Aston Villa v Everton Post-Match Thread

[barrysleftfoot]

 Everton had Barkley, Osman and Pienaar, all 3 would walk into our team, and be ideal, we have nobody like that at the club.There are plenty of these kind of players about, Kagawa, De Bruyne, even Rosicky, may be gettable on loan in Jan, but we need at least 1 of these players asap.

 I partly agree with your post Navin R, but i would say, that just with the purchase/loan of this kind of player, defeats like yday, and last sunday, could easily be turned into victories.

 

[Clampy]

We can't miss chances like we did and expect to win games. It was frustrating because I thought we played some nice stuff in the first half. Also, i'm not sure what point was of throwing a 6ft striker on and taking off a winger.

Agree with you and I failed to understand the subbing. Tactically it made no sense. It appeared to be do something type of thing. Either Weimann or Gabby or both should have gone replaced by Sylla and Helenius. Hopefully Lambert is learning by making mistakes.

This is one thing that does frustrate me about Lambert. His answer in trying to change a game is to just throw another striker on.

[Witton Warrior]

One feature for me yesterday was when Delph moved further up the pitch and we started to drive into their box, he had one goal-bound shot blocked but then dropped back to the centre circle when the subs came on.

It always looks to me as if we are trying to retain some sort of tactical "shape" - then the tempo rises - we forget the "shape" and start to play better - then we remember the "shape" and go back to being predictable.

[olaftab]

May be that is the answer. Westwood and Sylla with Delph driving forward?

[supertom]

We can't miss chances like we did and expect to win games. It was frustrating because I thought we played some nice stuff in the first half. Also, i'm not sure what point was of throwing a 6ft striker on and taking off a winger.

Agree with you and I failed to understand the subbing. Tactically it made no sense. It appeared to be do something type of thing. Either Weimann or Gabby or both should have gone replaced by Sylla and Helenius. Hopefully Lambert is learning by making mistakes.

Tactically it made no sense which is almost the Lambert mantra. I don't think he's learning from his mistakes at all, which is worrying. On the flipside, Martinez made a change which ended up contributing to them winning the game.
Honestly I struggle to get behind a manager who plays so narrowly. We have a game where he plays a winger (Tonev) who expands the pitch and we look better going forward than the previous two matches. Albeit we lack any composure still in the final third. But then what does he do? He brings on a 6ft5 striker. You could see the logic in that certainly. But who does he take off? The winger and Tonev departings taking any attacking width, and potentially of delivery from wide, with him.
This happens almost on a game to game basis. Utterly bone headed decision making, and that's when he has the gumption to even make a decision.

I'm struggling to see the light at the end of the tunnel here I'm afraid.

I'd be tempted to give some of our younger kids a go. Johnson might offer something. Grealish when he's fit. It's done Barkley no harm being put in. Our current squad are too predictable and lacking in even basic ball control. Our youth and reserve sides have been one of the best over the last couple of decades. I think we should be trying to bring more of our own 18-21 year olds into the side, rather than some of these questionnable signings that Lambert has made.
Do we really not have a young attacking mid who couldn't offer something? Or a young midfielder who can do everything Westwood does (like pass it five yards sideways) but better? I'd like to get some of that unpredictability in there and a few more of the home grown boys.

[eastie]

I would like to see Grealish given a chance and maybe Carruthers too at some point this season - both seem to have the creative ability that the team is badly lacking.

[Ads]

To comment on Everton;

That was the first time I had seen Ross Berkley, so my comments are not binding. I have been told by Everton supporting friends that he his better than Rooney. He played wide yesterday of the three behind Lukaku and to be honest, the only things of consequence he did was smash a twenty yarder, twenty yards wide and woefully over hit three crosses, being deservedly subbed.

On that basis he will fit right in for Ingerlund.

People have spoken about Barry. He is a good player, but his role yesterday was to lamp Benteke. Osman made the difference when he came on. We saw the ball less, he used it better than Berkley and he scored.

