Well, it wasn’t the drubbing many of us expected score-wise, but it certainly was in terms of performance.
It all started poorly when Nathan Baker suffered a hamstring problem during the warm up, which amazes me in itself.
Surely the players should be well versed in this? Or is it just that the legs have been over-exercised?
Anyway it concerned me, as he’s been a consistently decent performer this season. It turned out to be a valid concern, as Elphick looked intermittent in sometimes being very good and at others decidedly iffy.
Not that I’m singling out Elphick as our worst player.
We had plenty of those.
Let’s go through the team.
Johnstone, who I thought was great last week, parried the ball when I thought he could have done better and it cost us the goal. That apart, I don’t recall him having much else to do.
Hutton. Yesterday evening I thought he was man of the match.
I still think that, because of his running and effort in at least trying to do something.
I’ve generally been supportive of him in his time at the club, but as much as he tried to take us forward, so I’ve had to realise that he simply isn’t good enough. He gets into the right sort of positions, but his delivery is mostly horrendous.
Amavi. I thought he was awful, as simple as that. But then, I don’t think he was being helped much as Wolves concentrated on our left side. One great run and cross apart, it was another night to forget.
Chester. He’s one of the only ones who come out with any credit. He’s assured and I feel at least slightly confident when he gets involved.
Bacuna. Another poor game where he was pretty well invisible. It seemed to me that he was under specific instruction to punt the ball forward, but it was pointless as he was hardly ever accurate.
Tsibola. Not one of his better games, but probably the best in the middle last night. He’s athletic and definitely better than Westwood and Gardner. Why he was hooked, I don’t quite understand.
Jedinak. I don’t think he’s fit at all. He’s a clever enough player, but he seems laboured and his distribution leaves a bit to be desired.
Adomah. Just a poor game again and didn’t get involved enough.
Gabby is simply a busted flush. His ball control is horrendous. I’m talking 10-year-old kid level here and it’s shocking that Bruce sees something in him. Him starting simply has to stop, as it’s obvious it’s going to achieve nothing. I don’t see any of the options being any better in a struggling side, but I now think we might as well try them, as at least they’ll be learning. Gabby will never learn anything, that much is certain.
McCormack. The return we’ve had off him for a player that cost £12 million is a joke. Ok, he was leaning back when he headed that chance, but it was a brilliant cross from Amavi and he simply should have buried it.
He has a history of getting better in the second half of the season, but I’m not seeing much sign of it coming.
But then, even as it’s very easy to just blame the strikers, we just don’t create anything, meaning they just don’t get enough service.
And this is what’s puzzling me.
If I was asked to name a side for that game, it’s probably not far from that which started. I’d possibly have put Green in for Gabby, but apart from that I think it’s simply our best overall side.
Okay, we can argue about the odd player, but mostly, it’s our best side, as I’m sure the majority would agree.
But on that performance and that of quite a few games now, it frankly isn’t good enough, as Bruce said himself.
It’s shocking that when we spent £50 million in the summer we still can’t do simple things such as passing or controlling the ball. We have no desire or running and the times a Villa player had the ball, only to have no-one else near him, well I just can’t understand it. Why are our set pieces generally awful and rarely find a Villa player?
Pretty much all of the signings in the summer were lauded as decent players. So why do they seem so poor?
And where do we go from here?
Tony Xia must be thinking “I paid how much for that rubbish?” and I wouldn’t blame him in the slightest.
We should remember that this is the Championship and not the Premier league.
It can hardly inspire our owner to stick his hands in his pockets again, as he must be thinking he’s been robbed.
But that’s what he’s going to have to do and quick. I really struggle to see where any points are going to come from while Kodjia is away and we simply cannot expect anything with the team as it stands.
We’ve mostly been talking 3-4 players, but it’s becoming even more obvious that a total clearout, a small few apart is what’s required.
Having said that, it seems to me that there’s still something very wrong at club.
We sign decent enough players, but when they come to the Villa, they just don’t perform. Gueye is the classic example of this and how often has it been said that if x player were in a better side, they’d look a lot better?
We seem to have a knack of making decent players look poor and it’s concerning.
Where will we be left if Bruce, not everyone’s cup of tea, but definitely experienced and proven splashes the cash and we still don’t improve?
if Bruce can’t get it right, I really fear for us in the future.
