Ratings & Reactions: UECL16: Ajax v Villa

[Lochheads twin]

Workmanlike. Both sides seemed content with the draw.

i was disappointed that Diaby did not make more of this opportunity to stake a claim for a starting berth. Not sure Roger’s is ready for these games yet but it is good experience.for him. Leon & SJM are such important players for us going forward and getting us on the front foot.

All still to play for. We can now park this up for a few days and concentrate on getting our strongest XI ready for the Spurs game.

onwards.

 

[allani]

49 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Really poor - the wrong attitude to the game right from the off - we looked like we wanted to keep a clean sheet and win it 1-0, like we were playing Milan or something - we then carried out that plan poorly, we were sloppy and we played some awful stuff in possession. A terrible ref didn't help us either. 

We should have gone for these from the opening whistle and looked to score three or four - we've shown them far, far too much respect and ended up creating a second leg where we have to turn up, pick a strong side and work hard if we want to win it.

Spurs is a big game, and we did the right thing in weakening for this game, but losing Konsa makes it more difficult for us to do that in the second leg and West Ham is a game that's very, very difficult. Torres doesn't seem to have 90 minutes in him, let alone twice in a week, so if he plays against Spurs it'll be Lenglet/Carlos or Lenglet/Chambers for the second leg of this one - we really could have done with a cushion here.

Lose at West Ham and drop out of Champions league qualification and you can pin it on this performance, the approach and the attitude tonight - I'm really disappointed with it.

We could also have gone out there super-aggressive and conceded on the break, burnt out a load more energy ahead of the weekend and then had to play even harder next week to overcome a first leg deficit.  A 0-1 away win in second gear would have been the perfect result.

I think we've seen all season that there is very little correlation between a low tempo away leg in Europe and the following league match.

I mean a win against Spurs, a comfortable 1-0 win at Villa Park in the return leg and our key players still having some gas in the tank for West Ham is much more likely than losing to Spurs and Ajax at home and away at West Ham.  The biggest issue today was the red card for Konsa and so not having him available next week.  On the flip side it means that he can play "full out" against Spurs and West Ham - which is probably good as he's just back from injury.

[Jas10]

 

[OutByEaster?]

9 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Yes we could lose to West Ham and Wolves. But going full strength tonight gives us less chance of beating Spurs and that’s a far far more important game. Win that and 4th is basically done. 

I wasn't looking for us to go full strength tonight - I think the side we put out was more than capable of coming back with a three goal win - the attitude, the approach and the sloppiness in our performance means we've now got a much harder week next week than we needed to have.

Ideally you'd have wanted the second leg to be a formality so that our full team could play in the two weekend games - as it is, we're going to have some big selection decisions to make for the return leg in this one.

[allani]

21 minutes ago, AVTuco said:

My only comment after that is:

WHY ON EARTH DID PAU START AND PLAY THE WHOLE FIRST HALF?

He was non-existent, obviously not fully fit. And now, he may be hurt again.

Was he hurt?  I only saw a close up of him on the bench a couple of times in the second half and both times he looked pretty relaxed and content.  I was trying to work out whether his thumbs up at one point was to someone in the seats in front or whether he'd spotted that the camera was on him and was sending a message to us...

[jackbauer24]

1 hour ago, YLN said:

You can't win a tie in the first leg but you can lose it. So 0-0 is fine

Odd phrase... If we can lose it, then the other team have won the tie in the first leg! 

I have very little issue with the result. I have massive issues with the approach, the performance and the ref!

[VillaAlex]

7 minutes ago, Jas10 said:

 

Such a class act. 

[Jas10]

 

[Nicho]

Not a good performance in general but wow the ref was bad

[KevinRichardsonsMoustache]

As good a piece of squad management as we could’ve hoped considering the league run in. Crunch time the next couple of weeks folks 

[WakefieldVillan]

31 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

We're more than capable of losing to West Ham and Wolves and being locked into a really tight battle with Spurs and United for 4th-6th at the end of this month even if we beat Spurs at the weekend - eight of our eleven remaining games are against teams with an eye on Europe or the title - it's going to be incredibly tough, regardless of a good result this weekend.

I think we have to treat that West Ham game after the second leg the same way we're treating the Spurs game after tonight. It's going to be a massive three games in a week before we get a little breather ahead of Wolves.

 

We're capable of losing to West Ham and Wolves regardless of tonight, we're also more than capable of beating both if we play to our peak. Both those games will be completely different to tonight though, these European games have all been a much slower tempo, with the league games in mind. 

Also, West Ham will be playing next Thursday too, and they've hardly made any changes for tonight's Europa game, their squad isn't brilliant, so that will work in our favour.

[VillaChris]

Two hours of my life I won't be getting back in a hurry.

We just played for a 0-0 given the weaker team selection but I thought we were too negative throughout given Ajax are no great shakes currently. I guess we'd have played more to score a goal if the away goals rule was still in play.

We *should* have enough to get past them comfortably next week but Konsa out and Pau perhaps being a doubt does create uncertainty given Carlos-Lenglet really isn't a good combination at all as we saw in our dip in form.

[Caddy]

I think the one thing that really benefits us from having ECL this season is that is helps the players become better at dealing with the rigors of competing in multiple fronts; knowing the importance of staying in 1st/2nd gear when another gear isn't needed, etc. The squad will have confidence that, should we qualify for Champions League, we won't see our domestic form suffer much as we've seen from teams in the past who overachieved in a season with no 3rd comp, qualified for Europe, but struggled to cope next season and sank back to mid/upper mid table (Newcastle this season is a good example of this)

[Vive_La_Villa]

34 minutes ago, Jas10 said:

 

Showing the manager incidents straight after the game for his reaction!! Luckily Emery is a cool customer and doesn’t really give a shit about this one. That could really get a manager in trouble.

[Vive_La_Villa]

Ajax are such a big historic club with a great fanbase. From a purely footballing point of view it’s quite sad to see how shit they are now.

[Vive_La_Villa]

17 minutes ago, KevinRichardsonsMoustache said:

As good a piece of squad management as we could’ve hoped considering the league run in. Crunch time the next couple of weeks folks 

Agree. Wonder what the 8 poor or very poor ratings are mostly disappointed with. Performance aside but obviously manager can’t control individuals.

Edited March 7 by Vive_La_Villa

[avfc1982am]

46 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

We're more than capable of losing to West Ham and Wolves and being locked into a really tight battle with Spurs and United for 4th-6th at the end of this month even if we beat Spurs at the weekend - eight of our eleven remaining games are against teams with an eye on Europe or the title - it's going to be incredibly tough, regardless of a good result this weekend.

I think we have to treat that West Ham game after the second leg the same way we're treating the Spurs game after tonight. It's going to be a massive three games in a week before we get a little breather ahead of Wolves.

 

I agree. I think we've got a very tough run in and will need to seriously be on our game to grab 4th. If you look at last season and how we finished our final 10-12 games to close the gap on Brighton, it's a possibility with 33 points still up for grabs.

I keep hearing that will be a shoe in for CL if we beat Spuds but I think we need to do far more than that. 11 to go I think we'll need another 15 points. City, Arsenal away, Liverpool at home. Brighton away, WH away, Wolves is always a tough fixture..... We've still got plenty to do imo. 

[Jas10]

 

[Jas10]

 

[Jas10]