Ratings & Reactions: Villa v Leeds

[TRO]

15 hours ago, Only2McInallys said:

I was worried when I saw some prematch stuff about how this was going to be a walkover.Have those people watched us versus Bielsa?Some of our attacking play is beautiful to watch with Coutinho showing us he is world class.

Ramsey is an incredibly skilful and deadly finisher.A guaranteed starter.

I looked at our bench before the game,it looked weak.We need Bailey and Traore back,if they had been available they would have been very useful in the last 15 minutes.

Why do we seem so soft and concede really sloppy goals?No one player is responsible and people who are picking out Martinez,Mings and Konsa I think are misguided.

We lack a real imposing physical defensive midfielder.A Fabinho,Rice ,Fernandinho, someone to provide the back four with some protection.

I too , see your point.

We struggle against any team with high intensity and willing runners.....We do not have the personnel to negate it.

I too think the centre backs are too exposed, and a team with the intensity of Leeds will highlight it....don't get me wrong, they left a lot to be desired too, but we allowed them to be "got at"

I hope in the summer, we focus more on players who can stop the opposition, we have enough footballers.

 

[TRO]

16 minutes ago, PaulC said:

Yes even Liverpool get exposed at times with their two attacking fullbacks. The only way it works if midfield players that can shield the defence. We dont have that in our makeup 

That's right Paul....I guess people like me , have to get used to this, until we sign the appropriate personel, in the summer.

Equally, some folk need to reappraise their predictions on forth coming games, because there are NO easy ones.

We are currently caught between a rock and a hard place, in as much as the better teams are just better.....and the lesser teams, won't let you play and battle.

right now, we are neither one thing or the other.....We have moments in a game, when we are one of the better teams, but they are still just moments.

Our consistency that we talk about, primarily comes from defending better.....We have a way to go.

[PaulC]

3 minutes ago, TRO said:

That's right Paul....I guess people like me , have to get used to this, until we sign the appropriate personel, in the summer.

Equally, some folk need to reappraise their predictions on forth coming games, because there are NO easy ones.

We are currently caught between a rock and a hard place, in as much as the better teams are just better.....and the lesser teams, won't let you play and battle.

right now, we are neither one thing or the other.....We have moments in a game, when we are one of the better teams, but they are still just moments.

Our consistency that we talk about, primarily comes from defending better.....We have a way to go.

Theres a long way to go. We have improved slighly under Gerrard and made a huge difference to Ramsey but we still have that soft underbelly. 

[TRO]

4 hours ago, AntrimBlack said:

I agree. It will be expensive. But do you think those three are good enough to propel us up the table? I don't.

The problem we face is.....on their day, they are good enough.

Its the inconsistency that is the hard bit to conquer.

[TRO]

4 minutes ago, PaulC said:

Theres a long way to go. We have improved slighly under Gerrard and made a huge difference to Ramsey but we still have that soft underbelly. 

its funny Paul, because it's still there.

I guess, compared to the last 2 Leeds home games, its an improvement, in as much as we haven't lost....but some of the signs under Dean Smith are still there, so I guess only new faces will cure that.

[TRO]

4 hours ago, Zhan_Zhuang said:

In hindsight a really disappointing performance last night...

To give away the win when 3-1 up is just so Villa.

We couldn't match the physicality and levels of Leeds, you'd think we might have prepared for this and dictate our own play.

The positive though was our three goals all of which were sublime, well-worked team goals.

Their goals pretty much self-enforced errors which we should have defended better at. Yes we can point fingers at the defenders but those infront have a job to do and there is again a lot of finger-pointing at the likes of McGinn and Luiz yet again!

We do miss the Marvelous one, to not replace him in January was a big mistake. Again like last year and the year before teams can play through us far too easily.

and there lies, probably the main reason why Europe is pie in the sky, at present.

[hippo]

4 hours ago, AntrimBlack said:

I agree. It will be expensive. But do you think those three are good enough to propel us up the table? I don't.

I think are premier league defences with lesser players performing better as a collective.

Would be no shortage of top half PL clubs after there signature - which should tell you something. If Stevie G doesn't rate them or can't get them to perform - somebody else will. 

[AntrimBlack]

53 minutes ago, TRO said:

The problem we face is.....on their day, they are good enough.

Its the inconsistency that is the hard bit to conquer.

What I am saying, Tro, is that they are good enough for where we are now, but not good enough to take us up the table, in my opinion..

[AntrimBlack]

32 minutes ago, hippo said:

I think are premier league defences with lesser players performing better as a collective.

Would be no shortage of top half PL clubs after there signature - which should tell you something. If Stevie G doesn't rate them or can't get them to perform - somebody else will. 

