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Team shape, tactics and personnel


MaVilla

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13 minutes ago, Danishlad said:

When we sold Grealish all we had to do was buy a replacement. We didn’t. We bought two wide right players (Bailey and Buendia)

When we already had Traore.

And we bought  Ings when we already had a first choice in Watkins.

also we got Tuanzebe in when we had 3 central defenders already.

Now it seems the squad is very unbalanced and unhappy. And Smith is trying to please everyone. 
It seems like we are trying to build a new bomb squad  to me.

 

That's not true and for at least two reasons:

-  The problem we had was relying on one individual - why kick that can down the road?

- How do you replace a 100m player of his quality? The whole point was that he was a couple of levels, at least, above us - how can we magically just get a player of that quality again? 

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48 minutes ago, Danishlad said:

When we sold Grealish all we had to do was buy a replacement. We didn’t. We bought two wide right players (Bailey and Buendia)

When we already had Traore.

And we bought  Ings when we already had a first choice in Watkins.

also we got Tuanzebe in when we had 3 central defenders already.

Now it seems the squad is very unbalanced and unhappy. And Smith is trying to please everyone. 
It seems like we are trying to build a new bomb squad  to me.

 

When you say "all we had to do" was replace Grealish I think you're underestimating the difficulty of doing this for a team in our position. We lost one of the top performers in the league and were never going to be able to replace him with one player like for like.

As it is I think the only thing that I agree with in your analysis is that signing Ings was a bit of an odd move. Yes, we needed another striker but given the season that Watkins had last year I'm not convinced we needed to spend the money we did on Danny Ings.

However, the rest of what you've put I don't agree with. You need four centre backs to get through a season playing 4 at the back so we signed Tuanzebe as back up. Buendia and Bailey don't strike me as players that are purely right wingers and I don't see much issue with their signings.

In reality we've been hampered by a load of injuries meaning we've had to play a 5 at the back for large parts of the season. When we do go into our preferred formation we end up with a choice between Ashley Young or one of the kids in central midfield along with players like Nakamba who would be expected to be fringe players this season purely because of the number of injuries.

I think its hard to comment too much on the team shape and tactics as we have never had a chance to see Smith's first team for this season.

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1 minute ago, hippo said:

The problem is that the squad looks better than it is - because we have many wide players who can't all play at the same time - and there's a reasonable body of opinion that ings/Watkins can't play together.

So a lot of the time we are as last season - without Jack. The idea that the players purchased replace him has backfired spectacularly.

IMHO Watkins and Ings cant play together,so why are we playin with 2 up front and why did we buy Ings ?sureley someone like L.Gabbon would be a better choice as a backup to Watkins and keep playing him as a lone striker.

There is no need for all the wide players to play at the same time,especially as most of the wide players we bought are right sided.  

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14 minutes ago, tomsky_11 said:

The players listed have only started half our games together this season. This was the run from Everton to Arsenal. We got 6 points from this run. As mentioned before this would seem to be broadly in line with what more than half the forum expected prior to those games. Also the list ignores our 3 best wide options, Bailey, Buendia and Traore, who have 7 starts between them. 6 of those were Buendia, only half of those were playing wide.

I left out Bailey and Traore on purpose because they have hardly played and I did not include Buendia because IMHO he has not played up to his standard,yet

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When did the long ball punted forward start? Was it about the same time as Cash's long throw in was implemented? The two alterations to "tactics" may be down to McPhee's influence.

We need a new coach/manager who can identify our best players quickly, and coach a shape and pattern of play that gets the ball through to attackers on the ground. I've watched a number of ordinary teams play the ball with precision and accuracy. It shouldn't be beyond us.

There must be someone out there who could definitely improve that part of our game.

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32 minutes ago, villabromsgrove said:

When did the long ball punted forward start? Was it about the same time as Cash's long throw in was implemented? The two alterations to "tactics" may be down to McPhee's influence.

I could be badly wrong but I honestly don't think it's an intentional style of play and we largely resort to it as a result of being incapable of playing through a team pressing us.

Edited by Indigo
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2 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Would anyone go with Axel as a DM rather than playing Young?  If Smith did that wonder what the reaction would be. 
 

I think Young is pointless in midfield.

Axel is a liability in his regular position, would be a disaster in this unfamiliar one, just like he was at RB.

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5 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Would anyone go with Axel as a DM rather than playing Young?  If Smith did that wonder what the reaction would be. 
 

I think Young is pointless in midfield.

No. He could have brought Chuk on or even Davis. He would have played withdrawn or move Ollie outside and Emi central.

Dean's subs are abysmal. He cant think more than 1 move ahead.

He can't think on the fly. Took him 30 mins to realise we were getting dicked against Arsenal.

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23 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Would anyone go with Axel as a DM rather than playing Young?  If Smith did that wonder what the reaction would be. 
 

