We're killing ourselves

[Marlon's Hairy Wood]

I was just reading this blog (which is bang on) http://www.espnfc.com/club/aston-villa/362/blog/post/2688977/tim-sherwood-exit-gives-aston-villa-players-a-fresh-start

and it made me think, just how many complete baffling errors of judgement were made under Sherwoods reign?

- Obviously insisting with Westwood has to be the most peculiar decision this season, it got to a point where it seemed he'd need to get injured for us to progress
- Dropping highly talented Amavi for Richardson, who's inferior to him in every single way
- Taking Sanchez off despite him being one of our stronger players, which led to us conceding straight away
- Substituting Lescott at half time more than once because his performances were so poor, yet still putting him back in there the following week
- Choosing to put Bacuna in centre midfield over specialist central midfielders. Bacuna works hard, but he's barely premier league level in his specialist position, never mind centre mid.
- Bringing Jordan Ayew, your record signing on against your local rivals. He performs very well, looks confident and you completely leave him for the next game.
- Completely freezing out Kozak despite him being more suited to our style of play, and scoring goals in pre season
- Dropping Guzan last season for Given as Guzan wasn't good enough. Then giving your new number 1 away in the summer, and putting Guzan back in by default without the competition
- Even completely freezing Gil out last season and persisting with N'Zogbia, only to bring Gil back and completely freeze N'Zogbia out this season. Not defending N'Zogbia but It's just plain weird

I'd hoped KMac was going to throw his name into the hat by picking the right team and getting us a result last night. But i found yesterdays line up hysterical, i'd been championing Kevin MacDonald and his favouring of kids all day, then he produces that line up.

Fair enough he probably thought that we could do without the cup, so left our best players out. But you might as well play some of the fringe players who need fecking game time like Okore, Kozak, Traore, Veretout, Ilori, Gardner

Unless he sees Amavi as a full time winger, how can you justify putting him in that position in front of 4-5 specialist wide players all looking for form.

Any other stupid decisions i've forgotten? It really is no wonder we're bottom with the sheer amount of suicidal errors we've made. A few sensible team selections and substitutions and we wouldn't be in the relegation zone

I'm still optimistic about our chances of survival, when i looked at our squad pre season i envisioned performances ala Leicester first half every week, under a decent manager I think we will be unrecognisable to recent weeks

[Stirchley Villain]

I'm sure you'll find most of these points raised in other threads.

[Axl Rose]

I'm sure you'll find most of these points raised in other threads.

I'm sure he would.

But it's still a good post.

[VillaAlways]

The pivotal point for me was the shocking subs against Leicester. The sheer arrogance to think that when you're 2 up away from home with 20 odd minutes to go you can give players game time when we were getting overrun in midfield and had just scored against the run of play, as soon as he made that sub I knew we were in trouble.

Losing that game drained all confidence from the players  and the rest is history.

[Marlon's Hairy Wood]

I'm sure you'll find most of these points raised in other threads.

Possibly, but a lot of the threads are too broad so a single conversation gets lost.

Thanks for taking the time to add your input though

[oswald funkletrumpet]

good post

a lot of baffling decisions took place, probably the best being the team selection against swansea when it took me ten minutes to work out the line up.

we have imo an okay squad certainly capable of a mid table finish if we have a manager with a vague idea of tactics

[garyshawsknee]

Good post. Why he never stuck with the system he played at Leicester baffled me, we have numerous players to play that system too.

[Duncan Shaw]

Losing that game drained all confidence from the players  and the rest is history.

And you could argue gave Leicester a massive boost to theirs, contirbuting hugely to where they are now.

[RussellC]

The pivotal point for me was the shocking subs against Leicester. The sheer arrogance to think that when you're 2 up away from home with 20 odd minutes to go you can give players game time when we were getting overrun in midfield and had just scored against the run of play, as soon as he made that sub I knew we were in trouble.

Losing that game drained all confidence from the players  and the rest is history.

Similarly I thought he should have brought Sanchez on as soon as we scored against Swansea. We needed to consolidate at that point and Sherwood missed the chance to do so.

[Boz]

Really good post with many excellent points

[levico]

Yes a very good summary indeed. Good to see it all brought together in one thread.

The new manager should have this brought to his attention.

[VillaAlways]

Losing that game drained all confidence from the players  and the rest is history.

And you could argue gave Leicester a massive boost to theirs, contirbuting hugely to where they are now.

I have just looked at Leicesters results and they have lost only to Chelsea and Arsenal since April 29th and scored in both those games. That is phenomenal form.

I'm not sure it can even be a lack of respect just pure stupidity!

[Smoke]

from that blog

"Jordan Veretout

Villa spent £7m to bring in Veretout from Nantes and the 22-year-old arrived with a reputation for being a versatile midfielder who could not just perform in a defensive role but also when pushed further forward. In that regard he seemed a decent replacement for Tom Cleverley. He'd scored 15 goals for the French club, was credited with 23 assists, and was known as a threat from set pieces. "

Shocking that he's not been involved more given his form last season

[Hookeysmith]

from that blog

"Jordan Veretout

Villa spent £7m to bring in Veretout from Nantes and the 22-year-old arrived with a reputation for being a versatile midfielder who could not just perform in a defensive role but also when pushed further forward. In that regard he seemed a decent replacement for Tom Cleverley. He'd scored 15 goals for the French club, was credited with 23 assists, and was known as a threat from set pieces. "

Shocking that he's not been involved more given his form last season

In fairness his first outing had him breathing out of his arse after 40 minutes. I agree he was very much rated (as were most of who we bought tbh) I hope we persevere with him and I hope Garde knows all about his attributes and uses them

[Pat McMahon]

Good post and some interesting points.

Re Veretout, my French friends thought he was OK, nothing special yet but with potential. They thought Gana was the French import who would be best suited to English football (Amavi being a part of a suspect Nice defence and Ayew having a yampy gene).

The really obvious point is that even some very successful players have taken a while to adapt to the Premier league.