Ratings & Reactions: Villa v West Ham

[Rodders]

Why bother discussing anything then. It's.not our job to select.the players either. So let's not discuss personnel or tactics..

[Shirtman]

54 minutes ago, Django_Zooms said:

Has anyone ever explained why Terry and O'Kelly both left? And also: how does Austin McPhee justify a salary?

To be fair Austin McPhee was being praised as having a big influence until we started losing.

[smg]

53 minutes ago, Big Salad said:

I think unfortunately that Dean's time here is coming to a close. Will he get at least another game to see what happens? 50/50 imo on that.

You can tell the body language of the players towards him is just not what you want between a manager and his players; Buendia looked absolutely disgusted that he was taken off. We just look totally bereft of any kind of unity and cohesion with one another and I don't know what the quick fix is.

We have talent on this team, that is not in dispute imo but the stagnant way and unenthusiastic way we are playing does not let us show that.

All discouraging at this point, but I will tune in to the Southampton game and keep the faith as I always do; as fans that's really all we can do.

As always,

UTV

 

Buendia set up the goal and precious little else. He was taken off because as much as he is our new superstar hero, apparently, we needed to replace a centre back, up to now he has been shite in his own position, not seeing him as a centre bsck

[pacbuddies]

11 minutes ago, Don_Simon said:

I haven't said you did say that. That would be ludicrous, (unless your Wes or Nasseff in disguise). You wouldn't put forward a suggestion for the next manager because it isn't your job - yet it also isn't your job to sack the manager but you are more than willing to make that decision. 

I haven't made any decision for anyone, I just expressed my opinion that he should be sacked which I am quite entitled to do thanks!

[Shirtman]

45 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

Remember when everyone was saying sign a central midfielder? Because, well, we really really needed one. 

We played 70 mins today with Ashley Young and Marvelous Nakamba in midfield. That is absolutely laughable and a sure sign of a team that will be in a relegation battle. 

If you compare this summers window to the one where we signed Cash, Martinez, Watkins etc. it’s night and day. Poor from the club. 

Smith is a dead man walking I’m afraid which is a shame as I really like the bloke. 

Thought those two played ok today, particularly Marvelous. They were better than McGinn for much of the game. 

[smg]

56 minutes ago, matteyp said:

Quite possibly.  But again it wasn't awarded so not a clear and obvious error.

It was

[Chasetown Villa]

Smith has taken us as far as he can. Enough is enough. This season is about survival now. Europe? Top half? No chance. 

[rjw63]

38 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

Moyes pretty much saying they were only in 2nd gear.

He can go and **** himself, the gollum faced spunkpuddle.

[Don_Simon]

3 minutes ago, pacbuddies said:

I haven't made any decision for anyone, I just expressed my opinion that he should be sacked which I am quite entitled to do thanks!

Give me strength. 

Your opinion is that the board should make the decision to sack Dean Smith. Yet when someone asked who should replace Dean Smith, you said it isn't your job to do that. 

The point I made is that you are happy to think for the board and sack Dean Smith, but not think for the board and suggest a replacement. 

You're angry, and not thinking straight. Let's leave it now. 

[villalad21]

1 minute ago, rjw63 said:

He can go and **** himself, the gollum faced spunkpuddle.

Fair assessment.

[smg]

48 minutes ago, allani said:

Exactly.  A proper defensive midfielder.  Cover for Targett and Cash.  Three massive holes that we failed to fill.  I can't believe that that is down to the owners not having the funds.  I think that Smith saw them as lower priorities.  He was wrong.

Nakamba had a great game today, sadly a large proportion of fans have decided he is shit and all the positive contributions are ignored if he does one bad pass. Pathetic 

[punkiller1981]

Left early from the game like most did what a **** shambles we are at times. We are a really poor side that’s now a fact without grealish. Not sure what the **** other than long throws we do in training. 

[tom_avfc]

Just now, smg said:

Nakamba had a great game today, sadly a large proportion of fans have decided he is shit and all the positive contributions are ignored if he does one bad pass. Pathetic 

“If he does one bad pass”? He pretty much  gives the ball away every time he gets it and does it in pretty dangerous positions a lot of the time.

Yes, he runs around a lot and wins the ball back but when you can’t pass a ball 5 yards to a teammate it’s pretty pointless.

He benefits from the Birkir Bjarnasson trait of running around like a headless chicken a lot so people think he’s having a great game.

The downgrade from Douglas Luiz to Nakamba is the biggest downgrade in our squad from first team to backup other than Martinez to Jed Steer.

