Ratings & Reactions: Villa v Fulham

[Talldarkandransome]

41 minutes ago, Spoony said:

I don’t see the point in referee ratings on here. 11% say “very poor” and 35% day poor? Not sure he got anything wrong. The unqualified dislike of referees is tiresome to me and a big reason why no one wants to do it and the quality is dropping. 

2 people sitting next to each other can see the same game totally differently. I put average cos I thought he was average.

[AvfcRigo82]

1 hour ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

He's just said he thought we were a bit tired.

We're bound to be.

As stated already, we might have looked like we didn't get out of 2nd gear and yet we still won.

We need to keep plenty in the tank for Sunday as it is not going to be easy!

 

[The_Rev]

26 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Yeah I thought the ref had a solid game. Did I miss something?

Call for a penalty in the first half which was in the ‘seen em given’ category but most of it, in the stadium at least, was him incorrectly awarding Fulham a goal kick when it should have been a corner. The crowd hated him for that and I’m guessing it was enough to make a lot of people’s minds up for the rest of the match. 

[VillaChris]

33 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Yeah I thought the ref had a solid game. Did I miss something?

There was one where Ollie found a yard of space in the box and shot and it seemed to deflect over with the assistant pointing to corner flag and he gave goal kick. That was annoying but haven't seen replay.

Apart from that it was a pretty easy game to ref.

[AvfcRigo82]

Ugly victory but another 3pts.

It's great we're not playing at full throttle but yet still picking up vital points!

Roll on Sunday!

 

Edited April 25, 2023 by AvfcRigo82

[avfc1982am]

2 hours ago, TheStagMan said:

"Aston Villa slip into bottom 16"

Underrated comment. Deserves more laughs. 

[The Fun Factory]

Love a dirty win.

Not playing well? Just the 4 points and 1 goal conceded in the last 2 then.

We weren't great but Fulham offered very little. Felt like a championship match being mid week and 2 tired sets of players. And the fact that McgInn and Mingsy were our best players. It was like going back to 2019.

[avfc1982am]

1 hour ago, Spoony said:

I don’t see the point in referee ratings on here. 11% say “very poor” and 35% day poor? Not sure he got anything wrong. The unqualified dislike of referees is tiresome to me and a big reason why no one wants to do it and the quality is dropping. 

Watkins pen in the first half and a deflected shot that went for a goal kick instead of a corner. Safe to say he got a couple of big decisions wrong. 

[KentVillan]

8 minutes ago, avfc1982am said:

Watkins pen in the first half and a deflected shot that went for a goal kick instead of a corner. Safe to say he got a couple of big decisions wrong. 

You sure the Watkins one was a pen, looked like Fulham player got a touch on the ball? Think Ollie would have protested a lot more if he thought it was a pen.

And getting one corner wrong isn’t a big decision 

Edited April 25, 2023 by KentVillan

[avfc1982am]

4 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

You sure the Watkins one was a pen, looked like Fulham player got a touch on the ball? Think Ollie would have protested a lot more if he thought it was a pen.

And getting one corner wrong isn’t a big decision 

Looking at the replay Watkins gets it first before getting taken out. Might be the angle but even the commentators say it was nailed on. It looked it tbh, at least from the angle I've seen it at. 

[avfc1982am]

6 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

And getting one corner wrong isn’t a big decision

I disagree. Every wrong decision can be a big one in a tight scoring game.  

[TomC]

2 hours ago, sheepyvillian said:

If little Phil was fit, I would be tempted to have him as the 10.

I wouldn't have necessarily started him (who knows how he'd be playing right now) but he certainly would have been useful to give Buendia a rest in the second half.

 

[Hornso]

Feel like the small squad, reluctance to rotate, might see a few more performances like this. End of the day, three points and a clean sheet...take it every time.

[TomC]

2 hours ago, Sulberto21 said:

Id like to see our midfielders get the ball more often though. Konsa and Mings are making nearly 80 passes a game and our midfielders are making 35 - 40. That’s where Kamara is at a higher level because he finds the angles to get the ball from the defenders and he’s quicker at it than Dougie and Donk. Dougie thrives more with Kamara as ironically he gets more ball too because of Kamara. 

2 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

The plan said we'll play out from the back with patience and draw them on to us - we'll use Dendoncker and Luiz to build through them and occasionally put it over them to Ramsey and Buendia - the plan said that when we had the ball in midfield we'd be patient, draw them over and then unleash Moreno down the left, the plan said that if Fulham had wanted to play, then they should have brought their own ball. 

