Ratings & Reactions: Crystal Palace v Villa

[TRO]

1 hour ago, chappy said:

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

I was gobsmacked when he was in.

[smg]

Get rid now if Poch isn’t interested there are a number of posters on here who know exactly what needs to be done. Get them in !!

[Herman22]

I’m still completely confused by VAR. Digne makes no attempt to move his arm towards the ball. It’s headed off his arm from no distance. What do you expect him to do? 

Big decision in the course of the game. 

[dublinvilla2014]

Same shit different day/ manager we need someone to come in who knows how to set up a team that plays a certain style whatever style that maybe ,we look such an ordinary team with no real game plan can't see any improvement from last season, what's that now 3 wins from last 14 in league nowhere near good enough another season of struggle ahead 

[TRO]

11 minutes ago, allani said:

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.

much of my sentiments.....but we are being outplayed, by players of arguably lesser talent, unless we are over rating them.....I don't see any joined up thinking between the recruitment and the coaches, in terms of balance.

That was a pretty low, low for me today.

We seem to be finding it hard to handle opposing players, we wouldn't even sign.....I never dreamt, that would be an issue.

The team is way below the sum of its parts.

[Pinebro]

Crystal Palace did to us what we dislike the most. 

They roughened us up. 

[Adman]

1 hour ago, Talldarkandransome said:

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. 

It's a worry that Gerrard's ego isn't causing problems with squad cohesion. They look petrified and disjointed on the pitch, can't see how treating Ming's like he has, has helped anything either

[TRO]

5 minutes ago, Pinebro said:

Crystal Palace did to us what we dislike the most. 

They roughened us up. 

they all do now, because it works.

[parisvilla]

Make Konsa in the starting XI make sense?

Balance from starting midfield three is miles off it.  Start Luiz and bench one of Ramsey or McGinn until we show some solidity off the ball and retain the thing when we have it. 

Hard to see the manager improving things.

Might take a cabbage to Bolton.

Edited August 20, 2022 by parisvilla

[TRO]

1 minute ago, parisvilla said:

Make Konsa in the starting XI make sense?

Balance from starting midfield three is miles off it.  Start Luiz and bench one of Ramsey or McGinn until we can show we can show some solidity off the ball and retain the thing when we have it. 

Hard to see the manager improving things.

Might take a cabbage to Bolton.

make it a red cabbage.

[TRO]

2 hours ago, Philosopher said:

We just got destroyed by Crystal Palace! What is the world coming to? 3-1 was lucky. They could have scored 10.  They had the freedom of the midfield and the flanks and toyed with us for 90 minutes.

Zaha and Eze are top player no doubt, they can do this to any team, but we made it easy for them. 

This was a proper high tempo, high intensity Premier league game. Bailey and Kamara, while clearly have quality, aren't acclimatised to it yet.

McGinn wasn't any help to cash in dealing with Zaha. Ramsey was a passenger. Digne was hard done by for the penalty, it was harsh. But he didn't play well. 

Only Martinez and Watkins come out with any credit for their performances.

We are just too wide open. We stretch the formation out to create more room to play in, but then we pass the ball around in slow motion, allow ourselves to be pressed and pushed back then have to resort to long balls to get the ball out of our half. Where is the passing and movement? Where is the composure? Where was our captian?

I have SERIOUS questions over the coaching, he tactics, and the choice of captian.

We made Will Hughes look like Inesta....We would turn our noses up at many of their players.....thats the most worrying thing, going back in to the market.

To say we are "easy to play against" is a gross under statement.

[TRO]

2 hours ago, Annoyman said:

Ugh, that was a tough watch. So many long balls lumped at 5'10 strikers headed effortlessly clear into a central midfield that contains none of our players

I don't have much of a sense that Digne is better than Matt Targett

None of the Palace fans round me could figure out what the penalty was given for even after the replay, I could see it but it seemed overcooked and daft

Not sure why Watkins went to so much effort to antagonise their fans when he scored, that worked out great huh

Bailey at least got an assist and had a fine effort hit the bar

I think it's clear enough at this point that Mings/Konsa/McGinn are only going to take a team so far, but I think we really might look back at some of the other players in this squad with a sense of regret/irritation at the wasted potential in the future. Not sure why Martinez wouldn't easily get enough first team football to keep him in the Argentina team anywhere else he wants to at this point, and if Buendia moves on because he was sacrificed to a futile attempt to rehabilitate Coutinho's career it'll be criminal

Palace were very good tbf; I can see us playing this badly and winning 1-0 at some point this season, not that it'll be much more enjoyable

 

 

 

Better footballer....but no more effective, probably less.......its one of our dilemmas.

We need more effective players and less glitter.

[srsmithusa]

31 minutes ago, smg said:

Get rid now if Poch isn’t interested there are a number of posters on here who know exactly what needs to be done. Get them in !!

I’ll take TRO.  

[Rigs]

Very disappointing performance. I’m looking at us right now and can see us being relegation fodder.

[tinker]

53 minutes ago, allani said:

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.

