Ratings & Reactions: Southampton v Villa

[TRO]

3 minutes ago, Talldarkandransome said:

Not voting, all sh1te. Glad I'm not going next week cos I fancy 8-0 to City.

Defo some internal issues, Jack telling AEG to get off the pitch and all I heard from Smith today was effing this and effing that. Miserable performance for a miserable day. 

I sense that.....but even if there isn't, there soon will be, with these performances.

I think he has lost the plot.

[ferguson1]

[kiltorken]

Grealish and mings didn't pick up injuries, that's the only positive I can take from that game. 

[OutByEaster?]

Very, very poor. The result in itself isn't the end of the world, Bournemouth did their bit and although Brighton got a point, Watford and West Ham should both lose this weekend and keep us in the race - our run in is probably the hardest of the group of five teams we're the relegation race with though. 

No, the result in itself wasn't the end of the world - the performance on the other hand was diabolical, we were lacklustre, poorly organised and lacked any kind of threat - individually we made a million mistakes and collectively we looked bereft of ideas.

What's equally worrying is that our next three games are against Man City, Leicester and Chelsea - we could lose all three of those heavily and from there, I'm not sure if we'll have the ability to recover any confidence.

Metaphorically we're not looking good; literally we're horrible to watch - we're going to need a whole lot of luck.

 

[PrimevalVillan]

Southampton worked hard and played a physical game, so credit to them. We couldn't keep hold of the ball at all and constantly made mistakes.

Guilbert, Konsa, and Reina -- terrible today. Trez wasn't as bad as people are saying.

Dean made positive subs, team just did not play well. Luiz, Targett, and Jack were the only guys who were acceptable. 

[MadridVilla]

That was an utter horror show. 

Right from the first whistle, Southampton were much quicker with and without the ball. If anything the opening goal in the 8th minute had been coming a while. From what I remember of the stats Southampton had 5 shots on goal in the first 10 minutes, and by the end of the game it was 28. 28 ATTEMPTS. Anyone conceding 28 attempts in a game not only deserves to be relegated, but they should also be docked 12 points for crimes against football. 

Second half we just completely capitulated. No patterns of play, formation went out the window, and it was just headless, stress-induced chaos. It was just hit and hope, there was clearly no plan in place to actually mount a comeback beyond 'trying a bit harder' or trying to 'get some momentum'. Honestly it's pub league stuff, they had no idea what they were doing.

Reina, in fairness to him, kept us in the game with some great saves - then later tried his hardest to concede another, which he succeeded in right at the death.

Hause was poor and looked lost - I don't think he is playing with much confidence at the moment. Should be dropped.

Luiz and Nakamba were chasing shadows - not only that, they were both chasing the same ones. They were far too close together, and they were completely bypassed for most of the game. 

Grealish was marked out of the game and got frustrated, then went into his I'm-gonna-do-this-all-by-myself mode which just made him even worse. Frustratingly ineffective.

Samatta had no chance. What sort of service were we giving him? Long balls through which were way overhit time and time again from the CBs. 

Nobody is exempt from the blame for that today. Smith clearly hasn't got them playing how he wants, which he has to take responsibility for. The players out there made so many mistakes and crumpled under the pressure of needing a result. I think the only way we stay up this year is if the 3 teams below us are even more inept than us, which can't be that likely.

I'm just going to enjoy watching Grealish etc. for the rest of the season in claret and blue because there's no way he'd want to play with this bunch of clowns next season, even if we stay up. I think you all should do the same.

[Designer1]

As much as I hate to say it, i think we need to get someone in to replace Dean to give us any sort of chance of staying up. I really really dont want to go back to the Championship.

[BOF]

Edited because it wasn't true.

[thunderball]

8 minutes ago, romavillan said:

We played some really good stuff against spurs and deserved at least a point. Not very good, today, poor against Bournemouth, were good before that though. Away we look a different side at the moment. We need to win some home games sharpish.

All the Smith out stuff though I do think is misguided though as it goes. He should stay even if relegated.

That used to be my view until today, but he hasn’t learned, and he can’t manage our defensive game, it’s the worst in the league, and the attack is poor too (3 shots today; how are we exploiting Samatha?). He can’t influence a game and seemingly can’t motivate the team when their existence depends on it. Not sure how we can defend him now.

[villabromsgrove]

Villa are not fighting a relegation battle.

Don't get me wrong we look very likely to get relegated in 11 games time, but please don't use the words "fighting" and "battle" because we are not doing either of those two things.

[KentVillan]

Just didn't turn up today.

There were visible signs of bad body language and frustration with teammates from quite a few of our players, and Smith himself.

The problem we have is that we don't have a single player with the pace to hit a team on the break. So we really have to dominate possession if we're to have any chance of scoring, and today we were dogshit in possession.

Nakamba went for a floated switch pass at one point which just summed up the total lack of effing braincells in our decision making. That's not your **** job mate, you aren't any good at it, don't do it.

Grealish is getting the short ball into feet too often from players who are standing right next to him. That's too easy to defend against. There's got to be some movement, him taking the ball on the half-turn, etc. so he's running into space, not double marked on the touchline.

Trez seems to think he's half a yard quicker than he actually is. Fair play to him, he did show some heart.

Which is more than can be said for AEG, who I hope is just binned off now until we sell him in the summer. Yes it's a nasty hand to the face, but there's no way in a million years any other player on the pitch is getting subbed off for that, you utter pussy.

Samatta was feeding off scraps all game. He's quite an unselfish player, and then the one moment he has to put a goal on a plate for Hourihane, he elects to shoot. Can't really complain about his performance, but I think given he lacks searing pace or monster strength, he's not going to do much damage unless we have some useful possession around the box.

