The Players: Plenty of Blame to Go Around?

[TomC]

 

To repeat what I said in the match thread, we have some quality but we need more. We're somewhere between Brentford and Newcastle. We have players who can play on the counter, which is why we looked good in the first half, but we can't break down teams, which is why we were in trouble after we went down 1-0 (and why we're always in trouble when we go down). Some of that is coaching. Some of that is the players. To break down a team, you have to move the ball quickly. A player like Watkins just needs too many touches.

 

 

[villa4europe]

18 minutes ago, ROTTERDAM1982 said:

How many Villa players would get in Nooooocastle team then V4E?

Squad...

Burn at LB, schar at CB, longstaff, lascelles, Targett, lascelles, manquillo, Wood, fraser, murphy

100% fit and in form you're taking them over our squad? Even the like sof Joelinton, pope, Wilson on form our players should be better

Our problem is we never have any kind of positive form

Our squad is better than theirs, it's a mixture of better management and positivity / momentum that has them playing so much better than us

Edit to actually answer your question id take trippier, Botman, Guimaraes, Wilson, ASM

Edited October 29, 2022 by villa4europe

[ROTTERDAM1982]

11 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

Burn at LB, schar at CB, longstaff, lascelles, Targett, lascelles, manquillo, Wood, fraser, murphy

100% fit and in form you're taking them over our squad? Even the like sof Joelinton, pope, Wilson on form our players should be better

If i picked a combined team of Noocastle/Villa atm V4E i would struggle to get many Villa players in. Carlos if fit, as Kamara, and thats probably about it. I think we will PC and probably Buendia perform better under Emery, but the rest. Wilson is way ahead of Watkins and Ings, Joelintons power and pace that we do not possess in midfield, Pope/Martinez is a toss up imho.

Woods strengths are holding the ball up, we don't have that in the squad, Longstaff and Murphy show more energy and effort than our current back up midfielders.

Theres not many players i would keep V4E

[villa4europe]

At the moment is a different thing though because they are so in form and we aren't

Our players are better than theirs

Chelsea and man utds players too, Newcastle do not have the 3rd or 4th best squad in the league, absolutely **** miles off it

What they have is the happiest motivated going places squad in the league

[Villa_Vids]

3 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

At the moment is a different thing though because they are so in form and we aren't

Our players are better than theirs

Chelsea and man utds players too, Newcastle do not have the 3rd or 4th best squad in the league, absolutely **** miles off it

What they have is the happiest motivated going places squad in the league

There certainly wasn't a lot in it in the first half (before pen) but they have a well balanced team with a motivation and belief in the club they play for. We don't. 

[villa4europe]

4 minutes ago, Villa_Vids said:

There certainly wasn't a lot in it in the first half (before pen) but they have a well balanced team with a motivation and belief in the club they play for. We don't. 

That's what I'm trying to say is the difference

Its not the quality of the footballers, its that they know where they're going and they're buzzing from it, we don't and we're stuck in a rut

Neither their footballers nor their manager are 4 goals better than us, so much of it is in the head

[ROTTERDAM1982]

Thats fair comment V4E, i think the Nooocastle players want to remain part of what is going to happen up there. Guimares is top quality, Wilson, when fit, has always been very good. Pope is a good goalie, and the 3 CHs are all very good. Joelinton has reinvented himself as an all rounder in midfield, and Almeron is a grafter.

Howe has surprised me tbh, i think he is assembling a good team up there.

[Villa_Vids]

3 minutes ago, ROTTERDAM1982 said:

Thats fair comment V4E, i think the Nooocastle players want to remain part of what is going to happen up there. Guimares is top quality, Wilson, when fit, has always been very good. Pope is a good goalie, and the 3 CHs are all very good. Joelinton has reinvented himself as an all rounder in midfield, and Almeron is a grafter.

Howe has surprised me tbh, i think he is assembling a good team up there.

The media love Newcastle to bits which makes it easier. We are the punchbag for the media.

[villa4europe]

6 minutes ago, Villa_Vids said:

We are the punchbag for the media.

Are we even that?

Does anyone in the national media by and large even care?

Not saying he did but Douglas Luiz phones it in today and puts in a 6/10 performance does literally anyone outside of the villa fanbase a) notice b) care

[Villa_Vids]

51 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

Are we even that?

Does anyone in the national media by and large even care?

Not saying he did but Douglas Luiz phones it in today and puts in a 6/10 performance does literally anyone outside of the villa fanbase a) notice b) care

It doesn't matter anyway. The media has evolved with social media technologies so they can't control the narrative as much as they did in the past.

[VillaParkAvenue]

4 hours ago, villa4europe said:

Are we even that?

Does anyone in the national media by and large even care?

Not saying he did but Douglas Luiz phones it in today and puts in a 6/10 performance does literally anyone outside of the villa fanbase a) notice b) care

Media loves to report when there’s a story, good or bad. Man U being a disaster is interesting, Brighton being a success under Potter is interesting.

Villa have just been mediocre for a long time and not interesting at all, but Emery arriving is a twist. If he is successful, there will be lots of talk about how he saved Villa. If he isn’t, there will be focus on how the owners for years have spent money like drunken sailors without anything to show for it.

