Aston Villa v Chelsea Post-Match Thread

[brian green]

Sorry but I don't agree Chipsticks.   My Villa shirt which I wear to games has Gabby's name and number on the back but I thought he was only a shadow of his true self in effectivenes today.   Effectiveness not effort or endeavor, efectiveness. 

[john2710]

We lacked the confidence / belief to have a go until the 2nd half.
Ref gave us nothing, most of his bias was subtle but the Gabby 'free kick' was outrageous.
Given the team we had available & who we were playing we can't complain about the result or our performance.

Are we in danger, yes, but I can guarantee that all 5 teams below us would swap places with us in a second. We need to show some real fight over the next few weeks, get a few players fit, cut out the bitching and pull together to get us over the line.  UTV

[Toronto Villa]

- Gabby - not at the races at the minute . watched his movement compared to Torres (absolutely non existent)

Try comparing his movement to Weimann?.  Gabby was captain of his boyhood club today and needed to show leadership and desire and try to get us something out of the game.   I thought Weimann worked his nuts off today and tried to make things happen, his hold up play, link up play was first class and I think we have found one for the future for sure.   I'm a big fan of Gabby, but so disappointed with him today and indeed since he has had his injury this season.  He just didn't appear up for it at all, which I am struggling to comprehend to be honest.

I disagree entirely. I thought that Gabby was excellent today, and very much worked his absolute cock off. Maybe by expectations have just gotten really low, but he very much impressed me.

I'm kind of in between. I think running very fast but ultimately into dead ends might look impressive but it never amounts to much. Yes, he chased down their defenders when they have the ball, but his job is to get into effective positions to score. He only did that once that I can recall. He had a great chance in the first half, that while it was a good save, had he been a better forward he might have done a lot better.

Gabby gets a lot of love because he is one of us. But he is limited in what he really offers as a forward and needs to have a good forward to play off to be most effective. His time with Carew and Ash/Barry was the best we will ever see of him.

[Ron Manager]

- Gabby - not at the races at the minute . watched his movement compared to Torres (absolutely non existent)

Try comparing his movement to Weimann?.  Gabby was captain of his boyhood club today and needed to show leadership and desire and try to get us something out of the game.   I thought Weimann worked his nuts off today and tried to make things happen, his hold up play, link up play was first class and I think we have found one for the future for sure.   I'm a big fan of Gabby, but so disappointed with him today and indeed since he has had his injury this season.  He just didn't appear up for it at all, which I am struggling to comprehend to be honest.

I disagree entirely. I thought that Gabby was excellent today, and very much worked his absolute cock off. Maybe by expectations have just gotten really low, but he very much impressed me.

Well as always he didnt impress me. As far as Im concerned he's not good enough to be a top flight centre forward.Doesnt score goals and if MON took him to Sunderland I would be very happy indeed!
Lets have some new blood even if its on free transfers!

[PeterWithesShin]

Had Gabby been on his game like he was earlier this season we may well have gotten something out of today. Not that i'm blaming, more highlighting the difference an on form and firing Gabby can make to us. I also thought Weimann was good today, although he faded after that knock he took. If fit i'd definitely start him more.

[Brend'Watkins]

Torres scoring was a non event.  We were chasing an equaliser it didn't really count. 

Our failure to defend from set pieces/corners is our undoing, time and time again.  How many this year is it FFS?  Even so, we had 7 academy players out there giving their all today, I'm proud of them.  We should stick with them too. 

[hawkeye]

I think the effect of the ref needs to be fully appreciated when we appraise the game.  Their 2nd shouldn't have stood (looked a clear handball live and nothing in the highlights I saw have changed my mind about it) and then that decision against gabby are the 2 standout terrible decisions but there were a number of others.  As I said on the match thread, aside from 2-3 which were totally wrong he also never gave us a single 50-50 all game.

Aside from that I thought we actually played ok.  In the first hour or so the thing that seemed to be causing us the most problems was the fact that it appeared that we'd been told to hold in 2 banks of 4 which meant Gardner and Bannan were struggling to be involved whilst they had 3 in the middle who were finding loads of space.

Looking at the players we had McLeish set the team up wrong.

Herd should've been deeper and holding just in front of the back 4 defensively he'd have been able to pick up Mata who had too much space.  More importantly it'd have freed lichaj and warnock to drift forward with him filling the space if we lost the ball.

Gardner and Bannan were too wide and were on the wrong sides of the pitch.  both of them were having to drift in with the ball rather than picking it up and drifting wide (and getting an overlap from the fullback).

I'd also have asked Weimann to play 5 yards deeper to try to pull Luiz out of defence leaving Gabby 1-1 with Terry.

Agree with your tactical analisys, 4-4-2 was the wrong set up today and he played players in the wrong positions to accomadae it. but what do you expect with this numpty in charge?

[nick harper]

Most surprising part of the afternoon was scoring twice in three minnutes, least surprising was conceding from a corner almost straight away.

