Callum Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 he could always fall back on his work rate and work off the ball under Smith, Gerrard. But he doesn’t need to do nearly as much of that under Unai, so when he doesn’t score he hasn’t anything to fall back on. Don’t think he was too bad tbh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaAlex Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 2 minutes ago, villan95 said: Strange, I thought he was decent. Held it well and the better of their centre backs. The service to him was just poor. Me too he led the line well. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomaszk Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 Played like he had boots on the wrong feet. Duran coming on often makes us worse because Ollie becomes the forward that drops off a bit and becomes more involved in build up. That kills us because he's hesitant, has poor technique and doesn't really know what he's doing in general trying to create. Kicked to absolute **** again. Won some good stuff he shouldn't have. But I expect that from him now. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharkyvilla Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 I thought he was very good. Did really well to make that chance in the first half and had one brilliant turn in the second under pressure from 2 or 3 defenders. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delphinho123 Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 1 minute ago, sharkyvilla said: I thought he was very good. Did really well to make that chance in the first half and had one brilliant turn in the second under pressure from 2 or 3 defenders. Hmm. I thought he was poor tbh. He seems to lack the ability to get his head up and play a meaningful pass when we need to break teams down. His stock position is just, ‘well, I’m not sure what to do here so I’ll just shoot’. It really winds me up because the amount of times he shoots straight into a defender is excruciating. He’s streaky and his stats won’t allow me to have too much of a go at him but I find him f***** infuriating so much of the time. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allani Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 2 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said: Hmm. I thought he was poor tbh. He seems to lack the ability to get his head up and play a meaningful pass when we need to break teams down. His stock position is just, ‘well, I’m not sure what to do here so I’ll just shoot’. It really winds me up because the amount of times he shoots straight into a defender is excruciating. He’s streaky and his stats won’t allow me to have too much of a go at him but I find him f***** infuriating so much of the time. I think it was hard today because Tarkowski went through the back of him so many times, always had a great handful of his shirt and was pulling him all over the place and was blocking / fouling him off the ball, making it hard to make runs into space. Unfortunately, Ollie's not as good at making this obvious to the referee as players like Kane and Salah. I don't want him diving and cheating to gain decisions - but I do want him to be a bit better at winning free-kicks when he is fouled. If Tarkowski gets pinged / carded early on then Ollie's job becomes that bit easier because the referee is already looking for the foul play. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 I thought it was another of those games where he didn't do a great deal but then you look at how tarkowski and branthwaite played him, tough day for anyone Maybe should have done more after Duran came on and took branthwaite away The mcginn shot which went wide after diaby was fouled in the area which was probably our best piece of play came from Ollie beating a man on the half way line and then carrying the ball 20+ yards Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom13 Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 1 hour ago, Delphinho123 said: Our ability to break team downs is massively hampered by this guy. Anything that needs to go through him, usually breaks down. The stats he’s posted this season makes it hard to criticise too much but he’s so streaky and he frustrates me more than any other player. Technically, he’s very average. What I've said for ages this is. I actually thought he was OK today though, but he crucially made two errors. Took a really poor touch from McGinn's pass which ruined a dangerous situation for us (tbf he made this possible with an excellent touch and spin beforehand), and secondly, taking on a shot with McGinn bombing up on the left, with three defenders in front of him. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 7 minutes ago, Tom13 said: What I've said for ages this is. I actually thought he was OK today though, but he crucially made two errors. Took a really poor touch from McGinn's pass which ruined a dangerous situation for us (tbf he made this possible with an excellent touch and spin beforehand), and secondly, taking on a shot with McGinn bombing up on the left, with three defenders in front of him. Mcginn bombing up on the left was still miles behind the play Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom13 Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 7 minutes ago, villa4europe said: Mcginn bombing up on the left was still miles behind the play Fair point also. He could have held it though, I'm sure McGinn was shouting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROTTERDAM1982 Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 There was a couple of times, in the 1st half, when a better touch and hes through on goal. He is what he is, he works hard, can't fault his attitude and workrate, but hes not top quality 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 I thought he played well myself. But he can't do it on his own. Neither Bailey or Diaby turned up 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villaglint Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 2 hours ago, Delphinho123 said: Hmm. I thought he was poor tbh. He seems to lack the ability to get his head up and play a meaningful pass when we need to break teams down. His stock position is just, ‘well, I’m not sure what to do here so I’ll just shoot’. It really winds me up because the amount of times he shoots straight into a defender is excruciating. He’s streaky and his stats won’t allow me to have too much of a go at him but I find him f***** infuriating so much of the time. Think a lot of that is fair. He’s very good at what he’s good at and he’s very bad at some real basics at times. He’s a very odd player but overall a big asset. