable and he runs into a lot of dead ends at times. Trezuget looks average so far. Haven't been overly impressed I admit. Goes missing at times and is t creating opportunities for others like I feel the reason I feel he was signed for.

Moving up front yo Wesley. I'm sorry to say but he looks shit. For a big man he looks weak as he'll. Falls over constantly and struggling bad. Ok he hasn't had much service I agree but she  he does get the ball he does very little with it. I'm curious to see how many shots he has actually had.

I think we are in trouble because I don't think he will get any more than 10 goals tops. It's not his fault sorely for that as he doesn't look like someone that can hold the line on his own. Shows how crazy it was not getting another striker in and that may cost us dearly. I appreciate haller was double the fee bug he didn't have much service but he was a handful.

There is no doubt in my mind we have to make a striker a priority come January a proven one in PL.

As for Smith what I am finding strange is he is talking bout an attacking game but we seem to be playing quite negatively at times. I do wonder why this is. Are players ignoring what's been to do of them?

Overall not been a great start but not  a totally awful one either. Realistically we should have 5 points now which wouldn't have been a awful start but could have been  better.

 

 

[sheepyvillian]

1 hour ago, wilko154 said:

I put this in the PL Thread but probably should have posted in here first...

 

More doom and gloom on here I see. Quick to jump on the negatives but fail to appreciate the positives.

We played well for the majority of the game and deserved the 3 points slightly more than West Ham. But a point against a team that finished 10th and spent 40 million on a striker over the Summer is never a bad result. The game was end to end throughout and we tired in the second half just as the red card came about, pushing for the winner in the last 20 minutes unfortunately finished us off and we looked leggy for the last 10 minutes.

 

Positives 

• Nakamba looks really classy, calm on the ball, breaks the play up and has a real engine on him. Can be forgiven for missing a few passes on his debut and after not playing competitive football for a while. He will improve in the next few weeks.
• The defence was again absolutely solid. Only three clubs have conceded fewer goals than us and no side has kept more clean sheets (two). Engels and Mings look like a real force and Guilbert was impressive although burned out in the second half.
• Going forward we looked good in patches, there were some brilliant breakaways but we weren't clinical enough to take advantage. Again this will improve with more game time.

 

Unfortunately there were a few negatives but they are things that Smith can now work on and try to iron out. We panicked with the ball at times which lead to misplaced passes, wrong passes and poor touches. The major problem is the lack of goals up front and for me Wesley didn't do enough, unfortunately we don't have many other options currently. Hourihane is also a big loss currently and shoehorning him into the team, especially at home, could be what we need to spark us back into life.

Overall it was a disappointing night but once again we haven't embarrassed ourselves and have shown signs of what we can do. With another solid defensive display on Sunday, we need to work hard at getting at Arsenals poor defense and we have a chance; it's certainly not over yet!

Good post. 

[Smartin]

Frustrating result and performance in the end but there are a lot of positives too.

Defensively we look really solid. Engels is immense, even outshining Mings at the moment imo.

Our midfield looks good. Loads of energy and we move the ball well at times. Nakamba looked like the defensive mid we have been crying out for. We also have lots of options, so we will have to trust Deano to get the selection right more often than not. We also just need to sharpen up our passing. A few too many loose passes every game is holding us back and keeps taking the pressure off when we look to have a good opportunity. Some of the decision making too has been poor. but I put this down to the players still learning about each other.

The front 3 is clearly the weak point. They just look blunt at the moment and it is hard to see us scoring enough goals to stay up at the moment. We also just don't have the depth on the bench to be able to change a game with our subs in these areas.

Ultimately, I think we are just 2 players and a couple of months of gelling time from a very good team. But at the moment I am slightly concerned.

[Teale's 'tache]

Well, it was a bit... meh.

I don't think either team played particularly well, we gave the ball away far too often, and in promising positions. However, at least when we gave the ball away it wasn't in dangerous areas which we have be prone to do. This disrupted our rhythm a lot, and resulted in a disjointed game with neither team really have sustained spells of pressure.

