Ratings & Reactions: FAC3: Villa v Stevenage

[mykeyb]

1 hour ago, Pinebro said:

Players who has not played a game together before coming up against a team who plays together every week and will treat this like a cup final.

When you keep disrespecting the cup you will keep getting disappointing results.

 

The thing is I don't think that's the problem.

We were just to passive. It was as though we were going to win it was just a matter of time before we scored and then we scored after half an hour and we went into full on coast mode.

Stevenage hardly played us off the park. We sloppily gave them a penalty and then couldn't defend a corner.

[tomav84]

1 hour ago, Pinebro said:

It's not just about the player's quality on a piece of paper.

These players has barely played a game together before. There was poor chemistry all over the pitch.

2 or 3 changes I'd be fine with but 8 changes is idiotic.

exactly. against a side doing well in their league whose confidence and chemistry would be good.

the whole is so often greater than the sum of its parts and it so it proved yesterday

it's not like it's a short turnaround, we had 5 days before leeds. plenty of time for recovery

[Vancvillan]

33 minutes ago, WallisFrizz said:

Because that back 4 and midfield has never played so much as a friendly together before, in fact most of them won’t have. Yes, individually they will be better than League 2 players but it is not an individual game.

Im in no way blaming Emery for the defeat, we should have had enough quality to at least see the game out.

They train together every day. The fact that they don't regularly play together isn't an excuse for the players otherwise Barrow would have smashed us.

That team should've been more than a goal up at half time. Wasteful attacks and calamities in defence cost us. Happy to put a bit if blame in Emery as he's the manager, but hard to ignore the player's ownership of that performance.

 

[TreeVillan]

58 minutes ago, delboy54 said:

Almost same age as you and feel exactly the same way.

I live near Cambridge and the 2 hr journey to VP and 2 hrs back home has never looked as depressing as it does now. Especially having to witness that tippy tappy pointless aimless dull stuff that's supposed to be called football

Oh dear it seems Emery's time is nigh.

[avfc456]

2 hours ago, Pinebro said:

Players who has not played a game together before coming up against a team who plays together every week and will treat this like a cup final.

When you keep disrespecting the cup you will keep getting disappointing results.

 

Spot on, no need to make so many changes yesterday, we have 2 realistic chances of winning a cup each season and unless anything significant changes that will continue to be the case, yet we make wholesale changes in both competitions and once again are out in both at the early stages, no major trophy in what 26 years now and counting?  Its a farce and once again our season is over in January.

7 years without a win in the FA cup - an embarrassment. 

As for that keeper, we can go on about the defending of the corner but any semi competent keeper should not be getting beat at his near post like that, he has cost us heavily in both now and I still cannot understand why he playing in the first place and Martinez is on the bench.

[Davkaus]

51 minutes ago, Villan_of_oz said:

In fairness to Ings I think he at least produces some end product compared with the other two, it's not his fault we paid him overs.

Oh I agree - I don't hold it against him individually, if a club throws a massive contract at you, you're going to take it. I think it belies the supposed view that we're now a well-run club though. All these big contracts for old boys who aren't delivering is starting to feel a bit 2011. Let's hope we cut out the rot before it takes hold.

[sidcow]

14 hours ago, holteend1982 said:

I hate Cup competitions. 

Hate the team, not the Cup 

[The Fun Factory]

It been like this for years at Villa. Nice comfortable club with nice facilities, who pay players above their market value on long contracts. As long as we don't look like we are going to get relegated it is a easy gig. Mentally checking out in cup performances has been happening for years, regardless of who is the manager. It is nearly 10 years to the day since the Bradford debacle. It seems baked into the club and I don't know how we can ever change this.

Edited January 9, 2023 by The Fun Factory

[Demitri_C]

1 hour ago, useless said:

Our U21s have beat Leauge One teams in the EFL Trophy, yesterday's team should have been not only good enough to win but good enougth to win comfortably.

We played a much weaker team away to Barrow a few seasons back and won 6-0, we actually started three academy players in that match, because of mitigating circumstances, I'm not sure if that was an option yesterday, but would have much preffered us to play a strong team made up of mostly our first choice eleven but with on or two youngsters if possible.

Stevenage play Stoke in the next round, I bet Stoke win comfortably, and the Stoke team won't be anywhere near as strong as the team we put out yesterday.

Was just an inexplicably bad performance from the players.

Thats the most frustrating thing you just know stoke will trounce them yet we couldnt do it at home.