Comments
284 responses to “Wolves 1 – 0 Villa: What to do?”
Reading the comments and given the lack of movement on the transfer front the only thing that springs to mind is our “one the usual suspect” managers is trying to get on board some of the “usual suspect players”.
How very, very dull.
Let’s look at a few of Eddie Howe’s signings for Bournemouth down the years
Joshua King (Free)
Steve Cook (150k)
Artur Boruc (Free)
Charlie Daniels (191k)
I could go on with this but my point is not every player has to cost a king’s ransom so come Mr Bruce put the Doc’s chequebook down, use a bit of imagination, get out there and do your job and find some talent!
We’ve tried it and failed everytime BWS.
The mail have run an article on our last 28 signings and some of them are shocking.
Have we completed a revamp of our scouting system yet?
I bloody hope so.
Vlaar, Benteke and Lowton all bought on a budget weren’t too shabby as opposed to the big money signings of Ireland (worse player I’ve ever seen don the claret & B blue) and Hutton (a close second).
Look at teams like Wednesday and Brighton both tidy outfits neither of which have spent a fortune.
Badger trying to spend your way out of this league is (imo) a recipe for disaster.
Don’t mention that V word on this site 😓
bws
at least some knows a bit about football
All we ever hear is Villa are in fir this player, that player etc but nothing ever gets done! Meantime the gap of 10 points will widen even more
Yes, I’ve read that.
Spink makes a good point about Xia going quiet.
I suspect we’ve run into more difficulties than we realised.
Guaranteed Dr Tony won’t be spending 54 mil every season whilst stuck in the championship, possibly he thought that amount would get villa back up where the pot of gold lies. Serious reality check needed I think those purse strings are slowly tightening
Whilst I think Dr Tony has good intentions, he hasnt helped himself. Coming in and making those comments about being the “biggest club in China in 5 years” was so naive and something he will regret going forward.
Remember we get the parachute money for 3 years, after that we’re in trouble therefore we have to get out of this division sooner rather than later otherwise we risk being stuck like Forest and Leeds have been for well over a decade now.
Seriously looking as if we have to sell to buy – whether FFP or no new funds is anybody’s guess. I suspect a mixture of the two.
Bids for Houlihane and Lansbury are not really excessive by todays standards – that’s if we can actually get them on board and it sounds like Bruce is not going to pay £10m for Rhodes – good – way overpriced although we made a rod for our own back paying so much for McCormack and Kodjia. No chance we’ll get Brady, Snodgrass or Livermore – silly links.
I hope Dr. T’s gone quiet because he’s working his socks off trying to get some new players in.
Looks like I was right then all those going out on loan is to save money, and nobody wants what we have to offer, Xia lied to us then , few weeks ago stating 4 or 5 coming in, Badger I think your right, he doesnt have the money or his backers are calling the tune on what he spends.
I hope this isn’t Groundhog Day
I seriously doubt Bruce doesn’t have money to spend.
Agree about Rhodes though, way too much.
I was wondering if it’s down to squad size, but having checked I reckon we have 23 players over 21 (including Lyden who’s 21 on the 30th).
If it’s still a 25 player limit, we could bring 2 in without having to get rid first.
Sky sports saying Chelsea have asked about Traore.
Strange, as he won’t be able to play for them this season (You can have 3 clubs in a season, but only play for 2 and he played for us against Rotherham).
It is annoying that nothing has happened as yet there is a lot of bull in the media about transfers .Bruce did say that he wouldn’t take anyone in unless they improved the side. In my opinion there lies our problem trying to attract players to a mid table championship team.
As for the Doc, he should keep his mouth closed about transfers until their in the door.
We still have until the end of the month before the window closes. Strengthen for next season in the championship .
Dave – see Dr. T on twitter asking for patience which us fair enough. He makes an interesting point about clubs holding into players as long as possible in the (January) window therefore denying them playing time with the buying club. That may well be true in deals between clubs in the same league.
Cheers H60 there must be some transfers in the pipeline when the Doc saying be patient.
Fair point Hitch.
As a slight aside, I’ve just been nosing through the Twitter settings to see if I can work out why we never see any replies on the site.
We were following Xia, but it seems he’s blocked us 🙁
Not optimistic enough, I assume.
He doesn’t want to here the truth lol.
