Aston Villa (A) | PL | Post Match Thread

give it to gordon said:
There were times yesterday when City were trying to win the ball back but it just didnt look right.
3 or 4 City players around the villa player with the ball, it reminded me of under 8's all around the ball.
Ive never noticed this before, it seemed totally disorganised. The City players were all around the villa player, but no one tried to tackle him ! A simple pass out and villa had 3 or 4 players unmarked.
It was the lack of organisational was a worry, the headless chicken style of trying to win the ball back looked terrible.

We need strength in the team,
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Yep, there was no Rodri there to 'pick the oppositions pocket', in a group ambush to get get the ball back ..... like you say, too often hastily encircled the Villa player without actually coming out with the ball, which was totally ineffective play on our part .... we really need to start working on things like this in our training sessions again, amongst a few other things such as effective corner kick work, because right now our corner kicks are of absolutely no use to us !
 
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Blue Hefner said:
Slightly off topic but I remember when Pep was at Barca they used to take loads of short corners. Given our ineffectiveness at corners, maybe just do that. Get it down and play quick - Dias hasn’t scored since God was a boy so at least he’d save some energy

It’s worth a shot, isn’t it??
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Absolutely it is ....
 
Blueknows said:
When Rodris not fully fit this has to be our starting 11.....love Bernie hes been class for us but hes another weve held onto for too long , he shouldnt be our captain ,
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Agree, no way Villa would have beat that line up. But Pep doesn’t give a shit, pragmatism isn’t his strong suit, doing what he wants is his only priority.
 
Eaststander1 said:
Yep, there was no Rodri there to 'pick the oppositions pocket', in a group ambush to get get the ball back ..... like you say, we hastily encircled the Villa player without actually coming out with the ball, which was totally ineffective play on our part .... we really need to start working on things like this in our training sessions again, amongst a few other things such as effective corner kick work, because right now our corner kicks are of absolutely no use to us !
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Our corners are baffling. It seems they are such a big part of other teams games now but yet we just seem to persist with the same type of corner time after time. Not enough pace on them and always Foden taking them whether left or right. I’m struggling to understand why.

Like mentioned elsewhere Dias hasn’t scored one goal in the last 3 seasons yet we have had around 600 corners in that time.

Just checking set piece goals this season…

We have none! We sit 20th in the table. Even Wolves have 2 and they are 19th!

Chelsea have 9 and Arsenal 11.

We are paying someone for this shit too! Imagine getting paid hundreds of thousands of pounds and then delivering this!
 
Millwallawayveteran1988 said:
Our corners are baffling. It seems they are such a big part of other teams games now but yet we just seem to persist with the same type of corner time after time. Not enough pace on them and always Foden taking them whether left or right. I’m struggling to understand why.

Like mentioned elsewhere Dias hasn’t scored one goal in the last 3 seasons yet we have had around 600 corners in that time.

Just checking set piece goals this season…

We have none! We sit 20th in the table. Even Wolves have 2 and they are 19th!

Chelsea have 9 and Arsenal 11.

We are paying someone for this shit too! Imagine getting paid hundreds of thousands of pounds and then delivering this!
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Yep, couldn't agree more ..... we all know how effective a tool good corner kicks can be , yet the club seem happy to dish up the same old rubbish from them week in week out, that result in absolutely 'nothing'!

Why can't we show a bit more inventiveness and guile like we saw with the De Bruyne corner kick at Liverpool the other season, which resulted in a ....goal !!!
 
Rodri frequently injured. Out.

Nico G. injured - and not even a true 6 - and out.

Facing a very tough side.

The result isn't unexpected at all IMO.
 
Semper aggressus said:
It’s pretty much all down to poor recruitment. There seemed to be no ambition to replace absolute top quality like KDB, Mahrez, Fern, Walker with anyone anywhere near that level.

Too many projects; youngsters who may or may not have potential. Too much faith in young players who’ve never shown any hint of being as effective as our old stars were.

Sometimes you have to just replace the best with the best - proven talent already doing well with good clubs. The biggest mistake for me was not paying whatever it took to get Declan Rice (or better still Bellingham). After that, we should have got rid of Savinho who offers nothing, when Spurs bid, and bought Eze. We seemed interested in Cazorla then gave up, he’s better than bloody Reijnders isn’t he.

Why think Nunes/Lewis are worthy replacements for Walker who for years proved he was the best RB in the league? Why not sign a proper, established right back - even if not Walker’s level at least it would be his proper position. Test the market at least, for these sort of players. Offer PSG £120m for Hakimi. Even if they say no at least it shows ambition! Failing that, look for the next best RB, offer for them (Livramento, before he got injured).

We’ve spent a decent amount but not on anyone who actually improves the starting XI.

Get Semenyo signed in January. Scout a proper full back with pace that can stop crosses.

