I’m sorry, but you’ll have to forgive me for not wanting to do cartwheels over our winter window business.
Reading around, it seems the word I’ve come across most to describe our dealings is “underwhelmed” and that’s about how I feel.
While the Guilbert signing intrigues me, it’s obvious he’s one for our future plans and that’s fair enough, although I do wonder why we’re signing players for the future, when we need them now, if we’re really going to push on for promotion?
Looking at the rest of the signings, it’s a similar story.
Mings seems our best bet and I like the sound of him, but he’s hardly played in years.
Will he be ready to start tomorrow? I’d be surprised, but we do need to give Chester a rest. The problem I have is that U-23 match fit is not Championship match fit.
Which leads me to Hause, who was supposed to have looked the business in training, but hasn’t been able to oust an injured Chester. What does that say about either the player or what Dean Smith told us?
The minimum for me, is that he’s nowhere near ready.
Kalinic is finding his feet and definitely seems a better goalie than Nyland, although it’s early days.
And then there’s the enigma which is Tom Carroll, who strikes me as a desperation signing when the Fer transfer fell through.
Hopefully he’ll add some more intensity in the middle, compared to Whelan and Jedinak, but I’m not sure exactly what his role will be. Competition for Hourihane, perhaps?
I’m just a bit concerned that Swansea’s fans seem glad that he’s gone, but at least he’s had a few games this season.
Ok, on paper, we’ve rebalanced the side somewhat.
But we all know the game isn’t played on paper and if it was, we wouldn’t be where we are now.
I’m minded to ask how we’ve actually improved a single position and would welcome thoughts on this.
So, all in all, I think we’re pretty much going with what we’ve got, which ultimately won’t be good enough, this season, at least.
So while I don’t think much of our incomings, I think our outgoings are mostly good moves.
Hogan to the Blades is a risky one, but as it was, we were only depleting his value by not playing him.
Yes, he might ultimately cost us promotion, but I’m not convinced. If Sheffield can get him firing, fair enough. At least he’ll retain more value when we do let him go.
Bree, well, while I know some were disappointed over this one, I can’t say I am. He hasn’t yet struck me as anything special and needs games.
And then there’s the kids. Smith hasn’t messed about here. He said we were top heavy and has cleared most of our attack out on loan.
Rightly so, as most of them were never going to get a game and need real minutes in a man’s game. This is the encouraging part for me.
If they do well, they come back and seriously challenge; if not, they get binned.
Bedou, I’m really not bothered about.
And McCormack, well, good riddance.
Anyway, given my views of the academy being a waste of time if the lads are never going to move up, I’m very happy about our outgoings.
So onto tomorrow’s game and I don’t have a clue what to think.
Will Mings go straight in?
Will Carroll play?
Will Reading have an advantage now that they’ve got rid of Bacuna?
I simply don’t know.
But I’m going for a 1-0 win.
Simply because we ought to win this game.
I for one am happy with the signings made. We have to accept we have fallen down the food chain and no longer have the pulling power we used to have.
We know our defence is substandard. There has been a clear attempt to address this issue with a goalkeeper, two centre halves and a right back for next season. Further more energy has been squire for the midfield.
The loaning out of U23 players to further their development is long overdue.
Once Grealish is back I fancy us to make improvements in the league.
Team news – Mings starts with Chester rested so he’ll play left side CB with Elphick switching right. Carroll and Hause on bench alongside Kodjia otherwise no surprises; Smith sticking with Wheelan and Hourihane as twin DM’s. Hutton captain.
Kalinic, Taylor, Mings, Elphick, Hutton, Wheelan, Hourihane, McGinn, ElGahzi, Adomah, Abraham
Taylor and Whelan start again! 😡 I’m going for a 1-1.
Being optimistic I’m going for a 0-2 Villa win, Tammy and Hourihane to score.
And no, I haven’t been drinking (yet)
Looks like Tammy and Elphick have gone close…but not close enough unfortunately.
What a disappointing display I’m watching the game and we are missing again in the middle of the park. We are doing wing play , they are coming through the middle. They like us are missing chances.
I somewhat agree Bill.
Hourihane is yet again invisible.
HT 0-0 and brief thoughts;
Kalinic needs to shout up. Three times he and Hutton went for the same ball.
And is it me, or does he seem to over-dramatise what should be straightforward saves?
They certainly make him look good at the time though.
Otherwise, decent distribution.
Hands up, Taylor looks decent today.
And Mings looks pretty comfortable for his first game.
He already seems to be barking out instructions too, which is what we need.
