Aston Villa v Tottenham Hotspur Post-Match Thread

[Walmley_Villa]

The last 2 games haven't told us anything we don't already know. That we are lacking quality, leadership and physical presence on the pitch. The endeavour and willing is there but against decent teams they don't compensate enough. A number of our players are just not good enough, the likes of KEA for instance offer nothing. I actually thought Delph was ok in his natural position behind the strikers. Protecting the defence however he is a car crash waiting to happen. Real shame about Baker as he is IMO our best CH. Ireland is shocking and again flatters to deceive and offers nothing.
I do trust Lambert and hope that we strengthen adequately in Jan. Tbh though I worry the League Cup run will prove a distraction if it isn't already.
Saturday is massive......UTV

[Brian Taylor]

Woe is me..I have to avoid that diminuative loudmouth little Cockney twerp for a week. I am not allowing him to spoil my New Year!!

[Clampy]

I wonder how Lerner is really feeling now about the state of things , in fact I wonder if he even knows what the result was tonight

Yes i'm sure he does know the result. Were you asking the same thing after the win at Anfield?

We are in the present not the past clampy,  two defeats with 12 goals conceded- you are only as good as your last game pal.

If you wish to dream about anfield go ahead , but one swallow doesn't make a summer- the table doesn't lie, lowest goals scored, worst goal difference , but hey we won at anfield so why worry.?

I was delighted with the win there but I have been asking the question is Lerners heart really in it anymore for well over 2 years now not just 2 games.

Wake up from your anfield dreams and smell the roses clampy- 8-0 and 0-4 is disgraceful.

It's not just Anfield though Eastie. We went to Norwich and put 4 past them the game before that. Before that we went on a decent run where we kept a few clean sheets and picked up a few points and things started to look a bit brighter.

The last two games have been abysmal but i like to look at the overall picture, not just trot out 'it's Lerner's fault' whenever we hit a blip.

This "blip" has lasted now for the last 3 seasons, and we're 3 points above the relegation zone going into the new year. When do you start to get worried?

When i decide it's worth worrying about.

Well if losing 8-0 and 0-4 doesn't worry you then you should be safe to carry on thinking wistfully of anfield and the day we won at mid table Liverpool.

Funny you didn't take that approach last season when we won at Chelsea.

I just prefer not to come on here and yell 'Lerner Out' every time there's a mini crisis.

[levico]

I wonder how Lerner is really feeling now about the state of things , in fact I wonder if he even knows what the result was tonight

Yes i'm sure he does know the result. Were you asking the same thing after the win at Anfield?

We are in the present not the past clampy,  two defeats with 12 goals conceded- you are only as good as your last game pal.

If you wish to dream about anfield go ahead , but one swallow doesn't make a summer- the table doesn't lie, lowest goals scored, worst goal difference , but hey we won at anfield so why worry.?

I was delighted with the win there but I have been asking the question is Lerners heart really in it anymore for well over 2 years now not just 2 games.

Wake up from your anfield dreams and smell the roses clampy- 8-0 and 0-4 is disgraceful.

It's not just Anfield though Eastie. We went to Norwich and put 4 past them the game before that. Before that we went on a decent run where we kept a few clean sheets and picked up a few points and things started to look a bit brighter.

The last two games have been abysmal but i like to look at the overall picture, not just trot out 'it's Lerner's fault' whenever we hit a blip.

This "blip" has lasted now for the last 3 seasons, and we're 3 points above the relegation zone going into the new year. When do you start to get worried?

When i decide it's worth worrying about.

Well if losing 8-0 and 0-4 doesn't worry you then you should be safe to carry on thinking wistfully of anfield and the day we won at mid table Liverpool.

Funny you didn't take that approach last season when we won at Chelsea.

I just prefer not to come on here and yell 'Lerner Out' every time there's a mini crisis.

Mini crisis??  I'd love to hear your definition of a major crisis.

[Clampy]

Oh and Eastie, that day we 'won at Anfield' which you've brought up several times this morning, it got us 3 points, which was more telling than the team we beat.

[Rip Van We Go Again]

Mini crisis my arse.