2 hours ago, lapal_fan said:

Luiz has a quieter game than usual, but I think that was part of the plan, to bypass him and Dedonker (who had a great first half btw).  

I think that OutByEaster and lapal_fan answered Sulberto21's point...

Fulham today, and several other recent opponents, have started countering our "bait the press then pass it to the double pivot" by refusing to press the backline actively but positioning their forwards passively in between our back line and the double pivots to cut off the first pass. We've countered this sometimes by bypassing the double pivot and going directly to JJ/Buendia/McGinn. Sometimes they then pass it backwards to one of the double pivots and resume usual service, sometimes they run with it, sometimes they feed Moreno, but the bottom line is that less play is going through the double pivots. I think that part of the reason Fulham did better in the second half is that they started cutting off routes to JJ/Buendia/McGinn, too, disrupting the plan that worked so well in the first half.

The bottom line is the Unai is going to have to vary his tactics as other teams figure out how to counter what we've been doing. A better team, or even a Fulham with Mitrovic and Willian, might have taken a point off us tonight.

 

[Villan_of_oz]

415am kick off here, so lay in bed listening to it. I remember Mings scoring and then woke up in the 90th minute or so. Score hadn't changed, we got 3 points and I don't feel like a zombie in the afternoon. 

Its a great day, UTV

Saviour this journey friends!

[DJBOB]

1 hour ago, TomC said:

I think that OutByEaster and lapal_fan answered Sulberto21's point...

Fulham today, and several other recent opponents, have started countering our "bait the press then pass it to the double pivot" by refusing to press the backline actively but positioning their forwards passively in between our back line and the double pivots to cut off the first pass. We've countered this sometimes by bypassing the double pivot and going directly to JJ/Buendia/McGinn. Sometimes they then pass it backwards to one of the double pivots and resume usual service, sometimes they run with it, sometimes they feed Moreno, but the bottom line is that less play is going through the double pivots. I think that part of the reason Fulham did better in the second half is that they started cutting off routes to JJ/Buendia/McGinn, too, disrupting the plan that worked so well in the first half.

The bottom line is the Unai is going to have to vary his tactics as other teams figure out how to counter what we've been doing. A better team, or even a Fulham with Mitrovic and Willian, might have taken a point off us tonight.

 

We need more players that can get in behind. It’s a profile really missing in our club. McGinn, JJ, Buendia all like to have the ball at their feet and then turning forward. Bertie the same and Bailey doesn’t seem to have that burst since his injury. We’ve done well to out maneuver teams because we have so many battlers in the midfield but other teams are slowly figuring out how to slow us down when McGinn/JJ/Buendia are a bit tired. McGinn not so much today but JJ and Buendia definitely. 
 
When Buendia and JJ aren’t clicking like today, our attacking output grinds down. 

[TomC]

9 minutes ago, DJBOB said:

We need more players that can get in behind. It’s a profile really missing in our club. McGinn, JJ, Buendia all like to have the ball at their feet and then turning forward. Bertie the same and Bailey doesn’t seem to have that burst since his injury. We’ve done well to out maneuver teams because we have so many battlers in the midfield but other teams are slowly figuring out how to slow us down when McGinn/JJ/Buendia are a bit tired. McGinn not so much today but JJ and Buendia definitely. 
 
When Buendia and JJ aren’t clicking like today, our attacking output grinds down. 

Good point. In Unai we trust. He's adapted his tactics many times over his career. He'll figure it out.

[A'Villan]

YEEEEHAWWW!

[TheMightyVillans]

First half is one of the most comfortable halves you will see. Also I think that half should hopefully help with the fixture congestion. We hardly had to sprint in the 1st half.

2nd half got a bit scrappy but we never really looked like conceding compared to the Brentford game in 2nd half where we got battered.

Konsa and Mings were in total control.

[TheMightyVillans]

7 hours ago, Spoony said:

I don’t see the point in referee ratings on here. 11% say “very poor” and 35% day poor? Not sure he got anything wrong. The unqualified dislike of referees is tiresome to me and a big reason why no one wants to do it and the quality is dropping. 

Could have given a pen and missed 2 obvious corners.

Fulham 18 fouls and only 2 yellows. We had 6 fouls and 3 yellows. Vinicius only came on the pitch to try start some fights and didn't even get a yellow. Looked like he punched buendia when he was on the ground.

This is why I gave a poor rating.