I’d just got home from work on Wednesday and was about to start writing my thoughts about the Brentford game, when I got called back for an emergency.
So I spent an hour driving back, only to find it wasn’t an emergency after all.
The long and short of it is, I got back in the car just as we were kicking off and had to settle for the WM commentary for the first half.
Where we sounded awful. Hause, it seems, was being picked on in “being caught out several times”.
To my mind, there’s no way he should be being started, as I’m going to give him the benefit and say he’s way too rusty and should only come on as a sub for now.
I’m not convinced by Taylor’s “injury” at all and as much as I don’t rate him in the slightest, I’d rather see him in than Hause as it stands.
I still struggle to believe we didn’t get a proper, decent Left back in.
Anyway, I watched the second half and actually thought that while we were still poor, I could see signs that we were actually looking slightly better as the game went on.
We created chances that we should have done better with and massively against the run of play, I thought we might actually nick the points.
It wasn’t to be though and we were still rubbish overall.
I won’t go into it anymore, because it’s gone.
But the result reminded me of what Dean Smith and a few fans were saying in that we had a big week, with Sheffield, Brentford and Albion and three wins would see us right.
I laughed at the time, as I struggled to see us getting much at all.
And I still don’t.
Squad news.
Not much has changed on our part, but Taylor should be available. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, myself.
Chester is definitely out, while Grealish is itching to play, but apparently got knocked back by the doctor.
Albion have Dwight Gayle suspended, but Matt Phillips, Hal Robson-Kanu, James Morrison and Ahmed Hegazi may all be available.
Not that it matters much, as I expect Albion to have far too much for us, whoever they put out.
Things ain’t clicking, we’re not getting any luck, we’re just outright rubbish; call it as you like, just as Lee Hendrie said the other night, we just don’t look like winning and you have to wonder where the next point is coming from.
It’s something I agree with. So much so that I can’t see us getting anything tomorrow either.
Our midfield is far too weak and the wide players aren’t cutting it.
A run of bad form?
It looks a lot more than that to me, but whatever, I’m glad we’ve already got 44 points on the board.
I’m getting close to the stage where I’ll be calling for us to totally change things up and make sweeping changes and just stick anyone in, as they can hardly do much worse and we can’t keep rewarding such poor performance with repeated starts.
But it’s not going to happen, because we’ve loaned our best kids out anyway.
I’d expect a goal when Albion back off at some stage, but I doubt it’ll be enough and think it’ll be a comfortable 2-1 to the Albion.
What surprises me is that I’m sure the bookies have us as favourites.
Comments
89 responses to “Villa – Albion; I’ll be amazed if we get anything from this”
I’m glad I can’t watch it Bill. Don’t know the answers to where we are going. I think we will be near the foot of the table when the season finishes. I hope fans can remain patient because there will be more fans turning against Smith with every defeat.
Half time, its knocked the wind out of Villa, players standing off in tackles, I really thought the way we started we would win, but bad luck with the first goal was the turning point.
Who are the leaders in our team Bill? Mings seems vocal, maybe Hutton and Elphick but no one else really. Johnstone won’t make two errors like Sheffield United keeper I’m afraid. It’s game over already! Just hope it isn’t a thrashing.
Yep – closer to the bottom three than play offs that’s for sure. Bet the scum can’t wait to play us!
Never going to be any good as a team if you consistently ship two goals a game at home.
played good first half and very unlucky to be two nil down. i can accept losing if they play like this. we have no divine right to win games. we showed plenty energy, we attacked well at times, we hunted the ball back also well. good first goal for wba goalie maybe at fault with bad positioning. and second was a horrible deflection.
Problem is Nath Hourihane and Whelan don’t gel, a lot of the game going wrong in the middle of the pitch, we was attacking and had them on the rack untill that headed goal.
S***e refereeing again…..Albion should have had at least 3 booked before one was…..we had no chance of getting in past them – just getting hacked down….anyone would think it was a local derby….just got to tell our players.
