Ratings & Reactions: Villa v West Ham

[Philosopher]

32 minutes ago, thunderball said:

FWIW West Ham also look poor this term.

Outside of Man City, and Liverpool ( once they get it together , which they will / are) every team is very beatable in this league. This is why tactical decisions will be so pivotal this season. This is feeling like this season will be a opportunity missed.

[MrBlack]

Apologies to all those that saw it before the season started and called for him to have been gone already. You had the foresight I didn't. He is clueless and the subs today showed it.

McGinn playing every minute every single game, despite being largely useless is killing us. Gerrard is to blame for this.

No threat today. No hope for anything better.

Gerrard out. 

[rjw63]

Scouse prick on Talksport:

"eees was a great player lah, one of der best lah, if ya want him out gerrim out, to a decent club".

Absolute **** dribbling tool.

[Annoyman]

Can't think of any argument in favour of Smith going that wouldn't also apply here. Smith had actually proven he could improve a Premier League team's position in the table

The next two games are just wasted time to get a new manager in if Gerrard stays, and we're well past the point where the kind of heroic-but-futile performances we put in against City and Liverpool last season are enough to cut it

 

[TheLegendOfLeonBailey31]

I think we are in big big big trouble.  Our two most talented players, in my opinion at least, Buendia and Bailey...  rarely start.  Bailey's dad/agent blasts Gerard yesterday.  I imagine Buendia isn't happy and neither is Leon.  Coutinho looks cooked for the most part and can't finish 90 minutes.  Mings stripped of captaincy, given to McGinn, who frankly looks poor for the most part...  his slip that led to a 2v1 and should have probably led to us going behind had me losing my shit.  Seems like the morale/vibe around the club is pure shit...   we can't create shit...  and we just find ways to lose and play uninspired football.  With the roster we have, the results should be better...  so maybe it is a SG issue?  All I know is this is not what I was expecting this year to be....  and now we have 3 points from 4, about to play Arsenal and Man City.  

[calcifer]

1 minute ago, rjw63 said:

Scouse prick on Talksport:

"eees was a great player lah, one of der best lah, if ya want him out gerrim out, to a decent club".

Absolute **** dribbling tool.

He had probably finished banging his sister and about to go out on the Rob.... 

[KitKat]

Voted average for the manager because I thought it represented "par" for what he usually does - nothing surprising.

 

Random thoughts:

Obviously unlucky goal to concede, we were good value for a draw at least with a decent overall performance without being very good at the same time.

Luiz needs to start. Midfield was a lot more balanced and actually moved the ball around without immediately losing it. More players making themselves available for a pass and better shape overall.

Ramsey should be brought on for McGinn not Doug & either Tim or Nakamba should be getting minutes - we simply cannot persist with the JJ & SJM partnership.

Digne & Cash a little more conservative and it worked a bit better today I thought.

Bailey dangerous, should be starting (4231?).

Coutinho not terrible but also not good - should be starting on the bench and introduced later on, Emi a lot more effective yet again.

We lack pace in movement and with how we move the ball - never seem to catch a team out with how laborious our play is they are always back in good defensive positions.

WatkIngs still not a real partnership but somehow we do better when they both play together - this was an issue for Dean and continues to be a problem.

[MakemineVanilla]

It was both predictable and awful in its own special Villa way.

In the last game against West Ham, Villa huffed and puffed without producing much quality, and they did exactly the same once again.

Plenty of slick passing in areas where it didn't matter but not a quality final-ball worth counting all afternoon.

I swear, not even Håland would score, with that sort of service.

Can anyone possibly claim that Villa are a better team now than when Smith left?

[jim]

Wasn’t good enough,  no urgency going forward. Looked like two teams playing for a draw. 
I don’t think either team did enough to win the game, haven’t seen it back was their goal a deflection?
 

[rbcuk]

Usual shit, usual subs just sack the fraud I’m sick of going down to watch boring football

[sne]

3 minutes ago, jim said:

Wasn’t good enough,  no urgency going forward. Looked like two teams playing for a draw. 
I don’t think either team did enough to win the game, haven’t seen it back was their goal a deflection?
 

Bounced off Konsa.

[supermon]

How do you possibly play a narrow formation yet have **** all in the middle, the park was just empty. Our defense was fine this game bar that deflected goal, wet lose games from our **** of a midfield. So unbalanced, no height no pace no nothing

Edited August 28, 2022 by supermon

[May-Z]

6 minutes ago, Rightdm00 said:

I don't even think he's lost the players. They are carrying out his instructions, putting in a shift physically. I just think he's completely clueless. 

Played right into Moyes hands. First half was happy to play keep away and turned Villa Park into a library. Then when Moyes upped the tempo and he just did nothing. What's the point of being on the touchline if you have absolutely zero effect on the game.   

Maybe, but I feel we're on the verge of a pretty big blow up. 

Mings, as professional as he is, won't be on good terms. 

Buendia has been shat on. Bailey is being used incorrectly. Luiz is our best passer but benched more often than not. He's definitely lost Guilbert and Sanson 

Then some more hypotheticals

Will Ings be happy to be taken off every single game? Archer be happy after getting 3 mins here and there? Digne and Cash after being asked to paly the shit formation hanging them out to dry?

Craig Butler is a helmet but his most recent posts are very true...and probably what the players are thinking deep down too.

 

[rjw63]

3 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

It was both predictable and awful in its own special Villa way.

 

[rjw63]

Also, losing at home to the team bottom, who were pointless and goal-less, and he puts Archer on in the 90th minute?

That's some top grade trolling, Slippy.

[ferguson1]

I actually find it laughable that we can’t even get a draw when we play a team like today. At the very least you take a 0-0.

