Ratings & Reactions: Villa v Wolves

[TRO]

3 hours ago, villa4europe said:

But expectations based on what? 

Its coming across that people are criticising Smith and calling for his head on their own personal belief that he won't achieve their own personal expectations 

The negativity is incessant 

I haven't seen anyone come out on here and call for Smith out.....are you seeing it on other platforms and assuming its on here?....just asking?

what I have seen, is fans joining in with Dean and saying the collapse was unacceptable performance.

[Wainy316]

2 hours ago, The Fun Factory said:

Wow really I can think of several more. 6-0 to Liverpool, losing at home to Barnsley mid week when we were about 15th in the Championship, the Albion game just before the 10 wins in a row. I could go on.

All worse results on the surface but the way that played out yesterday was crushing, max pain.  Plus I had to spend the evening with my Wolves supporting dad and brother.

[villa4europe]

31 minutes ago, TRO said:

I haven't seen anyone come out on here and call for Smith out.....are you seeing it on other platforms and assuming its on here?....just asking?

what I have seen, is fans joining in with Dean and saying the collapse was unacceptable performance.

Go in to the Smith thread! 

Not the man to get us to the promised land so we might as well get rid now is normally how it's badged up 

[TRO]

Just now, villa4europe said:

Go in to the Smith thread! 

Not the man to get us to the promised land so we might as well get rid now is normally how it's badged up 

Oh ok.

 

[Tomaszk]

To cheer the thread up, here's an event you should all attend if free for the evening.

 

[Marka Ragnos]

I wanted to wait a day or two to absorb the shock of that ending before I posted, so I don’t make a complete fool of myself. I’m just an enthusiastic American fan of Villa, and I don’t have a sophisticated understanding of tactics or any grasp of club coaching staff machinations, so I can’t really speak to those things.
 

That said, this felt like another painful but probably necessary lesson and an anomalous result. I hope we will learn from this, but I still feel so incredibly excited about Villa this year, and I know we’ll have better results.

I was watching the match as my United supporter best mate was watching his world crumble, too, and it was honestly kind of hilariously absurd. We were both just kind of wtf?!?!

I still feel a lot of confidence in Dean Smith, a lot more than my friend has for Ole now, not that I would know what was wisest anyway. 
 

I’ve been thinking a little bit about Murphy’s Law. I’m thinking, well, this can’t now happen again for the rest of the year, right? This can’t happen twice. It’s like a lightning strike.   So, in a wack way, we’ve achieved a stunning feat of utter stupidity. We are towering giants of the grotesque defensive collapse. It will at least be memorable, right?

 

Edited October 18, 2021 by Marka Ragnos

[Peter Griffin]

25 minutes ago, hippo said:

I really think swapping Luiz and Buendia for Ramsey and Nkamba tells you all you need to know 

I'm not buying that players "signalling" to come off. If player wants to come off the pitch after an hour , playing a local derby in front of 42k  - I'd be questioning his attitude / application to be honest.

I think that our players on the whole take their foot off the gas too easily. 2-0 up and cruising, 75 minutes on the clock, a rest and a hot shower may sound tempting. A consistent bugbear I have is how our team can all down tools and play at a pedestrian pace during games. More grit and roll your sleeves up old style football attitude is required imo

[hippo]

29 minutes ago, Zatman said:

One of them just returned from a long flight from Venezuela, the only Brazil player to play this weekend in the Premier League 

Seriously ????

You honestly think that's a valid reason ? 

In the 70s sat/weds/sat week in week out 11 players 1 sub.

In any case I'd prefer a jaded Luiz to a fresh Nkamba.

 

[Zatman]

4 minutes ago, hippo said:

Seriously ????

You honestly think that's a valid reason ? 

In the 70s sat/weds/sat week in week out 11 players 1 sub.

In any case I'd prefer a jaded Luiz to a fresh Nkamba.

 

Ah yes I forgot Kevin Keegan was usually travelling from Caracas to Liverpool for games through multiple time zones

[bobzy]

2 minutes ago, hippo said:

But equally every opposition team that finds themselves 2-0 to villa will know the game isn't dead. That's why you never win anything with a soft defence.

Any team that is ever given up after being 2-0 down is far worse than one with a soft defence.

Mistakes happen.  Strangely, the Wolves game ended up feeling like every single home game against Man Utd that I can remember - 2-0 up, lose 3-2  

[tom_avfc]

1 minute ago, hippo said:

Seriously ????

You honestly think that's a valid reason ? 

In the 70s sat/weds/sat week in week out 11 players 1 sub.

In any case I'd prefer a jaded Luiz to a fresh Nkamba.

 

Sports science has moved on a long way from the 70's. As was mentioned above the majority of players who had travelled to South America for the internationals didn't even play at all over the weekend.

I too would prefer a half fit Luiz to Nakamba but that is more of an issue with the squad at the moment than the substitution being made. If bringing Luiz off for 20 minutes when we were leading a game at home has avoided him picking up an injury then its worth it. The fact that the players we have to bring on aren't good enough doesn't mean that the decision to take Luiz off isn't for the best if that was how long are medical staff recommended he play for.

[hippo]

1 minute ago, Zatman said:

Ah yes I forgot Kevin Keegan was usually travelling from Caracas to Liverpool for games through multiple time zones

Ok you know what I meant. Playing 90 minutes 3 X week takes more exertion that a long haul flight. 

You clearly know your footy from the contents  and depth of your posts on here. But just admit that was a bad move on Saturday. ?

It's doesn't mean DS is a crap manager on course for villa never winning a game and relegation.

It just means Nkamba for Luiz in a game we were cruising was unnecessary and poor choice.?