[smg]

1 hour ago, Villadevon said:

I haven't voted yet, who would you like me to vote for? 

Please make your own mind up. He doesn’t have a clue

[Davkaus]

What am I missing with Cash? I didn't think he had a bad game by any stretch, but I'm surprised with the MotM results, not much of his performance stands out for me

[WHY]

Gave Nakamba MOTM because he at least looked like he was trying and put himself about. We’ve gone from having a settled side who knew their jobs to looking like a team with no identity. Changed our system to accommodate signings without addressing the midfield issue. We have none or little cover at full backs, basically our summer transfer business has been shambolic. 

[rbcuk]

Couldn’t give anyone motm, need a no one field, just in absolute disgrace that performance was, as much as I wanted smith before we went for Di Matteo, he has to go after that

[WHY]

2 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

What am I missing with Cash? I didn't think he had a bad game by any stretch, but I'm surprised with the MotM results, not much of his performance stands out for me

You’re not missing anything mate, fans just thought he was best of a bad bunch. Wouldn’t spend too much time thinking about it.

Edited October 31, 2021 by WHY

[sheepyvillian]

1 hour ago, pacbuddies said:

Smith out!

That does surprise me. 

[OutByEaster?]

For me it was a game in three sections:

1.) The first half (and in particular the first half hour of the first half) - we really struggled to get out from the back, there was some frustration that the ball wasn't going forward and when it did, it was balls down the side that we were struggling to win. That's us missing Douglas Luiz - missing someone coming out of midfield, picking the ball up deep and turning. We adjusted as the half went on but gave up two goals from weak shots that Martinez might have been expected to save - I'm not sure if either of them took deflections, if they did, my apologies to Emi. Going in at half time at 2-1, I thought we were still in it.

2.) Ten versus eleven - I haven't seen the Hause one back, on first viewing it didn't look a foul to me, but I was watching feet and from the sound of things he might have gone for a forearm. The Konsa one wasn't a red, either on first sight or on replay - the ref has bottled it because a bloke in a warehouse somewhere has insisted he take a look. A big decision and one that was wrong.

That said it didn't change the game in the way you'd expect - after the sending off we looked more effective, Mings slotted in and we didn't miss Buendia at all (which might say something about his performance, great run to set up the goal excepted) - we were the better side at ten versus eleven and looked the more likely scorers, Ollie hit the bar and if anything it looked like a matter of time before we equalised.

3.) Ten (or nine) versus twelve - the tackle on Nakamba by Bowen(?) was a shocker, late, at pace, endangering the opponent, all of those things; your quintessential 21st century red card - our players were infuriated by it, with several rushing over to remonstrate with him. It's a bad challenge, the sort that injures players, the type we don't want to see in the game - a red, simple and obvious. In the middle of the scrum around it, I think Fornals (back from the dead after the Hause incident) pushed McGinn over with what looked like a hand in the face, again you'd expect a red. When the ref came up with two yellows and VAR had presumably switched over to the dancing, it took the wind out of our sails. Even more so when with Nakamba still off the field receiving treatment West Ham scored a third. The game might have turned on our red card but didn't, if anything it galvanised us, but teams don't bounce back from two lumps of injustice in the same game and we were beaten as soon as the third went in. 

It was frustrating because we'd worked them out - they couldn't deal with the ball over the head of Johnson, their right back and we were exploiting that regularly - I'm confident we'd have equalised - for me, Chris Kavanagh was the difference between the two sides - there's no way that's a 4-1 game of football.

 

For West Ham, they're organised and physical, a good mid-table team that are hard to beat - very Moyes - but no one in their front four gets in our side - two strong, capable defensive midfielders, solid centre halves and decent full backs -they're alright but they aren't a fourth place team, they'll finish about eighth. Their fans were excellent though in fairness to them, they brought a lot of noise.

There will be a lot of people for whom the game will be about the manager, for me it's a difficult one to judge, we started poorly, but we don't know when we lost Luiz and how much we had to change the plan, and we got stronger throughout the game - he got the subs right even if they were enforced and tactically we found something that worked and exploited it. He needs to do the thing that's very hard for managers - he needs to find some luck, because whilst I don't think you can pin this one on him, and no matter how much the scoreline isn't a reflection of the performance, the back of the paper says 4-1 and every manager only has so many of those headlines in him.

So yeah, the biggest bit of this one is on the refereeing for me, the manager did okay, the team gave it their all, the fans stayed with them throughout, Declan Rice surprised us by being a knob and the keeper proved he's human - onto the next one and we need a win.