Ratings & Reactions: Villa v Leicester

[Five Ken McNaughts]

I daydream of the time when every hacked / hoofed / sliced clearance was taken majestically on the chest by Benteke.

[Delphinho123]

35 minutes 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.

See, you’re wrong. And this is an argument that has yet again crept into the debate because we’ve all forgotten what a decent striker should do (hopefully Vardy has shown some on here what a decent striker is like).

Wesley shouldn’t be a back up to anyone in this squad. He simply isn’t good enough. He wouldn’t have been good enough to be a back up striker to Abraham last season. He’s not good enough full stop. In any sense of the word.

[sidcow]

To be fair they are by a distance the best team we have played. 

I know Liverpool are above them but they looked far better than Liverpool. Constantly pressing us and lightning quick on the attack with a striker who looks like he's going to score everytime the ball is within 10 ft of him. *

They have won 8 on the bounce and are probably at this moment the best team in the league. 

 

* What a complete tosspot though. 

Edited December 8, 2019 by sidcow

[thunderball]

1 hour ago, rendelc said:

Wesley has to be the worst player I’ve ever seen in a Villa shirt and I’m 55  years old .

Lol. Have you only just started watching?

[Paul33]

1 hour ago, pacbuddies said:

Wesley is miles behind Tammy and if he'd been our striker last season we would still be in the Championship. What was Smith thinking of paying £22m for that lump of lard. Relegation beckons.

Not having that. Give your head a wobble chap ...... you can cook bacon with lard. You can't do **** all with a donkey like Wesley !!!

Edited December 8, 2019 by Paul33

[Humanoid]

Engles and Guilbert should have started today. 

Without enough quality players on the pitch, the team gets stretched by quality oppostition with players like Jack and Mcginn get too exhausted

Nakamba seems to be happy to do just enough to get by, he should be imposing himself on games more than he does

Luiz is having too many bang average games at best.  Other than couple of flashy goals, he's done very little to impress.

Need not saying anything about Wes

 

[thunderball]

We need some pace, drive. Maupay rubbing it in too

[foreveryoung]

1 hour ago, VillanousOne said:

It's not just about this match.

1) Wes is getting poorer and never gets subbed since Davis was injured
2) McGinn has been ineffective for months now
3) Even Mings has been making more and more bad mistakes
4) The non stop merry go around of who plays out of Connor, Luiz, Wes, El Ghazi and Nakamba has got out of hand. How can these players learn how to play together when they never know who out of them will start?
5) We have one formation and one set of tactics if it doesn't work in a match it's game over
6) Love him or hate him, Kodjia can't do any worse can he? Even if he isn't the magic answer we all need
 

Playing Elmo today for Guilbert was also baffling.

 

 

From all the winging I have done on here today about Smith. This is exactly where I am.

[VillaFaninLondon]

The fact is, DS said we're too open and need to stop being too open. He sad this after Arsenal away, Brighton home, Norwich away, Chelsea away. He can't just keep saying these things and not improving on them. Got his defensive selection wrong today not playing Guilbert and Engels and now he seriously has to think about dropping Wesley - he's got nothing to lose trying Trez or El Ghazi up there if he feels Kodjia isn't good enough (which I agree with), at least we might be able to play the ball in behind defences and might play the ball on the ground more instead of lumping aimless long balls.

 

I'll write today off and give him the benefit of the doubt given the quality of the opposition, but we have to see some results over the next few weeks, starting next Saturday. We've already lost 9 games ffs, it's about time we started riding out some 1-0 wins and getting away from the relegation zone.

Edited December 8, 2019 by VillaFaninLondon

[RobSpain]

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 

[OutByEaster?]

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.

 

 

 

 

[NoelVilla]

1 hour ago, rendelc said:

Wesley has to be the worst player I’ve ever seen in a Villa shirt and I’m 55  years old .

I have seen Tonev but you are close with your ranking 

[PrimevalVillan]

Listen, our schedule was atrocious. Short week with ManU-Chelsea-Leicester is a tall order for a young team. 

We were competitive today but we could have done better in all three phases and that has to leave us fans a bit optimistic that even small improvements can go a long way in improving our results.

We are a decent team that definitely has potential but we lack composure and that will come with time. I think targeting a veteran in midfield this window, maybe on loan, would go a long way.  

Also, Heaton is such a good GK.

