Ratings & Reactions: Villa v Wolves

[TheStagMan]

I was impressed by the number of our players that went over to comfort Keinan as he went off. Shows what a great team spirit is being built across the whole squad.

[The Fun Factory]

Our stronger reserve team beat Wolves youth side. Good to see a few players get a start such as Lansbury who did well. I have my doubts for him to be  a longer term prem player but did well last night. Sloppy at the back again and a stronger Wolves side could have beaten us last night.  Steer saved our bacon. I am not part of the Taylor scapegoat brigade but he was poor last night.  Not much more to say other than nearly 35,000 for a reserve game is not a bad turnout.

[The Fun Factory]

10 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Its all the season ticket holders with free tickets that didn’t turn up.  

So why dont we do this in the league? It is because cup game you have to share the receipt 3 ways. £££.

[bannedfromHandV]

13 hours ago, AVTuco said:

A good win. I like it when we can win games seemingly effortlessly.

I gave MotM to Elmo. He took care of the captaincy with style, was vocal from what I could see, and scored the winner. Good game, good chap.

Agree with all that and Elmo was my MoTM too however, I couldn’t fail to notice you selected very good for the refereeing performance - I thought he was terrible (again, we only get shit refs), gave 2 or 3 decisions against us which were absolutely baffling.

[bannedfromHandV]

11 hours ago, Rugeley Villa said:

Flat game and a flat atmosphere for both sets of fans. It seemed neither team had to work hard and it felt very much like a friendly game not a local derby cup game. Also 34k there? There was way more than that. Anyway at least we won. Nightmare getting home tonight. 

Yeah i was surprised by the attendance, looking round it didn’t feel like there was the best part of 10000 empty seats....strange.

And yeah, it was not a good night for travelling home northbound, took me hours to get home having diverted off the M6!!

[Talldarkandransome]

3 hours ago, sidcow said:

I'm pretty sure the scoreboard on the night said 39,400. Has someone mixed their figures up somewhere.  It can't be down to those who didn't turn up because they count tickets sold even if people don't turn up. 

Wolves 5,000 plus 30,000 season tickets exceeds the attendance figure even assuming they didn't sell one single additional seat. 

It did seem like more but it appeared on big screens and the announcer repeated it twice

[Kingman]

3 hours ago, The Fun Factory said:

Our stronger reserve team beat Wolves youth side. Good to see a few players get a start such as Lansbury who did well. I have my doubts for him to be  a longer term prem player but did well last night. Sloppy at the back again and a stronger Wolves side could have beaten us last night.  Steer saved our bacon. I am not part of the Taylor scapegoat brigade but he was poor last night.  Not much more to say other than nearly 35,000 for a reserve game is not a bad turnout.

Wouldn't say it was there youth team, The entire bench they had at Newcastle played last night. 

More piss poor in depth than anything. 

[Demitri_C]

Trezuget is terrible. I think this one of the few flops from the summer.

Lansbury  luiz konsa and Davis very good.

Rest were average. Shame Chester didn't get any game time woukd have been perfect game for hi.

[Vive_La_Villa]

1 hour ago, Demitri_C said:

Trezuget is terrible. I think this one of the few flops from the summer.

Lansbury  luiz konsa and Davis very good.

Rest were average. Shame Chester didn't get any game time woukd have been perfect game for hi.

Writing him off already? Am I the only one that thinks he has a lot of ability but really low confidence.

[Demitri_C]

13 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Writing him off already? Am I the only one that thinks he has a lot of ability but really low confidence.

Yeah.

I just think he has been really poor. He is just non existant in a attacking sense.

[Enda]

19 hours ago, Mark_1989 said:

Troll

Nah, not a troll. I'll be honest with ya that I had the match on in work so only got to look when it sounded like something was happening and, based on that, Luiz kept coming up in bad news. I would have missed the cleaning up jobs though.

[AVTuco]

6 hours ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Agree with all that and Elmo was my MoTM too however, I couldn’t fail to notice you selected very good for the refereeing performance - I thought he was terrible (again, we only get shit refs), gave 2 or 3 decisions against us which were absolutely baffling.

We must be happy when we don't get bummed badly by the ref ... 

Edit: damn, I'm all alone there... 