Well. I think they are at their level now. When you see the quality of Coutinho, Buendia and Ramsey, it makes it more apparent.

[TRO]

5 minutes ago, AntrimBlack said:

What I am saying, Tro, is that they are good enough for where we are now, but not good enough to take us up the table, in my opinion..

Oh Sorry....yes I agree.

most teams who are midtable, is because consistency eludes them

[striker]

11 minutes ago, AntrimBlack said:

What I am saying, Tro, is that they are good enough for where we are now, but not good enough to take us up the table, in my opinion..

Pretty much spot on for me.

Luiz, Sanson and McGinn aren’t good enough to push Villa into the top six nor are Mings and Konsa.

In the summer those need to be replaced with better to appease the owners.

Edited February 10, 2022 by striker

[hippo]

9 minutes ago, AntrimBlack said:

Well. I think they are at their level now. When you see the quality of Coutinho, Buendia and Ramsey, it makes it more apparent.

Oh yes if we could sign a CB with the equivalent ability of countinho then yes I could see the argument.

Personally though I think Ming's and Konsa are pretty decent players. I don't see us bringing in better. 

[hippo]

16 minutes ago, AntrimBlack said:

What I am saying, Tro, is that they are good enough for where we are now, but not good enough to take us up the table, in my opinion..

They should be good enough to register more than 2 victories in 2 months ! - and those were against rock bottom at the time Norwich - and a managerless Everton.

Underperforming.

[Tomaszk]

11 hours ago, briny_ear said:

Not picking on you in person but that statement does seem to epitomise the views of lots of posters on Villatalk. It makes me smile. A 3-1 win involving the best 3 goals I have seen Villa players score for quite a few years? And you would call it shocking?

Well clearly there won’t ever be any manager who will be able to satisfy that sort of crazy thinking.

Oh I disagree. And most good managers will as well.

Results ≠ performance. I can't emphasise this enough. Plenty struggle with this differentiation.

There was no control at all. It was mayhem. Which we knew it would be against Leeds, and still didn't deal with it.

I enjoyed the goals. I loved them. I was thinking about our climb up the league for the rest of the season... I was just getting to the bit where JJ lifts the World Cup when we conceded another naff goal before HT. 

We didn't restrict their chances, we didn't have any composed possession and we were wasteful outside of that very impressive 20/25 mins.

I suppose what I'm saying, is if we had won 3-1, that would absolutely not be a performance to try and replicate because we won't win games consistently playing like that. We'll concede loads and have to hope individual brilliance can get us goals.

[barry'sboots]

17 hours ago, striker said:

Pretty much spot on for me.

Luiz, Sanson and McGinn aren’t good enough to push Villa into the top six nor are Mings and Konsa.

In the summer those need to be replaced with better to appease the owners.

I would disagree here. I think those three midfielders are all good enough to be top 6 players but they need to be utilised correctly - that's why the big 6 clubs are sniffing around them - offers for Dougie and Man U's interest in SJM. We need a strong but fluent holding midfielder and, hopefully, we will get a good one in the summer. We will have six good midfielders for three slots then with two sitters - new signing and Marv as back up with Iregboneum hopefully coming through underneath - and two from SJM, JJ, Sanson and Luiz in front. Personally, I think Chuk needs to get his ass into the championship like JPB, Cam and KD to prove he is capable of playing at this level and for us to find out whether he is an 8 or a 10 but it seems his agent/team might disagree and we appear to be pandering to that ATM to get him to sign a new deal.

I think Konsa is top level but needs a leader alongside him - not unusual for a CB at his age and experience. Mings is a leader BUT is subject to lapses as we saw again on Wednesday night. Mings would be the one I would look to upgrade but it has to be an over 25 y/o player with experience of leading a back line. If the links to his old boss - Howe - have any merits we might be able to bring in a sizeable fee to fund the new CB.

[DaveAV1]

On 09/02/2022 at 22:33, TomC said:

Don't let the lighting fool you, I'm actually 236 years old. I even remember Archie Hunter.

I’ll have a glass of that!

[flashingqwerty]

On 10/02/2022 at 11:33, El Segundo said:

Martinez - I’m not convinced he is quite the Keeper many think he is. 

Cash - In the passage of play leading to Leeds’ third goal Struijk was allowed to win two headers, the first was cleared off the line by Mings, the second was also blocked by Mings but rebounded to James who scored.  On both occasions it was Matty Cash “marking” Struijk and he did a terrible job, but many seem to be blaming Mings. 

Mings - was all over the place the first 20 minutes but after that I thought he was very good.

Konsa - once again failed to close down quickly enough to allow a shot at goal (see also Brentford’s first goal) and then got two stupid and avoidable yellow cards.  Again I’m not convinced he’s as good as many seem to think he is.

