BFTG Villa

[Dr_Hfuhruhurr]

2 games, one shot on target.

With very few chances created whîlst the opposition have totalled over 50 shots. It will be interesting to see how Clement sets us up on Saturday. We are big underdogs in most of our games these days.

Just shows what a shit state Stam left us in.

And so it begins. Change the manager with 8 games to go and he can always blame the previous regime if he gets relegated. FWIW, Im not reading too much into this result, nor do I think we will get relegated, but you seem to have your excuses all ready if we do.

[Royal_jimmy]

Anyone who expected Clement to turn things around straight away are naive. This is a pretty pants squad lacking any bite in midfield, threadbare up front and leaking goals at the back. He has a massive rebuilding job next season regardless of what league we are in.

Until then, any points we get won't be won in a pretty way. We will need to grind them out.

I expected a defeat last night and think our only chance of points away are at Sheffield Wednesday. We need to grind another win out on Saturday to get closer to safety.

[Royal Rother]

And we won’t get any points away at Sheff Wed.

[loyalroyal4life]

This season was a write off back in November!

PC just needs to do enough to keep us up, then look to put his own marker down over the closed season for next year

[Coppells Lost Coat]

Didn't go last night, but from I read it seemed it was Snodgrass' delivery that was the difference between the teams. With the talent Villa had upfront, any half decent ball in the box would cause most teams problems. Given it was against 10 men dont think anyone can be surprised or even over react with the score.
Edwards on the other hand is an absolute moron. I hope he apoligised to the dressing room and addresses the fans - or at least the ones that traveled up.

[Stranded]

He joined a ship that had already sunk. We have been been atrocious for nearly four months. No one can blame Clement but I am concerned that he is setting us up to absorb pressure and try and hit on the counter even at home. Our possession stats are worrying. If we haven’t got the ball we are not going to win matches.

He is setting us up to try and give us a strong defensive base, starting from a position of having none. Remember he has had very little time with the squad - the internationals only returned to training on Weds/Thurs and we've had two games since. He's had minimal time with the squad, so the obvious thing to do is try to make his hard to break down and leave the opposition to have chances from distance, whilst looking to utilise the pace we have to break quickly.

This worked against QPR and was working against Villa until half time. I can only think of one save Mannone had to make in the 1st half. The red card and the lapse in concentration killed us last night. Even with 10, if we had held out more than 90 seconds of the 2nd half, Villa could have started to get edgy - this was clearly the plan. Make them nervous, have players forward, win the ball and exploit Barrow's pace against 2 slow CBs. We only managed to work that opening once but lead to our only chance.

Once Villa scored, they relaxed and were in complete control - game plan out of the window.

As for Saturday, would expect Kelly/Swift back in for Edwards to give the midfield a little more attacking threat but probably not much else - 2 DMs to give cover to the defence.

[Stranded]

And we won’t get any points away at Sheff Wed.

Find 2 home wins from the last 3 and we won't need to.

[NewCorkSeth]

Didn't go last night, but from I read it seemed it was Snodgrass' delivery that was the difference between the teams. With the talent Villa had upfront, any half decent ball in the box would cause most teams problems. Given it was against 10 men dont think anyone can be surprised or even over react with the score.
Edwards on the other hand is an absolute moron. I hope he apoligised to the dressing room and addresses the fans - or at least the ones that traveled up.

Can confirm Snodgrass looked dangerous very second he was on the pitch. I thought he was Grealish for the first half till I checked the Villa squad numbers.
A lot of people seem to be saying Barrow gave Blackett no support but I think he just wasn't able to, Snodgrass was just too good last night.

[leon]

With very few chances created whîlst the opposition have totalled over 50 shots. It will be interesting to see how Clement sets us up on Saturday. We are big underdogs in most of our games these days.

Just shows what a shit state Stam left us in.

And so it begins. Change the manager with 8 games to go and he can always blame the previous regime if he gets relegated. FWIW, Im not reading too much into this result, nor do I think we will get relegated, but you seem to have your excuses all ready if we do.

No. I’m saying we’re in the shit. Stam left us in it.

Unfit, disorganised, unbalanced. That much is clear. It was fairly clear 5 months ago.

The board did nothing to rectify it except sack him too late and bring in a mate of the chief execs with less managerial games under his belt.

We will see what happens.

Birmingham have won 3 out of 5 games under their new manager the “fraud” Gary Monk so it can be done.

