Ratings & Reactions: FAC4R: Villa v Chelsea

[El Segundo]

35 minutes ago, John said:

It will be soon.  I can understand those that didn't want an FA Cup run, we didn't have the squad depth to go on all three fronts and injuries haven't helped, but it is still a trophy that I really do want to see us win. 

67 years and counting but listening to radio on the way to the game one guy mentioned we'd got one FA Cup win in the last 102 years.   It's actually the last 104 years now we're out of this one.  Still better than Blues but as a top flight club for most of that time law of averages should have seen us win it at least two or three times.  

[foreveryoung]

37 minutes ago, smokingzen said:

It doesn't matter how much of a shift you put in if you can't pass the ball 10 yards to a team mate. 

That was our main issue last night, it started with Kamara and then spread across much of the team, because of that we had no cohesion and kept losing the ball and inviting pressure on ourselves. 

Kinda what I ment, looked like they couldn't be arsed.

[sheepyvillian]

13 hours ago, MikeMcKenna said:

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. 

Neither was it there for the Newcastle game or the Forest game, and you have the temerity to call me "naive".

[AVTuco]

5 hours ago, cheltenham_villa said:

I was really disappointed in Bailey, I don't know where he was supposed to be. Cash was getting over run against Chilwell and Jackson and he didnt ever appear to help. They really do not play well together

And Cash gets all the blame...

[AVTuco]

4 hours ago, TRO said:

We are allowing the games to be wrestled off us, by spirited opponents, and we conversely are showing no appetite, to wrestle it back.

Chelsea, have just been reeling from a wolves, Mauling......we have a real problem.

We're too nice and soft. 

[delboy54]

I bet man yoo are looking very closely at how Newcastle and Chelsea made us look ineffective and were able to win comfortably....

[foreveryoung]

Why is no one taking into account we are missing now, 3 top players.

Strange our form has dropped since Digne and Pau haven't been playing too.

[AVTuco]

4 hours ago, Mr_Dogg said:

Ultimately we would all be disappointed.

Yes, starting from where we are now. But all in all a good season. We will finish sixth, I think, and I'll be very happy about it.

[Mr_Dogg]

3 minutes ago, AVTuco said:

Yes, starting from where we are now. But all in all a good season. We will finish sixth, I think, and I'll be very happy about it.

Well you've very pragmatic.

[JoshVilla]

If anything, this game has shown that we really don't yet have the squad to compete on all fronts just yet. It was still a strong team that we had out, but we only need 1 or 2 changes to our strongest XI and you start to see the cracks appearing. 

We dealt with the loss of Mings & Buendia at the start of the season quite well. We then managed to keep the same starting XI for a while and we looked brilliant. I think the loss of Digne gave us a little bit of a wobble, but losing Kamara over Xmas, then Pau and now Konsa...it's going to have an effect.

Also, to be honest, only one team looked like they really wanted to progress in this competition last night. 

[smokingzen]

43 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

Kinda what I ment, looked like they couldn't be arsed.

I'm not sure that comes from not being arsed though, I think if your passing is going awry and you can't get any kind of cohesion or momentum going, then even if you are arsed it sometimes looks as though you're not.

[smokingzen]

30 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

Strange our form has dropped since Digne and Pau haven't been playing too.

Well it all starts from the back with Emery's system, and Pau and Digne have been our best outlets in most games. For pau in particular, if you look at most of the tactical analysis videos done on us this season and our system, that ranged quick ball from the centre back into the midfield is pivotal to it.

We've missed that recently which means we're too slow to transition and break the lines.

[John]

1 hour ago, El Segundo said:

67 years and counting but listening to radio on the way to the game one guy mentioned we'd got one FA Cup win in the last 102 years.   It's actually the last 104 years now we're out of this one.  Still better than Blues but as a top flight club for most of that time law of averages should have seen us win it at least two or three times.  

Yes, we haven't been able to sing "7 times we've won it, no one else can catch us up" for a long time now.  1975 - 2010 was a period during which, we were good enough to have won it 2 or 3 times at least, I would suggest we should be on about 11 wins now.

[foreveryoung]

3 wins in 9 now in all comps, don't sound good.

[cheltenham_villa]

1 hour ago, AVTuco said:

And Cash gets all the blame...

i dont think Cash covered himself in glory, but really what is he supposed to do. He was so often 2 on 1 with no support.

My feeling is that Unai has often taken Bailey out of the team for this reason. Great attacking output but no defensive discipline. 

[John]

8 minutes ago, cheltenham_villa said:

i dont think Cash covered himself in glory, but really what is he supposed to do. He was so often 2 on 1 with no support.

My feeling is that Unai has often taken Bailey out of the team for this reason. Great attacking output but no defensive discipline. 

Bailey did noticeably less work in his own half last night, than he has been doing for most of this season, perhaps he needs the incentive of not being an automatic selection, although that probably applies to a few of them. FFP, injuries and drops in form, has perhaps left our first team starters feeling a little too comfortable?

[Rugeley Villa]

31 minutes ago, John said:

Yes, we haven't been able to sing "7 times we've won it, no one else can catch us up" for a long time now.  1975 - 2010 was a period during which, we were good enough to have won it 2 or 3 times at least, I would suggest we should be on about 11 wins now.

The Arsenal final the other year was infuriating. Having played so well against Liverpool to not turn up in the final was shameful. Honestly thought that was our year. 

[John]

4 minutes ago, Rugeley Villa said:

The Arsenal final the other year was infuriating. Having played so well against Liverpool to not turn up in the final was shameful. Honestly thought that was our year. 

2000 too. I was devastated after that one, I really thought we could turn over Chelsea.  The 1980 - 82 team often refer to having missed out on winning the FA Cup with us, from 1977 to 1984, we were plenty good enough. If only we had the luck of the draw once and a while. 

Edited February 8 by John

[Rugeley Villa]

3 minutes ago, John said:

2000 too. I was devastated after that one, I really thought we could turn over Chelsea in that one.  

That’s a bit blurry that one, first ever time I spent the night in a police cell. Had a cracking black eye too. 

[John]

1 minute ago, Rugeley Villa said:

That’s a bit blurry that one, first ever time I spent the night in a police cell. Had a cracking black eye too. 

We met up with a cousin of my wife's who was working down there after the game and drunk to forget those 90 minutes. He told me we were the most miserable bunch that he had ever had a drink with. He was 110% correct.