[Lee]

The last 2 games haven't told us anything we don't already know. That we are lacking quality, leadership and physical presence on the pitch. The endeavour and willing is there but against decent teams they don't compensate enough. A number of our players are just not good enough, the likes of KEA for instance offer nothing. I actually thought Delph was ok in his natural position behind the strikers. Protecting the defence however he is a car crash waiting to happen. Real shame about Baker as he is IMO our best CH. Ireland is shocking and again flatters to deceive and offers nothing.
I do trust Lambert and hope that we strengthen adequately in Jan. Tbh though I worry the League Cup run will prove a distraction if it isn't already.
Saturday is massive......UTV

Pretty much how I see it. The loss of the 2 experienced Center backs is worrying. Clark and Herd are doing their best (Herd made 3 class tackles yesterday, although I think that he is better in Midfield), but the lack of any Midfield, means that yesterday that got swamped. It would be great to have the opportunity to play Clarke as the DM, but that isn't feasible at the moment.

KEA should be nowhere this Team. I have seen absolutely nothing from him to show me that that he is a Premiership standard player and as for Ireland, dear oh dear.

[Dave Clark Five]

Ahmadi is lazy and one of the worst ball watchers I have ever seen in a Villa shirt.   He will not go face to face with opponents and seems to be permanently tied to an opposition player like the arse end of a pantomime horse.   

My favourite post of the day.

[eastie]

Oh and Eastie, that day we 'won at Anfield' which you've brought up several times this morning, it got us 3 points, which was more telling than the team we beat.

You brought the Liverpool game into it on page 18 clampy, as some sort of defence to Lerner.

Yes three valuable points, but the facts are we have scored less than any other team , have the worst goal difference on the league, have won 3 home games on a year and 3 away games on a year , but you regard it as a mini- crisis ?

On top of that we have concede 12 goals in 2 games and been lucky not to lose by more- a squad of young , inexperienced lads and a few overpaid overrated under performers- but why worry eh clampy?

Bloody hell man wake up and smell the roses!

[Lee]

Ahmadi is lazy and one of the worst ball watchers I have ever seen in a Villa shirt.   He will not go face to face with opponents and seems to be permanently tied to an opposition player like the arse end of a pantomime horse.   

My favourite post of the day.

Seconded

[Dave Clark Five]

The last 2 games haven't told us anything we don't already know. That we are lacking quality, leadership and physical presence on the pitch. The endeavour and willing is there but against decent teams they don't compensate enough. A number of our players are just not good enough, the likes of KEA for instance offer nothing. I actually thought Delph was ok in his natural position behind the strikers. Protecting the defence however he is a car crash waiting to happen. Real shame about Baker as he is IMO our best CH. Ireland is shocking and again flatters to deceive and offers nothing.
I do trust Lambert and hope that we strengthen adequately in Jan. Tbh though I worry the League Cup run will prove a distraction if it isn't already.
Saturday is massive......UTV

Pretty much how I see it. The loss of the 2 experienced Center backs is worrying. Clark and Herd are doing their best (Herd made 3 class tackles yesterday, although I think that he is better in Midfield), but the lack of any Midfield, means that yesterday that got swamped. It would be great to have the opportunity to play Clarke as the DM, but that isn't feasible at the moment.

KEA should be nowhere this Team. I have seen absolutely nothing from him to show me that that he is a Premiership standard player and as for Ireland, dear oh dear.

The thought of Clark in midfield has crossed my mind a number of times. Problem is, if we get Dunne and Vlaar back before the window ends, will Clark be seen as the solution to our problems?
An investment of four decent midfielders would not go amiss, it is that desperate. Clark would be needed at the back again as Vlaar looks injury prone and Dunne will never have the fitness.
I see a permanent place for Clark in the team. He gets stuck in and has vision. Just hope this latest situation doesn't knock him back.

[Clampy]

The last 2 games haven't told us anything we don't already know. That we are lacking quality, leadership and physical presence on the pitch. The endeavour and willing is there but against decent teams they don't compensate enough. A number of our players are just not good enough, the likes of KEA for instance offer nothing. I actually thought Delph was ok in his natural position behind the strikers. Protecting the defence however he is a car crash waiting to happen. Real shame about Baker as he is IMO our best CH. Ireland is shocking and again flatters to deceive and offers nothing.
I do trust Lambert and hope that we strengthen adequately in Jan. Tbh though I worry the League Cup run will prove a distraction if it isn't already.
Saturday is massive......UTV

Pretty much how I see it. The loss of the 2 experienced Center backs is worrying. Clark and Herd are doing their best (Herd made 3 class tackles yesterday, although I think that he is better in Midfield), but the lack of any Midfield, means that yesterday that got swamped. It would be great to have the opportunity to play Clarke as the DM, but that isn't feasible at the moment.

KEA should be nowhere this Team. I have seen absolutely nothing from him to show me that that he is a Premiership standard player and as for Ireland, dear oh dear.

