Jump to content

Ratings and Reactions: Villa 2-4 Arsenal


limpid

Who was your man of the match?  

119 members have voted

  1. 1. Who was your man of the match?

    • Friedel
      0
    • L Young
      0
    • Warnock
      2
    • Dunne
      1
    • Clark
      93
    • Collins
      0
    • Downing
      4
    • A Young
      0
    • Pires
      1
    • Bannan
      6
    • Carew
      1
    • Delfouneso (for Pires 46)
      4
    • Ireland (for Carew 66)
      4
    • Herd (for Bannan 86)
      3


Recommended Posts

We're playing like an O'Leary side . Actually at times im not sure if our squad is that much better than the 2006 team tbh...

thats exactly what i was thinking during the first half. whatever houlier's diabolical game plan was in the 1st half he certainly changed it for the 2nd half. It certainly makes me wonder

and there is a difference between Houllier and both DO'L and MO'N, if it's not working he will look to change it, neither of the previous managers did.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You don't have a season ticket because of Carlos Cuellar? :S

Have you not seen Carlos Cuellar play in central defence? Not saying he would of made a difference today, but certainly in my opinion he's our best defender next to Dunne.

Dont agree, O'neill did not fancy him and nor will GH. He does not dominate in the air as a CB. And can not play football. LV: 'Better fan' rubbish removed

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Goal 1 - Arse-having runs straight at our two centre halves none of which get in a challenge or block the shot, Friedel down slow and gets enough on it to have done better.

Goal 2 - Not a lot you can do, especially with the deflection.

Goal 3 - simple ball between Collins and Dunne no challenge and again Friedel down too slow.

Goal 4 - there is a handball on the edge of their box as we chase the game, not given they break game over.

Goals 1&3 were totally avoidable and I have to question all three senior players involved.

Onto the wingers Ash tried and harassed at least; Downing didn't / doesn't do that part of the game enough (once v Nasri he proved he can) but delivery into the box was too inconsistent, not helped that it seems the ball has to be on Carew's head for him to do anything.

Carew - sorry JC but you can pack your bags as soon as we've got Gabby and Heskey fit because Fonz did the holding up of the ball far better than you today and can be used from the bench.

Warnock and Luke Young - pulled all over the place by the fluid Arse, as most FBs are. Nothing more to say as both can play better.

Clark and Bannan - improved at HT and will have gained a lot from the experience I hope. Lets remember that they've only got 11 starts in the PL between them. I can see Clark getting some games playing alongside NRC or Petrov when either is fit and he looks the part.

Pires: Not match fit, can see why we signed him but sorry I cannot work out why he started today and so it proved.

Subs: Ireland and Fonz both worked hard and did not look out of place in the PL, the enigma that is Ireland is the one thing that needs to be sorted because you can see the guy has ability he just needs to show it more often. Herd - fitted in but not that long.

MotM - Clark

Need to look in the mirror: Friedel / Dunne / Collins / Carew and Downing

Win on Wednesday and all is well again, anything less and we'll see some total over-reactions as opposed to those seen in any match thread we don't win easily.

Cracking summing up Al

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah and that is all Carlos Cuellar's fault isn't it. Maybe we should put Dunne and Collins at RB and see how technically brilliant they are?

Why would you ship your best Cb out to Rb? The reason being is that he is the worse out of the 3. Collins and dunne are both better footballers than cc

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You don't have a season ticket because of Carlos Cuellar? :S

Have you not seen Carlos Cuellar play in central defence? Not saying he would of made a difference today, but certainly in my opinion he's our best defender next to Dunne.

Dont agree, O'neill did not fancy him and nor will GH. He does not dominate in the air as a CB. And can not play football. If you disagree with that then you have not been season ticket holders recently

When CC was playing at right back, one of the reasons for our defensive niggardliness was Carlos' excellent reading of the game. Many times during a match, he would tidy tuck in behind one of Collins/Dunne and tidy up after their mistakes.

We're missing that this season. I was a firm advocate of CC at right-back last season, I'd like to see him back in there asap once he recovers from injury.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The entire defence in the first half was awful -

for the first goal, why the **** did both go for it yet not get it? And then Arshavin wasn't closed down, he was allowed back in! Clatter him out wide, at least then he doesn't have such a clear shot at goal

Second goal, why no-one picking up nasri? He was clearly going to have a pop, and an awful deflection goes in.

HT - Throw on Delfouneso, go 4-4-2. Although Carew is one of the worst players I've seen at Villa at the minute, we look a lot better and a smashing strike gets us back in it. 3rd goal we switch off again and Friedel is far too slow to come out. But the defence should have tackled Chamakh.

Clark second, good header, gave us hope

Wilsheres goal a last one to put the game beyond us, poor defending again, Herd, (IIRC) playing Chamakh onside, Friedel should have been straight there.

