Ratings & Reactions: Crystal Palace v Villa

[maqroll]

Just now, TRO said:

Thats my worry too.

I can't defend the manager on these showings....but I fear it might be deeper than that.

It's as deep as Purslow being a bit naive.

We need more pragmatism right now.

[AntrimBlack]

23 minutes ago, TRO said:

I emphatically believe that......but not much else is right either.....There are elements of our play, you would expect any manager to fix, and he hasn't.....The defensive contribution is dog breath.

It is extremely hard to defend him after that.......but I think something, is drastically wrong.......We have brought in 1 first team player from finishing 14th....one is an unfortunate injury and the other was already here.

I am shocked, that it has come to this.

I think there is more to it, than meets the eye.

I don`t think there is, Tro, I think it is simply a manager and his coaching staff out of their depth.

[ROTTERDAM1982]

Sorry USA_Villa, meant to put 12 months.

I would play Tim and Kamara next week. Concentrate on protecting the back 4, and i've had enough of Watkins and Ings

[RicRic]

48 minutes ago, brummybloke said:

Emi m - 6 and that's for his saves, constantly fking it away to the right putting us under even more pressure is the dropped points otherwise would have got an 8.

Cash - 6 got done time and time down the right but when there's no midfield covering and you are left exposed you will get skinned.

Konsa - 2 DROP HIM, he is not konsa of 2 years ago, he has become a passive timid liability and a huge reason we are so so bad as he won't move the ball forwards, instead passing it back to keeper or mings.

Mings -5 part of the reason emi kept booting the ball out of play is his lazy pass backs, however when you are playing with an inept partner and having to work twice as hard, you can almost forgive his repeated errors.

Digne - 3 NEEDS DROPPING

2 or 3 crosses, that was his entire contribution today, just like 9 out of 10 games. Shows very little defensive skill or knowledge and shows very little going forwards, got torn apart multiple times, hid from challenges and was very poor, so what's the point of him, play a solid left back and an attacker on the left. A total let down and bordering on a waste of money at the moment.

Mgginn -3 NEEDS DROPPING

what more can be said, no energy after 15 minutes, no movement and just tries Hollywood passes that 9 out of 10 don't work. A waste of space in an important area of the pitch, in which we lose every game.

Ramsey -3 was he even playing ? Totally disappeared and I mean totally.Close to being dropped as he has massively regressed in his game.

 

Bailey - 5 tried, a great flick for our goal ( false hope) and a great shot against the bar but not much else other than every now and then looking like he may be a threat but isn't.

Emi b - 6, never stopped trying but with an inept midfield and only 1 defender willing to pass the ball which was normally the mings hoof, he fizzled out of the game. Unlucky with his first time shot.

Kamara- 7 he must be thinking that he will be on the move come next summer, I cant see him wanting to stay with this shower for too long.

Watkins 5 and that's for his goal, normal lack of control, poor decision making and just not looking up for it took over after they equalised.

Subs

Doug infinitely better than mcggin at retaing and passing the ball, basics of being a midfielder.

Big phil, showed more today than his previous 2 games 

Ings instantly more goal threat when he came on.

 

All subs were 20 minutes too late.

 

Manager 0

Clueless both team and tactically, get him out now and poch in, make no mistake, we will be struggling around the bottom of the league all season if we don't do something now. 

Nothing wrong with having some faith in certain players but when your so called system doesn't work and your favourites are woefully under performing and you don't rectify it, then the players may as well sort it out between themselves. At least they would be communicating then.

 

We knew place would be physical, we knew Zaha would be down ghe left, he picked mcgginn as the player in the middle to support cash, wtf ?

 

Never wanted slippy g but have given him almost a year now to show what he can do. I've seen what he can do and I don't like it.

 

Leave please

Love this and not one thing I disagree with …. Luiz looks way more controlled when playing right now instead of the others he makes us look like our midfield exists hes a presence and able to dictate … we neeeeed signings immediately.. i wish we had conte or tuchel those types especially with the resources we have its such a waste with our current management and coaching 

[HanoiVillan]

10 minutes ago, RicRic said:

Tbf palace are a very well set up side however if we are pushing for European places then we must be doing sooo much better in these type of games … so in that respect yes its very disappointing and its the performance more than the result that has caused serious concern 

I know you're not necessarily saying this, but we're not challenging for European places, if we're lucky we'll be a dozen points clear of relegation but we're not going to significantly improve on last season with the same players and same manager. 

