Ratings & Reactions: Villa v Spurs

[robby b]

Pathetic first half, zero attempts, not even an off target one, that's embarrassing and not acceptable.

The midfielders other than Jack only create a chance occasionally, just not enough, so I agree with whoever mentioned earlier that creatively we are a one man team. 

Edited March 21, 2021 by robby b

[smg]

9 minutes ago, ozvillafan said:

Konsa reads the game very well. Nobody else in a claret shirt does.

Dishonourable mentions to Luiz and Traore, who were both pants.

We are in a horrible run of form. Dean has a lot to do over the next 2 weeks to get us back on track.

Most of them won’t be there.

[sheepyvillian]

3 minutes ago, El Zen said:

I’m not a violent man. Never been in a fight. Never punched anyone. But...but. If I ever see Harry Kane out and about. What a complete and utter insult to the game he is. 

 

4 minutes ago, The_Steve said:

We had a good 5-10 minute spell in the second half. AEG was lively.

The penalty killed it.

The engine of the midfield is hampering us - both in retention and creating attacking plays. It means we become too reliant on wing play when the crossing was poor tonight.

Absolutely spot on. It's becoming far too predictable.  Ever since the two losses to both Manchester clubs we've looked piss - poor. 

[ejvilla]

Goals came from mistakes. Otherwise both teams evenly average. We've no quality in final 3rd. You knew we weren't going to score before the match started.

Good to have Cash back. Back 5 are excellent, but had 2 howlers today. 

Ball just won't stick up front and final ball is consistently dogshit. Dwelling on every pass. Taking extra touches. 

Sanson looked better 2nd half. We got considerably worse when he went off. Barkley offers too little. Ramsey would've been a better change, but I would've left Sanson on & maybe changed Luiz/McGinn. Trez has no end product unless he's storming the far post for a 6 yarder. Maybe swap him with Cash.

We know we need 2/3 good forwards. No surprise. 

[VillaFaninLondon]

We've turned from one of the most exciting teams in the league to one of the most boring and abject. Quite some turnaround Dean, well done mate.

 

Clearly far too reliant on one man in particular despite being told our recruitment was brilliant this summer (which clearly it wasn't), clearly a manager who doesn't know how to address a slump and is probably out his depth if we want to challenge for European places eventually, clearly no goals whatsoever in this team due to to God knows what but most likely coaching and tactics being at the forefront of it. It's just depressing.

 

There has to be some kind of benchmark on performances rather than just "oh, we're doing better than expected so it's OK not to win a game now until the end of the season" which many of the pro-Smith people on here keep saying. I'm sorry but recent performances are completely unacceptable, we've lost to a well out of form Spurs team who've just been knocked out by a team I've never heard of in Europe, failed to beat a terrible Newcastle, lost to a dire Sheff U, should have lost to Wolves and got very lucky, and got a smash and grab win against Leeds. We were also absolutely well and truly dominated by Brighton in Jack's last game before his injury.

 

How are these performances and results acceptable to anyone. We have a much tougher run of games from now to the end of the season, honestly if we continue to play as we are and end up well in the bottom half there must be serious questions asked of the management come the end of the season.

[villalad21]

[AVFCDAN]

Is there another team playing worse than us right now? Impossible to see how we move forward and improve from what we are currently seeing.

To think that some people were worried man city would come back in for Luiz at 35 million, well it’s just laughable at this moment, what does he do exactly?

Mcginn is still in the team from his form  18 months ago in the championship, trezeguet is incredibly limited, Sanson not up to speed yet and if Watkins isn’t playing well all we have as a replacement is Davis who hasn’t scored in what seems like a decade, just not good enough all over the park.

[brummybloke]

Getting worse each game.

3 in the middle isn't working without grealish, it isn't no matter what way anyone wants to look at it.

But we still persist with it.

Traore, does 3 fancy things per game none of which lead to a goal and that's his lot, his done his 'bit' so doesn't bother anymore.

Trez runs around giving away needless fouls and has stopped going to the far post so provides nothing.

Mcginn trying to carry the ball and losing it 70% of the time in our own half.

These things are happening every week, they aren't one off's.

Sanson was poor first half, easily our best midfielder 2nd half breaking forwards several times ... taken off after 60 odd minutes... for barkley.

 

FOR BARKLEY !!!

 

So the one player giving the middle of the park some movement, energy and presence, is taken off for someone who yet again makes traore look like an Olympic 100m gold medalist with the stamina of a marathon runner.

As soon as that sub happened I predicted 3 nil, within 2 minutes they score.

Going from a midfield that was losing the battle 60 -40 we went to an 80-20.

Brilliant thinking.

Our only chances fell to the players who have been dirt, trez then it fell to traore and then static slo mo barkley manages to shoot albeit it after waiting too long after an extra touch.

Barry has to be close as does the highly rated long named kid.

I would rather one of them come on to change things for traore or trez than barkley.

If no grealish then 4 across the middle and lose a winger because we don't have players who can be trusted for 433

 

[nick76]

1 minute ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Shout out to the 11 brave people who voted Davis as MOM. I was tempted as well.

 

 

 

Just joking, he did ok when he came on.

[RobSpain]

Very poor. Watkins needs service and it’s not coming from 50 crap crosses into the box every game. Midfield was dreadful again. No plan b. 

[dcdedi]

So bad. Woeful. Wrong team selection, wrong tactics, substitutions far too late. Same week in week out.

not good enough for the money we’ve spent 

[Paul33]

Just now, AVFCDAN said:

To think that some people were worried man city would come back in for Luiz at 35 million, well it’s just laughable at this moment, what does he do exactly?