The playeds couldnt break down a league two side. Absolute embarrassment 

From the 1st whistle we took them too lightly and like a friendly. I didnt like that  at all. Showed a level of arrogance in my opinion 

Edited January 9, 2023 by Demitri_C

[rjw63]

2 hours ago, Robtaylor200 said:

I felt exactly the same when my lad asked me 4 hours before kick off if I wanted to go. Did I really want to go? after all it was on the TV. Mrs T said you know you will enjoy it once you are there. I wonder how long I will keep going. I am 65 on Wednesday and will be VTID but the call is not the same. I will continue to wear the colours and follow every game. As I said in a previous comment I enjoyed the time with my lad and grand daughter. But it has become an effort, I haven't felt like that before 55 years of home and away games. I wonder if its an age related  thing for me, Did I go for my family or for myself. I feel I have lost something 

I'm a few years younger than you and I went through this when Lameberk was the manager. 

He destroyed any interest I had in watching Villa live, I've only been to one match now in years and that was a freebie. 

I suppose I should thank the mumbling Scottish oaf for all the money I've saved/spent on stuff I want more. 

[Risso]

1 hour ago, nick76 said:

But I don’t think the defence or midfield was really that troubled, we completely dominated possession and yes they had a few chances but the midfield and defence weren’t really troubled for most of the match.  A stupid mistake between Olsen and Dendoncker, then failure to defend the start of a corner wasn’t about the team having played together before or not.

We dominated possession but as a team did nothing with that in terms of scoring goals, finishing the game.  Arguably that was advanced midfield and attack issue rather than midfield and defence.  Stupid mistakes were the goals rather than having played together before was really my point.

It's a team game though, and you rarely get one department firing if the rest of the team is out of kilter. We had two or three chances against a 4th division side, that shows how disjointed we were.

[est1874]

To top off a fantastic match day experience yesterday I eventually got home at 4am after flight being diverted to Liverpool due to tech failure on board. Pilot didn't trust it flying over the Irish sea so we transferred to a different plane. 3 hour delay on a flight full of disgruntled Villans, fun.

Last time I bother for a while.

Edited January 9, 2023 by est1874

[duke313]

7 hours ago, Tomaszk said:

Plumbers? Disrespectful. This is the attitude the players had.

I said before the game I didn't want a full side of reserves. Stevenage win every week and are going to get promoted this year.

Really really poor to lose to 4th div side.

The team was good enough though. Emery takes blame along with the players, but they let him down more than he let the fans down.

Premier League back up players should still be able to beat a League 2 side.  

[Tomaszk]

1 minute ago, duke313 said:

Premier League back up players should still be able to beat a League 2 side.  

 

7 hours ago, Tomaszk said:

Really really poor to lose to 4th div side.

The team was good enough though.

[nick76]

2 minutes ago, Risso said:

It's a team game though, and you rarely get one department firing if the rest of the team is out of kilter. We had two or three chances against a 4th division side, that shows how disjointed we were.

I agree but the front three was Coutinho, Ings, Bailey which on paper pretty damn good with Luiz, Dendoncker and Sanson behind.  That front three on paper should, even on a bad day, be able to create and finish better than yesterday.  

Coutinho and Bailey’s shots were incredibly poor, their movement, possession was poor.  Arguably at times that front three was our front three of last season, with Watkins and Ings switching sometimes, and so those players have played together.

Luiz is a mainstay of our midfield and I thought Sanson did well and they didn’t look out of place.  Dendoncker was off.

So on paper it wasn’t a bad fit, many had played together.  We lacked width but we lack that generally but yes we were off kilter.  There was no reason the team should’ve been off kilter, especially the front three because they’ve played together, playing a much weaker team but it was because so many individually were off kilter it meant the team looked off despite dominating possession.  The mistakes killed us though, so late on, that we couldn’t recover. In fact, Ollie and Buendia and others didn’t actually help any better when they came on….  

We didn’t create enough chances, didn’t click and got punished late on for individual mistakes.

[The_Steve]

For the second goal, it’s obvious that for the short corner routine, they setup to anticipate a cross. Ollie’s pathetic lack of urgency encourages them to shoot instead. Yes, the keeper should save it, but the attacker is encouraged to shoot because Watkins is jogging and makes no real effort to block it. But if Coutinho or Digne had done this, we’d see a lot more criticism. 

[Django_Zooms]

I would not like to be a Villa player going in to training today. Emery has to tear into them and make sure that this most humiliating defeat ever is the turning point. End the feeble- mindedness!

[The_Steve]

I forget who mentioned it in the match thread but all those chuckles and smiles from the bench carried over onto the pitch like it was a training match. I don’t like that attitude. There’s a mental weakness and some who simply think they are better than they actually are. 

[delboy54]

saw this summary elsewhere...

 

Entitled, posturing preeners, all tats and headphones, swaggering into VP as if they’re Greek gods, tippy tapping safe triangles in safe areas whilst waving to the family and chewing gum 1 - 2 Hardworking, committed professionals being the best version of themselves, focussed, determined, integrity personified.

[delboy54]

Just watched the second goal again, and not making excuses for the Villa keeper, but I wonder it the Villa player (not sure who) got between the Stevenage player and the keeper, and made the keeper "unsighted". Maybe he saw the shot late......