Recruitment recently has been fucking shit.
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Millwallawayveteran1988 said:
Our corners are baffling. It seems they are such a big part of other teams games now but yet we just seem to persist with the same type of corner time after time. Not enough pace on them and always Foden taking them whether left or right. I’m struggling to understand why.

Like mentioned elsewhere Dias hasn’t scored one goal in the last 3 seasons yet we have had around 600 corners in that time.

Just checking set piece goals this season…

We have none! We sit 20th in the table. Even Wolves have 2 and they are 19th!

Chelsea have 9 and Arsenal 11.

We are paying someone for this shit too! Imagine getting paid hundreds of thousands of pounds and then delivering this!
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We got a set piece specialist from Liverpool this season i think. Working wonders, lol
 
yerwot? said:
thoughtful post, maybe too thoughtful?, BM is where knee-jerk reactions thrive. Expectations, created by so much success are inevitable. The painfully slow build-ups, the way teams just need a hopeful punt to cause problems, unforced errors, the reluctance to make substitutions, are difficult to understand, as is the often wtf starting eleven. We looked much better as a counter-attacking team, but that's been abandoned, we dont have the talent to unlock low blocks but still try intricate one-touch patterns in a packed penalty area.As fans, we ball-watch, dont see the bigger picture, put too much emphasis on body language, look for instant solutions; City fans especially having watched so much champagne football are choking on flat beer.....
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I am one of the first to complain about losing and wonder how Savinho gets so much game time.
But after a couple of hours and letting off some steam, I realise it's pointless and an overreaction from a glory hunter that I have turned into,

It's got to take time for Pep and the new rebuild and i expect more new faces over the next 2 transfer windows
Yes, we are not the team we once were ? maybe we will never see the likes of trebles and multi-title winners again

But i have a feeling we will not just lie down and fall away completely, even this season we could still be right in the race once everybody gets fit and game time under their belts
 
HelloCity said:
No other manager is doing better than Pep with this current City squad.

We’d have probably dropped out of the CL places last season without him.
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100% spot on
We could have been 10th or lower with the injuries and burnout. The run of games after Christmas was very good and City was one of the form teams in the 2nd half of the season
 
the blue panther said:
We were due a poor result and 2 things ensured it yesterday - our injury list and the fixtures calender which put us away at Villa Park. It's taking on Spurs-like difficulties for us there.
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I agree entirely with this.

For me, as with our poor run last season, yesterday was down to injury.
When we have no fit holding midfielder all the other players have to adapt their game and it really is a huge struggle for them, no matter how much they try, it is different to how they are normally asked to play, yet they get totally slagged off.
Stones going into midfield to help out when we had the ball only seemed to leave us more open at the back when we lost the ball.
As soon as nico g. came on we looked more like our usual shape, although he clearly wasn't fit (and he got a bloodied nose for his efforts).


the blue panther said:
Villa just got lucky with a shot from distance and created very little else Our lack of quality and physicality lost it for us - though quite how the Villa defender managed to clear that 2nd Savinho shot over the bar is something even Einstein would struggle to explain.
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Exactly. the ball that fell to their goalscorer wasn't intended for him and as often has happened to us in the past, a decent shot from distance scuppered our defence.

On any other day, 9 times out of 10, the villa defender's block from savinho's 2nd shot ends up deflected into the back of the net. just one of those days.

the blue panther said:
Marmoush inches offside stopped a late equaliser and it just was never going to be our day -on another day, we might have scraped a draw or a 2-1 win.
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This. and had haaland put it away early doors when he was one-on-one it's a different story altogether, yet the conclusion of many posters on here is that we are wank and have been for a long time now, completely ignoring the fact that if you create a league table for the 2025 calendar year (i.e. the last 28 games) we are top of the table.


the blue panther said:
At least we had the pleasure of seeing the sub, Jadon Sancho, going off in a strop and ignoring Unai Emery when he got subbed off - the smug ****!

Silver linings, hey!?!
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This was easily the highlight of the game.


Cheer up fellow blues. i agree that we need some hard bastard in midfield like fernandinho but we are not as bad as is being made out by some folk on here.
 
Bantamgaz said:
You know what gets on my fooking tits .............the obsession by certain media outlets of how many touches haaland has had in the box ??????
Has any other striker had this bollocks brought up time after time ??????
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They obviously didn’t watch Tesco in the scum game, think he had 2 touches first half
Few more in the second before the useless **** got hooked but no lets keep mentioning haaland.
 
Gray said:
We are desperately lacking a midfield enforcer, a real hard man.

Most of our team are far too nice.
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Can the set piece coach ex Dipper teach them to dive in the area, or when opponents are in ours go down clutching your face/ groin whatever so that any infringements we may have made get overlooked and we win a free kick. I mean that was / is Dippers and 95% other teams standard MO..

We need some cajohones in this team.
 
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