Didiersix Posted August 10, 2022 Share Posted August 10, 2022 3 minutes ago, Rustibrooks said: The media right now can smell blood in the waters at Villa. Unless something changes on the pitch I’d expect a lot more articles about 'x' player having a fall out or being banished. I get for a lot of people the emotions are raw, but let’s not fall for everything we see online. The media also know how Gerrard can be, he gets wound up easily when asked certain things or questioned so I’m going to expect a lot of that too. Yep tomorrow's presser (I presume it is tomorrow) will be interesting. Like you say, scrutiny of his position is mounting and the Mings affair has become a real talking point. Arguably the first time in his short managerial career he has had such pressure? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillanousOne Posted August 10, 2022 Share Posted August 10, 2022 38 minutes ago, alreadyexists said: What was the weird statement after the match, I think I missed that? the 'needs to stare me in the eyes stuff' on balance there have definitely been times where we have looked ok under Gerrard, where we have pressed high, had decent possession and created chances and even scored them! Possibly against teams that play possession football or similar style to us. The issue is consistency, it feels all or nothing, the game plan works or it fails so spectacularly that the players all look like a pub team who have never trained together. It is this total breakdown that alarms everyone, are we that easy to nullify that even the most rookie manager just gets a few players to double up on our biggest threats and we're done, no plan B, no clue how to adjust to the opposition tactics. One thing I noticed vs Bournemouth is how right sided we are, despite Digne being decent, we seem to push all our play down the right and so slowly that it is incredibly easy to shut that down. It maybe oversimplifying but if we could 'move the ball forward quicker' and 'press more effectively' I think most other things would fall into place. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaCas Posted August 10, 2022 Share Posted August 10, 2022 I’ve been supportive of SG since he’s been here and keen for him to have a pre-season and bring in his own players -my expectations were that we’d hit the ground running this season and capitalise on the relatively favourable fixtures which start the season We certainly didn’t do that and the Everton game now becomes ridiculously important SG is with the players daily, but from my limited perspective he has made some fundamental errors - I see no advantage of stripping Mings of the Captaincy and certainly it was crazy to drop him against a Keiffer Moore led Bournemouth - McGinn should not be Captain and seemed embarrassed by the whole thing for me - How can Buendia not be starting games? High pressure for SG and two or three more defeats will see him under enormous pressure (or gone) I worry that Beale was the guy holding everything together behind the scenes An impressive and authoritative performance required Saturday 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrBlack Posted August 10, 2022 Share Posted August 10, 2022 38 minutes ago, daft said: I was hoping they'd get on the case. Very good, if disturbing, read. EDIT Also, the club will have had their own reports, even better ones I'd assume, put together and distributed internally. You would indeed hope that. But given the Bournemouth game was just a repeat of all the same issues we had last season, I can only assume that no analysis is done of the weaknesses and their causes. Admittedly, you might argue that Gerrard expected Carlos and Kamara to be world class enough to mitigate the issues we had last season. But it transpires that it isn't the players, but the formation and/or tactics. Maybe after seeing this first hand, he'll make some major changes for the Everton game, but I just don't see how we can expect those changes to make us immediately better now. We've had months learning the rubbish formation, and now it's proved not to work even with over half a team of "his" players, we've got to unlearn it and go to something else they're not used to. Feels like we're in real trouble on the pitch, and the noises coming from off it are not pleasant. Even if they're not true, the fact they're in the media means the noise will be getting back to the players and they eventually become a self fulfilling prophecy. Rarely do things turn around after getting to this stage. Looking to what happened with Arteta is probably our best hope of an eventual turnaround. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post rodders0223 Posted August 10, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted August 10, 2022 42 minutes ago, nick76 said: I put on the other thread that Tommy Jordan denied that. It was from Football Insider and Tommy rubbished it. Depends how you then feel about Tommy but Football Insider is a lower than low. They did fall out but Watkins looked him in the eyes this morning and now he's captain. 