Ratings & Reactions: Villa v Leicester

[chappy]

Were the Leicester fans really singing “Champions of England, you’ll never sing that”?

 

edit: answered below, they weren’t 

Edited December 8, 2019 by chappy
Correction

[PaulC]

First time this season I felt were were outclassed. That Leicester midfield trio are brilliant. They are better than when they won the league. Worrying for Villa is that we have too many players who are not good enough for the premier league. Smith is  too stubborn and continues to pick Wesley in hope rather than expectation.  We have to get something at Sheffield or I fear the worst.  

[bannedfromHandV]

Without doubt the worst performance of the season, ridiculous decision from Mings to try running off a hamstring injury, without doubt attributed to costing us the first goal. 
 

Heads just seemed to drop and we lost all discipline second half, if Leicester had scored 6 or 7 we couldn’t have complained too much.

Not a good start to the festive period, shame we’ll have lost Mings now probably for at least 2-3 weeks, so pretty much all the Xmas games but he’d been declining in his performance levels anyway over recent weeks in my opinion so that might not turn out to be a bad thing, except I think he’s the organiser back there and that was evidently missing today after he went off.

[VillaChris]

Don't see the issue with Vardy's celebration. Young and Gabby cupped their ears all the time to other fans after scoring in 08/09.

Vardy is just an incredible finisher one on one, you never expect him to miss.

[MadridVilla]

1 hour ago, RobSpain said:

We play long balls to Wes but he’s terrible at bringing the ball down, laying it off or even muscling out his marker. Then when we break we overplay the ball and swing in a cross to who? Leicester looked dangerous every time they went forward and it could have been 1-7. Great day at Villa Park with my daughter regardless of the result. UTV 

Exactly my thinking. Why bother signing Wesley if we don't play to his strengths? Our game is focused around hold-up play from the strikers and crosses into the box, and he is useless at both. I'm not saying he is a bad player but he is such a bad fit for how we play.

[Five Ken McNaughts]

If Wesley is supposedly so popular around Bodymoor Heath, why do we see constant bad vibes between him and his teammates on the pitch? Compare it to how the humble and hard-working Davis is clearly loved by everyone when he plays. Something is badly wrong here, no matter how much (understandable) damage limitation Dean Smith engages in. 

[Elton]

41 minutes ago, chappy said:

Were the Leicester fans really singing “Champions of England, you’ll never sing that”?

No, it sounds like it at the ground but apparently it is “you made us sing that” in tribute to their deceased Chairman.

Edited December 8, 2019 by Elton

[Elton]

Disappointing day. Could have been different if El Ghazi can learn to keep the ball below the bar from 6 yards out.

Wesley not suited to our style of play for sure but our biggest problem is clearly defensive. Heaton man of the match again. I don’t watch much of Everton so I can only assume Pickford is absolutely amazing??

[Vive_La_Villa]

3 hours ago, villalad21 said:

You can only hope. You’re a blantant  bluenose troll and I can’t believe you haven’t been banned by now. 

[smg]

3 hours ago, romavillan said:

Lots of overreactions. 

They are flying and have torn better teams than us a new one this season already. If AEG scores instead of hitting the bar, if Engels was ready to come on for Mings for their first then maybe we go in to half time at least level.

Not saying we deserved a point or anything but come on. We aren't shit, our objective this year is 17th or better. No need to panic, Smith is still great, we have some good players, we had a bad day then lost discipline and injury forced our hand on subs a bit but we aren't shit.

We now have a run of games where we can get some points on the board. 7/8 points from the next 5 games will see us on course for our objectives with the option to get a striker in Jan. 