Barry would have made no difference to the result yesterday if he had been sitting in the two next to Delph. The system was fine, Andi and Sylla aside, the personell was fine, the chances we created were enough to win the game before half time.

The finishing from Benteke, Andi and Gabby was criminal.

[mr woo]

It's a good point regarding the positioning of our midfield.

There was a passage of play yesterday when Gabby picked the ball up and made for the left wing with it in order to create the space to get a cross in.

Nice idea, trouble was of course, that in amongst the Everton back four and retreating defensive midfielders, we only had Benteke in the box to aim at.

Naturally, the ball came in, we were outnumbered 6 to 1 and it was cleared with ease.

The point being, both Delph and Westwood were still standing in the centre circle, having failed to get forward to provide support to a promising attack.

Whether they have been told not to, lack the intelligence or will to, or are simply too knackered from chasing possession all afternoon I couldnt say. Your guess is as good as mine.

[exigo]

I assume the new tunnel decoration will be finished this week, once they've added 'help yourself to three points' underneath 'this is Villa Park'.

[andyh]

Agree on the midfield.
We mentioned loads of times that there was a huge gap between the strikers and the midfield with the midfield holding and not bombing on.

[Ads]

In my view Delph needs to be in that space, with Sylla sitting in the two and Tonev where Andi is now. Andi needs to occupy space just beyond the touchline on those wooden benches.

[oldhill_avfc]

Some of the results might be marginally better but our ability to pass the ball is much worse and our attacking play is also worse than it was from Jan-May.

I'm not bothered about what we did this time last season because in the second half of the season it felt like we were making progresses but we've stagnated and gone backwards again. That's the problem. We were fully deserving against Arsenal and desperately unlucky against Chelsea. Signs looked promising but it's gone tits up since to be honest. The Man City game papered over a lot of cracks. .....

Most of us expected a steady upward curve from last season's form.  The start of the season was great and probably raised expectations.

Now we are coming to realise most of last season's problems remain with the recent signings offering no significant improvement on what we already had. If we can match the form from Jan to end of last season we should be OK and looking toward a lower mid table finish.

Next summer will be massive for Lambert.  Benteke will go and then it's white knuckle stuff - do you trust him to bring in the right replacements?  After all if he he hadn't got lucky with Benteke he'd have gone by now.

[Clampy]

In my view Delph needs to be in that space, with Sylla sitting in the two and Tonev where Andi is now. Andi needs to occupy space just beyond the touchline on those wooden benches.

I like Weimann a lot but he needs leaving out for a few games. I couldn't work out where he was meant to be playing at times yesterday. I'd play Tonev, Gabby and Benteke has a front three with Delph, Sylla and Westwood in the middle.

[eastie]

In my view Delph needs to be in that space, with Sylla sitting in the two and Tonev where Andi is now. Andi needs to occupy space just beyond the touchline on those wooden benches.

I like Weimann a lot but he needs leaving out for a few games. I couldn't work out where he was meant to be playing at times yesterday. I'd play Tonev, Gabby and Benteke has a front three with Delph, Sylla and Westwood in the middle.

Front three doesn't work at home for me - Kozak is no good as a target man on his own but may thrive alongside benteke.
Tonev and bacuna wide midfield with sylla and Delph in the middle .

[Monty]

I expect someone to shoot me down here, but what the hell: he shouldn't have signed Kozak instead of another attacking midfielder. I know he wanted both, but we're clearly operating within a budget and £7m is a fat wad of that. It's been argued that he couldn't get the deal he wanted on an attacking midfielder, but if we didn't sign Kozak and pooled the £7m with the attacking midfielder money we could have surely signed a really top class playmaker. As it is, we have Kozak (who I do like) and no playmaker - ie, he opted for the backup bigman striker instead of a first XI player. I still support Lambert, but he's made a mistake.