2 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrSmirch Posted August 10, 2022 Share Posted August 10, 2022 16 hours ago, Davkaus said: Too much time on my hands but people were talking about PPG, and arbitrary cut off times around the honeymoon/from January onwards, I was curious about what it looked like throughout last season Maybe I haven’t read enough Athletic articles but that doesn’t look like improvement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alreadyexists Posted August 10, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted August 10, 2022 12 minutes ago, VillanousOne said: the 'needs to stare me in the eyes stuff' on balance there have definitely been times where we have looked ok under Gerrard, where we have pressed high, had decent possession and created chances and even scored them! Possibly against teams that play possession football or similar style to us. The issue is consistency, it feels all or nothing, the game plan works or it fails so spectacularly that the players all look like a pub team who have never trained together. It is this total breakdown that alarms everyone, are we that easy to nullify that even the most rookie manager just gets a few players to double up on our biggest threats and we're done, no plan B, no clue how to adjust to the opposition tactics. One thing I noticed vs Bournemouth is how right sided we are, despite Digne being decent, we seem to push all our play down the right and so slowly that it is incredibly easy to shut that down. It maybe oversimplifying but if we could 'move the ball forward quicker' and 'press more effectively' I think most other things would fall into place. Ah I didn’t see the post game interview, I’ll have a look. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post OutByEaster? Posted August 10, 2022 Moderator Popular Post Share Posted August 10, 2022 I don't think Steven Gerrard has ever struggled at anything. I don't mean that he hasn't had to try, but I don't think he's ever had times where he's been widely criticised or there have been question marks about his ability - it didn't happen throughout his whole Liverpool career as far as I can recall and it didn't happen in Scotland. This is new to him, the simple idea of not being massively and constantly successful, it'll be interesting to see how he deals with it. This might be the first rocky period for him in his entire career as either a player or a manager - the first time in his life that he's not been immediately and consistently the very best at something. It must feel like a shock. 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAMAICAN-VILLAN Posted August 10, 2022 Share Posted August 10, 2022 33 minutes ago, Rustibrooks said: The media right now can smell blood in the waters at Villa. Unless something changes on the pitch I’d expect a lot more articles about 'x' player having a fall out or being banished. I get for a lot of people the emotions are raw, but let’s not fall for everything we see online. The media also know how Gerrard can be, he gets wound up easily when asked certain things or questioned so I’m going to expect a lot of that too. Yup, and their job is to illicit emotion, reaction, headlines and clicks. He'll , I fall for clickbait by tripe like the Mirror and Daily Mail on social media ll the time I've learnt it's better to take a step back and investigate + apply some sense. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ingram85 Posted August 10, 2022 Share Posted August 10, 2022 4 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said: I don't think Steven Gerrard has ever struggled at anything. I don't mean that he hasn't had to try, but I don't think he's ever had times where he's been widely criticised or there have been question marks about his ability - it didn't happen throughout his whole Liverpool career as far as I can recall and it didn't happen in Scotland. This is new to him, the simple idea of not being massively and constantly successful, it'll be interesting to see how he deals with it. This might be the first rocky period for him in his entire career as either a player or a manager - the first time in his life that he's not been immediately and consistently the very best at something. It must feel like a shock. …. and in typical Villa style it had to happen here first didn’t it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAMAICAN-VILLAN Posted August 10, 2022 Share Posted August 10, 2022 3 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said: I don't think Steven Gerrard has ever struggled at anything. I don't mean that he hasn't had to try, but I don't think he's ever had times where he's been widely criticised or there have been question marks about his ability - it didn't happen throughout his whole Liverpool career as far as I can recall and it didn't happen in Scotland. This is new to him, the simple idea of not being massively and constantly successful, it'll be interesting to see how he deals with it. This might be the first rocky period for him in his entire career as either a player or a manager - the first time in his life that he's not been immediately and consistently the very best at something. It must feel like a shock. As you say that, I was wondering if he would " crack " under pressure. But I saw on one of the pods they pointed out that pressure at Rangers is immense, a draw or a loss is alarm bells, they also said he wasn't shy about calling players out when he was there either, so I guess it's not actually a new thing Does need to be able to control his emotions better though, but you can tell it's difficult for him, which isn't great. On the one hand the positive passion is good, it's when things are bad it seems he can make them worse by default. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steero113 Posted August 10, 2022 Share Posted August 10, 2022 1 minute ago, OutByEaster? said: This might be the first rocky period for him in his entire career as either a player or a manager Late part of his second season at Rangers he was getting pelted by their fan base (they lost to Hamilton, Kilmarnock and Hearts as well as a bunch of really underwhelming draws) but he turned it around in 2020-21 into an unbeaten season. This is miles above that level though, the Scottish league is a piss-joke. I don't think its an underestimation to say this is the biggest week of his managerial career. There are some enormous man management issues, as well as some even bigger tactical and motivational ones before Everton. If we lose that, the knives really will be out whether or not you think that's premature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomav84 