For a number of reasons I have no idea what went on today other than the score. Have read the comments before this and felt very deflated however this makes perfect sense, We are a new premier league team with defects and apart from Liverpool they are the team of the season, the next few games are very important  but we did not become a lost cause in 90 minutes this afternoon 

[smg]

3 hours ago, AXD said:

That was probably our worst performance of the season so far. So no reason to be happy.

on the other hand, this was the best team in the League at the moment. 
reading the match thread is depressing, every player is the worst ever, a complete waste of money, should never wear the shirt again... we bought talented players this summer, anyone expecting them to perform at their best for an entire season is dreaming. McGinn, ElGhazi, Mings,... are not having their best time. Trezeguet, nakamba, Engels, Konsa, targett, luiz,... are all young and new to the league, of course they wouldn’t be playing champions league level. Wesley is the one problem, he should be a backup to a better striker and getting a cameo now and then.
we didn’t get the likes of cahill because we wanted to build for the future. This is building, as bad as that game was.

Well said sir if only more of our fans could see things this way there would be a lot more positivity around this forum. We all want to compete with the best but have to realise it takes time.

[TRO]

1 hour ago, screwdriver said:

The legend Ron Saunders must have been turning in his grave. No wonder it started hammering it down. That was absolutley shocking. Smith reminded me of Marco Silver stood on the touchline hands in pockets sucking on his zipper.

We dug ourselves out of a hole with that lifeline just before half time. It was set up for Villa to come good. Then gazi misses a sitter. which proved the turning point.

 

A few things I noticed:

Elmo was playing brilliantly in the first half untill he found himself witrh a shooting chance and he flapped it. then the crowd got on his back a bit and he was awful from then on.

Kodjia might aswell upload some photos of his house to right move. If he can't get into the team about Wesley he's finished. Which he is.

Smiths love in with konsa must come to an end! this guy should be loaned out to a champ club.

Luiz is too casual to play DM he's obviously talented but doesn't appear to want to be here and plays like it.

SMith will never sub Wesley as it will finish him. Everyone was hoping Wesley was seriously injured when he went down in the first half.

People are going over board about leicester. They're just counter attackers with a ruthless striker.  like villa under o'neil.

I still think Grealish is better than Madison. Grealish can dribble Maddison is a give and go merchant. Put maddison in a villa shirt and his career would tail off if he tried a one two with wesley.

This was a sickening defeat.

 

 

Its a bit soon for me, because I'm still saddened by the news.....but, he would have been disappointed by many aspects of that game.

Dean Smith has to find a way for us to become more hard nosed.....too many flaws still on display from the start of the season

[smg]

We are 4 months into our first premier league season there are a few more things to be addressed before getting  hard nosed. Whatever that means.

[TRO]

1 hour ago, Junxs said:

We weren't anywhere near as bad as being made out by some on here, Leicester are the best in the league at hitting teams on the break and all of their goals bar one were scored in this fashion.

If we had someone attacking the back post from Elmos flick on it would have been 2-2, instead they broke from that same corner and scored how I concede in every game of FIFA.

I knew we would lose today, now the really tough games are out the way we should pick up some points

I think its like the curates egg, good in parts.

some of our stuff is good, but the bad stuff is very bad.

We have issues, we have had since the championship still there...no sign of them improving.....that a worry.

The back post is a joke in its own right......when we are defending we ball watch and leave it unattended.......when we attack i.e corner, we ball watch and leave it unattended.

If I had a tip for Wes to score.....I would say, just stand on the back post and wait for a cross, you'll score more than you do now......well, you know what I mean.....maybe he wouldn't score in a brothel.

[smg]

3 hours ago, thunderball said:

Lol. Have you only just started watching?

Probably went to one match every 10years..... top fan.d

[MaVilla]

3 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

Sharp versus blunt.

In general play, in the stuff that happens between the boxes, we matched them, we had plenty of the play and we created opportunities for things to happen in their box - they did the same to us - the difference tended to be that Leicester are a six foot hooded man with a straight razor in a badly lit alley and we're a four year old with a nerf gun at the wacky warehouse. They are clinical in finishing off attacks, they're quick, they're smart and they finish - they didn't misplace much in the final third and  the whole team plays to make sure the strikers can score goals. For us, we're the opposite, we're good at getting to the opposition box, but from there things break down, we overplay, we get clogged up, we don't threaten, the whole team plays to make up for our lack of threat  - for me, we matched Leicester outside of the final act of scoring goals - but it's the final act that counts and they were a class apart from us at doing it.

