Ratings & Reactions: Brighton v Villa

[roonst83]

14 hours ago, Talldarkandransome said:

I think he starts Sanson next game and drops Barkley

In which case we’d have to change our shape as Sanson doesn’t play in the no.10 role or wide left. 

The issue we face in dropping Barkley is we need to bring in a wide player in to bring Grealish middle. Barkley is the only natural no.10 which is why he seems to keep his place. That, plus the fact that neither El Ghazi or Trezzy are good enough to start for us. Well, El Ghazi did well enough when he was drafted in but he can only play wide left but he’s so weak and often ineffective it’s a risk. 
 

I agree that I’d welcome Nakamba in for Luiz and Sanson in for McGinn for Leicester but with Elmo almost certainly coming in for Cash I can’t see Smith making 3-4 changes. 

[TRO]

9 hours ago, useless said:

Every team in the league could probably point to one aspect of their game and say if only we were much better at it we'd be doing so much better, that they aren't taking their chances is part of the reason why they haven't been doing very well for most of the season, every team in every league would be doing better if they scored more goals.

I'm not sure about this idea that they play amazing football and create loads of chances, I'm sure at times they do play good football I've witnessed myself, but I think people exaggerate on that score, and I've no idea why, definitely the most overrated team in the league, their current 26 points would normally see them very much still in a relegation battle, in fact they have one more point than they had at this stage last season, then they were just two points clear of the bottom three, so they're incredibly lucky that the bottom three are so poor this time around.

I don't actually think they're doing that bad overall, about as well as can be expected, my point isn't that they should be doing better, it's that they're nowhere as good as it seems fashionable at the moment for so many to claim.

I think it depends what your looking at .....League table v form table  or Hard Work v Talent.

They had a poor start to the season and have found some form, mainly through hard work and an ability to compete for the ball.....if you look at the form table it is in stark contrast to their league position...they haven't lost in the last 6 games, which is good for a lower table team.

If you caste your mind back....we actually struggled for a 1-0 win against Sheff Utd, first game of the season......We struggle against teams whose main feature is graft.

[PaulC]

11 hours ago, TRO said:

They play different games.....it will be different.

Oh how we could do with a player like Ndidi. 

[TRO]

3 minutes ago, PaulC said:

Oh how we could do with a player like Ndidi. 

Or Bissouma....but Nakamba needs another run, to see what he can do.

Its where the problem is Paul.....We lose the middle of the park, much too easily.

There will be some changes of opinion soon, with our midfield, mark my words.....The next Conor Hourihane will be revealed....unless there is a maked improvement in form.

Edited February 14, 2021 by TRO

[PaulC]

2 minutes ago, TRO said:

Its where the problem is Paul.....We lose the middle of the park, much too easily.

There will be some changes of opinion soon, with our midfield, mark my words.....The next Conor Hourihane will be revealed....unless there is a maked improvement in form.

Well Deano sorted out our defence. Our attack isnt bad so now he needs to sort the midfield out. 

[TRO]

12 hours ago, AntrimBlack said:

Actually, he is just JM at the moment.

just J

[darrenm]

How I saw it

The defence was good. Tyrone is now taking no risks and it's better but doesn't help with building from the back. Hopefully he'll find the balance again soon. Konsa seemed like a bit of a headless chicken sometimes and just wasn't focussed. I'm not worried about losing Cash in this match or for a bit longer because I think Elmo is at least as good. Targett good as always but Grealish didn't help him at all. On purpose I think so there was an out ball. But then every time he would normally be the out ball, they closed him down quickly.

Douglas was given the run around and struggled a bit, mainly because of the ref. More on that later. McGinn not at the races. Slow and not ready for the pace of this game. Seems to be getting some good turns and touches back though. Barkley absolutely awful. Sweating his arse off after 15 mins. Are some of our players suffering from longer lasting effects of COVID?

Grealish was triple teamed out of the game. Opposition players now see it as some kind of trophy if they can keep him quiet. Veldman did a really good job on him. But even under no pressure his touch was awful. Kept dithering on the ball, caught in 2 minds where he would normally have it planned out 5 passes in advance. Similar for a lot of our players and made me wonder if there was something in the water at the hotel.

Ollie worked but ultimately couldn't get out of blind alleys. Traore had no help but couldn't make anything happen himself.