Possibly Dave.
But I actually find that quite worrying.
When you’re in charge you should be willing to listen to both sides, imo.
That said, perhaps it’s just one of those things.
He still follows another Villa site that has been extremely critical, of late.
From TX’s twitter account…
We must have faith in the masses and we must have faith in the Party. These are two cardinal principles. If we doubt these principles, we shall accomplish nothing.
Mao Tse Tung
Yes Doc faith is a wonderful thing but I’d prefer 2 midfielders and a right back.
He that laughs last laughs longest Bill Pearson.
He who is longest laughs loudest!
When we got Ipswich they look absolute shite there’s 3 points
Agreed.
And fair play to Lincoln, they were the better side.
There was a good shot of McCarthy just looking and nodding, as if to say they deserved it.
Fair play to him, if that’s what he was thinking.
Mate is an Ipswich fan – from what he’s said to me then he agrees with you Giddy. Wants McCarthy gone for sure.
i bet the troubles at ipswich are alot deeper than just mick mccarthy. i know he hasnt been able to bring in any players. his team has lots of inexperienced players lately. i reckon division 1 is close for them. championship is a league with some good teams and teams on the up. ipswich are not one of them. sacking him will be a blessing for him and i doubt would change anything for the club.
i am gonna do my mystic nath. i see a player arriving at villa today to sign. its a little foggy so i cant make his face lol
i agree with what hitch was saying about teams hold on to their players. they want the buying team to get more desperate. or player in fact they can increase their wages by leaving it to last minute. sad to have a months window and nothing happens until last day hour second. why dont they shorten the window to a week.
if your gonna do business a week is ample time,
Mystic Nath – when the fog clears any chance of this week’s lottery winning numbers 🙂
Funny that Nath ,I’ve just looked into my balls and seen that same thing, Rhoads, a striker, And I seen that Langbury going to play for Nottingham in their next match. Erm funny old game football.
Is that a ‘get on with it Villa’ message or have Forest offered him a new bumper contract? This window is messing with my head!
No point in getting Rhodes in my opinion. Kodjia be back soon just get the midfield in a as soon as possible! Maybe we will send Mcormack actually given a chance to shine.
Bamford signs for Boro today good chance Rhodes is leaving.
Hitch he’s coming to Villa, but the news is Langbury apparently had problems in health his head, now he’s told Nottingham he’s ok to play .I just wondering what’s going on? Xia say be patient, how patient have we got to be, Nottingham wants money,player wants out, clubs needs money, what’s the problem?something ain’t right Hitch, God knows what it is.
Wouldn’t arguing with you over your concerns Bill. What we don’t know with Lansbury is where the problem lies but I can imagine neither club owner is easy to negotiate with.
The mirror reckon we’ve put a bid in for Rhodes.
A mistake, imo.
If we get Rhodes this could be our line up against PNE
Sam Johnstone
Kodjia
Grealish
Agbonlahor
Ayew
McCormack
Kozák
Adomah
Rhodes
Hepburn-Murphy
Sellars
You can’t beat a bit of balance in the squad.
I think that sums up the need for quality over quantity. We might have a lot of forward players but in all honesty only really Kodija is good enough as the rest are either useless (Gabby), unproven youngsters (RHM, Davis, Sellars), Lazy (Ayew), Over rated (Grealish, Adomah) and low on confidence (Mccormack).
V1 that’s the point I trying to make was you can have as may forwards as you like but if you don’t the players behind them providing the service they’ll be pretty ineffectual.
Looks good to me BWS, then again I’m pissed.
Bit early Bill but then again …….now off to find the gin bottle – I like a bit of variety in all things!!
See this loan move for Donker is gaining ground 19 year old left sided mid fielder / winger whose highly rated by all accounts – who’s the expert on the Bundeslega (sic)
According to Sky we are definitely in for Conor Hourihane at Barnsley.
I wonder if we’ve just got fed up with the Lansbury situation and told Forest it’s their call. Unlikely they will sell to Derby and Rowett has said he won’t work for the current owners. More intrigue than an episode of Sherlock 🙂 This one will run to the end of the window.
Article in the Mail about Bruce going back to the basics and getting the simple things right in training –
http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/how-steve-bruce-plans-shake-12472488
Also some nice quotes from Chester who IMO has been our best buy so far.
