Ratings & Reactions: Villa v Leeds

[srsmithusa]

37 minutes ago, May-Z said:

I actually think Leeds did a really good job tactically today.

They knew we'd pass it out so put three high to press and filled the midfield to pick the passes into there or pick up the knockdowns from the defenders.

Kamara is absolutely shit hot, so he looked good, but every else was taken out of the game. 

However, when we made space, we used it well and attacked well. 

It was a scrap, but we won that scrap. In the past we would have rolled over. 

I agree that their tactic was a high, aggressive, energetic and fast pressure.  But I think that's how they play every single match.  Our problem tonight, is that Emery's style is of us to patiently play the ball out of the back rather than lumping forward.  Our new approach is especially susceptible to being turne over by thier preferred game plan.  That's why I'm actually pretty encouraged about this match.  We are learning how to play this.  Against a team with the specialty of hurting teams with our tactics, we survived.  Not without any scares, clearly.  It by no means felt safe enough for long stretches.  But we held and we learned.  When we can work the ball out and keep possession under frenetic pressure, we are better set to do so under "normal" pressure.

[John]

 But not for  & his Dirty Leeds.

[Johnnyp]

6 minutes ago, smg said:

It’s probably an age thing but I can’t get on board with ‘shithousery’ it’s f*****g cheating. If we need to run the clock down keep possession in safe areas use your skills/ brains but we as a team are becoming an embarrassment at the moment by adopting these tactics.

I thought it looked quite poor from us. Like i said earlier, it’s not something id want us to incorporate in our game consistently. We were deliberately keeping the ball out of play at times - huge chunks of time. I don’t like it. Running the ball into corners is completely different, balls in play - tough shit if you can’t get it off us. What we did tonight was unsporting. Look, we won and i never seen us do it to that scale before and hope not to again. 

[catanzaro]

1 hour ago, sheepyvillian said:

Kamara, undoubtedly the best Villa player since PM.

There is something god like about him..

[Lochheads twin]

19 minutes ago, NurembergVillan said:

Not for me, Clive. I thought, apart from that obvious slip on halfway, he was exceptional tonight. So often in the right place at the right time.

Agreed Nuremberg. He is the absolute rock this defence is build on. Makes far fewer defensive errors these days ( i hope I have not cursed him) His distribution is better than Konsa's who alway plays safe but often just back to Emi or Tyrone. Mings has the confidence to knock it long when the heat from the press really comes on. All 5 at the back played well tonight and I think we all look forward to Diego forcing his way into the side if he can. Interesting to see which berth he gets and how composed he may be on the ball. 

[Galway Lion]

1 hour ago, TomC said:

He wasn't exactly free...he has the second biggest salary on the team. (Behind Digne, of all people.)

He was free and deserves to be our highest paid player.

[the_eristic]

Whew. Made hard work of it, as always. Crowded out in midfield and largely too slow/sloppy on the ball for their press and second to too many loose balls. Great saves by big Emi, though, and the goal a due reward for lil' Emi's hard work. Never going to see the best of him with nobody making runs in front of him, though. Starting to get some players who can play out of tight spaces like Boubs (who was class) but still nowhere near enough support and movement today.

[sheepyvillian]

31 minutes ago, NurembergVillan said:

Not for me, Clive. I thought, apart from that obvious slip on halfway, he was exceptional tonight. So often in the right place at the right time.

What about the stupid shove in the box. Lucky, it could have been costly. He done some really good things, but he's not up to the standard of where we want to be. 

[icouldtelltheworld]

It's a funny thing really, suspect if at the start of the season we'd been told that at this stage we would be only 3 points behind Liverpool, most of us would've taken that.

If someone had said that we'd be 6 points and 5 places behind Fulham, we'd have been less happy...

Thought we battled hard and earned a decent three points. Some indication of how Emery wants us to play, but lots of room for improvement 

[blunther]

57 minutes ago, TomC said:

I thought that people in the match thread were a little hard on JJ...yes, he was anonymous, but he hadn't played in months and was obviously rusty. I put more blame on Unai for not subbing him sooner.