[chappy]

Comprehensively outplayed today. Palace looked good and we were awful defensively. Wonder if Konsa’s presence and lack of confidence is making the entire defence frantic at the moment?o

[RicRic]

3 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I know you're not necessarily saying this, but we're not challenging for European places, if we're lucky we'll be a dozen points clear of relegation but we're not going to significantly improve on last season with the same players and same manager. 

Your absolutely right and what a waste of a season its going to be because of our club not seeing what were seeing

[Talldarkandransome]

I watched a couple of the All or Nothing episodes on Arsenal. I know I know.

After one of the defeats last season Arteta came into the dressing room and basically told the players they were shite. He then said he was going to defend them with the media again but they were making doing that very difficult.

I'd love to know what goes on in our dressing room after a performance like that. 

[roonst83]

Result was completely expected. The Everton game papered over the cracks. Only annoyance is getting our hopes up after taking the lead. 

No cohesion. No game plan. No idea. No togetherness. No team spirit. No chance.

Have absolutely zero faith we have the right coach to progress us. 

Edited August 20, 2022 by roonst83

[est1874]

We're in trouble.

[TRO]

1 hour ago, Harry said:

I'm not in the SG out camp yet but the pressure is inexorably growing on him.

It's not so much the defeats, it's the manner of the defeats which are very reminiscent of the last days of Deano. He has the players, for the most part, but what we see on the pitch is a disorganised mess.

Any half decent manager has his players doing the basics right but that is not the case at Villa.

 

I am in the "Can't defend him anymore " Camp

[tinker]

Cracking start to the game but we then showed our weak underbelly. We have so much talent in this team but as a whole it's just not working. We need another proven DM , I'm sick of saying it. If we don't get one then we need defenders to stay in their positions and defend rather than be our attacking outlet. Offensively Cash was good but he was overwhelmed at the back. 

We need to stay calm , Gerrard will keep us out of relegation but next summer Purslow needs to dig deep and get Potter. If Gerrard gets us into a relegation battle then we are in a right mess yet again with what looks like a Sherwood type performance. Fingers crossed he can pull us around with a win against West Ham. 

[MakemineVanilla]

Palace have looked pretty decent lately and Villa have not, so I'm over my disappointment.

I need to know how much money the club has spent since Jack left, so I can at least get the numbers right, when I am assessing the depth of the failure.

 

 

Edited August 20, 2022 by MakemineVanilla

[EvilChameleon]

The away matches will always get ya.

[RicRic]

47 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

It almost seems you are triumphant that we lost. Is that true ? I think most Villa fans will be unhappy we lost. 

Get a grip!

[punkiller1981]

55 minutes ago, RicRic said:

Tbf palace are a very well set up side however if we are pushing for European places then we must be doing sooo much better in these type of games … so in that respect yes its very disappointing and its the performance more than the result that has caused serious concern 

And why are they well set up? The manager setting them up properly with a game plan and tactics. We have a manger incapable of that because he thinks everybody in our squad is as good as he was and there not and he can’t get his head around that. Not having  a go by the way but seeing sides well organised as a reason for out playing us makes me angry because your right but this is our mangers job! He literally gets paid a fortune to ensure we are organised and know what we are doing. Feels like that mega training ground must have been a waste of money because we clearly aren’t using it 

[briny_ear]

27 minutes ago, RicRic said:

Get a grip!

I’ll take that as a yes. Enjoy your evening exulting that you were right all along.

[fruitvilla]

Ok here's my official take.

Crystal Palace played a better game and were the better team, at least on this 90 minutes.
I played full back in social teams, I'm not terribly fast or haven't been for nigh on 30 years. So in defense the one thing I learnt was keep between the the attacker and goal and watch out for one-twos. Villa seemed to have a problem with that line of thought.
Really soft penalty though.
I missed the first twenty minutes.

Martinez ... OK, not his best game. Good save on the penalty, rebound not his fault. His long distribution was wayward, especially to Cash. Third goal, again another day I thought he might have saved it.

And speaking of Cash he should not show his displeasure of Martinez's wayward distribution. I was thinking of Cash in particular when mentioning one-twos. Despite all this, Cash would have been my second choice for motm.

