Ratings & Reactions: FAC4R: Villa v Chelsea

[Nicho]

My only hope is that it spurs us on to hammer United. 

We let Chelsea win is the best I can say, they are clearly rubbish. 

[Rossi]

14 minutes ago, BleedClaretAndBlue said:

 

Gabbys abbs

[MakemineVanilla]

They looked like teams from two different divisions at times and as the abpve voting shows, it's just a case of deciding who out of the team weren't crap.

When it came to the pushing and shoving the referee decided in Chelsea's favour, and as decisions consistently went their way, Chelsea grew in confidence and took the piss, slowing restarts and preventing Villa from taking free-kicks. When McGinn got his standing-foot kicked by a defender, on the edge of the box, he waved play on, even though he had a clear sight.

Thomas Bramall looked exactly like the newly promoted referee he is.

Of course, no one involved in the game will tell him he was shite, but his colleagues definitely will.

Remembering the Arsenal final when Villa arrived at Wembley a spent force, and got thrashed, I can't regret the result much at all.

The only positive thing to come out of the game was Diaby scoring a goal, which might just perk him up a bit.

[sheepyvillian]

Just now, MikeMcKenna said:

Disagree, he is absolutely a pragmatist. He has no affinity with the fa cup and knows we do not have the squad to compete in three competitions.

No self - respecting manager is going to be indifferent about a performance like that. He sent us out to win the game. If Konsa hadn't been injured it would have been the same line - up from Saturday. He has no affinity with the FA Cup, didn't he get to a final with Arsenal?

[Villa87]

5 minutes ago, smg said:

Read it perfectly, they are first choice players the others are back ups (even Cash as Konsa is the preferred full back for many) so they will obviously perform at a higher level hopefully in the future more of our fan base will learn to recognise that back up players aren’t as good as the first choice and therefore will not reach the same levels but still need to be supported.Tonight the midfield regulars cost us that game not the back up defenders.

That’s your interpretation of my comment. I fully agree that back up players are not as good as the first choice. I simply stated that I have more confidence in our midfield (who were atrocious today) getting their mojo back. I am very concerned by the back 4 we put out tonight and who will play the next few. 

[smg]

32 minutes ago, jim said:

Maybe so but that’s still £70m worth of defenders and two of our top earners.

That’s the club’s decision to employ them and pay them didn’t see anything other than them giving their best on the night not much more than they can do than that. Plus the fact they were royally screwed over by our equally expensive midfield who were crap.

Edited February 7 by smg
Missed word

[sheepyvillian]

8 minutes ago, AVTuco said:

Did you see him sprint once today?

If there's a weakness to Luiz, it's a lack of real pace, I mentioned that a long time ago, he's improved no end since then, but tonight that lack of pace was very evident. 

[MikeMcKenna]

1 minute ago, sheepyvillian said:

No self - respecting manager is going to be indifferent about a performance like that. He sent us out to win the game. If Konsa hadn't been injured it would have been the same line - up from Saturday. He has no affinity with the FA Cup, didn't he get to a final with Arsenal?

“He sent us out to win the game”

Disagree.

[sheepyvillian]

Just now, MikeMcKenna said:

“He sent us out to win the game”

Disagree.

Get a grip. You honestly think he would be that dismissive to our support? Honestly, pathetic comment.

 

Edited February 7 by sheepyvillian

[allani]

3 minutes ago, AVTuco said:

Did you see him sprint once today?

You could say the same about the other 9 outfield players.  (Although I do have to admit that I wondered whether Luiz had fully recovered from whatever illness he had at the weekend)

We don't really ever want Luiz sprinting around the pitch - he's our midfield conductor, controlling the ball and making the rest of the orchestra hum.  Unfortunately when half the orchestra fail to turn up and keep playing dud notes - the conductor can look like a bit of a d1ck.  But he had no outlet today - McGinn was awful, Tielemans was invisible and Ollie & Bailey had the deckchairs out after the first 15 minutes.  We really miss the fact that before when Luiz had no options - he could always lay the ball back to Pau and change the angle.  Passing the ball back to Carlos or Lenglet just seems to put us under more pressure.

I know we all see the game differently.  But I think there were plenty of other players who played a lot worse than him today.