Best Villa player by a mile at the end of last season and probably our worst player throughout this season. He is slow, he is sloppy, he has lost his ability to run with the ball and he actually looks like he can't be bothered anymore. Truly awful player !

[Sulberto21]

We need a few pricks in our squad. Demanding bastards who want to win things. Representatives for Wellingborough who raise the standards of our squad and team. rocket polishers who get upset because you play the ball 3mm too short or behind you. 

We're too nice.

[ciggiesnbeer]

Awful. Dean Smith and staff have to take the blame for this one. They did not give the players the tools needed to win the game.

I hope Smith looks to himself to improve here. He came up against a better manager, he should learn from it.

[OutByEaster?]

Hard to know what to make of it. I don't think we played all that badly. I do think we've got huge problems up front.

I thought we defended pretty well apart from the complete brain fart in the first half - that's won Spurs the game, but then you shouldn't as a defence have to rely on being completely mistake free in order to earn a point. I thought Cash was really good on his return and Mings was good - Konsa had five minutes where his head had gone a bit and Targett was solid.

The second goal is a shameful bit of cheating from the England Captain, he's caught sight of Cash sliding out of the corner of his eye, turned away from the ball and rushed toward him in an effort to kick Cash and fall over. Good luck with your ankles Harry. Cockney Salah.

It wasn't important to the game, the first goal had won it for Spurs already. 

We don't score goals - it's our all, every and only problem. We compete in midfield, we get the ball moving forward into the opposition half, but then there's nothing, nothing at all.

It's one goal in over eight hours of football now and it's ending our season.

We need a striker who can pressure Watkins, who can start games instead of him when he's not in form, but Watkins isn't the problem - the three wingers we've got aren't good enough. In the summer we need to be looking at replacing two of them and we need to be looking at pushing the boat our for a player on the right hand side who brings a genuine threat to games - Trezeguet runs around a bit but doesn't have any quality, Traore has wonderful feet and the brain of a cat, El Ghazi is an average player who always tries to make things happen - he's the one I'd keep, but we desperately need a whole lot more in terms of wide attacking positions. 

I thought Luiz and McGinn did fine, Sansom struggled a bit but was okay - it's an area where we need another quality body to give us more competition or something different, but there midfield is more or less passable.

To put it into perspective, Arsenal, the team next to us in the table have scored more than once in seven of their last twelve games. we've managed that once in our last twelve - and we lost that game. 

It's not good enough. This season has been great, we're safe as houses and the injury to Grealish has given Trezeguet, Traore and El Ghazi a chance to show us what they're about and what we've learned is that we need to replace them if we're to continue to progress.

I guess Grealish will be back for our next one so there won't be the same problem, but for me Smith should have learned lessons while Jack has been out, he should have changed the shape or made an adjustment to our style - we've had too much faith in this shape and pattern and in these wingers over the last few weeks and perhaps it's not just them that's not taken the opportunity to show what they're about. Smith is lucky, he's a manager not an athlete, he can learn from that and improve - the wingers can't, they need replacing.

 

 

 

[Danishlad]

I thought we threw it away. Two very poor goals to give away. 
Spurs were average we were poor

[smg]

12 minutes ago, danceoftheshamen said:

Exactly as i expected pre game....

Pathetic

So i guess we did as well as expected. A really poor Spurs team and they beat us quite comfortably.... Says it all  

You must be quite pleased then, you got it bang on, well done.

How much did you bet on it ? How much did you win ?

Edited March 21, 2021 by smg

[nick76]

8 minutes ago, romavillan said:

Poor result but we were alright actually mostly. Kane has conned the word removed of a referee, should be a yellow for simulation.

Lots of bed wetting again, until we can pay the wages of players like Moura (very soon) we can't really expect to be challenging the teams that can. The fact we have done already this season has set us up for people to over react through disappointment at the mo. Smith won't, he'll have learnt a lot from tonight I would think. Traore had a bad night and with Grealish out and Barkeley way off the boil it was clearly a step too far for Trez and AEG for me. Even if AEG was bright when he came on and both always give 100%. 

I think there's something in that midfield 3 that started, I'd like to see them again. Maybe with Jack at the top of a diamond and 2 up top.

Anyway, Konsa MOTM for me, he is just so **** good. Sees things very very early and can calmly snuff stuff out before it gets too dangerous. Good to see Cash back, had it not been for a soft first goal and the Kane and Mike Dean double act we could have had a point. 

[M_Afro]

I am not suggesting for one minute that Dean should be under any pressure but why does he just keep doing the same thing over and over again and expose upturn in results! It’s infuriating. 
We are awful at playing the ball through the opposition. Awful! I know it should not be a long term solution but just as long as we need to, play Davis and be direct. At least we might ask a few questions. That starting 11 could have played for a decade without scoring a goal! It’s been the same for weeks. We only scored against a woeful Newcastle due to an enormous slice of luck.

AEG and Trez are effing awful. Try a formation that does not rely on two poor footballers constantly giving the ball straight back to the opposition. Why not a diamond with 2 up top? 

Sort it out Dean ffs. If this continues until the end of the season, which it probably will, then I will be close to asking for an upgrade. Justifiably in my view!

[GENTLEMAN]

9 minutes ago, barry'sboots said:

Abject display.

Down to Smith for me.

We have the core of a decent team BUT without Jack we cannot play in a 4-3-3.  But he keeps trying the same thing.  

KD did more in 10 mins than Trez did in 70.

Smith needs to shake it up/try something different.

Looked like he was playing 4-2-3-1. With Sanson in that advanced role and Luiz and McGinn sitting. Either way it ain’t working, and has not been for a long time. I feel like squeezing and slapping Smith. I cannot for the life of me work out how after seeing that first 45 mins, he refused to change the system.