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leeroy Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 He's such a streaky player. First five games of the season, 0 goals (although he was still heavily involved in our attacking play). Then he finally scores against Chelsea, maybe gets some confidence, nets a hat trick against Brighton, and from gameweek 6 to gameweek 14 he scores 8 goals in 9 games. Red hot form. But of course it didn't last. Since that last minute header against Bournemouth, he has scored 1 goal (against 10 man Brentford) in 7 games but the troubling thing is he doesn't even look involved in games now like he was in the first five games where he wasn't scoring but was still at the forefront of what we were doing. He found a purple patch of form in the 2nd half of last season when he scored something like 11 goals in 13 matches and it helped us make Europe. Needs to find that sort of form again if we're to make Champions League in my opinion, because it's hard to see Luiz and McGinn continuing to score as many as they do, Ramsey is either injured or out of form, Zaniolo doesn't score. So it leaves Bailey and Diaby and Bailey's best career return is 9 league goals and Diaby has only got double figures in the league once in his career. So Watkins needs to find his shooting boots pronto. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 9 hours ago, Leeroy said: He's such a streaky player. First five games of the season, 0 goals (although he was still heavily involved in our attacking play). Then he finally scores against Chelsea, maybe gets some confidence, nets a hat trick against Brighton, and from gameweek 6 to gameweek 14 he scores 8 goals in 9 games. Red hot form. But of course it didn't last. Since that last minute header against Bournemouth, he has scored 1 goal (against 10 man Brentford) in 7 games but the troubling thing is he doesn't even look involved in games now like he was in the first five games where he wasn't scoring but was still at the forefront of what we were doing. He found a purple patch of form in the 2nd half of last season when he scored something like 11 goals in 13 matches and it helped us make Europe. Needs to find that sort of form again if we're to make Champions League in my opinion, because it's hard to see Luiz and McGinn continuing to score as many as they do, Ramsey is either injured or out of form, Zaniolo doesn't score. So it leaves Bailey and Diaby and Bailey's best career return is 9 league goals and Diaby has only got double figures in the league once in his career. So Watkins needs to find his shooting boots pronto. He didn't really have one decent goal scoring moment all game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimmygreaves Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 14 hours ago, Delphinho123 said: Hmm. I thought he was poor tbh. He seems to lack the ability to get his head up and play a meaningful pass when we need to break teams down. His stock position is just, ‘well, I’m not sure what to do here so I’ll just shoot’. It really winds me up because the amount of times he shoots straight into a defender is excruciating. He’s streaky and his stats won’t allow me to have too much of a go at him but I find him f***** infuriating so much of the time. If he's unable to find a meaningful pass why is he at the top end of the PL assists table this season? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sulberto21 Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 13 hours ago, ROTTERDAM1982 said: There was a couple of times, in the 1st half, when a better touch and hes through on goal. He is what he is, he works hard, can't fault his attitude and workrate, but hes not top quality I felt this too his touch took him out to the side instead of straight forward to the goal . Rooney used to be brilliant at that first touch to goal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delphinho123 Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 24 minutes ago, jimmygreaves said: If he's unable to find a meaningful pass why is he at the top end of the PL assists table this season? I think assists can be very, very deceiving. He got an assist for Baileys goal at Bournemouth, not exactly a world class pass was it? His stats ARE hard to argue against, no doubt, but the bigger picture is that Watkins is poor on the creativity front. When we’re against a team and we’re dominating possession but they’re sitting in and defending hard, he lacks the ability to drop off and instigate clever interplay. It’s why Tielemans is going to be so important for us. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leeroy Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 1 hour ago, PaulC said: He didn't really have one decent goal scoring moment all game. Think he has to take some blame for that though. Duran was on much less than he was and had the best chance of the game by making the run to the near post. Watkins should have been making that run and probably would have scored as a right footer probably connects better with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leeroy Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 1 hour ago, PaulC said: He didn't really have one decent goal scoring moment all game. And actually he did have a good chance when he was played in on the left, should have shot first time with his left foot, went with his right and it was blocked. Took too long and poor decision making. I'm hoping he comes good against Newcastle, massively out of form in front of goal currently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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