We really struggle against harrying opposition. Effective teams now seem to be doing heavy challenging to the extent of what they think the ref will allow. We don't. We stand off players and let them try to play through us. But then the times we do challenge, we concede fouls. Other teams do it and it's a 50/50 which way it's given. Last night a prime example was where Douglas was going for the same ball as a Brighton player (might have been Trossard?), the Brighton player jumped into Douglas, went down and got a dangerous free kick. While the other teams call us divers because of Grealish, we actually get some rough treatment from refs.

Brighton are really well organised, committed, clever, sneaky and work well together. They just don't have the individual talent to turn ball domination into goals. Most of their shots were pathetic and only 2 or 3 troubled Martinez. We need to learn how to deal with aggressive harrying opposition who won't let our players receive a ball and turn without a foot going in. Until that time we'll always do poor against teams like Leeds, West Ham and Brighton.

[TRO]

3 minutes ago, PaulC said:

Well Deano sorted out our defence. Our attack isnt bad so now he needs to sort the midfield out. 

Yep.

We need a tigerish irritant like Des Bremner or Robbie Savage beavering away in the middle and scrapping for the ball, one with an engine, who doesn't stop biting.....someone to turn the ball over from defence in to attack.

[foreveryoung]

7 minutes ago, TRO said:

Yep.

We need a tigerish irritant like Des Bremner or Robbie Savage beavering away in the middle and scrapping for the ball, one with an engine, who doesn't stop biting.....someone to turn the ball over from defence in to attack.

Barkley should be doing this job, he is more than capable, but we rarely see it.

[MaVilla]

35 minutes ago, TRO said:

I thought it was harsh on Nakamba.

This wasn't a bad day at the office, if we think that, we are misleading ourselves....players who keep losing the ball cheaply,should be left out....we can't do anything without the ball.....In fact, we look very ordinary indeed, without the ball.

It has happened in more games than just this, where we have been unable to secure the ball and unable to win it back....this has to be addressed, with some focus.

despite an overall good season..... we have managed to secure 2 points only from games against Brighton,West Ham and Burnley....those teams have a style, we are uncomfortable with and it is clear as daylight.....we need to recruit a few players who will thrive in that environment.....Blimey Joel Veltman cost £900,000, we need a few of them in the squad, for times like this.....He irritated the life out of Jack and our other players offered nothing else, to compensate.

Players who don't work and just ball watch have no place in our project, you only have to watch Man City and their workrate is phenomenal, despite their untold talent, they work like trojans.......We turn up in games like this, with a clear intention of playing football and it stands out, spoilers like Brighton, just rub their hands in glee and set about disrupting our passages of play by stifiling us and getting irritating touches on the ball whilst we are in possession......we have to be cuter and stronger than that....our passing too was abysmal and our players without the ball offering no options to help out, just waiting around for a "Roy of the Rovers", pass......We have to understand the adage " You have to win the right to play football"....and execute it.

This Midfield of ours has no tenacity or combative qualities to counter such acts of competitiveness....we have seen it before....this is no one off, if we think it is ,we are kidding ourselves.

We will see similar issues when we play Leeds, except, they will just run the legs off us.....and we will just resort to the midfield retreating and them expecting the defence to win the ball for them, to start any attacks.

We have to sort out this midfield, moving forward.

 

excellent post.

Agree with the point about Man City, i have thought the same, if you look at De Bruyne or Bernado etc, they are great players but they work hard, they arent passengers off the ball, good modern good do not carry players, if we want to be better than a bottom half team we cant carry any players either, in my opinion if a players doesnt want to work off the ball, they should be out of the team and moved on, the message needs to be "work for the team or you are out".

For all the Bielsa stuff in terms of the OTT nonsense about him being the messiah, regardless of this look at his team, they all work their asses off, doesnt matter how good some of their players think they are, they work for the team or they are out of the team.......again.....we need to have this mentality.

From what i have seen of barkley, he reminds me of a creative player from the 90's and 00's who wants to be inactive off the ball and active in attack because he is "special", unfortunately the game has moved on from this mentality, in the modern game having 1 player of this mentality in your team means you start the game 10 vs 11, its just not acceptable to me in the modern game, we cant carry players.

I agree the midfield is our weak point currently, it can be a pretty/attractive midfield at times, but it is too passive and not combative enough, and adding Barkley to that mix makes it way way worse/imbalanced imo.

