Team shape, tactics and personnel

[Tom13]

Just now, abdulaziz1 said:

But Ings is much more intelligent than Watkins, and any manager with a good brain shall try something else by trying Archer. It’s not like if our strikers looking like scoring anyway.

for me I won’t start Watkins apart from when we’re playing Top 6 and trying to defend. When we’re expecting more of the ball he shouldn’t be starting at all.

This. Buendia and Coutinho behind Watkins makes no sense to me. Those two (Buendia in particular) need to be seeing clever runs ahead of them.

[pas5898]

14 minutes ago, ROTTERDAM1982 said:

I'm not particularly bothered if Gerrard stays or goes tbh, i get fed up of the constant changing every 12 months, but i don't blame Gerrard for Watkins 2 one on ones against Leeds, No

Ings wouldn't have been in that position because of his lack of pace, Archers ability at this level is unknown, Bailey blows hot and cold. That is our options. I find it hard to believe that Gerrard wasn't expecting at least 1 striker in the summer. After he gets them in, thats when i will judge him

The biggest crime is not getting 2 good strikers + 2 attacking midfielders firing. What's the point in signing another striker for Gerrards methods to make them regress?

Ings - Proven goalscorer for the last 10 years. When we signed him only Harry Kane has scored more PL goals since he left Liverpool.

Watkins 10-15 goal a season striker + England international

Buendia - Every single Norwich fan thinks he is easily Champions League quality. He also had better stats than Jack in the championship

Countinho - a year before we signed him, he was playing CL semi finals... oh and it's Coutinho.

All 4 of those players have regressed. It's not fluke.. its the managers job to get the best out of them. He is not, he is making them worse.

 

 

 

Edited October 11, 2022 by pas5898

[ROTTERDAM1982]

Villas record under DS with Jack was 1.5 points per game, without him 0.8.

My point is , maybe it is SGs fault, but maybe the players have been found.

In answer to previous points

PC at £17m is an absolute steal

Carlos, significantly improves the back 4, as does Kamara in midfield. The kind of midfielder that DS refused to acknowledge we needed.

Digne is a better player that Targett, granted some people may disagree, but in reality we paid £10m for him.

Dendonker and Chambers are good squad players.

The players that have come in under SG improve the team and squad.

If I was the next Villa manager i would replace Bailey, Watkins and McGinn, and if we do that with better quality then i believe that PC,Emi, and Ramsey will get better.

But thats my view, i haven't seen a good Villa team in 20 years, Jack briefly got me excited again, but hes gon now, and i think the quality is not good enough to get us in the top 8. And if as you seem to think, the players are good enough, what happens if they don't like the next manager/

[Condimentalist]

We try to keep possession, but in a totally non-threatening way, with no ability to create chances.

We play so narrow that it's easy for teams to stay in their shape, knowing that we also lack quality from wide areas.

We need to play a lot smarter - allow teams to come onto us and set traps to win the ball and move it forwards quickly, with width, so that defenders get spread out and gaps appear for the likes of Emi, Coutinho and Bailey to exploit. 

It's not that hard - the improvement that we would see from a manager with even basic tactical awareness would be stark. 

 

[ChesterDad]

1 hour ago, ROTTERDAM1982 said:

Thats the kind of quality you want at VP?

Well put it like this - Bertie in my view is significantly better than Bailey - and can you tell me that Sanson is not worth a chance to show exactly how good or bad he is? Can he honestly be worse than McGinn, Ramsey at this current moment - in my view for what’s it’s worth I doubt it very much.

[TRO]

32 minutes ago, Pissflaps said:

The issue with that is it lacks the context of the games and teams he has played have been generally the weaker ones.

We still have the best teams in the league to play. It won't end well.

I am not so sure.....the better teams give you space.....our dilemma is when that space is denied and we face a physical battle, with a low block, our ideas, dry up.

The crap teams find it easy to close us down, by clattering us, and we don't have the Nous to negate it......We are constantly on our arse, looking for protection from the ref, but the new approach, leaves us isolated, from them.

We have no shithouse players, like Yates, to help us..... so we just get negated.

There is not enough Nous to counter it.

Paradoxically, I think we may be a tad better against the better sides.....not banking on it, but I think there is a chance.

Edited October 11, 2022 by TRO

[viivvaa66]

7 minutes ago, TRO said:

I am not so sure.....the better teams give you space.....our dilemma is when that space is denied and we face a physical battle, with a low block.

The crap teams find it easy to close us down, by clattering us, and we don't have the Nous to negate it......We are constantly on our arse, looking for protection from the ref, but the new approach, leaves us isolated.

We have no shithouse players, like Yates, to help us..... so we just get negated.

There is not enough Nous to counter it.

Paradoxically, I think we may be a tad better against the better sides.....not banking on it, but I think there is a chance.

I agree, we looks better against the top teams. My view on that is that we park the bus, the opposition press us backward so the lines keep close the each other, and there are no gaping holes in midfield. It sort of removes any tactical input from Gerrard, we just have to defend as best we can, and then hope for a magical moment going forward.

It looks better than how we played yesterday, but is it really better?

