That was a massively disappointing performance which leaves me wondering how we can come back now?
I can handle defeat if we’ve played ok or have been unlucky, but I struggle when we’ve played poorly and make no mistake about it, we did today. I’ll bet Dean Smith is fuming and rightly so.
I’m not sure if we got it tactically wrong or not, as there were so many poor performances that it was hard to tell.
When you have so many poor passes, it’s hard to tell what the team’s trying to do, but it often seemed that the idea was for Mings to hoof it long to Jack Grealish, possibly because the players didn’t trust our (lack of) midfield.
There was a stat that flashed up and it said our passing was actually more accurate than Bounemouth’s. I nearly fell off my chair when I saw it and it certainly didn’t seem like it.
And then there’s the fact that we lack creativity if you leave Grealish out of it.
He was head and shoulders our best player today, but even he can’t be relied on to carry a team through a whole game, although he did his best too.
The lack of movement was incredibly poor too, but what annoys me the most is that Bournemouth just looked much more up for it and did the basics right in pressuring us and working massively hard.
The good thing is that Samatta got his first goal, which was the first headed goal we’ve scored this season. I’m sure that tells me something, but I don’t know exactly what that is.
The goal apart, it was just depressing to see a team play so dysfunctionally and basically watch Grealish having to keep driving us forward. Where we’d be without him, I shudder to think and we’re in deep trouble as it is.
I’m off to drown my sorrows, as having to keep thinking about how poor we were is putting me on a proper downer.
We have an international break now and then it’s at home to Spurs on the 16th. Oh dear.
We’d better start getting some practice in, as it doesn’t seem like they’re doing much at Bodymoor Heath, does it?
If we continue to keep playing like that and let’s face it, we have been poor even during our recent victories, I currently see little chance of survival.
I really hope McGinn recovers quickly.
Comments
98 responses to “Bournemouth 2 -1 Villa; We’re in trouble”
A really poor performance yesterday and l agree with what’s been previously said regarding the players who quite simply the majority are not good enough for the Premier League. For me you have shoulder some of the blame regarding the club’s management. Does Smith and Terry have any input on who comes in l think not!! Therefore the main blame for me is with the top management. We were crying out for established Premier League players to be bought in during the January window and look what we ended up with. These additions aren’t going to improve the team’s performance during the rest of the season and l really think we could end up bottom of the League which is hard to accept given the amount of money the club has spent. It’s a pity we couldn’t take a leaf out of Sheffield’s book who spend wisely and have a great coaching set up and you can see the players all contribute and cover each other. This is what l expected Villa to achieve this season and for me Smith lacks leadership and tactical experience which is good enough for the team to succeed. I agree we are gulfs apart with the Liverpool/ Man City’s of this world however we also seem miles apart from most of the other teams to which as Smith has stated the results will define our season. You can see we rely too much on Jack who in my opinion is the best attacking midfield player in the league however even he can’t do it week in week out. I believe in part our current position in the League would be better if Mc Ginn was fit as this would provide a coherent midfield. Our defence also lacks consistency and only Mings provides leadership. All in all a poor display yesterday and we have to drastically improve to stay in the League!!
I was annoyed with the signing of Drinkwater when we needed a physical presence in our midfield. Nakamba battles hard but clearly passing and shooting aren’t in his repertoire. Luiz is decent in possession and is capable of a goal but is non existent when we are under the cosh. McGinn is a massive miss for us and our survival could depend on when he returns. Also defensively we are weak despite 3 CB’s. Hause is beginning to annoy me with his distribution with Targett and Guilbert offering little when pressed. I would have kept Chester and played him in the middle with Mings to his left and Konsa or Engels to his right. This would offer better balance and leadership.
We are hoping for 3 teams to be worse than us now and I don’t think there is.
Agree Holte66. Think it is too late to have Mc Ginn back match fit for the rest of the season. So yes like you worried there maybe not 3 teams worse than us and we know how hard it will be to get promotion back out of the Championship!!
Yes agree Holte66. Not sure Mc Ginn will be back match fit before the end of the season. Currently can’t see there being 3 teams worse than us unfortunately!! It will be a tragic situation if we go down as we know how hard it will be to get promoted. I wouldn’t be surprised if a deal is also not done regarding Jack Grealish with Man U if we are relegated!!
Can’t argue with any comments here.
I think the comparison with Sheffield United is chalk and cheese. Wilder has been building this team for years from back when they were in League 1. At the end of the day football is a team game and our team is a collection of individuals who have only played a handful of games together – and it shows. Add to that players with no experience of the EPL and it demonstrates the task ahead.