In the first half we huffed and puffed and eventually got a goal we deserved through Grealish, I thought 2-1 was a reasonably fair reflection of things and I felt we were still in it - we opened the second half well and then after four minutes gave away a corner on the break and decided not to mark the most obvious threat that Leicester have from set pieces - game over on 49 minutes. It was the worst bit of defending I've seen at Villa Park for years - a corner floated over to the man everyone knew the corner would be aimed at and him allowed to head unchallenged and unmarked into our net. It finished things - sometimes even when the opposition have advantages, you still have to not beat yourself.

I thought tactically our style suited them more than theirs suited us - we try to play with the ball and get high up the pitch, they break and murder you with pace - and whilst Jamie Vardy may be a truly repugnant piece of human filth, if you give him space to run into he'll score goals for fun. We gave him space all day. They're smart, they play with seven behind the ball then break with two very quick strikers and a clever attacking midfielder in Maddison and they're hard to stop without numbers staying back - it's a good system - most teams leave more men back, which is one of the reasons that they have such a good defensive record. They're hard to attack because you need to stay nervous about the counter and we attacked more than most teams will, largely because we have to attack twice as much as most teams do to score.

Wesley, Wesley, Wesley. It's now been at least two whole games since I can recall our only passable striker having an effort on goal - that's not two games since he scored, that's two games since he tried to score. He works hard at times, he can be a nuisance to defenders - but he's not a goalscorer and he's not a goalscoring threat - and we desperately need someone who is. Kodjia was always selfish and unreliable, he's now also old and disinterested, Davis is injured - which means we either have to stick with Wesley for the next four or five games until we get to the window - or we have to find a system that doesn't need a striker - neither of those things sound like a good idea to me. It's a big problem.

It was a strange game - I thought in some ways the 4-1 scoreline flattered them, but then it's also true that they could have scored another two or three quite easily - if we'd made anything of our huff and puff it could have been different - but we didn't and more worryingly perhaps we can't.

Their fans were very good on a strangely quiet day at Villa Park - they were very respectful of the applause for Ron Saunders at the start of the game and earned the right to be annoying at the end, it's a great time for them and they're enjoying it. They're really well organised and whilst Brendan Rodgers is a weirdo who you wouldn't leave alone in your house, he's proving a very good football manager. Good luck to em.

We got a bundle of things wrong, tactically and in our play and we were punished. On top of that we've further exposed a massive glaring weakness that we don't have the ability in our squad to address. It's been a difficult day. I don't think we need to panic, thankfully we're now through a very tough group of fixtures with a much friendlier looking set of games ahead of us; I still think we'll be fine this season. 

Leicester will make the Champions league on this showing, we'll stay up reasonably comfortably I think - but to make this game different next season we're going to need reinforcements at the business end, because today was pat-a-cake against a dagger.

 

 

 

 

blimey, thanks for the reasoned overview, very informative.

too much hyperbole so far today, good to see a level head assessing things.....

[TRO]

I was watching the game today thinking, Ron would never set us up like that.

sure its different times....but the benevolence of our play is staggering at times.....The opposition don't need a ball winner playing against us..... we give it to them every opportunity we find, worryingly naive.

Tielmans, Maddison and Ndidi.....just kept intercepting our poor transitions......Vardy must have felt he could play until he's 40 at this rate.

[wilko154]

Christ the overreactions are incredible.

Lets get some things straight:

1) We were playing the second best team in the country, and one of the most in form teams in Europe. They were always going to be better than us.

2) We've just come up from the Championship after a 3 year spell away from the PL. Games against the top 6 were always going to be hard and we came into the season expecting a few beatings.

3) Just because we spent some money over the Summer doesn't mean we have a fantastic team straight away. It's going to take a few seasons of fine tuning, players finding their feet, more signings, coaching etc before we really get the best out of the team. Some people are acting as though we should be beating teams like Utd, Chelsea, Leicester.