We’ve completely lost the ability of being hard to beat, keeping it tight etc. The longer the game went on today, you knew they might take a chance. 

If you can’t win a game, you don’t lose and we can’t fathom this at all.

I probably more than most really wanted Gerrard to succeed here but today is a really low point for me. West Ham in the first half were awful and we should have been two up with more creativity, luck or downright being more clinical.

We seem devoid of confidence and manager seems devoid of ideas on how to turn it around. The beginning of the end for him now I feel.

It’s a shame because he’s brought us much needed exposure and some very good players into the club. However, the basics on the pitch don’t even seem right now. Time to act and quickly in order to change our season.
 

[John]

Two poor teams today. We had the best of the first half and they became more dominant as the second half continued. A 0-0 draw would have been a fair result, but when you're struggling your luck tends to run out, even against West Ham. We needed at worst a point from this. 

[UpTheVilla26]

15 minutes ago, supermon said:

How do you possibly play a narrow formation yet have **** all in the middle, the park was just empty. Our defense was fine this game bar that deflected goal, wet lose games from our **** of a midfield. So unbalanced, no height no pace no nothing

This. 

We play narrow yet our midfield is walked through every game. 

[DaveAV1]

57 minutes ago, Herman22 said:

I think Purslow knows he was the one that brought in Gerard, if Stevie goes he needs to go too. 

If NSWE were supportive of the decision then I’d imagine he’s safe. If however it was his master plan and he pushed hard for SG without Nas and Wes being particularly convinced, then he could be on very thin ice. 
 

Unless Purslow is working on a successor already and it better be a good one, I could again see him being in trouble. NSWE have been great and generally got most things right, but unless we appoint the right man at the sharp end then there could be widespread changes at the club in a number of senior positions. NSWE won’t tolerate failure for long and without the right manager all their hard work and money doesn’t count for much. 

[OutByEaster?]

Oof.

Let's start with the match. I thought in the first half we played quite well in some ways. The plan was sort of there, the style of play we wanted was almost visible, we were keeping the ball, we were controlling the game, West Ham weren't getting out or putting us under any pressure, and we had the half pretty much to ourselves. What we weren't doing was scoring goals, or making the chances that looked like they'd bring goals - so the plan was working, but it wasn't putting us into a winning position - we were playing good football in places on the pitch where good football didn't make a lot of difference to the result.

What we did have going for us was that we had control and the constant idea that a mistake or a moment of magic would be all that was needed to put us ahead. We were at least much the better side.

Moyes adjusted in the second half and made West Ham a bit more competitive - at that point we had a choice, keep up with the plan and maintain control without much in the way of threat or make an adjustment. I thought after about an hour Coutinho was tiring and I was thinking that Buendia coming on for him might be a good idea at that point for a bit of freshness or energy, but we still looked pretty secure and I was pretty much resigned to a nil-nil being the most likely outcome - one I thought both managers might take.

Taking off Luiz for Ramsey lost us the game. It's this manager's biggest weakness (and he has a few). He loves McGinn and Ramsey, but he needs to understand that they don't play well together and that they completely unbalance us when you play them next to each other. If you want to bring Luiz off, you have to bring on Iroegbunam, if you want to bring Ramsey on you have to take McGinn off - it's that simple.

With our shape ruined and Kamara completely isolated, West Ham took the control we had away, looked more dangerous and inevitably scored.

We huffed and puffed a little bit but didn't look like blowing their house down - you could add uncharitably that we didn't look like blowing a paper house down.

Individually, no one really stunk the place up, Digne couldn't cross a 't', but he got into nice positions, McGinn worked really hard for an hour or so before his legs went, the centre halves were okay, Chambers especially, and Cash was decent, even the front two plugged away at it and worked hard, most of the time in areas where they weren't hurting the opposition, but still with a lot of effort and Coutinho tried hard to find teammates where they've been in teams he's played in before.

But we're a mess, even when it works, when it's perfect, when everyone is doing their job, we don't look like scoring - the plan is bad, it forces good players into working really hard at the things they don't do well, Ings and Watkins are battling away in the corners, Coutinho is holding the ball up with his back to goal, McGinn is defending wide areas, it's just badly thought out - and then the manager decides to take it apart anyway at the first possible opportunity by bringing on more players that remind him of himself.

We played okay, we deserved a draw I thought, but fair play to West Ham, they're big, strong, physical, well organised, they have a pattern and a plan that plays to their strengths and they're resilient, they defended really well as a team, kept plugging away and took their chance when it came - they're everything we're not.

We aren't winning either of our next two games.

So after six games we'll have three points.

That makes this a season of transition and for me, we can't start that transition until we have a manager in place who can take us forwards.

That manager isn't Steven Gerrard. He has to go.

They have to be talking to his potential replacements now. Tonight. As I type this. With a view toward brining that person in after next weekend and our two upcoming heavy defeats.

It's difficult, because we're going into the last few days of a transfer window needing a centre back, a defensive midfielder and maybe more and at the same time we need to be talking to a new manager with a new philosophy for the club and his own ideas on the types of players we need, but it needs to happen - get Johan Lange a big box of ProPlus, he's about to prove his mettle.

Limping through this window with a manager who is tactically naive at best and quite probably tactically inept, who doesn't appear to have an eye for a player and does seem to have problems seeing eye to eye with players is a recipe for disaster - we are not safe from relegation with Gerrard in charge, there's a whiff of unhappiness in the air and a complete lack of organisation on the field - if we wait until January, we'll be selling a very different job.

We need a new manager in place next Monday or we're in trouble.

Oh and 'headache'?

My arse.