I meant to watch Brentford’s last game against Man city on Wednesday, so I could get a bit of a heads up on how they’re looking, but I don’t know what happened. Basically, I forgot and the long and short is they lost 1-0, which is no disgrace.
I thought Brentford were flying high and indeed they were earlier in the season, but they’re now a couple of places and points below us. On paper, this should be a pretty close game.
I often tend to err towards a draw when making my predictions. Well, it’s safe isn’t it and you’re never far off the mark, are you.
Will I go down the same route today?
Squad news and the big news for us isn’t on the pitch. Steve Gerrard will be back in the dugout and he’s a very good addition, certainly better than some of our players.
Ah, yes, Mings.
He’s suspended for this one after getting his fifth yellow. Which I grudgingly admit is a shame, because he’s been okay for the most part.
The good news is that John McGinn will be available. Ashley Young has a slight toe fracture and it’s possible he’ll make it, but even so, I’d expect him to be on the bench and only used if needed. The Beeb suggest that Traore and Trezeguet will be involved, but that doesn’t make sense, as they’re off to the Afican nations on Monday and we should concentrate on players who are actually going to be here in the next couple of weeks.
Bailey and Nakamba are still out, but overall we’re doing well injury-wise, especially for this time of year.
Brentford though are not so lucky and have Rico Henry, Vitaly Janelt, Mathias Jorgensen, David Raya, Charlie Goode, Tariqe Fosu and Josh Dasilva definitely all out
In slightly better news for the Bees, Bryan Mbuemo is “touch and go” and Kristoffer Ajer may be available after being out for a while.
Christian Norgaard will definitely be available after a suspension and Sergi Canos is also expected to start. Which by the sounds of it, is just as well, as that’s a fair old list of injuries.
Couple Brentford’s injury list with the fact that they’ve played three games in a week, while we’ve only played one and you can probably see where my thinking lies.
Meanwhile, who plays for us?
Most of the team picks itself, although I note that things might not be so straightforward for Targett soon if it is indeed true that Gerrard wants competition at left back. Meanwhile he’ll start this one.
The only real issue in defence is Mings being out means either Hause or Tuanzebe will come in. I was going to say that strong rumours about Tuanzebe going back to Man U and either being loaned out or sold means he won’t get a look in anyway. But there’s also a rumour that Watford are sniffing around Hause. I don’t see there being any legs at all in that one happening, but it does mean there’s conjecture over both of our back up central defenders. It’s academic anyway, because unless Hause has looked totally useless in training, he’s going to be the one starting.
In the middle Sanson retains his place and now he’s looking a bit more like the player we expect, it’ll be interesting to see how he plays with McGinn alongside him. Ramsey will also play.
Which leaves three places. Will we go Ollie left, Ings in the middle and Buendia on the right? I personally wouldn’t.
Ings gets dropped if I’m choosing.
Which makes it interesting, as I don’t know how we’ll set up. Perhaps that statement about Traore and Trez playing was correct after all?
Anyway, I’ve often predicted draws this season, but a look at the table tells us we’ve only drawn one game and that was against Brentford. Hence I’m not going with a draw today.
Brentford have lost more home games than any side except Norwich and Watford, which tells me they’re there for the taking.
Then again, we have a very poor record against them and in our last seven meetings, they’ve won three and drawn four.
Still, their injury list coupled with those three games in a week should mean they’ll be shattered.
They certainly theoretically won’t be on top form and I think we’ll have a major edge.
I’m going to say we’ll win 2-1.
But I also have a pretty strong feeling that it will be 3-1.
I hate being confident.
UTV!
Not creating anything – a lot of huffing and puffing
FFS!!!!
Just completely useless
If anyone thinks this team can challenge for Europe they must be mad!
Yet another bogey side – I’m getting fed up with the number of teams we cannot beat.
Anyway that’s me done.
The stark reality is that apart from the goal we’ve created nothing and haven’t troubled their goalkeeper. Our passing / decision making in the last third is very poor.
For all that Brentford has less of the ball they’ve created far more problems in our box than we have in theirs.
NSEW better get the cheque book out again!
Fucking knew it, Traore was shit all match, we have young energetic kids and play donkeys, that game should have been ours. Ok players missing and so had Brentford , I give in …
Agreed on Traore Bill.
Not sure why Gerrard stuck with 4-3-3 for this game tbh and why substitute Ramsey? Traore should never have started the second half.
All in all another Sunday ruined.
The honeymoon is over. Holte had it right after all.
No Meatball next game. Terrible.
Trez that was worthy of an Oscar…
Is that in the Cup or league Bum Bum?