Grealish – now there is no doubt he’s a talent. I saw a recent discussion where his discipline was questioned. Not behavioural but positional. They pointed out that he plays all over the field and isn’t disciplined in playing whatever role he’s given. Is this because he doesn’t trust the other players in the team and if he played for England can he do a disciplined role – good questions imho.
So, given his extraordinary talent wouldn’t he serve the team better by sticking to his role rather than roaming all over the pitch. There was one moment yesterday when Villa were counter attacking and JG was in the left back position!
Now here’s my controversial point – maybe we should sell him for £80m and reinvest that in the team – as long as we keep McGinn and Mings.
I know he’s Villa through and through and I’d hate to see him go but, as I said earlier, it’s a team game!
Very good debates on this site maybe the villa management should read them and learn something.
The problem I think is Smith is given these players and told to make into a team while at the same time increase their value for resale bit like the Brentford system.
The difference is trying to do this while trying to compete in the toughest league in the world. Why when everyone could see they needed premier League experience did they keep looking at untried players.also having a training coach in charge of defense not helping. Look at Brentford defence.
I read that debate too Hitch and I think the reply was that he’s doing too much and it means he isn’t doing his job to the max, in his own particular area?
I commented that he was at RB at one stage midweek and this simply can’t be right. He’s not where he’s most effective and Smith should be telling him so, imo.
I suspect he doesn’t trust the players around him.
He even came back to get the ball off the goalie, which is great, but what’s he supposed to do then, run the length of the pitch with it?
He should be told to not retreat any further than the halfway line, imo.
It has to be down to Smith allowing him to roam all over the pitch.
As for selling him for £80 mill, no way!
The replacement with say, 2 players at £40 million would not improve the team, without Grealish.
But I think it’ll probably happen anyway.
Grealish is worlds apart from any other player in the team, except maybe McGinn.
And he won’t be able to tolerate the crap he sees every game around him for very long. It must be soul-destroying.
Hence I think he’ll want out and who could blame him?
Which is a very worrying thought, as my god, we’re miles away from being a consistently good team and still need to bring loads of quality replacements in to really improve us.
The other point alluded to on several posts is that the team is continually looking to play through Grealish (almost obsessively so) which tends to (a) make us one dimensional and (b) to play the more difficult pass – both make us easy to defend against.
Now getting McGinn back may resolve some of these issues but ‘till then we’re really going to struggle.
My comments are, in no way, meant as a criticism of JG. If anything, your point is the telling one – what is the coaching staff doing about it?
Oh yes – and the fact that our defence has more holes than a colander.
That I agree with Hitch, so who supposed to be in charge of that? TERRY, untried coach looking for a managerial job, so far he’s failed. Back room needs to be looked at and quick.
And then Spurs beat City 2-0.
It’s definitely a funny old game.
And as I said previously, it isn’t over yet. I’d expect us to get a couple of unexpected results too.
Wishful thinking Badger, I don’t see us competing with teams that know how we play, I fear the worst. We need a revamping in our coaching imo.
It hasn’t taken you long to forget Leicester mid-week has it?
I don’t think many expected that, but we beat them.
I know what you mean though, law of averages etc.
Think you forgot how lucky we was Badger, the game was won only because their star man couldn’t hit a barn door. What’s the odds that we don’t win the cup. ?
Our problem is we just don’t do unexpected results. Every other team in the league has turned over one of the traditional top 6 yet we’ve bottled it on so many occasions. The reality is at least 2 of Spurs / Chelsea / Man Utd / Arsenal will need turning over at Villa Park, possibly more given our woeful away form. Can anyone see us doing that – even when we play well we we gift the opposition goals.
Saturday was ‘must win’; If we had won, we’d be closer to top 10 than drop zone – Only 3 points off top 10 to be exact. Top 2-3 aside, the PL seems to be getting more like the Championship! We’ve got to stay in it, make the necessary changes and additions to staff in the summer, and we can compete! The 4th spot in the CL places is wide open. United, Arsenal, and Spurs, all top 4 mainstays, are nowhere. We have to stay up and try to capitalise!
I’m in ‘dreamer’ mood. How about putting 30 mil down for Phil Foden in the summer? A midfield trio of McGinn, Foden, and Luiz (with a full PL season under his belt) would have all the ingredients of a title winning ‘engine room’: 3 ‘turbo’ engines, all capable of goals and shots from range, all capable of putting their foot in – just like the old-fashioned, ‘proper’ box-to-box midfielder.
