I find this one intriguing.
Yes, I know some of us are on a bit of a downer, because we’ve lost our last two games.
We have to remind ourselves who we were playing though and things haven’t gone anything other than expected, if you think about it.
We lost to Man City, as most teams will and pushed Liverpool to the wire, which many teams won’t.
So now we’re about to face a team that is currently on a par, league-wise and this is much more a realistic test of where we really stand.
Beating the Old Gold, who to my mind have always been our biggest competitors, along with the Albion in who is the biggest Midlands club, is a big thing (notice the joker in the pack doesn’t get a mention or even deserve the name) and always important.
We all know there’s no debate to be had.
The Villa are by far the biggest and the whole football world knows it.
But this “mind the gap” stuff has irked me over the last couple of years.
To be honest, I’m not even sure what it was about, but if it was about league placings, well, that isn’t holding up very well, is it?
I think the Wolves are there to be taken, if we have a good day.
Squad news says Grealish is 50-50, but to my mind it’s what Dean Smith thinks.
I suspect this might be a good game for him to play in, but if he’s going to be clogged, it might be better to wait for the Newcastle game on the 25th(!).
Davis is still out and it’s too early for Jota.
As for Wolves, I really don’t care, but they have their Jota back after suspension and Ryan Bennett is fit again.
While there’s been a bit of pessimism lately on the site and we’re all worried about where we are in the league, I think this is a very close game to call.
So close, that I’d say it comes down to Wolves home advantage, which makes them favourites.
The Carabou cup game was meaningless for comparisons, so we can’t judge anything by that, but I’m very confident that Wolves will at least know they’ve been in a game.
Given that Wolves have drawn their last three games 1-1, you’d think that’s a safe bet again.
It sounds about right too. It’s probably what I would have predicted.
But they surely aren’t going to go 4 games on the trot with that score are they?
I’m going for 2-1, either way. I just don’t know who to, though.
Cup half full and all that, it has to be to us.
UTV!
All over.
Lets stop blaming Wesley shall we? Yeah he missed a chance but when the ball actually came to him he held it up alright. El Ghazi was terrible as was Trezeguet, Douglass and Mcginn. Mcginn looked like a £1.5m player today. Lets hope Jack is back for the next match.
No, Wesley skied one and kicked the air on another, both very decent chances.
A decent striker would have scored both, imo.
Really? So Vardy, Aguero etc never miss chances? The difference is they get 10x what Wesley gets. Im not saying hes amazing but for me Its the players around him that need to step up and the managers tactics that were all wrong again today.
What ? Your saying its not Wesley , come on Adam he doesn’t do a thing for Villa on the pitch He’s lazy doesn’t get into a game just stands a looks. Sorry he’s crap full stop.
Stop looking for escape goats. It’s this type of thinking that creates a negative atmosphere.
We lost 4 first choice players. When we have limited premier quality players this has a big impact.
So to read Wesley is not up to it, come on. The balls to him were normally long kicks. When was there a cross for him to get to?
I did see him get the ball and distribute it effectively. 4/12 in 1st premier season to date is not bad.
How does El Ghazi get away Scott free each week with failing to track back? Last week he cost the 1st goal against Liverpool. Today he was leaving Targett and then Taylor exposed. Yet Trezeguet did track back and did create and score.
I thought Konsa has a good match today.
Do we really want to criticise and go back to toxic conversations we had the season we were relegated?
Back from the beach – I’ve had a lovely time – thanks lads for the debate.
Have we really learnt anything we didn’t already know?
We don’t have the depth of squad needed in this league nor do we have the experience – in fact apart from Heaton and Taylor (and to a lesser extent Targett) we have no experience in this league. Add to that the number of players bought in from leagues outside the UK with no experience of playing in England let alone the Premier League and what do you expect.
We were unlucky losing 4 first team performers plus also Steer so it was always going to be an uphill struggle.
We will be fighting relegation this season so 17th works for me.
Finally, we need to strengthen in January and we need more than a striker; the young and hungry strategy is OK but we need some real prem experience in the team as well.
Now I’m going to enjoy a nice glass of wine and the sunshine 🙂
Sidforever, in one breath your saying dont make escape goats then you pick on El Garzi. You may think he’s brilliant but me and hundreds more say he’s not doing the job he was bought for. Why we had him God knows .
Predictable from the outset once we saw the team sheet. We were awful for an hour. As soon as Steer was injured I felt it wasn’t our day and things went from bad to worse.
So what have we learned? I thought Wolves were much more organised, won most second balls, moved through our lines with ease and deserved to win. They are a decent side but we will play better teams. Wesley adds little to the team. Our wingers are lightweight and don’t defend. We can’t cope at this level without Grealish.
We concede possession too easily, and other teams dominate play against us. It’s OK to do this in the Championship but in the Premier League we will get undone time and time again. A long hard season ahead and I hope we improve and have enough to survive.
When a club introduces a raft of players who have not experienced Premiership football before, you must expect some duds. You can’t predict which ones either from what I have seen. So you would expect a couple of our expensive purchases to flop. That does not mean they cannot go on to play well in another European league. Wesley was one who should have rung alarm bells – I am sure he has never starred as a lone target man in his career. And though you won’t find many of them – men with legs of significantly different length are going to have difficulty jumping.
I was surprised at the absentees, Jack was crocked by Citeh, but where did the others get injured?
I’m sorry but Wesley isn’t good enough! I don’t want to single him out entirely though because none of our team stood out today. Let’s try to be realistic in that the last three games we have met superior opposition. As long as we win the games that we should have a chance then we will be okay. I’m glad we have an international break to get players fit. Also an opportunity to re-galvanise and lift players spirits. We are pretty much stuck with Wesley unless he plays Kodja who is usually ineffective or tries something different like El Ghazi up front. At least we wouldn’t have to be concerned about his tracking back if he was a CF! We are in a relegation battle and we need to show character, so the likes of JT will be important. Also keeping Grealish fit is equally as important because without him we look void of ideas going forward. Nakamba and Luiz together doesn’t seem to work and Lansbury showed more in his brief appearance.
It’s right what has been said already, that we can’t let things become toxic again. Our fans have been like a 12th man for the last year and we need to maintain that, particularly at VP where we need to make it a fortress such as we did against Everton.