 

Today we were poor, no doubt about it. But Leicester were really very good, probably the best side we've faced this season. At times we tried too hard to force openings, misplacing passes, taking too long on the ball. Grealish didn't have the best of games but he's being hindered by those around him. Defensively we were poor, however Vardy and Ineacheo were a real handful and we didn't deal with the long ball to them well enough; we were also massively hindered by the loss of Mings.

McGinn desperately needs a rest. Wesley needs taking out of the firing line if all we are going to do is utilise him as a target man, which is not what he is; unfortunately I have no idea what he actually is. Smith however doesn't seem keen on giving Kodjia a run out. 

Games like these aren't the games that will define our season, it's the games coming up that are the important games and where we must pick up points and performances. We move on after being taught a footballing lesson, the same lesson that many teams in this league will face from Leicester this season. Sheffield United next week and the battle to stay in this league begins.

Edited December 8, 2019 by wilko154

[The Fun Factory]

I think this was the first home game at least that we have genuinely been taught a a premier league lesson by a very  good side. Leicester was better in all aspects of play today, quicker on the break and faster in the speed of thought.  Vardy so clincial. Mings getting injured did not help but we made too many errors today and did not take our chances. 15 shots, 2 on target.  In the past 3 games versus Man u, Chelsea and Leceister we have scored four goals which is impressive. Unfortunately letting in eight isn't.

I don't see the fuss on Luiz. I thought he was pants today. I would drop him next week and play Conor. Ok he isn't a world beater but at least he can put  a decent set piece in. I have said my thoughts on Wesley but I have to admit he was poor again today but really we have very little option other than to keep playing him until January.

It is a shame that we could not put in a 110% performance to honor Ron Saunders but football is a unforgiving game if you keep making basic erros versus a good team on a winning streak.

[VillaFaninLondon]

I think today told us a few things:

1) We play too far an open game than we should. Leicester could and should have scored 8 or 9 goals seriously, a mixture of bad finishing from them and decent goalkeeping kept the scoreline lower. We have in many games allowed the opposition to have 20+ shots, even against Brighton at home who had 10 men for nearly 60 mins ffs. Yes we want to play attacking, expansive football but there has to be a balance and we don't dictate the tempo of the game at all, our game plan is just to go forward to try to score before we inevitably lose the ball (and our shape) then teams counter us time and again.

2) We are rather passive and lack intensity in our game and we really are lacking an identity. Are we a passing, technical side that plays through teams? No. Are we a counter attacking side? No. Are we a long ball, physical side? Sometimes, but no not really. Are we a hard pressing team? Not seen any evidence. It's obvious there was going to be a problem adapting a style having brought so many players in, but I was hoping Smith would have us playing like his Brentford teams did in the Championship. I'm yet to see evidence of us playing like that.

3) We are too reliant on Grealish. When he has a bad game, the whole team do. There's no one else to push the team on if he's playing poorly. McGinn's early season threat seems to have gone and he's looked a shadow of the player he was. No one else is taking the game by the scruff of the neck. Basically, we're so reliant on JG being fit and performing to his best and this is a serious concern. Maddison is a quality player but has players like Tielemans and Ndidi around him and Vardy in front of him which makes his job a lot easier. 

4) Despite the mistakes he makes at times, Mings is a vital part of our defence. After he went off today we badly missed his leadership at the back. He can be a bit lax at times but he makes a big difference just communicating with the back line and ensuring everyone does their jobs. That said, if he wasn't fit to come back on the pitch today, he should have come off immediately as it cost us the first goal. I really hope he's not out for long because he's a leader for us. 

 

I think those are fair points made above. Smith did a great job getting us promoted but he shouldn't be excused from bad management which has cost us on several occasions this season. JT should also take some criticism - we've conceded 28 goals, more than anyone else except Burnley and the bottom 3, so what exactly is he doing with the defence? It's his job as assistant manager to get them organised and disciplined, yet every game we look so open and disjointed.

 

The next few games are massive. Despite how well they are doing I really feel we need to be targeting three points against Sheffield to make up for that dire performance today. There needs to be some big responses from the players, most of whom were diabolical today. And the rest of the month will be important because these are the games we need to be winning - 3 wins from the next 4 games is critical imo to move away from the danger zone.