It is pleasing to see Sanson though (for me), he clearly looks the right type of player, good on the ball and active off it, exactly the type of player we need, i hope he settles quickly.

In the summer, the no 6 and the 8/10 role are critical for us, we need two really high quality players in those positions, who can play attractive football, but also work and are combative.

 

 

[TRO]

31 minutes ago, darrenm said:

How I saw it

The defence was good. Tyrone is now taking no risks and it's better but doesn't help with building from the back. Hopefully he'll find the balance again soon. Konsa seemed like a bit of a headless chicken sometimes and just wasn't focussed. I'm not worried about losing Cash in this match or for a bit longer because I think Elmo is at least as good. Targett good as always but Grealish didn't help him at all. On purpose I think so there was an out ball. But then every time he would normally be the out ball, they closed him down quickly.

Douglas was given the run around and struggled a bit, mainly because of the ref. More on that later. McGinn not at the races. Slow and not ready for the pace of this game. Seems to be getting some good turns and touches back though. Barkley absolutely awful. Sweating his arse off after 15 mins. Are some of our players suffering from longer lasting effects of COVID?

Grealish was triple teamed out of the game. Opposition players now see it as some kind of trophy if they can keep him quiet. Veldman did a really good job on him. But even under no pressure his touch was awful. Kept dithering on the ball, caught in 2 minds where he would normally have it planned out 5 passes in advance. Similar for a lot of our players and made me wonder if there was something in the water at the hotel.

Ollie worked but ultimately couldn't get out of blind alleys. Traore had no help but couldn't make anything happen himself.

We really struggle against harrying opposition. Effective teams now seem to be doing heavy challenging to the extent of what they think the ref will allow. We don't. We stand off players and let them try to play through us. But then the times we do challenge, we concede fouls. Other teams do it and it's a 50/50 which way it's given. Last night a prime example was where Douglas was going for the same ball as a Brighton player (might have been Trossard?), the Brighton player jumped into Douglas, went down and got a dangerous free kick. While the other teams call us divers because of Grealish, we actually get some rough treatment from refs.

Brighton are really well organised, committed, clever, sneaky and work well together. They just don't have the individual talent to turn ball domination into goals. Most of their shots were pathetic and only 2 or 3 troubled Martinez. We need to learn how to deal with aggressive harrying opposition who won't let our players receive a ball and turn without a foot going in. Until that time we'll always do poor against teams like Leeds, West Ham and Brighton.

In a nutshell for me Darren.

We are having a cracking season and I wouldn't want to change our style, but we need certain types of squad player to come in and help us with teams like this.....we need to work in training on it too.

We are too easily negated and when we are, we look very,very ordinary.

We have actually been like it for some time....even in the championship, we was negated by teams like Wigan.

I was watching Lewis Dunk in the tunnel before the game, looking at our players as they walked by, with that." who do you think you are" look of expression......you could almost sense the outcome.

We have to sign a couple of midfielders who thrive in this environment....not necessarily to play every week, just squadies to bring in for certain occasions.....we need a harder edge from somewhere, not dirty, harder.....something to make teams think twice of bullying us.

We are too easily bullied.....it needs to be looked at.

Edited February 14, 2021 by TRO

[TRO]

7 minutes ago, MaVilla said:

excellent post.

Agree with the point about Man City, i have thought the same, if you look at De Bruyne or Bernado etc, they are great players but they work hard, they arent passengers off the ball, good modern good do not carry players, if we want to be better than a bottom half team we cant carry any players either, in my opinion if a players doesnt want to work off the ball, they should be out of the team and moved on, the message needs to be "work for the team or you are out".

For all the Bielsa stuff in terms of the OTT nonsense about him being the messiah, regardless of this look at his team, they all work their asses off, doesnt matter how good some of their players think they are, they work for the team or they are out of the team.......again.....we need to have this mentality.

From what i have seen of barkley, he reminds me of a creative player from the 90's and 00's who wants to be inactive off the ball and active in attack because he is "special", unfortunately the game has moved on from this mentality, in the modern game having 1 player of this mentality in your team means you start the game 10 vs 11, its just not acceptable to me in the modern game, we cant carry players.

I agree the midfield is our weak point currently, it can be a pretty/attractive midfield at times, but it is too passive and not combative enough, and adding Barkley to that mix makes it way way worse/imbalanced imo.

