Villa 0-1 West Brom Jack Woodward full time report
That was poor wasn’t it?
I’m struggling to think of a single player who produced anything like a noteworthy performance today, although if I was forced it would probably have been Lescott and Richards.
The goal did take a nasty deflection, after all and I can’t even blame Guzan for that one.
What worried me more than the result though was the way we went about the game.
Where was all the energy and pace we’ve been used to?
We just weren’t at the races at all today were we?
The passing was rubbish, particularly from Grealish and Gil early on and if your two most creative players are struggling, well, you’re in trouble.
We just didn’t click at all today and you can go through most of our outfield players and have complaints.
Hutton had quite a bit of space down the wing and he found himself in the right positions, but his crossing was mostly abysmal.
Amavi was poor by his standards and gave the ball away a few times.
Sinclair was just utterly invisible and even though he’s our most on form striker, just never got involved.
Gil tried, but just couldn’t get himself into it enough to be effective.
And most disappointing for me was Grealish.
Everything he did seemed to take an age and he seemed far too happy to stand over the ball thinking about it, instead of using his instinct, which is to run at the defence as soon as it comes to him. His passing was probably the worst, in my opinion; hence it was a real off day on his part.
One player I would give some credit to is Gabby.
He looked a lot more up for it today, but being better than he has been of late really isn’t saying much.
Even if you don’t think Albion were very good, think about the chances they created.
I remember Guzan having had his hands stung a few times, where he made a couple of decent stops, but also made himself look a mug on a couple of other occasions.
The point is, I can’t remember Boaz Myhill having to make one decent save.
And that’s disappointing.
We created next to nothing and were forced to try playing it longish in the first half, a daft tactic seeing as we were aiming at Gabby, while they have massive defenders.
Hence bringing on Gestede for Gil was probably the right call, seeing as we had little option.
Unless you call upping the pace, getting the ball out wide and trying to actually get behind their defence an option.
Which seemed the best bet for me, but from memory we only achieved it once (Amavi).
It just didn’t happen today, in any area you care to look at and it frankly just wasn’t good enough, an opinion that I think will be shared, seeing as the Villa crowd was very subdued.
The worrying thing is that today’s result really doesn’t bode well for a certain game we’ve got coming up next.
My current stance on Tim Sherwood?
I like most of the players he’s signed and he still gets plenty of time from me.
Calling for him to go already is just daft.