I didn’t expect to be home to watch this one, but here we are. I finished early and it’s happy days.
It just so happens the chap I’m now working for is a Newcastle fan and he was a season ticket holder until last season, where the travel had made following them prohibitive. So there’s going to be some banter at work tomorrow, whatever happens. Let’s hope I’m the one who’s dishing it out.
Hopefully the headline is pretty obvious, but what I mean is if our attacking dominates the game, we should win this.
But if it becomes all about our defence, I really don’t hold out much hope for us.
Which is daft really because we ought to be clear favourites.
I’ve seen comments where some fans really don’t expect us to win this one and I’m perplexed.
Are we suddenly saying Newcastle are a good side on the back of a couple of wins or is it because our defence looks more leaky than a really leaky thing?
If it’s the latter, I have to agree.
I don’t trust our defence at all lately and am now finding it difficult to hide my dislike of Tyrone Mings who was at fault for at least two of the goals against Leeds.
To be fair, Konsa was also poor and maybe it’s the perfect time for Hause to come back into the side. Ideally for me, it would have been Mings who was dropped, but Konsa’s rush of blood to the head has made the decision easy for Stevie G.
Talking of who, apparently if we lose today it would see the manager on a lower win percentage than Dean Smith, who of course has been sacked.
I’m cognisant that we’ve played the top three in that short run of games, but it got me wondering how long it would be before the honeymoon was over. Come to think of it are we still in a honeymoon? I’m not so sure we are because results haven’t been great have they?
Squad news and Coutinho should be fit after he was subbed with cramp against Leeds. Buendia is looking doubtful after taking a knock on the hip. Traore is out with a hamstring problem and is beginning to look like yet another sicknote player. And of course, Konsa is out for two games. I’ve seen suggestions that Calum Chambers might come in for him, but I think that would be incredibly harsh on Hause, who’s done very little wrong whenever he’s played.
If Hause doesn’t get to play today, you have to wonder if he’ll see any future at the Villa, but that’s for another day. Perhaps Gerrard will go the whole hog and start both Chambers and Hause? I’d be okay with that, but perhaps many wouldn’t as strangely to me at least, most still think Mings is a good defender. So probably not then.
A lot of the team still picks itself, doesn’t it?
Martinez in goal, Digne, Mings, Cash, Luiz, McGinn, Ramsey, and Coutinho with the only issues being who replaces Konsa, who replaces Buendia if he isn’t fit (Sanson?) and who plays up front?
Does Ings come in for Watkins? I suspect he might, but it wouldn’t be my choice.
I suggested that I’d like to see Ramsey up top, with Watkins and Ings out. It would leave room for another midfielder, which is frankly the area that we’ve had to rely on for goals anyway. Ramsey is our equal hihest scorer on 5, I think and neither Ings or Watkins are scoring. If you are going to play one of them, it has to be Watkins, purely because of his movement and well, just being involved a lot more than Ings does.
I get that Ings is the better goal taker, but you have to get on the ball a lot more than he has for us, I think.
Newcastle squad news and they’re hoping Kieran Trippier will be fit. I hope he isn’t. Paul Dummett could return after a hamstring problem and Matt Targett is of course, ineligible.
Prediction time then and after watching our defence the other night, I have to admit that I’m not very hopeful.
Eddie Howe seems to have got his team fighting and if they come out all guns blazing, they might well have too much for our defence, who look likely to concede everytime they’re threatened.
But with Coutinho really looking the part and Ramsey making some great runs and scoring well, we could quite easily dominate and win convincingly.
With that, I’m tempted to say it’ll be 1-1, but that’s boring and I’m going for a 2-1.
The trouble is, I’m not sure which way it will go.
Being a Villan, I suppose I have to say we’ll win.
2-1 then.
UTV!
No ideas
Foulcastle United
If we don’t get anything from this game I’m going to be forced to watch the Leicester West Ham game to cheer myself up.
Now THAT is desperate.
We aren’t doing the basics.
Overall an awful performance against a useless Newcastle side.
What have we been doing in training Stevie?
We don’t deserve anything from the game. Too many Joe averages in our squad. Why is Archer out on loan?
We can’t pass, can’t cross – can’t basically do anything.
Absolutely shit performance by Villa. No better than when Dean Smith was in charge. Continue like this, and we will be lucky to stay out of relegation places.
They should give the travelling fans their money back.
That was worse than under Smith – perhaps we need a new manager?
🙂
One point from Leeds and Newcastle is simply not good enough. SG now knows that the premier league isn’t as easy as the Scottish league. I have held off criticising Luiz but if he is our DM, then he needs replacing quickly. We needed a Bissouma type player and we missed the opportunity.
Careful what you wish for Holte. He could be facing a stretch inside depending on the court case outcome…
Stevie Gerard needs to question himself. Why can we not get the team to play for a full 90min. It’s happening too much for my liking. At best, our season is over with nothing left to play for or at worst we get dragged down to relgation battle. I know we will loose games but too loose in that manner and performance is unforgivable. Too many weren’t up for the battle today. Im absolutely fuming and dont think i can be bothered for the rest of the season.
