Ratings & Reactions: Villa v Brighton

[Thug]

1 hour ago, danceoftheshamen said:

We mustn't forget those two fabulous block saves by Martinez too! They were as good as goals and also an indication that Brighton can be dangerous along with their keepy ball  stuff. For me the fact they didn't score was more down to our good defending & goal keeper than it was down to them not offering a threat.

Whilst you make a point that they’re not completely toothless…

what other team would have 2/3 of the possession but end up with 1/3 of the shots?

if we played a 5-5-0 formation we could have 70% possession too.

They had a good start, based on a strange formation, other teams will wise up to it like we did, and they’ll end up bottom half where they deserve.

 

 

 

[villalad21]

6 minutes ago, TRO said:

They wasn't easy opponents for us and the way we play....so it was even more credit to us.....Effective was the key word, for that game, and until we put daylight between the bottom 3.

We will evolve, but right now, we need points.

What these new coaches has done is not thinking too far ahead.

Focusing on the short term and make sure we stay in the league. 

Organized us and make us hard to beat. If we stay in games our attacking talent always gives us a chance to win a game.

Look at Newcastle in comparison. Conceding 3 goals. I think Howe is trying to revolutionize too much, too quickly.

These people know exactly what they are doing and how they are going to achieve it. I have no worries. The flair will come later.

[TRO]

16 hours ago, TheLegendOfLeonBailey31 said:

Something I've noticed this year, is when we are attacking, our pitch awareness in the final third is generally poor.  For instance, Ollie's goal was a beautiful strike...  but if he's aware of his surroundings and where his fellow attacking teammates are, he probably lays that off to Bailey who was WIDE open for an easy goal.  There have been other instances including Cash's beauty against Everton as Bailey was also wide open far post.  Plenty of other examples of that where the results didn't end in goals and those are obviously the more important ones.  I'm sure that's something that Gerrard and the rest of the staff will try to improve.  If they do we are bound to score more goals because the opportunities are there, we're just not always seeing it.  Not sure if anyone else agrees.

I agree wholeheatedly....but first things first.

To move up the League, we need to start with clean sheets and build on that....SG has said so himself, the bits you refer to are important, but for later, in terms of priority.

Improvement is incremental,can't do it all in one go.

Edited November 21, 2021 by TRO

[TRO]

4 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

What these new coaches has done is not thinking too far ahead.

Focusing on the short term and make sure we stay in the league. 

Organized us and make us hard to beat. If we stay in games our attacking talent always gives us a chance to win a game.

Look at Newcastle in comparison. Conceding 3 goals. I think Howe is trying to revolutionize too much, too quickly.

These people know exactly what they are doing and how they are going to achieve it. I have no worries. The flair will come later.

precisely, We have only failed to score, once in the league all season and that was against Chelsea.....so as you say, you can easily see where the focus has to initially be.

[TRO]

15 hours ago, briny_ear said:

Can’t really believe someone did this…

 

Looks such an intelligent kinda guy too......much.

[rjw63]

7 hours ago, SuperTed said:

Have that Potter, you Small Heath gremlin! 

I read an interview he gave, he's actually a Villa fan.

[macandally]

2 hours ago, villalad21 said:

What these new coaches has done is not thinking too far ahead.

Focusing on the short term and make sure we stay in the league. 

Organized us and make us hard to beat. If we stay in games our attacking talent always gives us a chance to win a game.

Look at Newcastle in comparison. Conceding 3 goals. I think Howe is trying to revolutionize too much, too quickly.

These people know exactly what they are doing and how they are going to achieve it. I have no worries. The flair will come later.

We have played ONE game!  You simply do not have enough information to claim that 

[Tayls]

6 hours ago, TRO said:

If he feels , we are not fit enough, it was the sensible thing to do, concede territory, when it matters less, to preserve energy.

In the fullness of time and better fitness, I think you will see more pressing.

I don’t doubt that. Been a long time coming! 

I know not a lot would have changed in the past week or so, however I do think 37% possession at home, to Brighton, is still disappointing though. I’d have thought that even if we had Smith at the helm and we we were in a period of playing well. 