I did not think Konsa had that bad of a game, a huge improvement over the Bournemouth (Hove Albion) start.

Mings ...  have I mentioned anywhere, I like Mings. I gave him the motm, OK again it was not his best game, but generally he was solid and composed. It was difficult to choose for a not so great team performance. The one thing I did notice he continued  to play the captain's role, trying to marshal the defence. And it was Mings talking to the referee just before the penalty was taken. I like Mings.

Digne, for me a performance of highs and lows. Sadly the lows weighed heavy.

McGinn, I am increasingly becoming unconvinced.  Too many losses of the ball, being forced to foul. He was lucky not to get a second yellow I thought. Having said that a few nice passes. 

Kamara,  nice solid game. He's been the one consistently good performer over the last three games.

Ramsey, I thought he had a decent game, looked threatening at times.

Bailey, a few moments of brilliance (missed the assist), we'll see if he grows into the PL.

Beundia, worked hard ... a good game overall.

Watkins, ditto.

The substitutes:
Coutinho was a like for like sub, Ings I feel did not have enough time to get into the game. Luiz, I thought the the team looked a lot better with him, or more worryingly without McGinn.

Overall the team did not seem to be meshing, and vulnerable to a fast break

Gerrard  ... He has to try and get the team to do something different, whatever he is trying to do is not working.

Referee ... average, but I suppose by PL standard over the recent years good.

[TRO]

2 hours ago, daft said:

We looked good up until the goal, but the only change I saw from them was that they increased their pressing, and we just folded over.

true to form...this team amongst many things is puny...They go to ground at an embarrasing rate.

[allani]

44 minutes ago, TRO said:

I am in the "Can't defend him anymore " Camp

There was a really good analysis of our issues after the Bournemouth match.  I thought we played pretty well against Everton.  But today was almost a carbon copy repeat of all the issues that were flagged in the piece after the Bournemouth games.  JJ and McGinn playing too high and too wide - leaving Kamara and the back 2 hugely exposed when we didn't have the ball and giving very few options for us to control the ball when we did have it because they were too far from the defenders / Kamara.  It has been the same story for pretty much the last 3 years.  Our midfield has a habit of disappearing, getting bypassed and not tracking back their opponents.  Smith didn't fix the problem and it cost him his job.  Gerrard has possibly made the problem even worse. 

My confidence in him took a huge hit when he appointed McGinn captain.  I was concerned during pre-season that our midfield issues looked to still be there (but pre-season is mainly about fitness and getting match sharp rather than results / performance).  My expectations for this season were lower than most people on this forum because I just don't see us having a balanced team and our spine of Mings - McGinn and Watkins is (I think pretty weak).  So I was expecting us to finish somewhere between 9th and 14th (so 10th-12th being my expectation). We've been unlucky with Carlos but there is no excuse for not having done something about the rest of the spine.  I don't believe that we have the midfielders we need to compete (so don't agree with the coaching argument) but failing to recruit into those areas before the start of the season is a huge mistake.  Kamara looks good but is ridiculously exposed - just as Luiz was last season and the season before. 

Ultimately either way the issue lies with the manager.  Even if our purse strings have been tightened (and I don't think they have) Gerrard's job is to convince the Board of the players that he needs and then help in securing those signings.  He hasn't done that.  I hope he convinces the Board to sign a couple of really good players this week (although it will be harder given our results / performances in the first 3 matches of the season) so that even if we do sack him - at least the next manager will have better options available than a choice of two from McGinn, JJ, Luiz and Sanson (no combination of which is going to get us into the European fight).

I think he has run out of excuses and time.  The only thing he has in his favour is that with the transfer window ending soon - the Board needs to be focused on signing a couple of new players.  Trying to replace the manager and still having time to bring in players is completely unrealistic.  I think it is unreasonable to expect any manager to come in and suddenly get the likes of McGinn taking control of the ball, making simple passes to his team mates and tracking his man when we lose the ball.  I would be much happier to keep Gerrard, break our transfer record on a quality CM, bring in another CB to replace Konsa until he remembers that he is a professional footballer and then sack Gerrard in 3 weeks time.  Gives us more hope than just sacking the manager now and then them having to wait 4 months before they can really start to address our issues and stamp their authority on the way we play.