Add a 50 mil striker who will guarantee 20+ league goals, and a CB who’s even better than Mings to play alongside him, and Robert is your mother’s brother…
I think Smith needs to seriously re-evaluate his obsession with wingers. Liverpool play with 3 ‘proper’ midfielders, as described in my last post. Look how they steamroller anything in front of them. Although, I wouldn’t dare playing 4,3,3 just yet. I’d go:
GK
3CBs (at least one upgrade in there)
2 wing-backs
3 ‘proper’ mids (one upgrade)
Jack (in the ‘hole’)
One world-class striker (upgrade)
In other words, reinforce the spine of the team (CB, CM, and CF) to top quality and we can complete!
P.s. Palace are in free-fall and can’t score for (insert proverbial). Woy’s going to need every minute of his vast experience. Could they keep falling all the way to the Championship and save our asses?
Mike Dean – what an absolute muppet.
The men’s team not doing well but the women’s team is top of their league.i think they should be praised for that.
At least one villa team good. perhaps the men should take a look at the women’s team and play with consistency.sorry not part of this debate but think they deserve a mention to cheer people up
i looked through the remaining fixtures to find where 15 points ISH will come. very tough games thats why we needed three last weekend. i can only see 7 to 9 points.
the loss at cherries was all down to application of work rate. one team forced their game on the other, down to more input pressing the other to make errors which will obliged and we where forced to hit the ball longer than normal cause of the press. our three defenders usually have time and that is our game to build from the back.
i cant believe our players where not ready for a war 🙁 at the top of football you have to earn the right to play, cherries simply outfought villa first half. to be fair they deserved their win overall cause they worked even harder when down to ten. which must have been hard given the effort they used first half.
so for us to survive we have got to start breaking the mould and winning against the better sides and picking up more points away than we have been doing. setup to be a very nervous finish to the season again
Agreed – our run is very tough. Our remaining home games are all against top half sides (bar Palace) who we never beat and our away form isn’t good enough to compensate.
All those results we bottled or made glaring errors in the first half of the season will cost us – Arsenal away where we should have won v 10 men, Spurs away, Burnley at Home, West Ham at home v 10 men, etc. We threw away so many points from winning positions and only have ourselves to blame for our dreadful in game management.
Smith has gone on record saying his teams get stronger in the second half of the season – I sincerely hope there is an upturn and we do it but my fear is we’ll go on another losing run and thatll be it.
Spurs at home next up – this is the exact kind of game a Newcastle or Burnley can win – will we? I doubt it – you just know Hause / Nakamba / Luiz or one of the usual suspects will make a glaring mistake even if we play well
Just looking at the run in too. I think we need 2 more wins and that will be enough. I think we’ll just about manage it, but the way the points have been distributed throughout the Premier League this year, the traditional safe points tally of 38 is out the window. We’ll snatch those couple of late victories when we least expect it, but other teams will keep us up by being worse than us. The fact we have just 2 games in February may work against us if we lose even more focus, or it could allow us to see McGinn back in the team… And how we’ve missed him!
Norwich, Watford and Brighton to drop.
It will be a hairy ride but the fact is the teams around us are as bad, and their fans will be looking at their run ins and panicking just the same. The last part of the season throws up some unexpected results. We just have to hope we get some points where we aren’t expecting them. Bournemouth aside, we have got 4 points from Burnley and Brighton, 6 points against Norwich, 3 from Watford, and 1 from one game against Burnley and West Ham. That’s not bad IMO. We do need to step up in some of the games against better opposition though.
Our defence worries me though. No hiding away from the fact that we have a massive problem here.
I think we should forget the amount of points for safety and all we need is to match or better the teams below and around us and finish 16 or 17 it’s going to be hard but we should be thinking of it as a mini 6team premier League and set out to not lose games like Bruce and not trying to win everything but try sneak odd win 12games left 12points that way.utv
The trouble is I don’t think Smith knows how to do that Roy.
But your point about just matching the other teams is valid.
17th would be good enough, simple.
Well, for this season anyway.
It’s a pretty poor target for us to be aiming for, tbh, but it is what it is.
If we stayed in the premier League then next season we could improve the team,but as you say it’s not the way Smith play’s the game,and can he learn in time that’s the point.maybe he needs a pulis to help him there’s no shame in asking for help the club comes first.he also missed a trick by not keeping nyland in goal after his performance against Leicester,what does that tell the others (it’s okay we won’t be dropped however we play)it should be if you perform you keep the shirt if not your out. We had this problem with O’Neill.