We did create the better chances and at least managed to work their keeper multiple times, West Ham for all of the good attacking players we said they had before the game were poor going forward, just as culpable as us of making the wrong decision in the final third. The one thing they did do well (in the second half mainly) was to get the ball back to front quickly through our midfield, which I'm sure is something Smith and Terry will be looking at in the coming days, it was too easy to get the ball to their front three without having to play a long ball.

On the plus side we looked solid at the back, the work rate from everyone was very very good, people have mentioned Guilbert gifting away possession and then busting a gut to get back and retrieve it, but he wasn't the only one, I saw El Ghazi, Grealish, Nakamba, and McGinn all do the same thing over similar/shorter distances. So as frustrating as it was that we were so poor on the ball, at least the players seemed to acknowledge their errors and try to atone for them. We'll need that kind of effort and ownership of responsibility for the rest of the season.

We need to be much better on the ball though and I'm sure they all know that, we are still bedding players in to our system and it really shows at times. It's not only on the ball though, one of the reasons we lost possession so much was that the movement around the ball wasn't there, wasn't good enough or wasn't quick enough. We need to sharpen up, it will come, we just need to be patient.

I think it's disappointing because if we'd of played well we'd probably of won the game, it was there to be won, but I don't buy in to all the doom and gloom. Yes, we need to improve going forward, but we created more and were more threatening than a much vaunted West Ham attack so it's not like we were completely toothless, star man on WhoScored? Fabianski. Our second highest rating on WhoScored? Grealish. I'm not saying we were great, but we weren't as poor as maybe it appeared.

We have the potential to be much much better, and it will come with time, we've so many new players that need to get up to speed with the system, and they are doing it in one of the most difficult leagues in the world, we'd all like more points and maybe we even deserved a couple more, but I for one expected us to struggle a bit for maybe the first quarter/third of the season, what is important at this stage is that we continue to pick up points while we get all of these new players up to speed.

[The Fun Factory]

I thought it was a broadly positive performance apart from the last 20.  I thought it was a decent game, which appears to be different from the tv/media viewpoint. We appeared to have panicked when the spammers went down to 10 men. Game management for 15 of those last 20 was poor. Needed Hourihane on and spread the game out wide with the man advantage, rather than faffing about giving dangerous set pieces to West Ham. Matched one of the form teams in the league and did not really put us under much pressure. Defence was solid, midfield was okay, up front the is the worry.

Wesley will struggle to get 10 goals.  We need to keep grinding until Jan and get a quality striker in. That was a major failure in the summer. Why buy Konsa to have 5 central defenders and have 3 strikers? Baffling. 

[mottaloo]

3 hours ago, Raver50032 said:

An incredible and hard fought point against West Ham... an established Premier League team who we can only hope to emulate in years to come. Well done. Absolutely stoked.

If that game was played at their place then i totally agree with you. I'm just getting concerned that as the home team we need to take full advantage of the sell out crowd and be the team who dictates play against most of our opponents, except for the likes of man citeh. Then again, look what naaaaarwich did with a depleted side...

Edited September 17, 2019 by mottaloo

[AndyHowell]

We should be happy with a point. That was a good West Ham team we were up about, solid, street wise and defended well especially when down to 10 men.

My worry is that we are easy to predict. We want to play on the break and haven't got enough skill and guile to break down defences that sit back — I thought that as well right at the end of last season.

El Gazi looks out of his depth to me and we seem to have a problem getting around the defence and to the byeline. We will simply not get enough goals out of Grealish and McGinn. Marvellous looks a better option than Luiz who did very little when he came on. Conor needs to be back in that midfield if we can get him in.

Wesley is discovering that he won't get a rest in the game and that he has to fight for 90 minutes. I think we will regret not getting in an extra forward and winger.

I'm not sure that we did spend that well in the summer! A lot fo work to do if we are not to look like Fulham by Christmas.

Edited September 17, 2019 by AndyHowell

[PaulC]

On reflection there were positives. Heaton hardly had a save to make. Engels and Mings looked very solid. Nakamba was good. Just think our front three look so poor. 