[sheepyvillian]

Just now, allani said:

You could say the same about the other 9 outfield players.  (Although I do have to admit that I wondered whether Luiz had fully recovered from whatever illness he had at the weekend)

We don't really ever want Luiz sprinting around the pitch - he's our midfield conductor, controlling the ball and making the rest of the orchestra hum.  Unfortunately when half the orchestra fail to turn up and keep playing dud notes - the conductor can look like a bit of a d1ck.  But he had no outlet today - McGinn was awful, Tielemans was invisible and Ollie & Bailey had the deckchairs out after the first 15 minutes.  We really miss the fact that before when Luiz had no options - he could always lay the ball back to Pau and change the angle.  Passing the ball back to Carlos or Lenglet just seems to put us under more pressure.

I know we all see the game differently.  But I think there were plenty of other players who played a lot worse than him today.

Maybe there were players who were worse, but he wasn't much better. The way he let Jackson get past him on the touchline in the first - half. That was embarrassing. 

[AVFCDAN]

These performances much like Newcastle and most of our games of the last 2 months show our league position is a false one unfortunately. These sort of performances come about once or twice a season for a top 4 team and we’ve had two in 2 weeks!

It will be a minor miracle if we keep 4th.

[MikeMcKenna]

1 minute ago, sheepyvillian said:

Get a grip. You honestly think he would be that dismissive to our support? Honestly, pathetic comment.

 

I think you are naive and ultimately it is only my opinion. Emery knew we would struggle in three competitions and imho the FA cup was for him the most disposable. As the comments here and during the match thread illustrate, the effort wasn’t there today. 

[WakefieldVillan]

1 minute ago, sheepyvillian said:

Maybe there were players who were worse, but he wasn't much better. The way he let Jackson get past him on the touchline in the first - half. That was embarrassing. 

Correct.

And his half hearted tackle on Gallagher for their first goal.

He was better than one player tonight - Kamara!

But to be fair no one played well.

[turvontour]

After the Stevenage Cup game I said that I wouldn't be rushing back to see us in any home domestic cup games.

I ended up going to Everton earlier in the season but didn't tonight.

I know we're not throwing these games so to speak.

But we don't ever seem to be going out of our way to win them.

[imavillan]

we were 2nd best all round and got what we deserved from the game, nothing. 

only 4 mins of added time, strange one that.

never a foul for the Enzo free kick, poor refereeing decision

Villa were naive for the free kick, Chelsea cleverly did what we did with Digne against Man U and moved the ball back. Our wall was further than 10 yards away. A really good strike though, fair play.

I do not understand why no subs were made until 71 minutes, the way the first half went i was very surprised there were no changes made at ht

I do not understand why bring Zaniolo and Iroegbunam on at 87/88 minutes

Lee Dixon is a knob, boring and biased, quote ''it wasn't a free kick, who cares''?

not one of our midfielders can say they did anything of any note, not one

we had 3 good opportunities in the penalty area in the first half but players made the wrong decision and tried to pass when they could/should have had a go at goal

After tonight, Chelsea think they have become world beaters. Their fans are in for a shock.

It's difficult to see where the spark is going to come from to lift us back to the levels we were at. Hopefully something will happen and hopefully that will be on Sunday.

 

 

[icouldtelltheworld]

Do we get Man U in the next round?

[Lerner's Driver]

1 hour ago, TRO said:

This team, don't like traffic.

The whole midfield, was tepid.

Absolutely spot on. How often when watching us do you feel we are going to win a 50-50 challenge and mount an attack? Personally, I don't ever think that. 

[Talldarkandransome]

After that McGinn shoulder barge in the first few mins I thought yep we're on it.

Then we gave Chelsea the freedom of Villa Park. Horrible ref again and where did they get 4 mins from, the one injury in the 2nd half was longer than that.

 Then having to endure the most annoying plank I've ever stood near at a football match, rounded off a wonderful night.

I'll give Diaby the motm for scoring 

 

[TRO]

8 minutes ago, Lerner's Driver said:

Absolutely spot on. How often when watching us do you feel we are going to win a 50-50 challenge and mount an attack? Personally, I don't ever think that. 

Yes....we can't stop, spirited opposition.

The problem, with that is, unless the opposition are really poor like Sheff Utd.....we can't get our own game going, because opponents steal the inititiative, due to us letting them play.

We have to get back, to learning how to stop opponents....now that should, sound pretty obvious, but we are not doing it.

We are not marking, not staying touch tight, not challenging with any conviction, just fouling......we simply do not press, or have any consideration of stopping anyone.

Its really worrying.