The thought of Clark in midfield has crossed my mind a number of times. Problem is, if we get Dunne and Vlaar back before the window ends, will Clark be seen as the solution to our problems?
An investment of four decent midfielders would not go amiss, it is that desperate. Clark would be needed at the back again as Vlaar looks injury prone and Dunne will never have the fitness.
I see a permanent place for Clark in the team. He gets stuck in and has vision. Just hope this latest situation doesn't knock him back.

I've never been totally convinced by Clark as a centre half. He's not been crap there, far from it but he's looked decent in the few times he's played centre midfield. One thing he definatley is not though is a left back.

[paul_e]

Oh and Eastie, that day we 'won at Anfield' which you've brought up several times this morning, it got us 3 points, which was more telling than the team we beat.

You brought the Liverpool game into it on page 18 clampy, as some sort of defence to Lerner.

Yes three valuable points, but the facts are we have scored less than any other team , have the worst goal difference on the league, have won 3 home games on a year and 3 away games on a year , but you regard it as a mini- crisis ?

On top of that we have concede 12 goals in 2 games and been lucky not to lose by more- a squad of young , inexperienced lads and a few overpaid overrated under performers- but why worry eh clampy?

Bloody hell man wake up and smell the roses!

All those problems but still 3 points outside the relegation zone make it slightly less of a crisis than some people are implying.

A win over Wigan and it's barely a crisis at all.

Would we all love to be doing better and have a squad full of superstars, of course, but does having the youngest squad in the league learning together whilst currently doing enough to stay in the league not count as something?

Just playing devils advocate a little here but the reality is we're nowhere near as bad as some people seem to have us pegged right now.  We need experience in the window, I think everyone can see that, and we need to get the injury list down a little but 2-3 decent signings in January (a left sided attacking midfielder/forward, a defensive midfielder with some presence and an attacking midfielder who can score and create goals) would make a huge difference.

Despite conceding 12 in 2 I don't think it's a good idea to look at replacing the defence, getting Vlaar, Baker and Dunne fit will be enough to see us through to the summer then we'll have had a good look at Clark and Baker to know if they are good enough (I think they are personally and that the problems have been around them) and Dunne will leave so we can decide how to replace him.

We really need to sign someone who can shield the defence better and we need to be a little less naive defending against the oppositions wide players.

Chelsea did us by keeping Moses and Hazard high up the pitch, this meant we either pinned back our fullbacks and formed a back 5 or we pushed Baker and Herd wide and went 3 on 3.  If we chose the former their fullbacks had too much, drew out our midfield and left big gaps for Mata, if we chose the latter they murdered us one-on-one.

What we should have done was, defensively, revert to a back 4, with 1 full back moving forward to line up against their full back and the centre back on that side shuffling over.  Then Holman or Weimann could tuck in front of the other full back and create 2 banks of 4, with the other of that pair dropping a little deeper in the central role to stand on top of Luiz.  Given how well they played we'd probably have lsot anyway but we'd have looked much more solid and certainly wouldn't have taken a pasting.

Against Tottenham we started with a similar problem, but they didn't have the quality centrally to make us pay so we simply revert to a 5 and 'shut up shop'.  They had lots of corners and half chances but weren't creating anything clear cut.  It did mean we had nothing going forward though.  The change is shape was then the right thing to do but wasn't done correctly.  As part of a 3 Herd being drawn to the ball isn't much of a problem, Clark can step over and cover the gap, but without Baker as well Herd shouldn't have stayed central, swap him and lowton and we'd have looked much more solid.  Delph and KEA just don't keep the ball well enough, not so much due to their individual passing accuracy but rather their ability to offer an outlet to the player with the ball.  By reverting to those 2 we had very little structure in the central area.  Holman went left and disappeared, he offered nothing going forward but also nothing in terms of defensive cover in front of a very inexperienced left back, who was facing a lightning quick right winger and a workhorse right back who is better in attack than defence.

Finally Herd (at right back) and KEA should've been tasked with handing marking Bale between them.  All 3 of his goals came from him drifting inside and not being picked up, our right back and midfielders should've been aware that Bale does that constantly and planned to mark him when he did.  The chimp-faced taff is nothing like as good as he's made out to be but given time and space he will score goals and we gave him lots of each for the entire 2nd half due to poor organisation.  Herd was doing that tracking in the 5 and did a good job but we looked totally unprepared in how to defend against him in a flat 4.