[genome]

The most expensively assembled squad in the Championship, 4th in the league, vs one of the poorest teams in the league, who are away from home with ten men for an hour?

3-0 sounds about right. Guardiola would've done well to get a result out of that situation last night.

[Old Man Andrews]

Just shows what a shit state Stam left us in.

And so it begins. Change the manager with 8 games to go and he can always blame the previous regime if he gets relegated. FWIW, Im not reading too much into this result, nor do I think we will get relegated, but you seem to have your excuses all ready if we do.

No. I’m saying we’re in the shit. Stam left us in it.

Unfit, disorganised, unbalanced. That much is clear. It was fairly clear 5 months ago.

The board did nothing to rectify it except sack him too late and bring in a mate of the chief execs with less managerial games under his belt.

We will see what happens.

Birmingham have won 3 out of 5 games under their new manager the “fraud” Gary Monk so it can be done.

*Garry

Don't forget his extra R, he hates that.

[leon]

Shrugs

[NewCorkSeth]

Seems harsh to do player ratings as Edwards oxf*rd it all up for everyone so I'm just going to give a general sense of things.

Mannone - According to Whoscored he made 10 saves. Yes he made a dumb, Jaakola like, error for the 3rd goal but he stopped some very good shots. Hes trying to keep us up.

Gunter - Dominated by the Adomah/Grealish combo facing him. Was let down (imo) in the first half when we made one of our few breaks by Aluko BEING IN THAT STUPID CENTRE MID POSITION FOR NO REASON AGAIN.

Ilori - He was good, I kept thinking it was Moore winning all those headers till I noticed Moore was standing behind him. He is coming into his own.

Moore - Slightly poorer than Ilori, not his fault.

Blackett - Snodgrass was a step up in quality too much for our makeshift LB

Edwards - An absolute fool who didnt learn his lesson from last week. Last game please. Thinking about it all night I realised he must have been told to put in the tackles by PC, he cant have made a conscious decision to jump into every tackle that comes his way can he?

Bacuna - Passionate but silenced.

Evans - Truly making a case to not be started.

Aluko and Barrow - Both poor in the exact same way for the exact same reason, Edwards. Aluko drifted inside again too often when we had 11 men on the pitch. Fool.

Smith - Lesson learned, don't play a young, short and inexperienced striker against one the most experienced CBs in professional football.

I think Steve Bruce did a great job once we had our man sent off. Watching them shift the ball from on wing to the other, pulling men here and there, I thought "thats exactly what a team should do after an opponent gets sent off"

[genome]

RE Blackett.

Is this the same Blackett most were praising just 5 days ago? Now he's suddenly not a footballer?

[Snowball]

Gunter 1 - wasn’t sure what he was doing but it wasn’t playing football, might as well have not been there.

I wasn't there but Gunter had a good game according to the pundits
and former professional footballers made him Reading's man of the match

[NewCorkSeth]

Gunter 1 - wasn’t sure what he was doing but it wasn’t playing football, might as well have not been there.

I wasn't there but Gunter had a good game according to the pundits
and former professional footballers made him Reading's man of the match

Well they are fools.

[NewCorkSeth]

RE Blackett.

Is this the same Blackett most were praising just 5 days ago? Now he's suddenly not a footballer?

I thought he was and is a fine footballer but he's still playing out of position. A good winger will exploit that.

[LWJ]

I`m wondering what Mendes has to do to get a start?

Not be injured?

[hughsies no.1]

The shift in styles will become more and more obvious as the games go.

Stam was always insistent on 'dominating' games by possession, if the opposition don't have the ball they can't score or be threat etc etc (of course that then means we needed to be a threat when we had it but rarely were which resulted in him getting the boot).

So from speaking to Swansea fans who were basically in same situ as us in terms of league position, Clement set up every game not to lose and rely on the wingers / Gylfi and Llorente to produce on the break. Exactly how we set up against QPR - kept it tight and rely on Barrow, Aluko, Swift and Martin to hurt them on the break.

Can't see that style changing and will probably be enough to see us safe IMO.

Last night was such a stark difference from previous two Villa games, last season I remember walking up to Villa Park, saw the team with Mendes, Popa etc starting, no Kerm and we still dominated and won comfortably. Then the home game this season I would say was the best performance I have seen from us all season, we battered them and made them look awful.

Times have changed. Viva le revolution!

[NewCorkSeth]

I`m wondering what Mendes has to do to get a start?

Not be injured?

That's no excuse. Man up Mendes.