People saying Tammy should have scored…..only seen it once and then it was a crap pass…
i thought green and elmo did well, hause also did well with and without ball. i cant say we did a lot wrong first half. we needed to take our chances, be more clinical in fornt of goal.
vp crowd booed at the h/t whistle. who was that aimed at our players ?? or referee ?? the first half performance was not deserving of that.
steer on for second half. goalie injured in first half rough challenge which was not punished by ref
We don’t seem to be getting the ‘rub of the green’ lately.
Can Smith get them up for the second half? This is now more about playing for pride than a result.
Although Albion do concede goals – we can’t keep coming back from the dead – even Lazarus only managed it once 🙂
Steer on change of goalkeepers
Excluding today’s game we have played 11 games since Grealish got injured, so was curious to see where we would be based on form guide. Answer 17th! The good news is that we wouldn’t be relegated based on this. 🤔
Hause playing well, but we just cannot give Abraham the service, Green playing well need to change and we are Ramsey on Hourlihane off.
What was the reaction from the fans when Hourihane went off Bill?
it was pathetic they cheered very classy NOT
Is that ridiculous ’12th man’ sign still on the Holte End? Would someone please take it down if it is? The VP crowd has been pathetic for years now. Shite support. There is NO 12th man. Minus one, mabe.
No wonder everyone enjoys their visit to B6. Need to weed out these idiots who poison the atmosphere and the club. Yes, we’re shit. But how does booing help? Maybe if they made the OPPOSITION shit their pants, like most top clubs in Europe do, instead of their own players, then we’d have a chance of building something. Sick of these knob heads.
Well its that noisy there was cheers another change Green off Kodjia on
Ramsey 17 years of age, getting stuck in, that Hause is playing well he’s stopping every thing on his side of the pitch,
Can someone define a winger / wing play…if yes get down to VP and tell someone ’cause they have no idea….
BBC – “Sheffield United’s Scott Hogan is denied a goal on his debut by Reading goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez.”
No change there then…
The crowds leaving – soon be time to score…
Well we all know its over, we just have to wait till the new season comes,
Well at least it was only 0-2. Agree with you Bill the season’s more or less over and, being honest, would you really want us to squeak through promotion with this squad?
Hope that Smith plays more of the young players but perhaps he’s already started with Green and Ramsey.
Keep the faith and bring on next season.
yeah new season can not come quick enough. hope smith will start to blood the youngsters and hopefully the crowd will stay onside, not make it impossible to blood them. ramsey had a good 20 minutes to adapt,
didn’t like the way fans cheered the substitution hopefully it was cheering for ramsey not because it was hourihane being subbed
first half good / second half not so good 🙁
Never mind, we just have to fight from relegation,
No McGinn for next 2 games. Our midfield will be even more lightweight. Wish there was something positive to talk about.
I’ve not been a fan of throwing kids in unless it improves us and or them – knee jerk reaction decisions rarely ever work.
Having said that, I would like to see Smith do something different – we are not going to make the play offs so noes the time to look at some of the younger guys.
Nice to see Ramsy getting 30 minutes and Green starting.
Hitch, they played well, I’ve always said today if your a footballer then show your skills, that Ramsey 17 didn’t fear anyone.
Did Smith play the same formation at Brentford? Regardless of whether he did or didn’t, we desperately need a plan B because every team we are coming up against has figured us out. There’s no point in swapping players around because none of them are good enough to improve us. Every combination has now been tried and failed so why not try a 4-4-2 for a while? Results can’t get much worse. At least Steer kept a clean sheet so undoubtedly he will be dropped for that. At the moment I can’t see us winning another game. Unfortunately we have already played Ipswich at home and scraped the win!
we didn’t lose that game because the formation / system or style or play, we lost the game cause albion scored two late first half goals. first one was a good flicked headed near post and maybe the goalie was at fault or maybe it was just a good instinctive goal. second one was the killer i think bill mentioned at the time. that goal knock the crap out of us,
first half we did play decent without scoring and we had some real good opportunities. second half we was flat, slower paced play, albion settled back deeper and we couldnt manage to open them up often enough to cause them panic. its nothing to do with formation we could have thrown more caution to the game, we didn’t probably cause the fear of albion picking us off more