Edited October 31, 2019 by AVTuco

[sidcow]

5 hours ago, Talldarkandransome said:

It did seem like more but it appeared on big screens and the announcer repeated it twice

To be fair I had spent all afternoon drinking with a Wolves fan.  I didn't even know who scored our goals until I looked it up this morning. 

It was probably therefore my own drunken eyes who transposed the 4 and the 9.

[bannedfromHandV]

6 minutes ago, sidcow said:

To be fair I had spent all afternoon drinking with a Wolves fan.  I didn't even know who scored our goals until I looked it up this morning. 

It was probably therefore my own drunken eyes who transposed the 4 and the 9.

That’s not alcohol man

[Five Ken McNaughts]

I think the free-for-season-ticket-holders gesture was well intentioned but ultimately backfired. From the Trinity Upper I could see the only part of the Doug Ellis that was packed (and doing the most singing) was the area that is usually away seating. These were also the seats that made it to general sale. I think a lot more fans who usually miss out on league games would have jumped at the chance to see Villa for a tenner – and made the most of the experience – had the regular cup ticketing been in place. I suspect we managed to miss out on a crowd in the high 30s, a better atmosphere and higher gate receipts.

[OutByEaster?]

I thought there were some really good things in the performance in a peculiar atmosphere.

Firstly, I thought Luiz was excellent - he could have had a helmet and shoulderpads because he absolutely quarterbacked this game - he found space in the middle of the park and just dictated everything. I thought as an individual he dominated the game and looked like a player who will go on to become a very good midfielder indeed.

I thought Trezeguet had a quiet first half but did really well in the second. I've had concerns about his fitness, but I don't think anyone did more running than he did in the last twenty minutes; and we had John McGinn on for some of that time. He was willing, he was direct, he looked quick, keen and eager and although things didn't always come off for him I thought his effort deserved a bit more appreciation than it's gotten.

Konsa and Hause both looked solid in different ways, Konsa with the use of a bit of body sway to buy time on the ball and Hause dominating everything in the air. It's weird, I couldn't pick a real mistake out of either of them, but I also never really felt confident in them whenever Wolves attacked. 

Brace yourself, I'm going to make a slightly far fetched argument - it's sometimes the case that I'm wrong about a player, that I've misjudged him and need to apologise for my initial thoughts. In the case of Elmohamady, I don't think that's the case, I think he's actually got better. He's a clever football who played within his own limitations, he can head a ball and he's learned to defend without having to commit. I guess the word is wise, but I think he's better at being wise than he was when he thought he could be athletic, if that makes sense. Anyway, it's not me, it's him.

Neil Taylor has an innate ability to get into positions where he can be a real threat; he can find space, he can ghost in unnoticed, he can find ten yards in a place where a defender wouldn't want to give him two feet - it's genius, it really is. Neil Taylor hates being in those positions - you can see it, his innate talent to find the spaces gets him to places where he's a threat and then somewhere a little alarm goes off and he folds under the pressure to do something now he's there. He spent the second half camped on the left wing, where Luiz found him with a succession of thirty yard balls - he did the best part of nothing with them. Usually, he makes up for that by being a reliable-ish defensive presence, but he made one horrendous error and looked a little shaky last night. He's a peculiar footballer.

I thought Hourihane was a little quiet, and El Ghazi played the game at eighty percent. Lansbury was excellent at times and his pass for our first goal was fabulous - but I'm convinced he's shrunk - when he arrived here he was a big fella, a dominant midfield giant on his debut - now he's smaller and neat and tidy. Maybe its the hair.

Davis looked good while he was on - if he gets his body between you and the ball, then as a defender your best bet is to wait for a bit; you're not getting it off him. He's a very good leader of the line and I think would be excellent as part of a front two with a zippy second striker around him. I hope he's not too badly hurt.

Kodjia looked like he needed minutes - he also looked like he's not developed away from thinking about himself. Still, he'll be good for the odd ten minute Kodjiatime cameo off the bench against tiring defences.

Overall, I thought they played pretty well for a team that don't play together often, I thought both sets of fans gave it a go at times and the atmosphere was occasionally very good. I thought the ref got worse as the game went on but didn't particularly prevent both teams giving it a go.

The league game will be different, but then it'll be different for both of us. I think this has the makings of a decent rivalry. 

Onwards and upwards - or at least onwards and upwards as long as the scousers and their toothy manager can figure out what they want to do.