Borja Baston - made things happen. Can see now why Smith rates him, but it's going to have to be in a front 2. A 6/10 performance at best, but at least not the total **** dogshit served up by everyone else.

Grealish - his worst performance in a Villa shirt.

Douglas Luiz - his worst performance in a Villa shirt.

Reina looks like he's playing vets league down the park. You can see the class is still there, but he's carrying too much weight. He did keep us in the game in the first half, so fair play to him. I'm not sure Nyland could have done any better.

Targett and Guilbert were okay. They were victims of just getting hot potato passes from the centre backs constantly, and then having nobody to pass to. The floated diagonal from Reina wasn't working at all.

Mings - brilliant in the air first half, but his distribution today was shocking.

Hourihane - a few games on the bench and suddenly he's Pirlo again. Came on today to remind us why he isn't.

Craig Pawson - I don't want to focus on him too much, because we deserved to lose. But utter garbage referee who should be reffing Sunday League. Criminal not to book Danny Ings, and should have been threatening Saints with cards much earlier on when the tactical fouls on Grealish became an obvious theme.

Dean Smith - I'll never be Smith Out as long as we're in with a shout (and we are, due to Bournemouth, West Ham, Watford and Norwich all being shite... maybe even Newcastle) but come on Dean, you need to think outside the box a bit and sort this out.

Absolutely pathetic performance, and one of the worst 90 minutes of football I've ever watched in my life.

 

[eholm]

2 minutes ago, MikeMcKenna said:

It’s midnight here in Thailand and I am absolutely gutted after that pathetic performance. We are not a premier league side. I really haven’t got a clue how this is going to be turned around. After the great performance v Spurs, I thought we would be better but we were sh*te, absolutely F***** sh*te. 

Your second sentence sums this up Mike. We are simply not good enough to play in this division. All the errors, inconsistency and poor performances are down to one thing alone - lack of quality. Forget personnel, formations, tactics.....we simply lack the overall quality in the squad. 

We had to spend big in Summer to rebuild squad but that resulted in average player cost to be circa £10M. You cannot but PL quality players for £10M these days. Then in addition to the quality of player we bought, we then had to try and get them all playing together at this level - mission impossible. 

We will obvs life JG, TM and JM but let’s try and keep squad together as yet another rebuild apart from being challenging due to FFP never ends well. Newcastle kept the majority of their squad and then came back up at first attempt. 

I am now accepting that we are down and only a few games left of Jack in a Villa shirt. Gonna TRY and gleam some sort of enjoyment out of the remainder of the season if possible and get ready for another Championship marathon. 

[Brumstopdogs]

Today Southampton had 28 shots against us.

In their last 3 home games they managed 10 shots vs Burnley, 10 vs Spurs and 11 vs Wolves.

Just goes to show how crap we are and how wrongly we are set up.

So weak, so passive, so mediocre.

Dean - have a good luck at yourself son!

[thunderball]

1 minute ago, BOF said:

 

This is the beginning of the end.....

[stewiek2]

The thing that Smith, O'Kelly, Terry, Cutler and the squad haven't grasped is that to fight a relegation battle you actually have to fight, to turn up and put a stint in against the teams around you. Today had absolutely no cohesive play, or dare I say leadership. I gave Mings MOTM as he had to carry that defence (and I include Nakamba and Luiz in that). Anyone being a one man defence would be overwhelmed.

Of the management and coaching staff only Cutler deserves his full wages this season.

[TRO]

19 hours ago, thunderball said:

Terrible. We deserve everything that comes our way now. I am finished watching this shower this season. Even if we stay up we don’t deserve to. Shocking, even more so at this stage of the season.

sad but true.

I have been watching this team for c 60 years and seen the ups and downs.......but trust me.....if a TEAM can't defend,its is done for.

Everyone wants to see attacking football.....but you have to win the right to do that..... we don't win any right to play football.

and futhermore, we don't defend,we retreat, there is a whole world of difference.

I guess losing 2-0 was something, when Southampton, mustered 28 Shots.....that really is a disgusting offering from us to allow that.

Edited February 23, 2020 by TRO

[screwdriver]

I thought Smith got it wrong today on so many levels. especially by not starting Drinkwater. an extra stopper in midfield was essential. straight from the off southampton pinned us back against the wall.

the goal was as soft as you'd ever see, bundled in off his lap. disgrace.

In fact the only time Shane long hasn't scored against Villa was the time he got clattered by hutton. Why not tell someone to put in an early reducer in on him? Dunno Deano did'nt think of that one........ it's better to make friends and play the game the right way.

I think the players are no longer listening to SMith. Only when Houihane came on did we show a bit of drive.

On my stream the camera honed in on him and he was shouting "what is going on here?" It reminded me of Graham Taylor against Holland. Instead of asking the players questions on the touch line how about giving them instructions how to go about getting back into the match?

He should resign tonight without taking a penny from the club in compo.

Then we need to get special clearence from the government to bring in Rafa from China.

It's over smith go now!

[Delphinho123]

Keep playing out from the back, lads. It looks to be really working!! 

[terrytini]

1 minute ago, BOF said:

 

Not at all surprised.

There was something wrong on the touch line all game.

And a lot of inter player/ coach arguing.

CH took his life in his hands debating with some fans at the end.

Couple of punch ups in the crowd - villa fans only - at final whistle.

Its felt very wrong today.

[nick76]

6 minutes ago, BOF said:

 

Could've done with some of that attitude on the pitch to be honest, the players were playing offseason football on the beach