Thank God it’s back to proper footy and I can’t wait for this one, although I am nervous about it.
I don’t know what it is, but suspect it’s simply down to the fact that many other fans have missed Villa Park as a venue, but there seems to have been a lot of love for the grand old stadium in the papers over the last couple of days.
Phil Neville says it’s his favourite away ground anywhere and others, including one of the West Ham players, have talked about the atmosphere and the fans.
Which is surprising if you consider many of us fans have complained about the lack of atmosphere over the last few years, but totally justified if there’s some entertaining footy on display.
Quite simply, play decent footy and the support is awesome.
And the fans will turn up too.
I was wondering yesterday,what sort of crowd we might get tonight, given that the game is on Sky. So I had a mooch on the ticket selector on the OS to check availability.
It’s a total sellout from what I could see, apart from a solitary seat in A8.
Impressive, but imagine if we were doing really well in the league. You can see why our owners want to increase capacity and I’ve no doubt we will if we continue to progress.
Which brings us to tonight’s game, where while I’m nowhere near worrying just yet, it would be nice to pick up the points.
Squad news first and from what I’m seeing Trezuguet is of course suspended after his double yellow last time out.
Kodjia has had surgery to repair a fractured cheekbone and will be out for three weeks, which is incredibly bad luck, given his previous injury just beforehand or stinks to high heaven. Take your choice.
Chester isn’t ready, but Matt Targett might be available.
As for West Ham, they are in pretty good shape apart from Michail Antonio (hamstring) and Winston Reid (knee).
I can’t say I’ve seen much of West Ham, but the main point for me is that if they win tonight, they will go second. Of course it’s very early days and it doesn’t mean much.
But it’s a good indicator of how they’ve started the season.
Whereas we’ve done ok, but just haven’t got the points our game has justified overall.
Which for me is all that the Premier league is about. It’s even more important to get results now than it was last season, as daft as that might sound.
After all, we’ve often seen examples of teams that “are too good to go down”, yet they still have.
My point is, that playing well on it’s own, isn’t good enough.
You need something extra; some sort of edge that just digs out the win.
So what does that leave me thinking about tonight?
Dean Smith will retain his 4-3-3 and will probably bring El Ghazi back in for Trezuguet. I don’t see much else changing, as we all know the team needs more time to gel.
I just wonder if we’ll have enough to get the points?
I’m going for a 1-0 win, but the truth is it’s coming from the heart.
West Ham are a fairly well established mid-table side now, after all and my usual “expect the worst and anything else is a bonus” thinking applies.
Pathetic sending off. We need to take advantage though.
Jota off for Elmo.
Hmm, is that the positive attacking approach Smith keeps talking about?
Jota has done nothing though, in fairness.
Masuako off for a second yellow.
That’s a nothing challenge and means they’ll probably win now.
“Mike Dean, it’s all about you”
Who’s singing that?
Probably Wet Spam, but they’re right.
My god, we’re shit, as is usual when the oppo go down to 10.
How many times can you give the ball away and not get punished?
My thoughts entirely Badger
Luiz on for Nakamba.
Fresh legs, that’s all.
We are poor. It’s looking like long season ahead.
Why not get Davis on and go for it?
The midfield have not shown tonight, for me.
Davis on for Guilbert, who’s actually been one of our better players.
Yep, that’s what’s needed, imo.
That was garbage
And that’s it.
A dogshit performance, that gets us a point.
I’ll take it.
I said I’d take a point but I’m disappointed we didn’t show more after we got a man advantage. The players are going to have to learn very quickly to find the improvement we’ll need.
On the other hand we are out of the bottom three – for now!
Scoring goals or lack of them is what’s going to tell against us. Three of the four teams at the bottom with the lowest goals scored – that’s just 4.
I thought Wesley was poor tonight – particularly his hold up play – and McGinn, again probably our best player.
It’s almost always the case that the worst scorers end up at the bottom. Where are our goals coming from? We lack any kind of positive intent. So much for they score 2 we score 3.
The lack of an alternative to Wesley is a big issue.
I would have been satisfied with a point before kick off but now feel we have dropped 2 points. Wesley was useless today and Grealish couldn’t pass for toffee tonight. Heaton hardly had anything to do. Substitutions were a bit negative for my liking too. 17th place then and I would take that come end of season.
It’s a point. Yes we wanted more, but fluffed our chances. Yet again we just can’t make it count against ten men.
I know Jota had a good pre-season and set up Weasley against Everton, but he does look light weight. Consistently gave the ball away. Not sure one good ball per match cuts it! Jota, El Ghazi and Trezeguet need to step up to the challenge.
I thought Marvellous had a good debut and shows promise.
But we do need to have more than Grealish being the person all attacks are played through.
Hey ho, out the bottom 3.
i thought that Marvelous was our best player (after a shaky start). Too many lightweight players in the team. If we can’t play well we need battlers. Hopefully we will improve but we really need to.
It’s hard to disagree with anyone’s comments.
For me, it’s tactics.
Sorry for being blunt, but we fuck about far too much and need to get it forward much quicker.
Wesley will never get a look in if we keep going wide, while pissing about in the middle.
It frankly pisses me off that we have the likes of Grealish and McGinn, who can play quickly, but never get Wesley on the ball.
Both were wasted tonight, against what looked like a toothless West Ham side.
Smith needs to look at things again and adapt quickly, imo.
You heard it here first, remember.
Marvelous? Its a hard name to live up to but he didn’t – but he wasn’t bad ancould grow into a key player.
I have now seen enough of Jota to know he can’t cut it in the top half of the premiership. A pity because against the likes of Crewe he was unplayable, but needing greater physical strength or speed in the EPL – he has neither. Lansbury or Hourihane needed. Wesley too is being shown as a poor shooter, and his place might be under theat from an improving Davis. You can’t spend a fortune in one go on changing half the team without finding someof your buys are duds.
my MoM was Fabianski.
West Ham have a decent side dont take that away from them, put all the chances together it was our’s to win . I’m happy with a point we could have had two pens but it didn’t happen, we do have the making of a good team just give it time.
I know it’s too late but anyone wish we took a chance on Sturridge? I was conviced we should’ve gone for him. PL goal-machine and natural finisher when fit. Even if we could have him come on for last half hour, it would make a difference. Big mistake imo. Having a transfer policy is fine, but exception should always be made when the policy becomes a hindrance to what is needed in the squad!
convinced
At the start of the transfer window I would have stayed well clear of Sturridge TBH. However when the window closed and our attacking options were limited, I agree that for a free agent, he would have been worth a punt on a short term deal.
After last nights performance, I think defensively we are looking good. For me however, the front three offer very little and it looks like McGinn is the only goal threat. Other than a switch in formation as you suggested BFR, I haven’t got much of a clue to the answer in solving this issue.