I'd say both games centred around some very naive tactics where we really weren't prepared to play against the wa the opposition.  Chelsea I can forgive more as they called our bluff, if they hadn't scored early it might've turned out very differently.  Not knowing how Bale runs off the wing and how to counter it was just negligent for me.

[eastie]

If we went with a flat back four I'd go with Vlaar and baker in the centre and put Clark alongside Westwood in 4-2-3-1 formation, we need sone creativity and quality in front of them in midfield.

[Clampy]

Oh and Eastie, that day we 'won at Anfield' which you've brought up several times this morning, it got us 3 points, which was more telling than the team we beat.

You brought the Liverpool game into it on page 18 clampy, as some sort of defence to Lerner.

Yes three valuable points, but the facts are we have scored less than any other team , have the worst goal difference on the league, have won 3 home games on a year and 3 away games on a year , but you regard it as a mini- crisis ?

On top of that we have concede 12 goals in 2 games and been lucky not to lose by more- a squad of young , inexperienced lads and a few overpaid overrated under performers- but why worry eh clampy?

Bloody hell man wake up and smell the roses!

All those problems but still 3 points outside the relegation zone make it slightly less of a crisis than some people are implying.

A win over Wigan and it's barely a crisis at all.

Would we all love to be doing better and have a squad full of superstars, of course, but does having the youngest squad in the league learning together whilst currently doing enough to stay in the league not count as something?

Just playing devils advocate a little here but the reality is we're nowhere near as bad as some people seem to have us pegged right now.  We need experience in the window, I think everyone can see that, and we need to get the injury list down a little but 2-3 decent signings in January (a left sided attacking midfielder/forward, a defensive midfielder with some presence and an attacking midfielder who can score and create goals) would make a huge difference.

Despite conceding 12 in 2 I don't think it's a good idea to look at replacing the defence, getting Vlaar, Baker and Dunne fit will be enough to see us through to the summer then we'll have had a good look at Clark and Baker to know if they are good enough (I think they are personally and that the problems have been around them) and Dunne will leave so we can decide how to replace him.

We really need to sign someone who can shield the defence better and we need to be a little less naive defending against the oppositions wide players.

Chelsea did us by keeping Moses and Hazard high up the pitch, this meant we either pinned back our fullbacks and formed a back 5 or we pushed Baker and Herd wide and went 3 on 3.  If we chose the former their fullbacks had too much, drew out our midfield and left big gaps for Mata, if we chose the latter they murdered us one-on-one.

What we should have done was, defensively, revert to a back 4, with 1 full back moving forward to line up against their full back and the centre back on that side shuffling over.  Then Holman or Weimann could tuck in front of the other full back and create 2 banks of 4, with the other of that pair dropping a little deeper in the central role to stand on top of Luiz.  Given how well they played we'd probably have lsot anyway but we'd have looked much more solid and certainly wouldn't have taken a pasting.

Against Tottenham we started with a similar problem, but they didn't have the quality centrally to make us pay so we simply revert to a 5 and 'shut up shop'.  They had lots of corners and half chances but weren't creating anything clear cut.  It did mean we had nothing going forward though.  The change is shape was then the right thing to do but wasn't done correctly.  As part of a 3 Herd being drawn to the ball isn't much of a problem, Clark can step over and cover the gap, but without Baker as well Herd shouldn't have stayed central, swap him and lowton and we'd have looked much more solid.  Delph and KEA just don't keep the ball well enough, not so much due to their individual passing accuracy but rather their ability to offer an outlet to the player with the ball.  By reverting to those 2 we had very little structure in the central area.  Holman went left and disappeared, he offered nothing going forward but also nothing in terms of defensive cover in front of a very inexperienced left back, who was facing a lightning quick right winger and a workhorse right back who is better in attack than defence.

Finally Herd (at right back) and KEA should've been tasked with handing marking Bale between them.  All 3 of his goals came from him drifting inside and not being picked up, our right back and midfielders should've been aware that Bale does that constantly and planned to mark him when he did.  The chimp-faced taff is nothing like as good as he's made out to be but given time and space he will score goals and we gave him lots of each for the entire 2nd half due to poor organisation.  Herd was doing that tracking in the 5 and did a good job but we looked totally unprepared in how to defend against him in a flat 4.

I'd say both games centred around some very naive tactics where we really weren't prepared to play against the wa the opposition.  Chelsea I can forgive more as they called our bluff, if they hadn't scored early it might've turned out very differently.  Not knowing how Bale runs off the wing and how to counter it was just negligent for me.

Or you could just blame Lerner?