Aston Villa vs Southampton post match thread

[silhillvilla]

Nothing wrong with the decision to replace Sanchez. Unfortunately there was a lot wrong with the decision to bring on Bent as his replacement.

I thought Sanchez was blowing out of his arse a bit yes but for me he was holding our shape in the middle and was a nice buffer in front of the impressive Clark / Okore partnership. Once he went off you visibly saw Schneidelin grow in stature.

[supertom]

Nothing wrong with the decision to replace Sanchez. Unfortunately there was a lot wrong with the decision to bring on Bent as his replacement.

I thought Sanchez was blowing out of his arse a bit yes but for me he was holding our shape in the middle and was a nice buffer in front of the impressive Clark / Okore partnership. Once he went off you visibly saw Schneidelin grow in stature.

The natural sub would have been initially to bring Richardson on for Sanchez and have Rico holding. He playing that position in the earlier games, and in actuality it's the only role he's done thus far for us with any competence.
But yeah, Sanchez is still struggling with the rigors of Prem football. It's gonna take him a good few months to get fully up to speed. Or possibly like Stan, we might not see his best till next season.

[Ads]

I was pleased with the result but disappointed with the performance.

On paper we have just had two good results all told against sides in good form, with us, again, suffering from a lot of injuries. There were some nonsensical predictions again prior to this one of cricket scores as there had been prior to West Ham, so you think you’d be happy, but I’m not. We’re so negative its beyond frustration. We created very little again and that is down to the manager and we ended up playing like an away side at home, again.

We have a midfield three who play so flat it’s untrue. We only have the option of shifting the ball sideways because they’re strung out in a line. It goes wide, wide, wide to eventually find a full back forty yards from the opposition box. Its predictable and avoidable.

We’re also so deep that it makes it impossible to retain possession and we’re asking our full backs to do something special and carry the ball forty or fifty yards to put a cross in, every time.

We isolate our forwards, nobody from the midfield, despite having an extra man, got forward and hit the box. We’re asking Gabby to pick the ball up and do something special, because we’re so deep that he is getting the ball in inside his own half and we show so little inclination to get forward that we recycle it cheaply because our front men get surrounded.

That was the first time I have seen Southampton this season and its clear they’re a decent enough side, but no better than upper midtable. They keep the ball quite nicely, but seem incapable of penetrating you down the middle. Maybe that’s because Pelle didn’t look mobile and Long was equally as poor. They attack with one real purpose; isolate the full back. Time and time again they would knock a long diagonal into the channel looking to get widemen onto it. They then have their full backs pushed 60 to 70 yards up the pitch. We consistently failed to put pressure on Schneiderlin because we were so deep, despite having another man in there. We consistently failed to push their full backs the other way because N’Zogbia and the out of position (again) Andi were sat so deep covering a full back. Our first instinct was to defend and eventually that will cost you.

We’re not building anything here. There is no pattern of play that has developed no means of breaking the opposition down, nothing that we are building towards but just not quite executing. We look really, really poor and I am thoroughly fed up with how we will continue to bumble along with this McLiesh brand of football.

It’s a case of hoping Benteke comes back and does something special, which he might, because is a very good player. But its yet another season of 16th/15th tedious rubbish and it is entirely unacceptable and what makes it worse, with this squad of players, it is entirely avoidable.

[Monty]

We lost a lot with Gabby going back to the wing, as well. They were always worried that a clearance could turn into through-ball again while Gabby was waiting in the centre-circle, but with him well back in our half and Bent lolling about like a seal they could push their line up really high and pen us in.

[mattjpa]

Why dont we ever leave Gabby up top on corners? If he is on the halfway line and Andi is left 5-10 yards from the edge of our box to pick up a clearance, thats 3, potentially 4 people they wont be able to load into the box . we would still have 8 defenders in our area. As it stands, every corner that comes in is aimed at 7 people waiting to attack it. When we clear it, it ends up back with them as we have nobody outside the box so they virtually get two corners for every one they win.

If its some weird tactic to lull them into loading more people forward its unnecessary - they proved last night that they can take the ball from our area, through 3-4 defenders and fashion a good chance at the end of it.

I know its only a small point but it would make a difference to pushing the opposition back

[tomd2103]

Nothing wrong with the decision to replace Sanchez. Unfortunately there was a lot wrong with the decision to bring on Bent as his replacement.

I thought Sanchez was blowing out of his arse a bit yes but for me he was holding our shape in the middle and was a nice buffer in front of the impressive Clark / Okore partnership. Once he went off you visibly saw Schneidelin grow in stature.

He certainly has the physical and athletic attributes to compete in the Premier League, but it really is heart in mouth stuff when he is on the ball, especially in our own half.  Hopefully that will come though. 