I think Young is pointless in midfield.

I agree, it staggers me how the 3 who were brought on against Wolves and oversaw the shocking throwing away of 3 points when we were 2-0 up with 12 mins left, namely Luiz for Nakamba, Ramsey for Buendia & Young for Cash, were then key starting players against West Ham?!!! For me Smith messed up big time with those choices. Nakamba and Ramsey coming on for Luiz & Buendia made us more porous and removed our attacking threat allowing Wolves to go all out for us and then to bring on Young to try to stop an in form Traore was the final straw. Think about that for a moment...... You have Hause on the bench, a big strong defender who would have had a point to porve against his former club no less who could easily have come on for Cash with Konsa moving out to RB to help stop Traore and Hause adding height and strength to a back line which was now under siege.... Instead you bring on one of the smallest, oldest and slowest players who's legs are shot to try to stop one of the quickest, strongest players in the World!!! Such a bizarre substitution for me and i just think Smith made a few wrong calls in that game which cost us dearly. 

Those 3 then started against West Ham and the result was always going to be obvious. I know we lost Ramsey to injury early on but then why not put Chuk on in his natural position? give the guy a chance for goodness sake. Why put him on the bench otherwise? To put Young in that midfield was footballing suicide. 

Some very odd goings on at Villa and it's turning bad very quickly. It feels as though there is a bad egg in there somewhere who is having way too much influence although who that is goodness only knows.

Edited by danceoftheshamen
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2 minutes ago, danceoftheshamen said:

I agree, it staggers me how the 3 who were brought on against Wolves and oversaw the shocking throwing away of 3 points when we were 2-0 up with 12 mins left, namely Luiz for Nakamba, Ramsey for Buendia & Young for Cash, were then key starting players against West Ham?!!! For me Smith messed up big time with those choices. Nakamba and Ramsey coming on for Luiz & Buendia made us more porous and removed our attacking threat allowing Wolves to go all out for us and then to bring on Young to try to stop an in form Traore was the final straw. Think about that for a moment...... You have Hause on the bench, a big strong defender who would have had a point to porve against his former club no less who could easily have come on for Cash with Konsa moving out to RB to help stop Traore and Hause adding height and strength to a back line which was now under siege.... Instead you bring on one of the smallest, oldest and slowest players who's legs are shot to try to stop one of the quickest, strongest players in the World!!! Such a bizarre substitution for me and i just think Smith made a few wrong calls in that game which cost us dearly. 

Those 3 then started against West Ham and the result was always going to be obvious. I know we lost Ramsey to injury early on but then why not put Chuk on in his natural position? give the guy a chance for goodness sake. Why put him on the bench otherwise? To put Young in that midfield was footballing suicide. 

Some very odd goings on at Villa and it's turning bad very quickly. It feels as though there is a bad egg in there somewhere who is having way too much influence although who that is goodness only knows.

Young didn't start vs West Ham and Nakamba was the only fit midfielder available 

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2 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Young didn't start vs West Ham and Nakamba was the only fit midfielder available 

Well no but my point is he came on after a few mins so effectively it was those 3 for the game... Wrong choice for me but hey ho. I don't think Nakamba was the main issue but those 3 clearly are not strong enough together, nowhere near.

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Just now, Zatman said:

Was not a game for him. Soucek and Rice would have crushed him

Disagree, but I understand your reasoning. 

Ashley Young is not a CM, never has been and never will be. Might as well have stuck Trez on in the middle of the park. 

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2 minutes ago, Steero113 said:

Carney was fit. 

So you'd have gone Mcginn, Carney and Ramsey as the middle 3 to start that game. I mean our midfield was weak enough as it was but that midfield wouldn't stand a chance. 

The West Ham game to me feels like a game where Smith couldn't really win. Before the game there wasn't a single combination in midfield that I thought would give us any chance of winning that game. As it was the combination which we ended up with competed reasonably even with 10 men before conceding two late goals.

I don't we'd have got any more success with any other midfield given the players available to us.

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I was surprised by the Young sub, but I thought he was the best of the midfield 3, which is at least as much a damning criticism of McGinn and Nakamba as it is praise for him. Young wasn't the problem in that midfield.

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2 minutes ago, tom_avfc said:

So you'd have gone Mcginn, Carney and Ramsey as the middle 3 to start that game. I mean our midfield was weak enough as it was but that midfield wouldn't stand a chance. 

The West Ham game to me feels like a game where Smith couldn't really win. Before the game there wasn't a single combination in midfield that I thought would give us any chance of winning that game. As it was the combination which we ended up with competed reasonably even with 10 men before conceding two late goals.

I don't we'd have got any more success with any other midfield given the players available to us.

No, I would have gone Nakamba, SJM and Carney once Ramsey got injured. 

We replaced Jacob with a 36 year old left back in the middle of the park. Its utter madness. Did no one see the Watford game?

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