I do not understand 3 at the back except if you are playing a team who counter attack at speed.. If the opposition build slowly, and have a right winger out wide on the ball – their CF in the middle of the goal not at the far post – and the #8 or inside-right joins in between the other two attackers then the left sided CB is stuffed. He cannot intercept the winger and the #8 at the same time. The middle CB is marking the CF and our right sided CB is totally spare, no one to mark and no possibility of getting across goal to even the numbers.
That is why all sensible teams have at least 4 in the back line with full backs who are back defending when needed.
The only time I see three at the back is when we’re being quickly countered.
Otherwise, I see it as a poorly organised five, where the FB’s are often poorly positioned.
Sticking an extra defender at the back is not about tactics, imo.
It’s purely to shore up a crap defence, which has left us light in midfield.
And it frankly still doesn’t work.
indeed, the thought of us going to four at the back scares me.
What chance do two have if three can’t even cope with the most basic crosses?
Fwiw, I’ve just had a look at http://www.soccercoaching.com/soccer formations.
It makes for interesting reading, in that basically, you need the right players, who are really fit (particularly the W/Bs or FB’s) and they need to communicate and have tactical awareness.
For any system.
Call it poor coaching, inexperience or lack of confidence, whatever, but I have serious doubts many of our players can fulfil all those requirements.
As it stands, they’re simply not good enough, that tells me.
If their not good enough then the blame should be on suso and purslow for buying them,but it’s Smith that will carry the can then Terry will probably get the job. Why can’t we ever get proper owner’s and dfo and CEO other team’s get it right.
I know it’s going to upset people but Doug Ellis ran the club better than anyone since,he wasn’t perfect but the club was stable mid table team,now it’s a mess again.
I noticed Smith was 170miles away with phone on silent according to him. Which show’s he had no say in who was brought,even samatta mentioned that he was looking forward to meeting the coach.
Totally agree about Ellis. We were more than mid-table. Consistent top 6 with more that a couple of flirts with the title. Would love to have those days of the 90s back. Great, care-free times.
Ellis bottled it, twice, imo.
First when he failed to get investment after we finished second to Man U in the first Prem saeson, which led to us falling behind, while Arsenal moved on to the club they are now, after being on a par with us.
And second, when MON refused to sanction the sale of Milner, resulting in his leaving.
I know we needed the money, but some inward investment would have seen us push on, even if you didn’t like the fact that MON paid serious amounts for players and never played them.
Just when we were on the cusp, Ellis was found wanting.
Nearly, but never quite, is always the way I’ll remember him.
A bottler, who always wanted it to be “his” club and a massive egotist.
That and he dismantled a European cup winning side, which I’ll never forgive him for.
Ellis, my arse!
Rant over 🙂
Badger, I appreciate the post European Cup issue, but slightly before my time, so all I remember are the relative ‘good times’ of the 90s – far better than today! Since he sold-up, it’s been down-hill all the way; that is a fact. Other facts:
His last act was employing MON, so he left by employing one of the best managers in the game at that time. He wasn’t in the hot-seat when MON spat his dummy about Milner etc – that was very much Lerner’s shit storm – nothing to do with Ellis. Fact.
We finished runners up in ’90 and ’93, and challenged in ’98/99 – nowhere near since. Fact.
Yes, he could’ve spent more when the likes of Gregory wanted to ‘finish the job’, but even today, we see the limits of how much a club can viably spend; those days were much tighter; books had to be balanced or it would be ‘curtains.’ Like it or not, Doug balanced the books and brought relative success. Fact.
Regarding ‘bottling’ and cash, from what I’ve read (from ‘horse’s mouths’ – Les Ferdinand’s and Big Ron’s), after ’93, Doug encouraged Big Ron to strengthen the side, but Ron was stubborn and didn’t think what he could get would improve, so let the team age, which was his downfall, ultimately. In actual fact, Ellis made Les Ferdinand a stunning offer, but Keegan managed to attract Les to the barcodes – the rest is history. In summer ’93, United signed Roy Keane; we signed Andy Townsend. Townsend was a class act, like Keane – just a bit older. Fact.
So, you see, ’82 aside, which clouds your generation’s judgement, Ellis did a good job, by and large. I will always remember the 90s with great fondness and nostalgia: two league cup wins, several genuine title challenges, regular European nights with some great memories, entertaining teams, charismatic managers, top-class players and big names aplenty signed – give me that over today’s relative bag of shite any day!!!