It is pleasing to see Sanson though (for me), he clearly looks the right type of player, good on the ball and active off it, exactly the type of player we need, i hope he settles quickly.

In the summer, the no 6 and the 8/10 role are critical for us, we need two really high quality players in those positions, who can play attractive football, but also work and are combative.

 

 

Spot on....they would be my 2 priorities.

We are now seeing why Chelsea left him out.....he plays with that self opinionated look about him, no substance, all frills.

[TRO]

18 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

Barkley should be doing this job, he is more than capable, but we rarely see it.

not so sure about that.....but somebody should.

He is an offensive player for me.....what he should be doing, is holding on to the the ball and playing players in.....not losing possession at a whim.

[onmeedson]

SJM looks like a player who has lost his way, he has taken the super to mean overweight, out of condition and unfit, we all want the previous SJM who covered every blade of grass and run the midfield. The premiership is a major step up from the championship and therefore you have to step up and live the life of an athlete, get on the stamina training, get in the gym and lose those pounds or we all get a one season wonder. Barkley has all the potential but to me it's the mentality that is a problem and the me me me takes over, in his cameo against pool he played a partnership with jack but i think their was no red roses at the door today for either. Hope Matty Cash is ok and he will be a big loss to us and a should be an icon to others on how to be a professional.

[CosmicVillan]

15 hours ago, UpTheVilla26 said:

1 person has voted Barkley MOTM. 

 

His Mom

[Lochheads twin]

1 hour ago, TRO said:

Yep.

We need a tigerish irritant like Des Bremner or Robbie Savage beavering away in the middle and scrapping for the ball, one with an engine, who doesn't stop biting.....someone to turn the ball over from defence in to attack.

You sentence contained the words tigerish & irritant. I must assume Des is tigerish because Robbie is definitely an irritant!

[wedge]

5 hours ago, Lochheads twin said:

It's rare to see such agreement on VT after a game.

• Very lucky to get a point. (reverse of Burnley at home) 
• Martinez MoM (Easy decision)
• The defence is playing well.(saving our arses)
• We need to make changes earlier in a game, (when not going well)
• Barkley needs to be dropped (may do better coming off the bench) 
• We have been poor since Covid (not playing with the same fluency) 
• Sanson, Trez and/or Marvellous deserve to start (we do have options now)

Unless there is a marked improvement in the next two games, we get battered. They may not be as generous as Brighton.

Onwards. This can still be a very good season for us.

Was going to write my own diatribe but you've pretty much done it word-for-word.

 

We've been poor and nowhere near the levels of earlier in the season since HT at Turf Moor (weirdly after possibly our best half of football of the season).

[Zhan_Zhuang]

3 hours ago, TRO said:

Or Bissouma....but Nakamba needs another run, to see what he can do.

Its where the problem is Paul.....We lose the middle of the park, much too easily.

There will be some changes of opinion soon, with our midfield, mark my words.....The next Conor Hourihane will be revealed....unless there is a maked improvement in form.

It's McGinn.

Last season granted he started the season well yet his form dropped off about a month before his injury. We rushed him back and he was still way off, he finally found a little consistency end of last season and was helped by the Covid break.

This season he's had literally a couple of decent games and many more passenger ones.

McGinn's too slow, gives the ball away too much and is constantly caught in possession.

If we continue to play him he's costing us performances due to us being constantly walked through in the middle. Nakamba has proven in his fleeting appearances he can make us a little more solid there. However I'd prefer Sanson over McGinn everyday.

[Tommo_b]

3 hours ago, TRO said:

"Hard work beats talent.....when talent fails to work hard"....... we see it in evidence last night.

I just meant it’s arguable that some of the Brighton midfielders could be seen as more talented or equally talented. Some will say Brighton are over rated but they really aren’t, I’d hazard to say they are actually underrated.

I remember the Arsenal fans scoffing at the idea of signing Bisouma as some sort of joke, bet they would want him now. 

Then there is Mcallister, Trossard, Alzate and Gross, that’s a pretty damn strong middle of the park, it’s not a surprise we lost the midfield battle.

[Tommo_b]

I don’t think we were bullied or out grafted, we were plan and simply out played, our play was sloppy, we were slow, lots of mistakes, whereas Brighton were sharp, crisp, energetic and fast.

We were lucky Martinez was in unbelievable form, another keeper in our goal and we would’ve lost that, some very good saves.