Posted August 10, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted August 10, 2022 20 minutes ago, VillaCas said: I’ve been supportive of SG since he’s been here and keen for him to have a pre-season and bring in his own players -my expectations were that we’d hit the ground running this season and capitalise on the relatively favourable fixtures which start the season We certainly didn’t do that and the Everton game now becomes ridiculously important SG is with the players daily, but from my limited perspective he has made some fundamental errors - I see no advantage of stripping Mings of the Captaincy and certainly it was crazy to drop him against a Keiffer Moore led Bournemouth - McGinn should not be Captain and seemed embarrassed by the whole thing for me - How can Buendia not be starting games? High pressure for SG and two or three more defeats will see him under enormous pressure (or gone) I worry that Beale was the guy holding everything together behind the scenes An impressive and authoritative performance required Saturday agree with everything you say apart from the bit in bold. we were crap last season too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zhan_Zhuang Posted August 10, 2022 Share Posted August 10, 2022 8 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said: I don't think Steven Gerrard has ever struggled at anything. I don't mean that he hasn't had to try, but I don't think he's ever had times where he's been widely criticised or there have been question marks about his ability - it didn't happen throughout his whole Liverpool career as far as I can recall and it didn't happen in Scotland. This is new to him, the simple idea of not being massively and constantly successful, it'll be interesting to see how he deals with it. This might be the first rocky period for him in his entire career as either a player or a manager - the first time in his life that he's not been immediately and consistently the very best at something. It must feel like a shock. I genuinely think Gerrard thought he'd rock up at Villa Park and get some top ten finishes then ride off into the sunset (join Liverplop) and us Villa fans would be happy. Starting to think he might have been stupid enough to think that! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillanousOne Posted August 10, 2022 Share Posted August 10, 2022 The problem now is Mings might genuinely be injured but if he doesn't start, the fans and press will be spitting blood. McGinn and Coutinho won't be dropped. Buendia is unlikely to start and I wouldn't be surprised to see JJ start. He might drop Bailey for Watkins which will also pour oil on the fire. If he gets a result though the team selection won't matter as much, even if fans will still moan about the selection. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rustibrooks Posted August 10, 2022 Share Posted August 10, 2022 7 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said: Yup, and their job is to illicit emotion, reaction, headlines and clicks. He'll , I fall for clickbait by tripe like the Mirror and Daily Mail on social media ll the time I've learnt it's better to take a step back and investigate + apply some sense. Exactly! I'm sure most of us fall victim of it time to time, especially after a loss our emotions are high so any article that plays on that emotion will trigger us further. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted August 10, 2022 Share Posted August 10, 2022 12 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said: I don't think Steven Gerrard has ever struggled at anything. I don't mean that he hasn't had to try, but I don't think he's ever had times where he's been widely criticised or there have been question marks about his ability - it didn't happen throughout his whole Liverpool career as far as I can recall and it didn't happen in Scotland. This is new to him, the simple idea of not being massively and constantly successful, it'll be interesting to see how he deals with it. This might be the first rocky period for him in his entire career as either a player or a manager - the first time in his life that he's not been immediately and consistently the very best at something. It must feel like a shock. Welcome to Villa 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaCas Posted August 10, 2022 Share Posted August 10, 2022 4 minutes ago, tomav84 said: agree with everything you say apart from the bit in bold. we were crap last season too You’re right - I meant that he was the one managing the relations with the players rather than some kind of tactical genius - I’d hoped that with their own players and time to work we would be markedly better this season - it’s still early days but signs are not good 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted August 10, 2022 Share Posted August 10, 2022 10 minutes ago, Steero113 said: Late part of his second season at Rangers he was getting pelted by their fan base (they lost to Hamilton, Kilmarnock and Hearts as well as a bunch of really underwhelming draws) but he turned it around in 2020-21 into an unbeaten season. This is miles above that level though, the Scottish league is a piss-joke. I don't think its an underestimation to say this is the biggest week of his managerial career. There are some enormous man management issues, as well as some even bigger tactical and motivational ones before Everton. If we lose that, the knives really will be out whether or not you think that's premature. Covid didnt finish that season in Scotland, Covid break arguably saved his job Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lexicon Posted August 10, 2022 Share Posted August 10, 2022 'You need to look me in the eye and show me that you can be more better Ollie la' Sounds about right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts