Bloody typical isn’t it?
The missus and myself left the game early, because we were frankly near frozen after being away for a couple of weeks.
We were just walking past the Holte when we heard the roar and someone said Mings had scored.
We’d just got past the Aston Social where someone said Abraham scored.
And then the daughter called me to say Green had scored for 3-3.
Cue me kicking myself for doing something I’ve hardly ever done, in leaving early.
Not that I’m overly bothered.
Okay, we’ve shown massive resilience in coming back from 3-0 down, but make no mistake about it, this team is utter, utter rubbish and I found myself wondering how people bother paying good money in the cold to watch this stuff.
Well, maybe I might have been willing to watch a three goal comeback, but it really shouldn’t be like this.
For as much of the game that I saw, I commented that when Alan Hutton looks our biggest threat, you just know there’s something majorly wrong.
I’m sure I’ve said that previously, a few times.
We’d offered absolutely nothing and I bet their goalie’s hands were as cold as mine.
Kodjia was awful, as was our whole midfield.
Even McGinn couldn’t show his usual effort.
What worries me is that we show no desire whatsoever and were second best to the ball nearly all the time.
I’m sure Abraham must wonder what he’s doing at the Villa at times, as he had no service whatsoever and looked disinterested to me.
The referee was abysmal too.
He must have given Sheffield fifteen frees compared to our one or two, yet it was never that sort of a game.
No doubt the talk will be about how we pulled a draw from the jaws of defeat.
But what I saw just simply isn’t good enough and our defence still looks poor, as much as I thought Mings did okay.
The worrying part is, I don’t really see what Smith can do about it.
Promotion?
You’re having a laugh.
I can’t see me rushing to watch another game down the Villa.
At least not until I get used to the weather again.
We weren’t as bad as everyone is making out. We were the better team for good portions of the game and really should not have conceded 3.
We were very poor at times though. Jedi kept giving the ball away, but I’m going to cut him some slack as it’s his first game back.
It might be coincidence but when the crowd (those still there) got behind the team for a corner the come back bagan. We stayed behind them and they scored 2 more.
I’m not blaming the fans or excusing some poor performances but if we can make a difference it’s by not getting on players backs and being loud and positive.
It may not make much difference but it is certainly better than the alternative
Sid, you must have watched a different game to me, as the concensus from both sides is that we were outplayed for the first 80 mins, although, tbf, I do remember one 5 minute spell where we knocked it around quite nicely.
It’s all about opinions though 🙂
Yes, it’s a good point about the crowd.
We had a bit of a sing, but the North stand isn’t really conducive to it, which is why I’m not keen.
But the Holte end was incredibly quiet, although I never heard any rumblings of discontent. I actually thought the fans were very patient and it was just a more “resigned to losing” atmosphere.
The Utd fans were excellent, but it’s so much easier when your team’s playing well, I suppose.
Badger, I’m a glass half full kind of guy so not the reliable witness however we actually started better, albeit only for 3 or 4 minutes then we’re very poor but had a patch in the first half and then I thought we played better for much of the 2nd half despite the 2 goals.
I’ve given him stick in the past but Whelan came on and made a real difference.
I thought Mings was very good
Green had a mare until his goal but again coming back so some slack and score a goal and all is forgiven
Full backs all at sea although Hutton decent going forward
I watched the extended highlights and it made us look like we bossed the game but I know we didn’t having watched it live
There was some dissent in the Holte. It was ok atmosphere to start with but after the goals we were very quiet until the corner for the goal and then it was buzzing until the end. A bit of booing at half time and some cheers and clapping when Jedi got subbed which I think is bad but if you pay your money it’s up to you what you want to shout.
I’m hoping this is a turning point, whatever anyone says, the endeavour and purpose for the last 20 minutes or so was great and a bit more of that with a returning Grealish and who knows?
Interesting.
We aren’t far off in our assessments really.
Agreed, Whelan looked good from what I saw, but only because Jedianak was so poor.
Yep, Mings looks very decent.
I thought Green was poor too.
And Hutton was our biggest threat (!)
But to me, it’s not so much about individuals. We just don’t look like a team that knows how each other plays and that’s what concerns me.
Plus we can’t do the basics.
I hope it’s a turning point too, as after all it was against a very decent organised side.
i agree about the team part. we just don’t look like a team compared to a good championship team like sheff utd. they controlled us for a 82 minutes and they still managed to only draw.
if we could just improve slightly when teams press us. we just can not handle a good press. i don’t understand why we cave in and freeze up. it happened under bruce plenty times as well.
listening to sheff manager he gave a good interview on the game. he admits we have good players and we took advantage of their mistakes. he explains their plan and how we couldnt get round them, this is the reason we were shit but its still a worry how we cant handle a team aggressively pressing us. its my opinion we got more control as they thought the game was won and slacked off pressing.
Nath, that’s not the Wilder interview I read.
He basically said they battered us for 80 minutes and then they made mistakes.
We couldn’t get round them, over them, under them or whatever.
In other words, a polite way of saying they pissed it and totally f*cked it up in the last few minutes.
no he means they stopped a very good team from hurting them for 86 minutes. then they made mistakes and that they were punished by them very good players. the way we started, the way we set up we made good players boot it out of play. they couldn’t get around, through us or over us.we played with a belief.
then the important part / we got up to there fullbacks ( that is football talk to pin um back) we got up the pitch, we were brave in our shape, brave in possession and out. (then he says they didn’t have the answers), thats good manager and players to what we did.how we set up.how we played.
wilder isn’t just saying we battered um, he is saying how they stopped villa from even competing. that is what i have said loads of times. some teams get pressed and pressured they either pass through it or most simply go over it passed the press. we fold and simply misplace passes kick for touch. the equivalent in boxing is when bruno used to get caught and stand there dazed.
why can villa players never work out other teams tactics, we beat teams that surrender space and ground to us and allow us to have the ball unchallenged. but soon as they get in our faces and make it a battle all over the pitch we generally fold like a deck of cards. i think its just down to being a team. we are united fully as a team, we have individuals that are not working for the team but themselves, maybe its cause most know its just this season and they are off
I think we’re missing the point, in that we don’t look like we can put one win together, let alone 5 or 6!
We’ve only beaten Ipswich in how many games?
And that was almost equally as awful, imo.
Oh, we now have the second worst defence in the division, by the way.
I believe Grealish has been pencilled in for the Stoke game and I don’t think we can expect miracles from him straight away. Hence we’re running out of games.
Whatever, assuming we don’t get promoted the question then has to be, given that we might lose Abraham and possibly Grealish, combined with all the other loaners and out of contract players, will Smith be able to quickly get us going next season?
He is going to have a massive rebuilding job.
Here’s a list of players that are out of contract in the summer;
Abraham, El Ghazi, Mings, Jedinak, Elphick, Tuanzebe, Hutton, Whelan, Richards, Hause, Green, Steer, Lyden, Bunn and maybe Grealish too.
So that’s at least 8/9 regular players.
It’s nice to see so much positivity, but I’m not feeling it at the moment, I’m afraid.
As much as I like/rate Smith, he isn’t a miracle worker.
I think you nailed the problem with this season Badger, the fact we are unable to string a few wins together. The only thing we are consistently good at is drawing games and conceding far too many goals. I thought Smiths post match comments were unlike his previous refreshing and honest interviews and bordered on denial if he thought we were good other than the last 10 minutes. Maybe it was to protect the players morale and confidence levels! Abraham has kept our season going almost single handed and when Grealish does come back we have to allow him a few games to get up to speed. I don’t know what kind of clauses are in Grealish’s contract but I would assume it would allow him to leave if a premier club comes knocking and offer whatever the release fee is. Who would you hang onto from players with contracts expiring in the summer? Green definitely and maybe Elphick for me. I would love Abraham, Tuanzebe and Grealish to be Villa players next season but we will have to get promoted for that to happen.
Exactly Holte.
Smith is publicly in denial, because he can’t say we’re crap.
Without Abraham, we’re relegation material.
And this is my point.
Take out the players you want to keep and we are utter crap.
We will be in major trouble next season and as much as sacking Bruce was the right decision, he did have major pulling power, via his contacts, in getting top notch loans in.
We are not going to have that option next season.
With players like Whelan, Jedinak, Richards and Hutton off the books at the end of the season, then we will save a fortune in wages so even with FFP we will have a chance of some decent signings. I agree Bruce probably had more pulling power as a manager but surely the biggest attraction for any player is the club and the size of it especially in the championship. We won’t be going up this season simply because we can’t put a decent run together. We would need to win 5-6 on the bounce to break into top 6 and we just aren’t good enough to do that.
Although Hutton did take a significant cut in wages as part of his additional year’s contract – fair play to him.
Copied the following from MOMS; thoughtful and balanced view of Dean Smith the manager?
It’s now one win in his last 11 league games for Dean Smith, and that was an unconvincing win against bottom of the table Ipswich. It’s certainly not a good look and he’s evidently failed to address the weakness of Villa’s defending as a unit.
It’s hard to buy this social media narrative of some fans who are quick to make excuses for the Villa fan. Apparently, (all of a sudden) Villa’s current players are cr*p and we’re nothing without Grealish.
If you are to believe Smith’s appraisal of Grealish as “the best player in the division”, the good news is, no other team has a Grealish. Also, most other teams don’t have the talent that Villa actually do have in their squad.
The same fans would be hard pressed to pick one Sheffield United player to get into the Villa first XI too (almost all would have Tammy Abraham over Billy Sharp).
There is certainly enough decent players in the Villa squad to manage into a Championship play-off team.
So what’s up with the players? Who seemed to have regressed since the impressive 3-0 away wins at Derby and Boro.
Do they not buy into their former Brentford boss, now? In the same way that Villa’s decorated early 1980’s players were less than impressed suddenly being managed by ex-Shrewsbury Town boss Graham Turner?
The Blades were only recently promoted to the Championship too, but are fantastically organised both in defence and attack by their boss Chris Wilder. They only conceded against Villa due to some poor individual errors.
Smith has never been convincing with the defensive part of his game as a manager. As MOMS pointed out when he was appointed, he’s never finished higher than 9th in the league with either Walsall or Brentford.
It’s been argued he never had the resources, but did Chris Wilder have such resources when he got Oxford United promoted from the Conference to the Football League? Or when he won the League Two title with Northampton? Or, when he won the League One title with the Blades?
He has quickly developed a proven winning pedigree as a manager, Dean Smith does not at the moment, and this is fast becoming a concern.
His attacking football ideology is nice, but Smith, on the evidence so far, has shown that his teams only win when they play very well. If they are not on song, then tactically they are left too open and vulnerable to ever win a game by playing poorly.
As we all know, in football, teams are successful, because on their off days, they know how to win ugly too.
Improvement is needed from Smith before any doubts in him begin to grow.,
Last sentence is probably reflective of mutterings in some quarters!
See, we do actually listen Ted 🙂
Badger
You mentioned Bruces’s pulling power. Let’s be fare he has managed virtually 1 in 9’of the English top four division clubs.
1998–1999
Sheffield United
1999–2000
Huddersfield Town
2001
Wigan Athletic
2001
Crystal Palace
2001–2007
Birmingham City
2007–2009
Wigan Athletic
2009–2011
Sunderland
2012–2016
Hull City
2016–2018
Aston Villa
2019–
Sheffield Wednesday
I would expect he does have contacts but that does not overcome his failure at all clubs.
With the movement to directors of football individual managers have less pull. I reckon this is supported by a typical manager lasts less than 2 years and a typical player contract being 3 / 4 years. Thus the DOF will have the biggest say on incomings. Bruce’s methods are the way of dinosaurs and they became extinct.
It would be more Smith as ying to Purslow and co, we need a new centre half and they have a list of appropriate players who they go out and try to secure one from.
The biggest pull would be the club. Villa’s name has that pulling power. Many up and coming players would see us as a good stepping stone. Plus with new wealthy backers, great infrastructure, this will help them to believe it is only a question of time before we go back to the premiership.
I’m astonished after all the stick I got, saying perspective and questioning Dean Smith I read the above now apparently agreeing.
The article from MOMS is proportionate and constructive.
One win in eleven games, no improvement in January just because he allegedly supported Villa he is defended.
Smith is not good enough, press conferences he laughs, and thinks his record is acceptable, is he joking? Why are fans not challenging him? The press are.
Ted, why are you astonished?
You’re probably part of about 1% of Villa fans who currently want Smith out.
The other 99% know we’re rubbish, but are willing to give him a chance.
Jeez, he’s only been here for five minutes!
What would you do, keep hiring new managers and sack them if they don’t win say, 90% of their games?
That said, us footy fans are an impatient lot and discontent will grow if Smith can’t turn things around.
Don’t worry, you’ll get your way eventually. It’s only a matter of time for any manager.
If Ted had been a Man Ure fan then Fergie would have gotten the boot well before he managed to perform the miracles he did.
Have a little patience FFS
Ted, the difference between the MOMS article and your posts is that the article asks a number of legitimate questions without concluding that Smith is ‘not good enough’.
You allege that fans are not questioning him ‘because he is a Villa fan’ – not true as the MOMS article makes clear, as does the majority of posts on this site.
As Badger points out – to call for his head after 4 months is lunacy.
RIP Ian Ross 🙁
RIP Ian.
For all them that didn’t know Ian,
A utility player, Ross’s debut was for Liverpool on 14 January 1967 at Sheffield Wednesday in the First Division. He then moved to Aston Villa for £60,000 in February 1972, where captained their side that gained promotion to the top flight and also won the League Cup.
After falling out of favour at Villa, he had spells on loan at Notts County and Northampton Town before joining Peterborough United in December 1976. Here, he amassed over 100 appearances during two-and-a-half seasons, in which he also served the club in a coaching role.
He joined First Division Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1979 primarily as a coach, following his former Peterborough manager John Barnwell. He remained a registered player but never played a first team game for the club. He stepped in as caretaker manager after Barnwell’s eventual sacking in January 1982, taking charge of five games, losing all. Ross left the club soon after, joining Hereford United in a similar role, though here he did make 15 first team appearances during the 1982–83 season.
He moved to Iceland to manage Valur, KR and later Keflavík before returning to the UK and later took up the reins at Huddersfield Town in 1992–93. He subsequently managed Berwick Rangers in 1996
From Wikipedia. .
Remember him well at Villa, Bill but wasn’t aware that he went into management.
RIP Ian Ross
Very sad news about Ian Ross. I was 8 years old when i went to my first game in 1975 to watch Villa beat Sunderland 2-0, and Ian scored from penalty spot. RIP Ian.
See that Callum O’Hare got MOM for Carlisle at the weekend.
I think he has a big role to play for Villa next season and the experience at Carlisle will help him enormously as did JG’s loan period with Notts County.
That might be just as well if JG leaves as suspected.
Badger – if JG is to be sold in the summer (assuming we don’t get promotion that is 🙂 ) then we must settle the deal early in the window so as to allow us time to sensibly reinvest the funds. I fear a last day deal and us haring around buying the wrong players
O’Hare has the ability to be our next playmaker and this loan spell will harden him in the way U23’s doesn’t. I can’t see Grealish being at Villa next season because he will have definitely been told last summer that he can go if we fail to get promoted, otherwise he wouldn’t have signed an extended contract. I would expect a £25 million clause based on talk last summer. More importantly is that Smith builds a team that isn’t so reliant on Grealish. Hourihane, Bjarnasson and Lansbury all have failed up till now. McGinn is top drawer but a different type of player. Whelan and Jedinak are both past their prime and I will be shocked if they are offered new contracts. Fact is that we can’t replace him like for like while we are in the championship, so Smith needs to act quickly as Hitch says to enable us to have a decent pre season
Actually, I’m not 100% convinced Grealish will leave in the summer.
It would make sense, but I’m not convinced he would want to leave, in his heart of hearts.
It all comes down to money and while he might want to go to a club seriously challenging, you never know.
If we can match the money offered (a big ask, but we’d seriously push the boat out for him, as there’s nothing better than “one of our own” for the fans) he might just stay.
Better a legend at the Villa than a failure at a top club, I’d suggest.
Yes, I think there’s a £25 mill resale clause.
6 players at around £4 mill.
You’d think that would be enough for Smith, plus any money we can get for the garbage players.
I just dont understand why a 20 year old footballer never get a run out at Villa, yesterday on the box a young player on the wing ran the feet off a defender and got praised from the commentator. We just go along with players that know they will not be playing come next season and just go through the motion. Just gets me wondering.
It’s because they’ve been deemed as not good enough by more than one manager Bill.
Simple as.
My belief is they’re just not man/experienced enough yet and that’s why they’ve been farmed out.
A canny 30 yo will rip a raving fit 20 yo to pieces on average, in my experience of everyday life.
It takes something pretty exceptional to break that rule and I’m not yet convinced O’Hare has it.
He’s bloody small and similar to Grealish, who, let’s face it, was poor for a good while and took a long time to learn the ropes, as much as we can see the skill.
And Badger – Grealish’s real improvement came when he bulked up physically. For all the skill a footballer has, in the modern game they must be able to meet the physical demands it imposes.
Half a season with Carlisle will,hopefully, help O’Hare in this respect.
Oh yes.
A great decision to send them all out, imo.
Although some might say Gabby’s bulking up against the advice of MON was what ruined him.
Different player though and his pace was all he had, imo.
Whatever, all our kids out on loan will live or die by the sword of playing proper games.
It’s been crazy how they’ve been molly-coddled so much over the years.
If we get a couple who prove to actually be able to play the real game, then I see the point of the academy.
It’s why I’ve slated it so much for ages.
Sadly, Gabby wasn’t blessed with a range of football skills, so, as you say, speed was his greatest asset. Modern sprinters are pretty muscular but it’s important to strengthen the right ones! I suspect that’s where Gabby went wrong 🙂
Ha, one of my own replies got put into moderation 🙂
Shows it’s nothing personal, I suppose.