Ratings & Reactions: Spurs v Villa

[TreeVillan]

I went for Martinez for motm, but I feel frustrated with his distribution. Seems that if we have the slightest momentum then either he or Mings will just whack it off the pitch for an opposition throw in. Kills everything. 

[alreadyexists]

I think we could’ve taken them… and that’s the frustrating bit 

[KentVillan]

2 minutes ago, nick76 said:

People talking about wrong formation….forget that, our players couldn’t pass to each other, couldn’t hold onto the ball and looked like they had never played together before.  

Formation wouldn’t havent fixed that, too many under performed today…well, all of them underperformed. I can’t name a single player who played half decent today.

Bad day at the office for all of them!

Yeah, formation doesn't fix getting the basics right.

After winning at Old Trafford it had an "after the Lord Mayor's show" feel to it. Suspect one or two players got a bit caught up in the achievement, and lost focus. Important lesson for them that league football is all about consistency.

[est1874]

I'll tell you one thing I don't like seeing in the reactions, here and on Villa social media - the scapegoating of Ramsey, as if today was his fault.

He weren't at his best, but nobody was. Skipping over the more experienced heads out there to hone in on JJ and blame it on him is cowardly. Every kid still learning gets to have an off day from time to time. Look at the bigger boys out there who have been at this professional football thing for long enough to deservedly take the flack. 

[KentVillan]

Just now, alreadyexists said:

I think we could’ve taken them… and that’s the frustrating bit 

Yeah 100%. They defended set pieces brilliantly, and Hojbjerg and Son had brilliant individual games. Besides that, they still looked mediocre, and an earlier change (Buendia in for Ramsey at HT, and possibly Traore in for Hause) might have caused them problems.

[YLN]

We used to be as good as Spurs. It used to be Villa or Spurs for top 4. Brad Friedel played for us then. He's in his 50s now. 

Then we had a few bad years finishing midtable in the championship and they got to a champions league final.

Maybe I was wrong to go into this game with as much hope as I did.

[KentVillan]

1 minute ago, est1874 said:

I'll tell you one thing I don't like seeing in the reactions, here and on Villa social media - the scapegoating of Ramsey, as if today was his fault.

He weren't at his best, but nobody was. Skipping over the more experienced heads out there to hone in on JJ and blame it on him is cowardly. Every kid still learning gets to have an off day from time to time. Look at the bigger boys out there who have been at this professional football thing for long enough to deservedly take the flack. 

Yeah, the idea this was Ramsey's fault is ludicrous. He was heavily involved in our goal, and had a very bright spell in the second half when he was making things happen.

I would have subbed him off at HT, purely because he was on a yellow and we needed a creative player in there. But I don't think he was loads worse than McGinn or Luiz.

[macandally]

Just now, PaulC said:

Yes its not the fact we lost to Spurs, its the lack of football we are playing. Its like Burnley or Wimbledon from the past. shocking to watch 

It really isn't at all is it.

Have you even watched that football?  Lump it to a target man and pick off the seconds?  We did not do that, we tried to create one v ones on diagonals for the wing backs.  We created openings on a number of occasions but the quality was not there today.

It feels a bit like "after the lord mayors show", but it isnt bloody Wimbledon.

[macandally]

1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said:

Well, we didn't create that many chances, especially in the first half. 

We created opportunities but the quality from wide areas was poor today.  Spurs sat deep and just soaked it up, we should see that as something of a complement given they were at home.

Son was the difference today, he was their only creative spark.  We couldn't find that spark today unfortunately.  It doesn't mean you then throw in the towel on a system that has shown positive results previously.    Go away, review, get a kick up the arse and come back ready for Wolves.

[bose]

Off day for basically the whole team. Frustrating to watch. The 5-3-2 formation  relies so much on our midfield three and when they are not at the races we have no attacking play and build up.

Think Smith should have changed formation early in the second half when it was clear we needed something different. Easy to be captain hindsight though.

[maqroll]

Outdone perhaps by our own lack of imagination and adaptability, from Smith on down the line. Hopefully this taste will linger for everyone and be used as motivation in 2 weeks time. And hopefully a lesson has been learned. 

[blunther]

Probably have taken three points from those two away matches. Tough run of fixtures that. Just looked at the fixture list and it doesn't get that much easier though. Tough league. 

[maqroll]

7 minutes ago, YLN said:

We used to be as good as Spurs. It used to be Villa or Spurs for top 4. Brad Friedel played for us then. He's in his 50s now. 

Then we had a few bad years finishing midtable in the championship and they got to a champions league final.

Maybe I was wrong to go into this game with as much hope as I did.

We had a sniff of top 4 one season under ONeill. Prior to that, early 90s. 

[est1874]

3 minutes ago, maqroll said:

Outdone perhaps by our own lack of imagination and adaptability, from Smith on down the line. Hopefully this taste will linger for everyone and be used as motivation in 2 weeks time. And hopefully a lesson has been learned. 

My concern is that this has absolutely happened before.

[hippo]

10 minutes ago, macandally said:

So stop being petulant, that whole post was just childish "meh, meh, meh".

We can pass a ball, we created chances from it.  Today it didnt go in, get a grip

We had 3 shots on target today - and that's 2 more than I recall.

Martinez kept the score respectable. Apart from the opening 5 minutes it was a game we never looked like winning.

[bannedfromHandV]

Despite a disappointing performance and result I remain upbeat.

We weren’t at it today, no one really played well (was going to give Martinez MOTM but some of his distribution was a bit wayward so gave it Watkins for getting the goal) and yet we were narrowly beaten by a so called superior team. 
 

It wasn’t a lack of effort or fight but very little came off, poor passes, poor first touches and getting in each others way at times. But I know we can and will play better than that so I’m not too concerned, we’re showing the kind of inconsistent form consistent with an upper-mid-table side, which I think is where we all thought we were pre-season.

[Davkaus]

Just now, hippo said:

We had 3 shots on target today - and that's 2 more than I recall.

Martinez kept the score respectable. Apart from the opening 5 minutes it was a game we never looked like winning.

Says it all that Martinez is the run away winner for MotM in our post match thread, and he did make some save,s but none of them were that impressive, it was a mediocre game by his standards. Our outfield players were just that bad. We were absolutely crap.

[leemond2008]

No problem with the starting 11, it would have been very difficult to change it after the Man Utd game.

The problem comes with the changes, it was clear that it wasn't working from 10 minutes into the game, we keep hearing about how much better the squad depth is, make a change at half time and change the system.

The other thing (and this probably isn't for the Dean Smith thread but he is the manager so ultimately the tactics side of thing does relate to him, why oh why did we resort to getting Cash to take a long throw in at every single possible opportunity? keep them guessing, have someone come short every now and again so they can whip an actual cross in, the long throws are great every now and again when they are working but Cash isn't Delap and we aren't Stoke, we don't need to do it every single time.

 

[jim]

From a very good to a very poor for me. I do t like the 3-5-2 it nullifies our attack imo.

Top marks for the Turkish kebab I just had though.

[markc]

Think manc are going for the wrong spurs player. Son is a class player and made us look foolish today. Was the difference (big) between the two sides today.

Disappointing result but we'll bounce back.