Digne – played very well I thought

Luiz – Typical Dougie, some good things some classic brain farts

McGinn – Decent game I thought

Ramsey – looking like we’ve unearthed a star, great runs and cool finishes. Perhaps needs to work on his tracking back.

Coutinho – world class, simple as

Buendia – I call him the nearly man, so much of what he tries is nearly brilliant but not quite. When he gets it right it’s Coutinho-like.

Watkins - needs to take some lessons from Keinan Davis on how to keep the ball under pressure from defenders.  Almost every time he either mis-controls it or else controls it but has neither the strength nor the skill to stop the defender dispossessing him.  I even think using Davis as a focal point for the interplay of Coutinho, Buendia, Ramsey McGinn et al would work really well. 

Young – did ok when he came on

Chuk – looked half-soaked and was playing daft passes in dangerous positions. His worst showing so far.

Chambers – did the job he needed to do to see time out.

Gerrard - First half in particular Bielsa countered Gerrard’s “keep it narrow” approach by overloading the wide areas with up to three players attacking at speed who then played little triangles around the defenders who went out to challenge them, and into the gaps they left in the middle.  Lack of cover from midfielders exacerbated this.  It was like a knife through butter first half. Gerrard didn’t really do anything to counter this directly.

Ref - did one good thing, playing advantage to allow our third goal to happen.  Other than that he made was pretty poor I think, letting some blatant fouls go and giving others for nothing. 

Overall - Our defending was awful but I wouldn’t just blame the defence for that, they were left exposed too often. Meanwhile their man-marking seemed to have us rattled when on the ball.  It was only Coutinho’s brilliance and Ramsey’s cool finishing that got us back into it and then a

Really think you've mixed up a few players here...

You thought Young played ok?  Attempted 16 passes completed 2 with a pass rate of 16% that's ok?

Chuk had a completion rate of 78% with a much better progressive pass rate but he was not ok?

Similarly McGinn and Luiz: Luiz had a better pass completion, better tackle success, won possession more lost possession less.  Neither were good, but of the 2 McGinn was not the better.

I do 100% agree on Watkins, he's not strong enough and his first touch is shocking.  Ings isn't the answer which is why I feel letting Davis and Archer out 9n loan was a mistake as it leaves us no options.  Both are doing very well in the champ and would have offered us something different as Watkins is well and truly off his game.

Agree with the Cash assessment too, constantly out of position and lost most of his duels.  Interestingly his pass completion was only 50% too which at this level is horrific.  He makes big tackles and gets into good positions offensively but lacks the quality to be effective imo.  Personally I think Guilbert is the better of the 2.

[briny_ear]

On 11/02/2022 at 01:30, Tomaszk said:

Oh I disagree. And most good managers will as well.

Results ≠ performance. I can't emphasise this enough. Plenty struggle with this differentiation.

There was no control at all. It was mayhem. Which we knew it would be against Leeds, and still didn't deal with it.

I enjoyed the goals. I loved them. I was thinking about our climb up the league for the rest of the season... I was just getting to the bit where JJ lifts the World Cup when we conceded another naff goal before HT. 

We didn't restrict their chances, we didn't have any composed possession and we were wasteful outside of that very impressive 20/25 mins.

I suppose what I'm saying, is if we had won 3-1, that would absolutely not be a performance to try and replicate because we won't win games consistently playing like that. We'll concede loads and have to hope individual brilliance can get us goals.

You are talking here about what happened in the actual match.

I was commenting on your imagining of a scenario where we went 3-1 up and then defended that score. You said that would be “shocking”.

Sorry, you can be as patronising as you like but that statement is plainly bonkers.

Edited February 12, 2022 by briny_ear

[Tomaszk]

2 hours ago, briny_ear said:

You are talking here about what happened in the actual match.

I was commenting on your imagining of a scenario where we went 3-1 up and then defended that score. You said that would be “shocking”.

Sorry, you can be as patronising as you like but that statement is plainly bonkers.

Goals 2 & 3 for Leeds were from our errors IMO. Particularly soft ones as well. Hopefully (!) that wouldn't happen every match.

That's why I'm happy to talk about a 3-1 scenario, it was a couple of gaffs away from playing out. I'm comfortable calling it a shocking performance with or without those two soft Leeds goals.

Leeds are not a good side and they did not play well.

[Marka Ragnos]

On 10/02/2022 at 03:59, The Fun Factory said:

Oh come on. 3 years ago we were floundering around mid table in the championship. Its all gravy.

Mercifully (cruelly?), when we're in Division II, you generally can't watch Aston Villa matches on any regular streaming service in the States. Relegation from the PL is death here. I wish it weren't so, and it is getting a little better.