[newhavenhibby]

Football is such a "results" based business, one bit of luck and you win the game and the feelings being noted on this thread would change very much to the positive.

As a team you are close to establishing yourselves in the big league but looking in from the outside( apologies for that!) you have almost made a good start. For 85 minutes at spurs,  2 early lax moments v Bournemouth , a poor late decision  v Palace preventing an equaliser and then just not quite falling for you last night, it is a feeling of almost but not quite.

As an outsider , if I were still a Villa fan , I would not be too disappointed at present as the signs are there that the team can kick on and hold their own in this league. This is where Smith and Terry have a big job to do now to make sure this happens, to manage the squad, identify the weak areas and think about which players they could bring in after xmas for the second half of the season. This season has to be about consolidating within the top league in the World and then kick on from there. This at present is a steep learning curve for management and players alike, some will cut it some not.

Keep the faith 

[spineynorman]

Did Heaton have any save to make ? I thought it was a really enjoyable game to watch - end to end stuff with some good attacking moves from both teams and we created the better chances I thought. Echo most of what the "positive guys" above have said. What worried me was the way we really ran out of steam in the last quarter and West Ham seemed still full of running, despite the man short. We also began to "lose shape" at that time. Not a phrase I like but it seemed more like a schoolboy team attacking towards the end. Down to the manager to sort ? Like Nakamba. Seems to have the ability to look as though he is about to lose the ball and then recover but that was a very promising performance. I thought Mings looked a bit off for the first quarter but then back to normal. Guilbert's run to recover the ball (off Anderson was it ?) in the second half was remarkable.

At the moment, I am struggling to see how Wesley justifies starting ahead of Davis. Davis is criticised for not looking like scoring but Wesley didn't really look like scoring to me last night and I'm not sure Davis would have been bullied off the ball as much. It would be a brave decision to drop Wesley and maybe there is more to come but his general play with the ball at his feet or strength doesn't seem as good as Davis to me. Worrying. I was not a great fan of El Ghazi last season ( a bit of a fan but not great) although he shows flashes just as he did last night. Perhaps we expect too much of wingers and consistent brilliance ?

I am hoping the number of misplaced passes in good positions was a one-off last night. It seemed everyone was at it. Not just a bit off but straight to the opposition. Perhaps when you are prepared to try things they don't always come off but at times it was downright dangerous. Still I'd rather we play on the edge than play safe all the time. Speaking of Taylor, why doesn't someone tell him that when he is within say 30 yards of the goal, just run outside the defender with the ball and he will either get fouled, a throw, a corner, a cross or dispossessed, probably in equal measure and it might work better for him.. Hutton used to do that to some effect and as their skill levels are similar it might be a good approach rather than dragging it back all the time. I reckon I could do that. Mind you, I reckon I could do a lot of things and obviously can't otherwise I wouldn't be sat in the stands like the rest of us. One thing I can do is referee (I have the badge) and I thought Dean was decent last night. Tried to let the game flow too, a rarity these days and didn't book Grealish when he went sprawling into the penalty area in the second half unlike that guy with the big red nose and floppy feet masquerading as a ref at Palace.

[bannedfromHandV]

Having had time to reflect I think my biggest concern from last night was a bit of a lack of discipline, particularly after the Ghazi/Mings incident.

We lacked tactical discipline particularly in the second half, at one point during open play Elmo was closing someone down at left back - he was brought on as a right winger, they found space with ease after going down to 10 men which should not have been happening.

Above all we seemed devoid of energy, particularly after 20 or so minutes, everything looked laboured, stray passes and a lack of intensity. It seemed VP was a little subdued too though not easy to tell watching on TV.

All in all an odd game to summarise really, I think they were probably the better team just about but were almost as bad as us, that said, we had the better chances and both Grealish and Wesley should have scored, or at least hit the target.

A point against West Ham isn’t the end of the world but you can’t see past the fact that it was two points dropped.

Edited September 17, 2019 by bannedfromHandV