Our defence needs a clear out. Collins and Dunne are a good heading partnership, but you need (IMO) 1 fast defender to chase players like Chamakh. Warnock is playing like he's a youth team player, basic mistakes, poor tackling and positional sense, we need a Left back brought in.

No DMC there to chase the ball aroud like NRC does.

And Carew utterly useless. Delfouneso and Gabby together yes, Carew in the team, no.

Frustrated really, but our second half performance was much better.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I also would like to see Cuellar back in. He was vital filling in from RB almost like a third CB.

As for todays match, I cannot escape how poor that was. The 2 goals scored flatter us, probably more than the fact we somehow got away with only conceding 4. Arsenal'll be disappointed not to have a cricket score.

Awful.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Today's shambolic performance by our "senior" players just goes to show how average they really are and that they are not good enough to adapt to a new approach.

Friedel 6

Warnock 4

Collins 4

Dunne 4

L.Young 4

Pires 4

Bannan 5

Clark 7

Downing 5

A.Young 5

Carew 1 (may as well have not bothered to play him)

Friedel is too old and not the presense he used to be, his shot stopping has gone downhill but he was pretty much stranded for the 2 opening goals.

Warnock played like a headless chicken again, he commits too many stupid fouls in stupid positions, what a waste of money he's turned out to be. Mid-table standard at best.

Collins had another poor performance to go with all the others, he makes so many mistakes and goes away with the fairies. He shouldn't be a first choice centre back.

Dunne has been utterly shambolic this season and has totally proven me wrong at leading the team. In short he is not taking the captaincy job well and made some stupid errors again. What's gone wrong?

L.Young is falling apart as a player as he gets older, and he's not good enough.

A.Young had a very poor game where he caused a lot of our forward play to break down due to his lack of an end product. He'll be off soon I'm sure, probably to wherever MON ends up.

Pires should not have started, he's too old and too slow to have any effect unless he's brought on in the last 10 minutes. Looked totally off the pace.

Downing had a poor game, but he was being played out of position.

but the worst culprit...

Big John, even the simple things are not working for him. Looks unfit, uninterested and offers nothing up front. I'd rather play Guzan up there as long as he tried. He's just a waste of oxygen at the moment.

The youth are carrying this team which is shocking. Clark looks like he could be a future captain (maybe sooner rather than later) although Bannan had a stinker. At least the subs showed a bit of fight which was encouraging. Houllier got his tactics wrong and that is worrying, he reminds me of Venglos in that he's got these big ideas but in the end can't work with what we have, as they were too entrenched in the previous manager's way of thinking/tactics.

We could very well be in the bottom 3 come Xmas which is not outside the realms of possibility, if this injury crisis continues it will be a reality. Its up to Randy to give Houllier the money he needs to bring in at least 4 players as at least half of that team out there were not good enough, especially defence.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I also would like to see Cuellar back in. He was vital filling in from RB almost like a third CB.

As for todays match, I cannot escape how poor that was. The 2 goals scored flatter us, probably more than the fact we somehow got away with only conceding 4. Arsenal'll be disappointed not to have a cricket score.

Awful.

never had a season ticket last season then????

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tactically that was shocking. You need to get at Arsenal and press them high up the pitch, not let them play in front of you without closing them down. Key error from Houllier that cost us the first half. What annoys me is he doesn't seem to even bat an eyelid on the sideline either.

The defence was shite. Luke Young again caught out of position so many times and Warnock can't seem to pass a ball two yards. Bannan was not in the game first half but in the second was a lot better, Clark was decent enough. Carew was poor but that was expected and we seemed to look a lot better when Ireland went over on the right for a period but then he was switched back into the middle.

We are a mess at the moment (due to injuries and poor tactics) and need a swift turn around on Wednesday or we are in serious trouble.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We're playing like an O'Leary side . Actually at times im not sure if our squad is that much better than the 2006 team tbh...

thats exactly what i was thinking during the first half. whatever houlier's diabolical game plan was in the 1st half he certainly changed it for the 2nd half. It certainly makes me wonder

and there is a difference between Houllier and both DO'L and MO'N, if it's not working he will look to change it, neither of the previous managers did.

It seems it may be that way. What concerns me is how many times could we see GH have to change a game plan because he's got it wrong to begin with. Im far from a judgement on GH, he still needs time, but his planning wasn't up to a good enough standard today imo.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I also would like to see Cuellar back in. He was vital filling in from RB almost like a third CB.

As for todays match, I cannot escape how poor that was. The 2 goals scored flatter us, probably more than the fact we somehow got away with only conceding 4. Arsenal'll be disappointed not to have a cricket score.

Awful.

never had a season ticket last season then????

BREAKING NEWS: Having a season ticket makes you instantly qualified as a football coach and/or pundit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...
Â