 

 

[rbcuk]

How elmohamady played the whole game I’ll never know should have been hooked off at half time, Wesley yet another shocker from him 

[PrimevalVillan]

16 minutes ago, VillaFaninLondon said:

The fact is, DS said we're too open and need to stop being too open. He sad this after Arsenal away, Brighton home, Norwich away, Chelsea away. He can't just keep saying these things and not improving on them. Got his defensive selection wrong today not playing Guilbert and Engels and now he seriously has to think about dropping Wesley - he's got nothing to lose trying Trez or El Ghazi up there if he feels Kodjia isn't good enough (which I agree with), at least we might be able to play the ball in behind defences and might play the ball on the ground more instead of lumping aimless long balls.

 

I'll write today off and give him the benefit of the doubt given the quality of the opposition, but we have to see some results over the next few weeks, starting next Saturday. We've already lost 9 games ffs, it's about time we started riding out some 1-0 wins and getting away from the relegation zone.

Trez came on today and was getting into areas in the final third no one else was and he has been doing so for the past 4-5 games..I'll leave it at that.

[AXD]

1 hour ago, Delphinho123 said:

See, you’re wrong. And this is an argument that has yet again crept into the debate because we’ve all forgotten what a decent striker should do (hopefully Vardy has shown some on here what a decent striker is like).

Wesley shouldn’t be a back up to anyone in this squad. He simply isn’t good enough. He wouldn’t have been good enough to be a back up striker to Abraham last season. He’s not good enough full stop. In any sense of the word.

See that’s an opinion. It is possible wesley will never live up to anything, it is also possible that given time and less pressure he will come good.

funny you use Jaime Vardy as an example. At age 23, same age as wesley now, he was playing at stocksbridge. So maybe it is not all black and white.

[nick76]

I wanted to get to this run of games outside of the bottom 3 and we have achieved that.  Now I think it’s in our hands, Sheffield Utd will be tough but then we have teams that we should get a bunch of points from and if we don’t it’s our own fault.  So from that point of view I’m happy.

 

Today Leicester we far too good for us in terms of player for player quality.  I felt this would be the hardest game recently because they are always underestimated despite their lofty position and it turned out that way.  I did hope we would fight and cut out sloppiness but I didn’t feel we did.  So I wasn’t as disappointed with the result but I was with the performance and that’s concerning because we were the same against Chelsea.  So bad day at the office.

 

 

 

[Pelle]

Schooled by a very good team.

[TRO]

16 minutes ago, VillaFaninLondon said:

The fact is, DS said we're too open and need to stop being too open. He sad this after Arsenal away, Brighton home, Norwich away, Chelsea away. He can't just keep saying these things and not improving on them. Got his defensive selection wrong today not playing Guilbert and Engels and now he seriously has to think about dropping Wesley - he's got nothing to lose trying Trez or El Ghazi up there if he feels Kodjia isn't good enough (which I agree with), at least we might be able to play the ball in behind defences and might play the ball on the ground more instead of lumping aimless long balls.

 

I'll write today off and give him the benefit of the doubt given the quality of the opposition, but we have to see some results over the next few weeks, starting next Saturday. We've already lost 9 games ffs, it's about time we started riding out some 1-0 wins and getting away from the relegation zone.

I couldn't agree more....something is not right.

Wes has to be taken out of the firing line for his own good....he is gradually game by game getting worse.

Its clear watching that, we have serious issues....sure Leicester are a good side, but we helped them today, by some of our inept play.....so many unforced errors from us, how can you expect to do anything when that happens.

Some of the same issues were there against Chelsea and other teams so its folly for some fans to harp on about Leicester, being this super power.

I thought a poignant moment existed in the game, for me, where in the last kick, Ricardo out muscled Luiz on our by line  by the corner flag.....they were 1-4 up, but still battling, most players would have taken the easy option, but he won the ball.....Leicester deserve all the credit coming their way, Best team I have seen at Villa Park for ages.....but when you lose most of the second balls during the game, it's hard not to suggest, we helped them.

 

[TRO]

34 minutes 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.

 

 

 

 

don't really need to read the rest.....that just about sums it up to a tee.....blunt is right.

Oh I lied....I did read it, good post.

We clearly have an issue with heading the ball,( just one amongst many) in both boxes....even with far post crosses we are vulnerable..... we have conceded so many this season.....and when we cross we have no one in attendance to apply the same damage as we have to endure.....brain dead or what?

I am not sure of the jam tomorrow view....I think we have some serious issues to fix.

Edited December 8, 2019 by TRO