 

The match thread is generally idiotic, but Ramsey was poor. Like you say, first game back and I think he would have been subbed sooner, but that would have been our last of the three allowed sub windows with the two injuries so Emery's hands were tied to an extent. Can't really make your last sub with half hour to go, especially in a match like that or you end up playing with ten men. 

[srsmithusa]

20 minutes ago, WHY said:

Football is about opinions, I respect that but how anyone can watch that game and not give Kamara MOTM, baffles me. 

to be honest, I debated about Moreno, but I realized that i was giving him extra credit for the schtick he got in the MT.  So then it was down to Martinez and Kamara... I thought it was really close between the two, but went with Martinez because his first half save was simply superhuman.  But it was painful not to take Kamara, his is simply spectacular.  My favorite thing about him is his calm composure with the ball.  I won't argue that Kamara wasn't MOTM but I took Martinez on the strength of that one save.

[macandally]

Leeds are a horrible, horrible side, referee was shite, Kamara was excellent and although the defence had some wobbles, nobody can say they didn’t all put it on the line when they needed to!

[Hobbit Feet]

Tbf Neville getting stuck but he normally doesn’t speak badly about us so I’m not going to go in on him. 
 

MOTM could be either Martinez, Young, Kamara, Bailey even the new kid saved a goal (just)… we were out played and over ran. Yes we rode our luck and yes we take the p**s wasting time but other teams have done that against us for years. I‘m more than happy to get some luck and give some steel back to other teams. 
 

id even say the ref was ok today and we probably got a few more decisions for once. 
 

have a good weekend Villians.

 

[Zhan_Zhuang]

36 minutes ago, WHY said:

Football is about opinions, I respect that but how anyone can watch that game and not give Kamara MOTM, baffles me. 

I wanted to but also wanted to give it to Young...

Two players were exceptional tonight.

[Johnnyp]

16 minutes ago, sheepyvillian said:

What about the stupid shove in the box. Lucky, it could have been costly. He done some really good things, but he's not up to the standard of where we want to be. 

Exactly. Villa fans want to go places but wanna stay stuck at the same time. The push pull technique. Make noises about Europe and kicking on but we only have living memory of mediocrity that it’s a sort of comfortable place to stay. Mings has a great attitude but he isn’t good enough ( just to confirm I’ve not yet gone to hell for writing and posting that ) 

[Adam2003]

2 minutes ago, Johnnyp said:

Make noises about Europe and kicking on but we only have living memory of mediocrity that it’s a sort of comfortable place to stay

Is it? I have never found it comfortable whatsoever. Certainly not when it results in relegation, club staff losing their jobs, etc. I think people can disagree or agree on whether Mings (or any player) is good enough to allow us to kick on, but saying if people rate him it’s because they are comfortable with mediocrity is an odd take.

[DJ_Villain]

1 hour ago, sheepyvillian said:

Kamara, undoubtedly the best Villa player since PM.

He was fabulous this evening wasn’t he?

His surging runs, the range of his passing…

Possibly the most “complete” midfield display I’ve seen by a Villa player in quite a while!

Edited January 13, 2023 by DJ_Villain
Autocorrect had kind of its own

[PaulC]

Getting wins when we don't play well.is a good sign. 

 

 

[sheepyvillian]

9 minutes ago, Johnnyp said:

Exactly. Villa fans want to go places but wanna stay stuck at the same time. The push pull technique. Make noises about Europe and kicking on but we only have living memory of mediocrity that it’s a sort of comfortable place to stay. Mings has a great attitude but he isn’t good enough ( just to confirm I’ve not yet gone to hell for writing and posting that ) 

He can be great, but he can also be woeful. He just isn't consistent enough at this level. 

[Villa_Vids]

3 minutes ago, PaulC said:

Getting wins when we don't play well.is a good sign. 

 

 

A very good sign.