[Mark Albrighton]

I am conscious that it can change from game to game, but I think that yesterday countered the often repeated criticism that the players are quick to crumble or have a soft underbelly.

It’s one thing to come out all guns blazing like they did against Brentford and Man Utd, setting out to kill the game off early (love it by the way, more of that please). 

But it takes a certain mindset to go away to a good Brighton side, overcome a self-inflicted setback in the first minute and go on to win the game by digging in and absorbing the opposition, limiting them to few clear cut opportunities. I don’t think many sides will go away to Brighton and do that this season.

This is not to say that the players couldn’t improve, I think they can and no one is irreplaceable (admittedly Martinez comes close, and of course it was his initial fault). There are going to be **** ups and frustrations along the way.

But I don’t think it’s fair to say that the squad are inherently weak spirited or bottlers. If that was the case, then I don’t think we get anything from yesterday’s game. They showed us otherwise and my optimistic hope and belief is we’ll see more of it.

[Zatman]

Players deserve a lot of credit for the change around. They have bought into Unai's ideas and as Mings said some have never worked with a foreign manager before and could have easily got confused

[Sulberto21]

1 hour ago, Zatman said:

Players deserve a lot of credit for the change around. They have bought into Unai's ideas and as Mings said some have never worked with a foreign manager before and could have easily got confused

Sounds like they’re confused - Gerrard was the previous manager he’s as foreign as they get!!!. 

Edited January 1, 2023 by Sulberto21

[ender4]

I think the last 4 games have answered this question. The blame was all Gerrards, these players are good enough to match other teams on a game by game basis when coached properly.

[Davkaus]

14 minutes ago, ender4 said:

I think the last 4 games have answered this question. The blame was all Gerrards, these players are good enough to match other teams on a game by game basis when coached properly.

Clearly there's enough talent, the other question was one of effort. I never really bought into the idea that they weren't playing for him, and couldn't be bothered. Even in his last game they were clearly putting the effort in, it just wasn't coming off, due to a combination of square pegs in round holes, few ideas, and crushingly low confidence.

There was a bit of a media rally around the word removed, blaming the players, but there's only so much they could do to perform in spite of him.

As the dust settles, and we consider he didn't really do tactics, didn't take training, had atrocious man management, threw the players under the bus, had appalling media handling...The only real attribute he had in his favour was being a big name to wheel in front of the camera, that helped attract a couple of players he had no idea how to use. What an unbelievable shambles.

 

[PaulC]

A big change is having kamara fit  we are so much better with him In the team. 

[allani]

2 hours ago, ender4 said:

I think the last 4 games have answered this question. The blame was all Gerrards, these players are good enough to match other teams on a game by game basis when coached properly.

I still think we need 2 or 3 players to be able to compete over an extended period.  We've had 4 - 6 match spells of looking good over the last 18 - 24 months and then looked like a pub team a few days later.  In some ways getting results / performances in the next few matches might be every bit as challenging - games where we might expect to dominate and yet have struggled to do so in the past (Watford last season, Forest this being obvious examples).

The big difference for me is how much more balance we seem to have in midfield - probably partly down to the new manager and Kamara now having a run, getting up to speed and building a partnership with Dougie.  This gives me confidence that if Plan A doesn't work then UE will try / can try something different and see if Plan B is more successful.

I do think that we are still a couple of players light.  But I am pretty confident that (a) UE knows exactly what type of players he wants / needs, (b) those players will be versatile enough to play in a couple of different formations / approaches, (c) those players will be an instant upgrade on our first team and (d) the players they replace in the first team will be strong options from the bench and will also offer us proper variety during different matches / match scenarios.

[TomC]

9 minutes ago, allani said:

I still think we need 2 or 3 players to be able to compete over an extended period.

Depends on who you're saying we're competing with.

We're still at least 2–3 players away from competing for the CL.

We're certainly good enough for the top half now, next year probably top 8. (Top 8 will be a bit of a reach this year given that SG left us in a hole.)

 

[allani]

On 02/01/2023 at 00:46, TomC said:

Depends on who you're saying we're competing with.

We're still at least 2–3 players away from competing for the CL.

We're certainly good enough for the top half now, next year probably top 8. (Top 8 will be a bit of a reach this year given that SG left us in a hole.)

 

I was thinking we are 2 or 3 away from competing for 7th / 8th.  Although the fact that Chelsea, West Ham and Leicester are also struggling (some more so than we were) might play into our hands a bit.  I thought we' be competing with Brighton, Wolves and Palace for the positions 9 - 12 at the start of this season.  The fact that West Ham, Leicester and Wolves are all really struggling should have made it a bit easier for us to jump a couple of places.  I just worry that a couple of players who have impressed since Emery arrived have had good spells before - usually followed by 10 games of distinctly meh performances.  It won't be easy to make up 4 or 5 points on some of the teams above us if we get a couple of injuries.  On the other hand, two or three good signings and suddenly being only two good results off Fulham / Chelsea in 7th / 8th definitely brings those positions into reach.