[FLVillan]

Am I the only person that thinks a midfield three of Nakamba, Luiz and Ramsey would be far better than what we currently have?  

[TomC]

1 hour ago, FLVillan said:

Am I the only person that thinks a midfield three of Nakamba, Luiz and Ramsey would be far better than what we currently have?  

Playing Nakamba or Donck as the 6 and playing Dougie as one of the 8s would give us more creativity. I'd rather see Donck because we know Naka's limitations and I'd like to see what Donck can do. But I wouldn't mind trying Naka. Anything to break up the current midfield.

Well, almost anything. Naka-McGinn-JJ would be a complete disaster.

 

[VillaParkAvenue]

9 hours ago, TRO said:

I am not so sure.....the better teams give you space.....our dilemma is when that space is denied and we face a physical battle, with a low block, our ideas, dry up.

The crap teams find it easy to close us down, by clattering us, and we don't have the Nous to negate it......We are constantly on our arse, looking for protection from the ref, but the new approach, leaves us isolated, from them.

We have no shithouse players, like Yates, to help us..... so we just get negated.

There is not enough Nous to counter it.

Paradoxically, I think we may be a tad better against the better sides.....not banking on it, but I think there is a chance.

You’re absolutely right we’re much better against the top teams. Then our lack of ideas and patterns doesn’t matter as much and we can concentrate on defending and playing on the counter. When we have to try and take control, our lack of coaching is exposed.

Don’t agree about lack of shithouses though, Villa have become more or less experts at time wasting, tactical fouling and so on. We’re a quite ugly and dirty team these days.

[Villaphan04]

3 hours ago, FLVillan said:

Am I the only person that thinks a midfield three of Nakamba, Luiz and Ramsey would be far better than what we currently have?  

i think any midfield without McGinn at present would be far better than what we currently have. Throw in Sanson or Dendoncker and I think we look far better

[duke313]

12 hours ago, viivvaa66 said:

I agree, we looks better against the top teams. My view on that is that we park the bus, the opposition press us backward so the lines keep close the each other, and there are no gaping holes in midfield. It sort of removes any tactical input from Gerrard, we just have to defend as best we can, and then hope for a magical moment going forward.

It looks better than how we played yesterday, but is it really better?

Do we? We are yet to beat any of them under Gerrard.

[TRO]

3 hours ago, VillaParkAvenue said:

You’re absolutely right we’re much better against the top teams. Then our lack of ideas and patterns doesn’t matter as much and we can concentrate on defending and playing on the counter. When we have to try and take control, our lack of coaching is exposed.

Don’t agree about lack of shithouses though, Villa have become more or less experts at time wasting, tactical fouling and so on. We’re a quite ugly and dirty team these days.

I think we are more clumsy and awkward, than anything.....but as for slow, pedestrian at times.

The brains are slow too.

[PieFacE]

I just don't understand why we aren't telling our wingers to stay wide to stretch the pitch. With all this narrow rubbish we try, it's so easy for a defence to just remain in a compact block and not allow for any space through the middle. 
Force the wingers to hug the touchline. This would have stretched the opposition and allowed for space for McGinn and Ramsey to work in in central areas. 

But nope, stay narrow, and try to put cross into a very compact backline. That will work. 

Gerrard is so useless. 

[Zatman]

1 minute ago, PieFacE said:

I just don't understand why we aren't telling our wingers to stay wide to stretch the pitch. With all this narrow rubbish we try, it's so easy for a defence to just remain in a compact block and not allow for any space through the middle. 
Force the wingers to hug the touchline. This would have stretched the opposition and allowed for space for McGinn and Ramsey to work in in central areas. 

But nope, stay narrow, and try to put cross into a very compact backline. That will work. 

Gerrard is so useless. 

We dont have any wingers he bloody got rid of all of them except 1 and the last one is injured

[PieFacE]

Just now, Zatman said:

We dont have any wingers he bloody got rid of all of them except 1 and the last one is injured

There's no reason why Coutinho and Buendia can't occupy those positions. They're not exactly doing much else right now  

[VillaAlex]

 

Good Analysis as usual. 

 

[fightoffyour]

22 minutes ago, VillaAlex said:

 

Good Analysis as usual. 

 

Just the picture of Steven Gerrard answered the question.

[Zatman]

I do think the trainee is damaging McGinn and Watkins. He has this bizarre idea that they can just play themselves into form

They need a game or 2 out of the firing line to recharge the mind.

[DJBOB]

The talking tactics thread and the above about wingers is my concern when Gerrard leaves. 
 

The composition of the team is very wrong now. Too many midfielders who do similar things. I think a better manager could still coach attack patterns with Buendia and Coutinho wide but these are not their forte’s.

The squad has enough with a better manager to stay up but Gerrard has done some pretty irreversible damage alienating and shipping out all the wingers and exclusively playing narrow formations.

It’s sad but what I would do to see Anwar receiving the ball on the left wing or Bertie on the right wing to make something happen. It would probably be a wayward shot half the time but half the time is still better than the 0 times it happens now

Edited October 12, 2022 by DJBOB