No review from me today.
I honestly can’t think of a single positive.
That was as bad as I can remember in a long while and coming after a home draw against another side I just don’t rate, well..
It’s probably best I don’t write anything.
At least Gerard won’t get the Liverpool job with performance like this.
Why didn’t villa do what Newcastle are doing with fouls and breaking play up against Leeds when 3-1up.
Need to be more street wise I think.
As far as the ,2week break they should have sent the players off to the beach to rest.
Why didn’t we buy Burn and trippier
Absolutely fumming at such rubbish Smith should have stayed change manager and you start from scratch again never going to challenge the top 6.
And as far as the offside that’s a joke,the ball came off the back of a Newcastle player to Watkins so he should be on then.bloody var and it’s clear and obvious.
You know its bad when this forum is unanimous in describing our poor performance. Worst for a long long time. Why do we play 11 when only 7 ever turn up.
Roy,it doesn’t matter if it came off a Newcastle player before it went to Watkins. It was when the ball was played forward, to hit the Newcastle player, that counts.
Mind you, I can’t recall the last time a VAR decision went in our favour.
Gerrard needs to really lay in to them after that performance.
Too many players feeling too comfortable about their selection.
The honeymoon with Gerrard is well and truly over.
We need to finish the season on a positive note to take us in to the Summer break.
Good to see dirty zouma out of whu game he should be banned for bringing the game into disrepute for the season.
As for villa maybe they should be banned for bringing the game into disrepute as well.
Look at the coaches we have and they can’t set up a team to play a game of football is a disgrace.
While you are the boss you can shift the blame. I suggest Steve fires McPhee. McPhee has a poor CV – all the teams he was set piece coach for were not very good at it.
Bailey was given his cameo – he is not good enough for the EPL as demonstrated by his retaliation foul when beaten by skill. Other than that a poor team performance should bring changes at half time or on the hour – not later. We were pinging the ball about well but not with penetration. Untli some Villa player’s pass was guessed and intercepted or until we got it to our wing-backs whose delivery was shocking.
OLL – absolutely on the same page as you with set pieces.
I can only think that McPhee is messing with their heads. You can come up with as many variations as you like but we failed to deliver one decent ball from a set piece or free kick.
Concentration delivery rather than trying to remember all the rubbish ‘misdirection’ from McPhee.
Did anyone notice he was missing from the bench today. I hope Villa confirm Gerrard has got rid. We don’t need him and don’t want him.
We were unlucky, yet again, with that VAR decision – there wasn’t a clear and obvious error and with that sort of marginal call, for the sake of the game, the decision should go with the attacker not the defence.
1-1 and opinions would soften – even though we will still have played rubbish.
At the end Gerrard looked resigned and not too pleased – maybe changes will follow.
Totally disagree. We seem much more inventive but the players aren’t executing. You can’t blame a set piece coach when a player can’t deliver a decent cross. Even Digne who is supposed to be good at crossing was awful today. Luiz was shocking on free kicks.
Who played well today? I can’t really think of anyone who did. Is that the coaches fault or were they just let down? I would be furious if I was Gerrard.
For me Ollie Watkins was a total waste of space today. He gave the midfield nothing, is unable to hold the ball up and for a striker his finishing is horrendous. The one quality I used to give him was he was worth his weight in gold purely for his pressing and relentless speed whilst doing so. Today I though he actually looked a little slow and therefore really became totally useless in the team.
Luis – utter crap and gave the ball away time and time again.
Chambers – gave the ball away time and time again
Even bloody Martinez kept passing the ball to opposition when taking long kicks.
Spot on Tom.
The trouble is I think you’ve somewhat limited the criticism.
McGinn, poor.
Digne, meh
Ramsey, meh
Bailey, no
And on it goes.
I don’t think anyone was worth a 6, myself.
Terrible show all round.
I disagree about McPhee. At least we’ve shown something different at set pieces since he came.
And I’m surprised it seems people are blaming him for over-hitting set pieces.
I remember complaining about the same thing years ago!
That is down to the players, it’s as simple as that.
They may well be told to hit it to the back stick, fair enough.
But we can’t pass five yards, let alone cross the ball accurately.
How can that be when you have the crossbar challenge?
We can’t even get it on top of a spread out group of players, let alone a piece of wood.
It’s yet another basic skill that we don’t seem to possess and haven’t for years, again.
It seems to me we might as well not bother with tactics at all (and after today, I’m not sure we do anyway) and just go back to practising kicking the bloody ball.
Luiz dont do for me, watched him today closely, yes Tom your right gave the ball away too many times, no direction in passing and half cocked in reading the game, not the only player far from it. Mcginn put a shift in but no help from our defenders. Minns saved us a couple of times but again player mix up with Martinez . this team not right far from it. Oll has to hold and pass far quicker he’s now on borrowed time it’s not working out on the left.