Ratings & Reactions: Sheff Utd v Villa

[TRO]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

Summary

Emi - goal wasn't his fault, but his kicking was really quite poor in the first half. Had absolutely nothing to do in the second.

Elmo - I'm sure he's embarrassed by that absolute howler. Just completely ball-watching. That's what I'd be doing, if I was playing. Then trying too hard to make up for it and forcing crosses so they were shit. An evening to forget.

Targett - so good this season, but so bad today. Didn't put anything good into the box.

Konsa & Mings - same summary, both very good and completely in control. Konsa marginally the better of the two but no issues here.

Nakamba - probably the wrong game for him in retrospect. Didn't do anything wrong exactly, but hardly penetrating passing.

McGinn - I actually thought he was quite good before they scored, but then he got more and more responsibility, and more time on the ball, and just got worse and worse.

Ramsey - don't want to be harsh on the lad, but that was absolutely rubbish. Must do better.

El Ghazi - did a few things right in the first half, but got more and more frustrating and his deadball delivery was an embarrassment.

Traore - the sublime and the ridiculous, sadly more of the latter.

Watkins - worked hard, very unlucky with the header that hit the post. No blame for him IMO.

Sanson - thought his previous cameos were quite exciting, but he had the touch of a rapist tonight.

Barkley - he tried at least. Not an easy situation to come on, but he didn't actually achieve anything.

Davis - gave them something else to think about, didn't receive a single good ball he could do anything with either. Should have come on earlier.

 

Smith - very very poor tonight.

I keep thinking back to when we played Leeds at home, and Bielsa hauled Struijk off after about 25 minutes and replaced him with a kid, and they immediately looked loads better. Gotta be proactive sometimes. Whether you blame Smith or not for picking the team he did - and I think you can make good arguments either way - it's just obvious that you don't need Nakamba on the pitch in the second half when you're chasing the game. He got 20 minutes! Why?!? I think it was a bad decision not to take Ramsey off at HT when he was having a bad game, but at least I can create a justification for it, but what on earth was Nakamba doing coming out for the second half? Why was Barkley only given 25 minutes to try to change the game? Why did Davis only get 20 minutes? I don't think he's great either, but it's not his fault he's the only back up striker. You've got to get him on the pitch and force them to think about something else. Rubbish.

A very honest summary imo

what troubles me most is.....Dean's observations after the match was spot on, so why does he take so long to impliment his observations during a game.....it seems like we just sleep walk in to these kind of reversals.

[ciggiesnbeer]

2 minutes ago, TRO said:

A very honest summary imo

what troubles me most is.....Dean's observations after the match was spot on, so why does he take so long to impliment his observations during a game.....it seems like we just sleep walk in to these kind of reversals.

A fair criticism imho. 

[andym]

23 minutes ago, TRO said:

There is a clear pattern.

The main one the inability to take our chances. Tonight again far too profligate infront of goal, and you cant afford that against teams who sit in, the longer the game goes on the harder it is to unpick them.

Look at Traore's chance 2nd half - about 5 yards out, ball drops nicely and he swings a half hearted leg at it. Should be breaking the net with it.

The final 3rd we were again too casual, sloppy passes, lazy crosses that dont even beat the 1st man.

Too many thinking they dont need to put the effort in as they are playing a 'lesser' team?

[TRO]

6 minutes ago, andym said:

The main one the inability to take our chances. Tonight again far too profligate infront of goal, and you cant afford that against teams who sit in, the longer the game goes on the harder it is to unpick them.

Look at Traore's chance 2nd half - about 5 yards out, ball drops nicely and he swings a half hearted leg at it. Should be breaking the net with it.

The final 3rd we were again too casual, sloppy passes, lazy crosses that dont even beat the 1st man.

Too many thinking they dont need to put the effort in as they are playing a 'lesser' team?

I thought there was many things that spelled low grade football for me, even our ball control in the middle was sloppy, this spreads to ,in front of goal too.....we get negated too easily......we don't seem comfortable on the ball, when we get shut down by willing runners....its a weak mentality.

[Icarium]

3 hours ago, thunderball said:

We did a lot right, don’t lose your heads

If you dominate a game this way and still lose you aren't doing things right

[Zhan_Zhuang]

9 minutes ago, Icarium said:

If you dominate a game this way and still lose you aren't doing things right

[The Fun Factory]

Elsewhere people have commented that since our covid outbreak our energy levels in midweek games has been poor. It that is indeed the case then perhaps Smith could have rotated a bit more but we aren't exactly stacked with quality in the squad. Something that needs to be addressed if we want to continue to progress in the summer.

[southcoastvillan]

Konsa MOTM remainder not great. Why why why why why does deano wait until 67 mins to make changes when it’s clear we have the oppo under duress, it’s his only major blind spot imo and need to be addressed. Crossing was poor and deliveries were being put in from too deep, bread and butter stuff for their defence,   We missed That bit of magic

from jack in tight spaces and got that reason I didn’t agree with Bert being Subbed. all that being said we didn’t play awful and it was just one of those nights 

[Demitri_C]

All i know was a big mistake ti start Ramsey. He was really poor and just a passenger.

Not ready to be starting games consistently for me. Luiz needs to come back in on weekend. His energy waa badly missed yesterday

[tinker]

If Cash had of played we wouldn't have lost, ref was weak and our game plan was wrong and played into Sheffield's hands . We have to go out to win these type of games , if we go out to contain then we give the opposition a chance to compete in a scrappy high tempo game.