Tammy looks sharp, but isn’t getting too much of a look in.
McGinn’s his usual.
And we seriously miss grealish.
i thought we played the first half good. much better than performances of late. much more aggressive without the ball and with the ball but as the half worn on we slowly withdrew within ourselves. hourihane did well incepting a few times infront of back four and one inside box, whelen also covering the same areas well. taylor done nothing wrong and looked to get forwards. mings and elphick look like they played forever together.
get the first goal and we can win this easy. got to get the goal and keep the ball moving as we tried to do. be aggressive without the ball for the whole second half. we got this 🙂
referee was going to show swift another yellow for a blatant foul on mcginn. but he released he already had a yellow. refereeing in championship is very shit
2nd half is a stinker…….Tammy just had 1st shot on target this half at 80 mins……..
Come on Forest.
All them that said 3-0 stand up. Absolutely kick and run game that, even Bruce got a win today. Rubbish.
I said 0-2 but let’s be honest Bill I got it half right, didn’t I?
Another disappointing game and, from what I’ve heard, one we should have won.
If we have the best squad in the league then god help the rest….
The commentator just said “and Villa forced back into their own half “….NO…we just didn’t go forward.
Disappointing – we managed a clean sheet and couldn’t score after missing two good chances first half.
I did call a draw though 🙂
I predicted 1-1 so at least defensively without Chester we have something to cheer. Thing is this was a must win game so play offs looking less likely. We desperately need Grealish back as we are struggling without him.
After a decent first half, that was utter crap.
Promotion? We’re dreaming.
If even our most avid fans are walking out with 10 mins to go, you know there’s something seriously wrong.
And 8 minutes extra time? Just wow!
I can’t be bothered to post now, as I’ll only be re-iterating that we are utter crap.
Maybe tomorrow.
i will stand up 3 nil easy.
much better effort from the players, much better shape. but we didnt win the game. need to take your chances in games. we had lots of ball in their last third need to use that ball better. lets all wring out our handkerchiefs
p/s that referee was really poor, i seen some shit refs this year, but this guy beat them all hands down. very fussy about nothing, stopping the flow of the game every given chance, he also stopped play when he could easily allowed villa to continue the attack and book the reading guy after. ref was a joke
but thats no excuse ref aside we should be wining games like this,
Nath, I totally disagree.
There’s a massive hole in our play in the middle of the oppo’s half.
It’s called Grealish and we have no-one anywhere near replacing him.
As for 3-0, I thought they looked way more likely to score than us, in the second half, as the game just ebbed away more and more as it went on.
Not that I thought they looked highly likely to score, but it’s an indicator of how poor we are.
Bloody awful, against a poor side. Again.
If something doesn’t change soon, I suspect we’ll end up grateful we’ve got the points we have already, at the end of the season.
With that, I’m off to bed, with the right hump.
your allowed to disagree thats definitely allowed badger last i looked. getting sick of baby remarks from certain dummy uses.
easy to predict a game after the 90minutes, watching the game myself. i saw villa give much more effort than recent games and good effort in pressing high first half winning ball a few times in their half. players all passing with high tempos. second half the game just went into a stalemate, we had decent tammy chance saved. but didn’t do enough. reading i thought didn’t do much to win the game and don’t recall them troubling us too much,
but who cares not me a win draw or lose its just a game. those that got fed up with bruce and now still mention him to show their displeasure please stand up.
Is that aimed at me Nath, like dummy remarks, and the fact I said Bruce team even won.? Don’t start Nath otherwise you might close yourself down again and walk away for a few weeks again.
bill i doubt you will make me do anything..apart from laugh at your little girly jibes
yeah bill that was aimed at you. dummy remark and bruce remark. you were bruces biggest critic now your his number one fan. work that one out if you can. must have a turn coat in the house
On reflection we are thinking we are a top six team so we are all annoyed we couldn’t beat a team in the bottom three. Fact is we are a mid table team with far too many draws which suggests we are lacking players with character. Smith perseveres with the same formation and clearly the midfield trio doesn’t work without Grealish. Also his substitutions again today are more Bruce like than Smith of Brentford. Is the fear factor getting to him already?
seriously you would have thought villa never lose if jack grealish plays. hang on i recalled he played last year play off game against fulham. iam sure he has played many games and we lost,
players and fans alike using grealish absent as a excuse. seen loads of posts on here saying hes not all that and when hes out hes the best thing since slice bread. iam sure their a middle ground, he is most likely in that area.
i cant wait for his return, just so that record is changed and we can start blaming smith then just like the previous manager and the one before him etc etc