Let’s get the negative straight out of the way and say that Derby were awful.
I don’t think they had a shot on target all game and reminded me so much of us recently.
By that, I mean that it seemed everything they tried just didn’t come off and it looked like a classic case of a side low in confidence.
But for a side to look awful, it also suggests that the oposition were frankly very good and I thought we were today.
What’s shocked me is how much difference Jack Grealish seemed to make.
I inherently think that there’s no way one player should make such a difference to a side, but that was definitely the case today.
Even though he’s been out for three months, he just oozed confidence from the off and knew he was going to take this game by the scruff of the neck. You could see it.
And the good (or is it bad?) thing is that it rubbed off on the rest of the team.
This was basically the same side that we’ve seen for weeks, but the effort was massively increased.
We were beating the opposition to every second ball in the middle; something I and many of us have been moaning about for ages.
Why?
It seems we’re definitely a confidence side, to my mind.
So we cantered to a 4-0 lead at half time and then took our foot off the gas to see the result out.
We still threatened, but the intensity wasn’t there, because it frankly wasn’t needed, as even though derby tried to step it up a gear, they still offered nothing.
Grealish was subbed probably earlier than we would have liked, beccause he wasn’t running smoothly. I doubt it’s anything to worry about though and was probably just precautionary.
On the other hand, Elphick’s injury looks a lot more serious.
For a player to just turn and collapse on the spot, is always worrying.
All I could think, was him thinking “that’s my renewed contract blown”.
I think he has another year in him, myself.
Going back to plus points, we kept a clean sheet, scored four and set ourselves up quite nicely for the scum game.
Grealish is the new Gabby, when it comes to the blues games and while he’s not as vocal, hopefully he’ll be showing it with his silky skills.
And I haven’t even mentioned his volley, have I?
What a stormer, that was.
As for Hourihane, fair play lad.
Let’s see more of it, as we know you have it in your locker.
Confidence is key. As I’ve suggested.
I’m not sure what this “press” stuff is about, tbh, Nath.
It’s just a new fangled description of closing the oppostion down, to me, which is what any decent team does.
That said, I saw Mings so high up the pitch at one stage, that I thought he might get a nose-bleed.
pressing is aggressive way to win the ball back, but if you get that wrong or you come across a good team who play the ball fast and accurate, your pressing players will all be out of the game, which is what happened yesterday, villa beat the derby press and we were in against their defenders and they were all running back to goal and not settled in any shape to defend.
teams press villa in championship because we are big dogs, they know if they allow us to build up attacks and give our players time they will lose. so they rough us up and best team in this league at pressing are sheff utd and leeds in my opinions.
Interesting though Badger is that when we played Brentford (last time), the commentators were talking about Brentford pressing hard and throttling our game – saying we needed to ‘beat the press’ by playing over it rather than through it. I think that’s what Nath is saying. Forgetting for a mo the modern football speak what it does suggest – if Nath is right about how teams play Villa – is that Smith is having to adapt his style of play to play against himself – if you get my drift!
Actually it makes a lot of sense if you see Grealish as being the key to playing smart balls past the press – the one to Abraham for the first goal being a classic example. He also allows Hourihane and Whelan to be more fluid in the roles they play – from what little I’ve seen both appeared to be outstanding yesterday.
Where will McGinn fit in? Left back if both Elphick and Chester are out? 🙂
TO NATH
I would rather intercept than play aggressive and risk getting yellow cards and red cards. Think about Derby, they were aggressive and they gave away a lot of free kicks yesterday. Not indicating that the fact they gave free kicks away is the reason why we won however these days players have great power and accuracy to score a free-kick, so we don’t want to risk giving them away.
when i say aggressively i don’t mean illegally it just a expression, meaning to forcefully seek the ball out. putting pressure on the ball. so villa players don”t have the time they need to play comfortably.
pressing is not always the correct tactic, if you commit to a high press and that team beats that press your in danger like derby were constantly, we also mixed up our play hitting decent long balls which also beats the press. we played very intelligently yesterday.
teams will all be wary to press us high now and that will mean more space for us to exploit
Yes Nath you are correct, we can press but not illegally however I would much rather prefer interceptions IF POSSIBLE however it is hard to read the minds of the players (not literally). So the main tactic to get the ball will be how you said but interceptions if possible.