I can see Gerrard being on the back of four straight defeats by mid January.
League. Against ManU.
Thanks Bum Bum – that puts a dent in things. Sad to say I’ve lost interest in the Cup competitions seeing as we habitually go out in the third round anyway!
And correct me if I’m wrong but there are no replays for third and fourth round ties – to help out the ‘Sky Six’ no doubt!
Badger
Well that was poor.
Time to sell. Hopefully goodbye to:
El Ghazi
Traore
Trezeguet
I’d like to see
Centre Half
Left Back
Defensive Midfielder
World class player for any position
What do you think?
Can’t argue with any of that Sid other than we probably need two or three world class players!
Promote the best kids to the first team squad instead of those on the ‘For Sale’ list.
I wasn’t happy with Luiz today – he slowed the play down far too much for me.
Not sure about an Oscar for Trez, Bum Bum. More like a Razzie award for worst dive in history. Apart from the embarrassment of it, it smacked of desperation, which is worrying.
Happy New Year! Same old Villa!
Everyone’s said what I would’ve said. Honeymoon over for Stevie. Kids need to play now. Major surgery needed to the squad in the close-season.
To be fair, we’ve played one game in a month, key players out, and the gaff was away with COVID. Not making excuses but that’s hardly good momentum going into a game, is it. It’s about this time that the wheels came off for Smith, ironically after visiting Old Trafford in the New Year. Let’s hope Stevie doesn’t follow the same pattern!
What a wasteful opportunity to get 3 points from a bogey team without a number of players. Too many of our team below par. I said 2-0 because I couldn’t see us scoring without Watkins who we missed big time. The suspension for McGinn was the cherry on the top of a really sour cake.
Also I hope Gerrard fines Trezeguet for the embarrassing fall to ground. I agree that Traore should have been hauled off at half time. Ramsey had plenty of running left in him although he was on a yellow card. We need major reinforcements if we are to reach Europe. We are a mid table team at best right now. We can still get sucked into the relegation zone too if we are not careful. Gerrard needs to get it right with any new signings. Another CB to cover Tuanzebe leaving is now essential. I assume Watkins has Covid and hopefully not an injury or worse another club ready to sign him.
Rubbish absolutely rubbish.
I’m fumming what a load of rubbish.
Should have kept Smith,look at arsenal kept faith with arteta and look at them now.
Why the hell play traore when he’s just back from injury and goes off with international for a while anyway. And then brings on another who will be missing.
Traore was hopeless means we played with 10
Manager honeymoon over
Team selection today was awful,where was sansom.
They had all week to plan for this match obviously too long. I give up.
That’s a good point regarding players leaving for African nations when Gerrard could have kept Ramsey on and brought Chukwuemeka on for more experience. I was hoping Archer would get 15 minutes at the end.
No point in looking backwards although today I thought Gerrard’s touchline performance was Smithesque in his decision making.
We were short of first team experience and players with match fitness and I felt, with Watkins and Mings out, we should have played a 4-4-1-1 set up with Sanson in the midfield and Buendia in the hole but it seems Gerrard is fixated on 4-4-3. This would have allowed him to change it up later in the game.
Once again we demonstrated our inability to protect a lead – if you can’t win a game then don’t lose it – that mantra seems to be entirely lost on this side.
Whilst I wouldn’t describe the performance as rubbish (poor – yes) there are clearly some major issues that Gerrard needs to address – not least our inability to create good chances when in control of the game. Apart from the goal and a tame header from Ings, I don’t remember their keeper making a single save! So very similar to the Chelsea game but against a far weaker opposition.
Roy, have you calmed down? Gerrard’s’ lost one game he shouldn’t have, after awful preparation due to circumstances out of his control. Smith is really doing great at Norwich now, eh? Bring him back…
Gerrard will get it right. Give him time. More time that two months FFS.
Anyone else watching watching Sky? Noticed how ‘loud’ it is there at a notoriously quiet ground.
It’s like when you see a support band who only get 60% of the volume. Pull the other one if you think that a few fans standing at a crap stadium makes that much difference.
Trez and Traore were dire today. Why was Matty so quiet? McGinn was playing right back for much of the second half. Some promising signs from Buendia and Sansom though. Ings fighting too.
Tarore was hopeless – gave the ball away far too often.
We still seem to want to play 30-yd diagonal passes all over the place instead of playing it close, and still want to score from 30 yards out rather than play in the box.
I think the biggest thing I’ve taken from today’s game was that we don’t have any sort of killer instinct in that team: 0-1 up on 15 minutes and in complete control, we sat back rather than trying to finish them off before the end of the 1st half.