[Tommo_b]

Genuine question… do we win that game with Dean Smith in charge instead of Gerard? 

[Zatman]

1 minute ago, Tommo_b said:

Genuine question… do we win that game with Dean Smith in charge instead of Gerard? 

Its ifs and buts. We might have, I don't think Brighton are very impressive 

[lexicon]

8 minutes ago, Tommo_b said:

Genuine question… do we win that game with Dean Smith in charge instead of Gerard? 

Perhaps - certainly not outside the realms of possibility.

[It's Your Round]

25 minutes ago, Tommo_b said:

Genuine question… do we win that game with Dean Smith in charge instead of Gerard? 

We will never know. A better gauge of Gerrard’s ability will be seeing how good we are a year from now. 

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

43 minutes ago, Tommo_b said:

Genuine question… do we win that game with Dean Smith in charge instead of Gerard? 

Dunno.

Would we have made subs at 0 - 0 while there was " nothing in it " .

Or wait till we conceded?

Either way, I've tried to stay away from convos/comments like these, for obvious reasons.

The trajectory and performances we saw over the last 5 games would suggest absolutely f#cking not, but there is no telling what could/would have happened.

There could be an argument that if Ollie hadn't scored that stunner, we get nothing  ( moments of brilliance )

Edited November 21, 2021 by JAMAICAN-VILLAN

[Zatman]

9 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Dunno.

Would we have made subs at 0 - 0 while there was " nothing in it " .

Or wait till we conceded?

Either way, I've tried to stay away from convos/comments like these, for obvious reasons.

The trajectory and performances we saw over the last 5 games would suggest absolutely f#cking not, but there is no telling what could/would have happened.

There could be an argument that if Ollie hadn't scored that stunner, we get nothing  ( moments of brilliance )

He made subs at 0-0 vs United which helped us stretch them and win the game

[Vive_La_Villa]

10 hours ago, Tommo_b said:

Genuine question… do we win that game with Dean Smith in charge instead of Gerard? 

I don’t think we would have lost. We would have set up not to lose and Brighton can’t score for shit so probably would have played out similar way.

[Tomaszk]

It's a great sign to restrict Brighton, who usually make loads of chances.

Palace will be bit less of a technical challenge, bit more blood and thunder.

[Davkaus]

11 hours ago, mjmooney said:

There was definitely a feeling in the match thread of "This will inevitably end with a late Brighton winner". 

I've never been more certain of anything than the inevitability of Maupay scoring the winner when he came on. 

[Peter Griffin]

17 minutes ago, StanBalaban said:

I thought there was a palpable release of pressure once Watkins scored. The crowd and the players were so massively lifted, that we went up several gears afterwards that were previously unavailable in the first 80 mins

I think I was more nervous after Ollie scored . I went from being really happy with a potential draw and clean sheet to thinking we are going to concede late on and throw away a hugely important win

[onmeedson]

Would we have gone 433 under Dean Smith, would some of the players have raised their game under Dean?

[Peter Griffin]

19 minutes ago, StanBalaban said:

I thought there was a palpable release of pressure once Watkins scored. The crowd and the players were so massively lifted, that we went up several gears afterwards that were previously unavailable in the first 80 mins.

Stephen Warnock on the TV was saying that the crowd sometimes need to understand how the opposition plays, and Brighton are always going to have more possession. The anxiety of possibly losing 6 in a row clearly transferred from the crowd to the players to the extent that, once we gained possession, there was a tendency to trying an pump the ball forwards immediately. Inevitably, that often led to possession gifted back to Brighton once again.  

Palace are a different type of team, so it will be interesting to see how Gerrard approaches the game. Having those first 3 points was so important. If we can get a win here, it makes things a lot better going into Man City, Leicester and Liverpool.

I noticed a number of people gave Gerrard an 'Average' review in the voting. I would love to know what he could have done to improve from 'Average'. And if that was an average performance I really can't wait to see a 'Good' performance by him