I do like the look of Gardner, I think we have a player there. And Lichaj looks a better bet than Hutton.

Mention to Ireland swell. He was quality throughout - always prepared to take the ball off the young lads and support them. The one bright light amongst the overall gloom.

I just hope we can find the six points I think we need by the end of the season. Otherwise the side we saw today is likely to similar on the first day of next season in the championship.

[Pete3206]

Beaten by the better side - The End

Going down? No way, not on your life.

Those kids were a credit to the shirt today and they will keep us up.

[fredm]

I was disappointed today.  When I saw the team I thought at least we would have a go at them with youthful impetus even if we got picked off by a far better technical team.  A bit like the Man U game last season.  Unfortunately I got the impression that they were frightened of Chelsea and scared of committing themselves forward - now I wonder why that may have been?  Have we seen this timidity elsewhere this season?

Then there was the playing of Bannan and Gardner.  Ok if you are going to start them out wide on their "wrong" foot but surely you mix it up a bit and swap them over at times during the game?  But no, there was no technical changes made until Albrighton came on for Herd and even then he went on his "wrong" side and Bannan stayed out wide right.

I was also disappointed with Bannan.  I think he needs to have a look at himself.  Ok, maybe he shouldn't be asked to play in that position but he was and it was up to him to put the effort in and try and get a grip on things.  Instead he appeared to be happy to stay on the periphery and when he did get the ball often attempted the ambitious balls which were generally gobbled up by the defence.  Also if you are the wide man when the ball/player goes down the opposite wing you make a run into the box at the far post just in case the cross does come in e.g. Lichaz's goal a perfect example.  Barry doesn't do this preferring to hang back on the edge of the box. On two occasions in the first half he may well have had success with crosses that went across the face of the goal to the far post if he had only made the effort to get in there.

A couple of further thoughts about our youngsters - thought Herd's passing was not very good today, often got the ball and then gave it away which makes life awfully difficult at this level, and am a bit concerned about Gary Gardner's apparent lack of pace.  The times I have seen him he does not appear to be very quick in relation to opponents, am not saying he should be a Gabby but the opposition seem to be able to cut him out fairly comfortably.  Hope I am wrong but he should be getting up to speed of the league now and I thought he would find space for himself a lot better than he does.

[ormskirkvillan]

I thought it looked like Gabby was playing the deeper role behind Anders at times which is just odd, surely you want Gabby playing up against Terry to use his pace on the turn.  Having said that after a terrible drive home I still think we will stay just say up.  But we really need an overhaul of the senior members of the squad to support the kids some of whom have great promise.  Oh and can someone please explain how a manager who used to be a defender cant stop his team conceding almost everytime we face a corner - we might as well just give the opponents a goal and kick off straight away to save time!

[woody4866]

Credit where its due - the kids gave it a real go today!

have not got a clue why we brought the sack of spuds on with 10 mins to go - I assume it was some daft attempt to save a 2-2 draw??

anyway I didn`t expect to win but was pleased we scored and even more so that we made a decent fist of it - up until the 80 minute mark when it looked as though we was playing with a "fuck you AM" attitude

Play like that from know until the end of the season we may stay up!!!

[paul_e]

I was also disappointed with Bannan.  I think he needs to have a look at himself.  Ok, maybe he shouldn't be asked to play in that position but he was and it was up to him to put the effort in and try and get a grip on things.  Instead he appeared to be happy to stay on the periphery and when he did get the ball often attempted the ambitious balls which were generally gobbled up by the defence.  Also if you are the wide man when the ball/player goes down the opposite wing you make a run into the box at the far post just in case the cross does come in e.g. Lichaz's goal a perfect example.  Barry doesn't do this preferring to hang back on the edge of the box. On two occasions in the first half he may well have had success with crosses that went across the face of the goal to the far post if he had only made the effort to get in there.

See I saw the whole staying on the periphery as a tactical thing more than anything.  He looked happy to collect the ball but looked like someone had tied him to the touchline for most of the game, having seen him play under GH and in the reserves I'd say that was actually him trying to ensure he played to the role he was given rather than him naturally not staying there.

As for not following in on the backpost but going to the edge of the box instead... that's exactly why he was out of position, his natural game as a central midfielder is to drift into that gap at the edge and try to pick up the 2nd ball.  This is why I think we should've been encouraging the fullbacks to be much higher up the pitch.  Lichaj scored when he was given the freedom to get up and support the attack so it clearly is worth looking at.

I genuinely think our players are being asked to play a style which they're not comfortable with and because of that some of them are playing well within themselves.  I think Delph suffered massively from that at the start of the season as well.

[Big Dick Edwards]

It was men against boys today but the boys did well. Chelsea have been in good form since AVB was sacked so it was always a tough ask, made even harder when Baker was drafted in. Where was Cuellar?

[Dave]

Thigh strain, should be back for the next match.