Aston Villa v Newcastle United Post-Match Thread

[eastie]

Westwood proved last season he can play at this level - he has started poorly though this year and can have no qualms if he is dropped-i think we pretty much all agree sylla needs to start ,.

I would line up at Norwich assuming okore is out with -

                       Guzan
Lowton.     Clark.   Vlaar     Luna

      Westwood.  Delph.  Sylla

Gabby.   Benteke.  Tonev

With both Lowton and luna needing to vastly improve on yesterday or be the next to be dropped.

[Ad@m]

Forgot to say in my previous post that although I'm not a big fan of his, I thought Clark did pretty well when he came on for Okore.  No silly mistakes and he made a couple of good interceptions.     

Sorry but I don't agree with this.

I'm a fan of Clark, I certainly think he's better than Baker, but the reason for this is his passing. Yesterday his passing was terrible - he seemed to panic every time he got the ball and just launched it forwards, inevitably to one of their players.

He wasn't alone in repeatedly giving the ball away but he certainly didn't help our problems.

[Isa]

Westwood has been pretty dire, but he's really the only player suited to that Carrick sort of role.

Where does the 'Carrick role' fit into our team though? We are not a possession-based team so it is pretty pointless. Westwood offers nothing off the ball.

We're not a possession team no, but it's what Lambert sees us as long term. It's the ultimate goal, but we're technically too poor to play it. The other problem is, that we don't really have too many ball playing midfielders left. Westwood is our tidiest passing player (on his day) but currently lacks that incisive pass, that was beginning to find at the tail end of last season. KEA is okay passing 10 yards but not much more. Delph's game is more about his athleticism. I've no problem with Delph because his running in midfield is important.

I do think there was a balance to Delph, Westy and Sylla that we haven't seen from any other combination. Westwood was always available, while the energy and running of Sylla and Delph gave us some presence. KEA, even when hes played quite well, doesn't give us any presence.

I thought KEA was a major presence in the Arsenal game. He was the one player consistently dispossessing them and giving them little time on the ball.

[treeve1]

Delph looked fairly decent yesterday in an otherwise poor bunch. His quick bursts over 20 yards gets him away from people and is the equivalent to beating a man on the wing to force the issue with the next defender in line. It appears the only way we actually forced them out of shape. Still go his customary booking though in a stupid position. From what I have seen though, he is clearly the best of our middle three. Sissoko made them all look like amateurs though, by far the best midfielder on show and ben arfa looked like a much better ashley young.

[Phil from the upper holte]

Another long season beckons, playing KEA Westwood and Delph in same team at home is not right, where is Tonev? Need creativity, Weimann should not be playing every week and neither should Gabby. Slow at home and constantly unable to create. Not Fucking happy

[Isa]

Sylla played much deeper in pre-season and looked good so hopefully that is the position he will play more of this season. He is our only player who can occupy the DM role that we are desperately lacking in.

Westwood for me is simply too lightweight and defensively inept to play there. At least KEA showed against Arsenal that he can get stuck in. That he can tackle and impose himself on the opposition. Something Westwood never has and probably never will be able to do.

I agree. Sylla was fine when he came in towards the end of last season, and his arrival in the side just happened to coincide with an upturn in the team's fortunes. We started looking better as a unit and dominating the midfield more. He's not just physical - from what I saw, his distribution is fine too, but most importantly his movement was better. Last season, he didn't just sit deep, he frequently moved into space and was generally always available for a pass.

However, for me KEA has no impact whatsoever on the game. Seriously, if he got sent off, would anyone even notice? At least Westwood can produce a defence-splitting pass from time to time, although I agree that defensively he's crap.

Let's be honest, if we really want to do well, we need better players than we have in midfield. Which is why I can't understand Lambert blowing 7 million quid on a striker, when up front is the one area we actually have the requisite quality in.

Surely your KEA comment is equally applicable to Westwood. Would anybody have noticed if he had been sent off in any game so far this season? I certainly wouldn't have.

[Phil from the upper holte]

Oh and if I could find a bet I'd have us never to keep a clean sheet again

[saunders_heroes]

Lowton and Weimann were very poor yesterday. The latter has been incredibly lucky to be in the team for so long considering his poor form this calendar year. You can add Westwood to the mix as well. In my opinion there's a touch of the 'emperor's new clothes' syndrome about Westwood and Lowton. Never been impressed with either of them but I keep getting told they're fine players who should be in the England squad. Not sure if they're even PL quality myself.
It's really painful watching Villa at home these days. Roll on next week when we're away!

[Stu]

OK it's not going swimmingly as we expect however the good points are no one has ripped us apart and we are developing every match. Newcastle despite their results previous to today's game have some very good players. Just need to keep the belief and trust Lambert to get it right.

Can't agree with you mate. We were ripped to shreds for their second goal; Newcastle could have scored a couple more today and the scoreline wouldn't be unflattering. I'm also fed up with 'development'. We've had a season of that (and two seasons prior to that flirting with relegation), it's fucking results time.

Monumentally pissed off with this result.

[eastie]

I find it hard to understand why lambert sets his team up the same way both home and away , surely he must realise that the onus is on the home team to start on th front foot and take the game to the visitors - we allowed newcastle far too much space and quite frankly it is not pleasant to watch - i think away from home we are a decent team but i won't accept his comments that we only know one way to play.

There has to be variation in our formations and the way we play at home - this has gone on far too long and also we need to start games from the first minute instead of waiting 20 minutes before we start to play .

The fans deserve better than the football on offer at villa park in recent seasons - today i am still very angry at what I saw yesterday - it was very very poor .

[Stu]

Now, it sucked today and he's made a very large fuckup in the transfer market in my opinion. But we have quality and ability through the side as the opening couple of games showed, and Lambert has plenty of goodwill in the bank, and we should have enough to be fine this season. But a lot of what happened today was totally unacceptable.

Hmmm. I'm not sure how much quality is there to be honest. They may well be decent footballers in training, but there's too many that just don't seem to be up to the task of actually playing a game of football.

Lowton, Westwood, Al Ahmadi, Clark, Weimann....they seem to be a bit "all fart and no shit" so far this season.

[Ads]

Lose against Norwich and we will go to Hull having lost five from six and be in December again.

<scrathes head>
Are we going to lose to someone else before Norwich?

Our next home game is against Man City. I wouldn't bet on our first clean sheet in 28 games coming against them.

[ajclayton]

Our midfield creates no danger for the opposition at all.

[Villafirst]

PL has screwed up big time with his selection of Bacuna & KEA ahead of Sylla in the 2 home games against Pool & Newcastle. Even against Rotherham Sylla didn't start. He's not getting any decent game time from this and he'll take time to get up to speed if he gets selected. Sylla could've been effective yesterday against Sissoko who bossed the midfield. Our passing and ball retention was shocking.

[eastie]

Lose against Norwich and we will go to Hull having lost five from six and be in December again.

<scrathes head>
Are we going to lose to someone else before Norwich?

Our next home game is against Man City. I wouldn't bet on our first clean sheet in 28 games coming against them.

Against city i daresay we will play like the away team and look to hit them on the counter attack - i like the way southampton have a go at teams at home and take the game to the top teams - at villa park we have beaten arsenal, man utd and Liverpool something like 3 times in our last 50 home games against those 3 - that is quite staggering.