Anyway seems like the right idea to me.
Didn’t lambert try going back to basics, next they’ll be putting the first team back through the academy.
Giddy great idea! If JV gets his way I want you for our next manager 🙂
Lol I’d probably get JVs full backing
Sorry guys as this has nothing to do with Villa but we all talk about the lack of loyalty in football these days –
‘Sporting Gijon boss Abelardo Fernandez has turned down a payoff – reportedly of 4m euro (£3.5m) – after he left the post.
The 46-year-old had been in charge of his hometown club since 2014, but they sit in the La Liga relegation zone.
President Javi Fernandez said: “He has refused to take the club’s money, including what he was entitled to for this season, as it was the only way we could bring in another coach.”
Abelardo, who started his playing career with the club, said: “As a Sporting fan, even though I had a contract until 2020, I couldn’t do that to the club I love.
‘I don’t have a problem writing off the money. There are more important things, loyalty to my club above all.’
What a star!
Very few of them left in this sport mate
“Loyalty to my club above all.” said Abelardo, then posted the keys back through the letter box and drove off into the sunset.
I really think the midfield should be addressed first, it’s totally pointless looking to add another striker unless he’s got the ability to create his own goals/chances because you won’t be getting any help from our midfield if we even have one
Reports we’ve had a bid rejected for Rhodes, supoosedly around 6 million with another 6 with add-ons but Boro want 12 million up front.
RM #2????
At least he’s younger Giddy!
Can’t see them getting that when they only paid £10m and he hasn’t played this season. Anyway not worth £10m let alone £12m. £6m plus performance related add ons seems reasonable – give them the Gestede money back!
Boro want Gestede we want Rhodes, we sell them Gestede and then from a position of weakness (cause they’ve already got what they wanted) try and negotiate the deal for Rhodes???
Is it just me or does that make absolutely no sense whatsoever?
No, you’re right BWS.
We should not have sold Gestede without first having someone else lined up.
This is beginning to look like a very poor window.
Not necessarily because of the targets, but because the longer we go, the more likely it is we’re going to drop points.
And you just know that as time goes on, the prices are going to be jacked up even more, as we panic.
I can’t believe we didn’t have deals practically ready weeks ago.
So much for the canny set-up we’re now supposed to have.
This season is going proper tits up, after such an encouraging start under Bruce.
I appreciate Bruce saying he doesn’t want to get 4-5 in if they aren’t going to improve us, but it seems to me someone isn’t understanding the urgency.
As it stands, we’re utter crap!
Rant over 🙂
How about Robbie Keane?
http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/aston-villa-transfers-former-striker-12474438
I know he’s getting on but he’s been a consistently good striker and at Championship level I think he’d be great as an impact sub or 60 minute player
Does he come with his own zimmer frame?
Sorry Bill 🙂
He’s 38 but he keeps himself fit and he scores goals wherever he goes. If he came on for the last 15 minutes in a game where we’ve been firing blanks I don’t any fans would be booing.
Lets remember that players like Giggs, Maldini, Matthews, Strachan and Sheringham all played when over 40 and Keane is 38.
He won’t be any use without a midfield Pat and I’d rather keep RM for now, if we can get one.
We’ll have Kodjia back in a couple of weeks or so, so I’m really not seeing the point of us getting a striker, without any creativity coming in first.
Get the mids in and see how RM looks, then get another striker if it doesn’t look like it’s going to work. Not the other way round.
Mind you, maybe Bruce and RM have a problem and the player’s a goner anyway?
That would explain it, I suppose.
Badger can’t help but agree. I’m clutching at straws as usual.
However in a window you can’t say that we won’t get a striker because we need mid-fielders first. You go after every player you think will fit the bill and whoever’s deal comes first comes first.
Having said that I am disappointed that we didn’t have deals on the table right at the start of the window but then again I don’t know what SB and his team are up against in trying to make things happen.
I’m trying to keep patient as we still have some time left in the window but I’m finding it more difficult as every day goes by without any signings.
You’re correct, of course in saying you get the players you want.
And seeing the way we seem to be pissing about, if we’ve just made an offer for Rhodes, it’ll probably be the last day if we do sign him.
Keane??? Now we’d be bordering desperate
Giddy don’t know about the club but I definitely am!