We should have killed the game and took the tempo out of it, instead we got involved in a game of ping pong with loads of high balls and 50/50 chances for both teams. We didn't need to win, they did . Hopefully we have learned from this and start to mature as a team and understand how games like this, against teams like Sheffield, are going to play out if we get involved in a scrappy game. UTV  

[Demitri_C]

I didnt understand why the hell we was hoofing so many balls in the box in areas where their cbs were just winning them all. Had we had wes in the pitch or rudy if he was still here i would get it.

The tactics made little to no sense. Sheff utd are a team that can be carved up with smart passing and running at them. Yet we failed to even do this.

[Dante_Lockhart]

Picked the wrong team from the start for this.

[Stevo985]

Inexcusable result.

Yes we're missing Jack and Cash, yes we've stumbled a bit lately, yes we did a lot right and the underlying stats showed we were the better team. I don't care.

The worst team in the league and down to 10 men and we lose. It's proper shit.

 

Worst thing for me was our panic for the last 20 minutes. Instead of keeping our heads, continuing to play how we usually play and taking advantage of the extra man, we just started lumping it into the box and crossing from deep every single time. Pointless. That negates your man advantage and plays into the hands of the only thing Sheffield utd are good at. It was Lambert stuff to be honest. Push everyone up front and lump balls to them.

Really disappointing night

[Danishlad]

12 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

I demand changes on the weekend. Dont wanna see elmo ramsey or mcginn in the side.

For me kesler, luiz and Barkley (as crap as barkley was he did nore than ramsey did)

Luiz has been crap too, btw

[Raver50032]

Who knew that 'shit' had 'fog?' 

Genuine highlight of a forgettable thread of general vitriol.

Let's move on. 

[villalad21]

Always knew this would be a real banana skin.

I watched them against Liverpool and they never looked like a team that has given up. Fighting for every ball. You can never criticize them for not putting in the effort levels.

Our players just looked complacent i thought. Thinking all they had to do to win was to turn up.

Doesn't work like that in this league. Doesn't matter if you play Sheffield United or Man City. If you are not 100 % at it every game you will struggle.

[AVFCDAN]

13 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

I am too but nights like tonight bring us back down to last season pre lockdown.  Never should we be losing this game under those circumstances 

It was a horror show

Horror show is a bit dramatic, bad night at the office unfortunately. Sometimes you have to credit the opposition, we aren’t good enough to expect to sweep aside any team in the prem when we are off our game, our away record has been great but we can’t win every one.

Edited March 4, 2021 by AVFCDAN

[tom_avfc]

1 hour ago, Stevo985 said:

Inexcusable result.

Yes we're missing Jack and Cash, yes we've stumbled a bit lately, yes we did a lot right and the underlying stats showed we were the better team. I don't care.

The worst team in the league and down to 10 men and we lose. It's proper shit.

 

Worst thing for me was our panic for the last 20 minutes. Instead of keeping our heads, continuing to play how we usually play and taking advantage of the extra man, we just started lumping it into the box and crossing from deep every single time. Pointless. That negates your man advantage and plays into the hands of the only thing Sheffield utd are good at. It was Lambert stuff to be honest. Push everyone up front and lump balls to them.

Really disappointing night

Result is a bit of a shocker but it doesn't overly surprise me. On another day McGinn sticks his sitter in the back of the net, Watkins' header drops into the far corner rather than coming back off the post, Traore passes the ball into the corner of the net rather than wide or Traore actually connects with the ball from about 3 yards out. 

It just felt like one of those days. Unfortunately I think we're lacking a little bit of quality in the final third so we seem to have these days more often than we'd like. I'd say this is worsened by Jack not being available but even with him in the side we've seen this game too many times this season. Ultimately it'll be the difference between us finishing in Europe and finishing midtable. 

I would say that we've come on leaps and bounds from last season just by adding one or two quality players. If we can do the same again next Summer then I don't see anybody else in the league in as good a position to kick on from as us. 

Smith has taken a bit of a pasting on here for this performance but he's been let down by that little lack of quality in games against Burnley, Brighton, West Ham and now Sheffield United this season. We've chucked away somewhere in the region of 12-15 points in games where we've created enough chances to win two or three games of football.

[AVFCDAN]

1 hour ago, Stevo985 said:

Worst thing for me was our panic for the last 20 minutes. Instead of keeping our heads, continuing to play how we usually play and taking advantage of the extra man, we just started lumping it into the box and crossing from deep every single time. Pointless. That negates your man advantage and plays into the hands of the only thing Sheffield utd are good at. It was Lambert stuff to be honest. Push everyone up front and lump balls to them.

Really disappointing night

Unfortunately that is how we’ve handled 10 men for years now, there can’t be a worse side at taking advantage of the extra man than Villa.

[tomav84]

10 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

Always knew this would be a real banana skin.

I watched them against Liverpool and they never looked like a team that has given up. Fighting for every ball. You can never criticize them for not putting in the effort levels.

Our players just looked complacent i thought. Thinking all they had to do to win was to turn up.

Doesn't work like that in this league. Doesn't matter if you play Sheffield United or Man City. If you are not 100 % at it every game you will struggle.

they were crap. absolutely justified why they're bottom of the league. that desperate defending only gets you so far, ultimately it only takes a little bit of quality to get the ball in the net though. they've a keeper who's barely championship standard and we never made him work.

all we had to do was turn up basically, and put in a 1/2 decent performance. we didn't though...easily the worst performance of the season and one of the worst since we've been back in the PL. the effort was actually there, it wasn't a complacency issue. it was just every single player having one of those games where every pass/cross etc was shite.