 

[Kiwivillan]

Formation and manager is irrelevant when 2 CBs revert to pub league standard the last 15 mins of game time

[Peter Griffin]

9 minutes ago, bobzy said:

FWIW, I thought we looked good against Wolves playing this formation up until about the 70th minute when it all went wrong.

There's nothing really "wrong" with it.

We did look 'good' but there is something not working and I think it is related to Ollie and Ings. Ollie doesn't look the player of last season (yes I know he was injured and hasn't played much) but we still don't have them two working as a unit. DS appears to be forcing the formation to fit the players as opposed to making the players fit the formation. This is why I think it looks like we don't have a style or a cohesion and why we are like Jekyll and Hyde. This could be his downfall if he doesn't fix it

[hippo]

1 minute ago, tom_avfc said:

Sports science has moved on a long way from the 70's. As was mentioned above the majority of players who had travelled to South America for the internationals didn't even play at all over the weekend.

I too would prefer a half fit Luiz to Nakamba but that is more of an issue with the squad at the moment than the substitution being made. If bringing Luiz off for 20 minutes when we were leading a game at home has avoided him picking up an injury then its worth it. The fact that the players we have to bring on aren't good enough doesn't mean that the decision to take Luiz off isn't for the best if that was how long are medical staff recommended he play for.

I really think it's trying to be to clever by half. Totally get your Point about injury. And yes we should have a better backup than Nkamba. But we don't so Luiz plays more ?

Yes sports science has moved on since the 70s. But not so much that it warrants removing a key player , when we have no able deputy in a game we were strolling.

 

 

[bobzy]

2 minutes ago, Peter Griffin said:

We did look 'good' but there is something not working and I think it is related to Ollie and Ings. Ollie doesn't look the player of last season (yes I know he was injured and hasn't played much) but we still don't have them two working as a unit. DS appears to be forcing the formation to fit the players as opposed to making the players fit the formation. This is why I think it looks like we don't have a style or a cohesion and why we are like Jekyll and Hyde. This could be his downfall if he doesn't fix it

Agreed on the Watkins front, he seems well off it.  But I think the issue is a lack of personnel rather than using a formation to fit the players.  Fully fit, Leon Bailey plays in this team.  If he does, he plays wide left.  At the moment, we're not even playing with wingers and all width is being provided by Targett and Cash (which is fine).  If you have Bailey and Traore fit, we don't play this formation - we do something different.

I do think there's a certain amount of internal pressure (i.e: within Smith) that makes him want to play both Watkins and Ings, but I'm not convinced he's just bunging them in and creating a formation to suit that.  FWIW, against the better teams, having those two pressing from the front has been very effective and not seen us reap the rewards that we deserved.  Against Wolves, the main boost was McGinn breaking from midfield and linking up with Buendia with Luiz controlling the game behind them.  Despite the "same formation", I think we played the games very differently.

[Peter Griffin]

9 minutes ago, bobzy said:

Agreed on the Watkins front, he seems well off it.  But I think the issue is a lack of personnel rather than using a formation to fit the players.  Fully fit, Leon Bailey plays in this team.  If he does, he plays wide left.  At the moment, we're not even playing with wingers and all width is being provided by Targett and Cash (which is fine).  If you have Bailey and Traore fit, we don't play this formation - we do something different.

I do think there's a certain amount of internal pressure (i.e: within Smith) that makes him want to play both Watkins and Ings, but I'm not convinced he's just bunging them in and creating a formation to suit that.  FWIW, against the better teams, having those two pressing from the front has been very effective and not seen us reap the rewards that we deserved.  Against Wolves, the main boost was McGinn breaking from midfield and linking up with Buendia with Luiz controlling the game behind them.  Despite the "same formation", I think we played the games very differently.

Would we not be better playing Philogene Bidace or the left wing or even moving Ollie out to the left and playing Ings as the lone / central striker. 4-3-3 was our style and we have ditched it. We would play Cash-Konsa-Mings-Targett and up front Emi B-Ings-Ollie. Then we work with a combination of 3 midfileder from the ones that are fit. As Bailey, Sanson, Traore return from fitness we can then tinker with where the players are actually playing but we would keep the formation that our players understand and has proven to work in the past for Deano. 

[tom_avfc]

2 minutes ago, hippo said:

I really think it's trying to be to clever by half. Totally get your Point about injury. And yes we should have a better backup than Nkamba. But we don't so Luiz plays more ?

Yes sports science has moved on since the 70s. But not so much that it warrants removing a key player , when we have no able deputy in a game we were strolling.

 

 

I guess it just comes to how much you trust our medical department. If they don't think he has any more minutes in him than what he's played there then I'm not sure I'd want Smith to just leave him on regardless.

To me the glaring issue in it all is that the squad that everyone was saying was much more rounded still has Nakamba as the first defensive midfield option off the bench. As we discovered last season if you have no options from the bench then it becomes very difficult to maintain form and gives other teams far more chance to change the game than we have.

[The Fun Factory]

Well we did have Sanson on Saturday but Smith decided against bringing him on.

[hippo]

37 minutes ago, tom_avfc said:

I guess it just comes to how much you trust our medical department. If they don't think he has any more minutes in him than what he's played there then I'm not sure I'd want Smith to just leave him on regardless.

To me the glaring issue in it all is that the squad that everyone was saying was much more rounded still has Nakamba as the first defensive midfield option off the bench. As we discovered last season if you have no options from the bench then it becomes very difficult to maintain form and gives other teams far more chance to change the game than we have.

I'm pretty sure no medical team on this earth would say Luiz is ok for 65 minutes but not 90.

Football isn't an endurance sport. There aren't any metrics to tell a player when his fitness is waning.

Tour de France cyclists, elite runners yes - you can use metrics from blood lab results to indicate endurance fatigue etc. But footballers don't suffer from those extremes of exhaustion.