[supertom]

Nothing wrong with the decision to replace Sanchez. Unfortunately there was a lot wrong with the decision to bring on Bent as his replacement.

I thought Sanchez was blowing out of his arse a bit yes but for me he was holding our shape in the middle and was a nice buffer in front of the impressive Clark / Okore partnership. Once he went off you visibly saw Schneidelin grow in stature.

He certainly has the physical and athletic attributes to compete in the Premier League, but it really is heart in mouth stuff when he is on the ball, especially in our own half.  Hopefully that will come though. 

With Sanchez any time he's on the ball for more than 2-3 seconds in one go he loses it, almost without fail. When he plays quickly, first time he looks a lot better. But he's got to be sharper with the ball all the time. Sometimes you don't get much time at all in a high intensity game.

[supertom]

Why dont we ever leave Gabby up top on corners? If he is on the halfway line and Andi is left 5-10 yards from the edge of our box to pick up a clearance, thats 3, potentially 4 people they wont be able to load into the box . we would still have 8 defenders in our area. As it stands, every corner that comes in is aimed at 7 people waiting to attack it. When we clear it, it ends up back with them as we have nobody outside the box so they virtually get two corners for every one they win.

If its some weird tactic to lull them into loading more people forward its unnecessary - they proved last night that they can take the ball from our area, through 3-4 defenders and fashion a good chance at the end of it.

I know its only a small point but it would make a difference to pushing the opposition back

It's kind of blindingly obvious really, but Lambert doesn't often see blindingly obvious unfortunately. Which is why we're in such a mess. Gabby shouldn't have been any deeper than their last man in the entire game. By the time he scored he was brought deeper and deeper back into our half to defend more and more, and ultimately the threat he possessed in the first half, wasn't there in the second when we parked the bus.

[Ron Manager]

Cleverley although strictly limited skillwise puts in a shift each game .That is guaranteed. I would sign him in Jan for about half of what Man U will ask. About 4mil. How long has N'Zogbia got left on his contract? We really need him and Darren Bent out of the club. Westwood as we all know is a replica of Cleverley but of a lower standard. He is a squad player at best but a squad player who plays every game. Weimann is Weimann.

[badluckeric(gates)]

No time to go through the 17 pages but Sanchez getting caught in possession is not good. I like his battling and he seems to be able to pick a pass but way too slow on the ball.
*edit* just saw you talking about it 3 posts up^

[aj2k77]

Albeit that Southampton didn't play well last night, the game had the flow of 11 men against 10, with us set up to hang on and hope.  How can you expect people to shell out large sums of money to go and watch that?

Almost all of our games have turned into Fa Cup rnd 3 ties with us as minnows against a Premier League club. Draws are met by the management with celebration and should we perform a giant killing the manager talks about it for the next 6-8 weeks.

[richard moore]

Albeit that Southampton didn't play well last night, the game had the flow of 11 men against 10, with us set up to hang on and hope.  How can you expect people to shell out large sums of money to go and watch that?

Almost all of our games have turned into Fa Cup rnd 3 ties with us as minnows against a Premier League club. Draws are met by the management with celebration and should we perform a giant killing the manager talks about it for the next 6-8 weeks.

As I suspect shall we, it has got that bad. Victories over teams we would have formerly thought as perfunctory are now greeted by all of us a turning point in the season and a charge up the table

[richard moore]

Nothing wrong with the decision to replace Sanchez. Unfortunately there was a lot wrong with the decision to bring on Bent as his replacement.

I thought Sanchez was blowing out of his arse a bit yes but for me he was holding our shape in the middle and was a nice buffer in front of the impressive Clark / Okore partnership. Once he went off you visibly saw Schneidelin grow in stature.

He certainly has the physical and athletic attributes to compete in the Premier League, but it really is heart in mouth stuff when he is on the ball, especially in our own half.  Hopefully that will come though. 

With Sanchez any time he's on the ball for more than 2-3 seconds in one go he loses it, almost without fail. When he plays quickly, first time he looks a lot better. But he's got to be sharper with the ball all the time. Sometimes you don't get much time at all in a high intensity game.

What are these high intensity games you speak of, me a Villa fan, me no understand the phrase?

[andyh]

When the home team starts time wasting after 33 mins, you know things aren't good.

[robbo1874]

Contextually this is a good result?  Five and half seasons ago, when Villa had their third successive top six finish, with two trips to Wembley thrown in for good measure, Southampton started on minus ten points in League One. Just let that sink in for a second.

depends on the context you're talking about obviously. If we're talking about this season as a context (which I was) then yes it was a decent result. If you want to go back 5, 10, 30 seasons then clearly no it wasn't