We need to change the formation to support our weakness in midfield, it's too late to change manager, if we do we look like we are clueless from the very top down, hardly the look we need to attract a decent experienced manager.

If we get into a relegation battle ( which Gerrard can still avoid if he starts to compromise) then ask him to stay at home and get a decent coach in who can play to the strengths of our squad. He will walk away from his £7m a year.

If this unfolds the way I think it will( I hope I'm wrong) then Purslow needs to either go or we need a director of football who knows what the fucX he's doing on the pitch and around the game.  Everyman and his dog saw the risks in Gerrard,  bar a few on here and Purslow.

We have the squad to beat West Ham , Chambers for Konsa , Ings for Bailey and Doug for Ramsey (McGinn ain't getting dropped) ask the full backs to stay back and defend,  as a priority, and fill in the middle when the midfielders push on. 

We still need to back Gerrard, i was against his appointment and don't think he's a long term solution........ we can't go down this season and if he fails then that's where we are heading or close to it. UTV 

[ferguson1]

1 hour ago, Pinebro said:

Crystal Palace did to us what we dislike the most. 

They roughened us up. 

I’m not even sure if it’s roughing us up? They just have much better physicality, power, strength, pace etc.  We’re a bit soft and have been for a long time.  We do lack some height across the team as a whole though but more so some strength and power. 

[Hev]

Do you think we might be like Arsenal (to a lesser degree of course). They were hopeless at first under Arteta - fans all wanted him out, but  they stuck with him and look now? 

[Delphinho123]

They tore us apart time and time again. They were much the better team and deserved the win. The penalty decision was farcical but I have no doubt they’d have gone on to win the game anyway given their superiority in every department. 3-1 probably flattered us. 

We were set up to fail, as we are every in match. Playing McGinn and Ramsey in midfield is asking for trouble as neither can control a football match and both want to bomb on all the time. Konsa shouldn’t have started and Ings was unlucky to be dropped. The system itself is a complete shambles and Palace played through us with ease. 

We’re playing as badly now as we did for the majority of the season we were almost relegated. We have better players (I think) but a manager who has one system and absolutely no idea how to play any other way. It’s an absolute mess and Palace took full advantage. 

If we continue down this path, we WILL be in a relegation scrap. 

Individual player performances. Personally, I thought Martinez was very good. Cash, Mings and Kamara were all ok and I thought Buendia looked dangerous at times. Ramsey, Watkins, Konsa and McGinn were particularly atrocious as they have been for a while now. 

[Mark Albrighton]

13 minutes ago, Hev said:

Do you think we might be like Arsenal (to a lesser degree of course). They were hopeless at first under Arteta - fans all wanted him out, but  they stuck with him and look now? 

While I’d like to believe that, this excellent post from Keyblade a week ago points out the differences between the two and their respective remits -

On 13/08/2022 at 01:28, Keyblade said:

Hindsight is great but Arsenal fans were technically right at the time. That was the worst Arsenal side anybody 35 and under have ever seen. They finished 8th the previous season, their worst finish since the early 90's. Three horrendous losses on the bounce, scoring none and conceding 9 I believe. If they got their wish and Arteta had been sacked, you couldn't really say it would be harsh on him.

However, crucially, Arsenal and Arteta were/are in a unique position, quite different from ours which make comparisons kind of pointless. He was signed to oversee a long term rebuild/transition period. He and the higher ups made this abundantly clear. He was clearing out the old, high wage, unmotivated players and replacing them with younger more motivated players from the academy and elsewhere. Whether he was the second coming of Pep Guardiola, or the second coming of Tim Sherwood, this endeavour was always going to take time. Patience in Arsenal's situation was always the more prudent option, because they weren't in a hurry to go anywhere. Their objectives were longer-term. Couple that with very noticeable early green shoots of recovery, an FA Cup win delivered early in his tenure, and it was frankly no surprise they stuck with him.

In contrast at Villa, we've already done most of the legwork of the rebuild job before Gerrard arrived. He was brought to the club, not to rebuild, but to progress. Smith had taken us as far as he could, now it was up to Gerrard to take us to the next level. He was even allowed to modify the transfer strategy and bring in established players with CL experience for big wages. The obvious implications here are, "results, rather sharpish please". Couple this with the fact that it's been 9 months now and it still looks like this team have never trained with each other before, we are losing literally every other game etc, and patience here doesn't seem anywhere near as prudent as it did with Arteta.

In fact, it amounts to little more than blind faith for the sake of it. Pointing to Arteta like "look, it worked there" while completely ignoring (or not knowing?) the context just seems kind of desperate. What's the point? Who is Steven Gerrard to us? Why can't people just use the evidence of what they see to inform their opinions? This dogmatic stuff is so weird and frankly exhausting.

 

[Eligius]

Shit drive there shit drive back and inbetween witnessed another abject performance. Still yet to work out how he wants the team to play, Digne and McGinn were especially poor. We were outmuscled, outfought and outplayed for large parts of the game today. Gerrard has apperently signed better players but the performance and results haven't improved. 

It's looking like it may be another season of struggle unless we sign at minimum a bloody good midfielder.