Aston Villa vs Stoke Post Match Thread

[silhillvilla]

I'm going to get shot down in flames for this but I think its more than possible Benteke won't score for us again,  stay up or go down, he'll be gone.

He looks unenthused, totally lacking in confidence and devoid of energy. It's shocking a player who looked on the verge of being a Worldy, suddenly looks fucking awful. He's not getting the service, and the standard of player around him isn't always brilliant but he's not working hard enough for me.
We'll be lucky to get 10 mill for him. A player who on top form could have fetched us around 25 million.

He's a 1 season wonder.

[claret and blue blood]

On the way to the game for the first time in ages I was nervous and apprehensive as I thought we could win a game.More fool me ,that game confirmed what we all know,we ain't got the qualities required to avoid relegation and Sherwood will be powerless to do anything about it.
The blame lies completely with Lerner for running the club into the ground,even to the point of waiting way to late to change the most useless manager in our history,I feel sorry for Sherwood,yes he didn't get it right today, but the players just ain't good enough ,down we go!

[garyfouroaks]

Sherwood out, obviously.

[silhillvilla]

This is like a nightmare. We are 19th in PL and Tim Sherwood is our manager. You couldn't make it up

[garyfouroaks]

. He's going to have become tactically astute very quickly now

He doesn't even have his Pro A license- we are work experience for him

[AV82EC]

Just got back to Cotton Village. Gutted and disappointed in the main but there were some bright spots.

Guzan - 6 No chance with either goal and didn't do a lot else wrong.
Hutton - 6 got forward well and defended ok
Vlaar - 4 had been reasonably steady up to his mistake at the end
Clark - 7 seemed comfortable and no major issues
Richardson - 5 ok before he had to go off
Chissohko - 4 for such a big bloke gets outmuscled fr too easily and offers nothing going forwards
Sanchez - 5 competitive but still prone to a few misplaced passes
Delph - 4 poor today
Gil - 5 poor in his own half but better further up the pitch, didn't look fit
Sinclair - 6 started well, good goal then faded badly in the second half
Agbonlahor - 1 quite literally a fucking disgrace, did he do anything of note?
Weimann - 4 as ever can't fault his work rate but can fault the quality of any pass he tried to make
Benteke - 4 the big guy is woefully out of form and self confidence

Sherwood - 5 not a fan of 442 as it left us outnumbered in midfield and Whelan and Nzonzi ended up running the show second half, encouraging first 30-40 mins and something to build on. Felt we mixed up the longer and shorter stuff well. A point would have been a fair reflection of the game.

Oh and I still fucking hate Stoke, haven't changed from the Pulis era.

[Eigentor]

One of our biggest problems is that our (central) midfielders are out of form (Sanchez, Delph) or not very good (Westwood, Cleverley). One way to deal with this is to go for quantity instead of quality, and that's one of the reasons why I don't think 4-4-2 is a very good choice right now.

[CJ]

Took fucking ages to get back so haven't read the thread yet (the roadworks at Spaghetti are causing real problems - and it will only get worse - for the Albion league game the M6 North is shut at J7 from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. so Christ knows which way I'll get back). Anyway... really needed to win that, or get a draw as a minimum. It seems our new tactic is route 1 launch to Benteke - bit naive when your playing Sturk, aka Land of the Giants. Unsurprisingly it didn't work. And given that he was always marked by 3 players maybe a little guile or alternative may have helped. And taking a decent corner may also help. And again given that their defenders are all 9' tall a little variety from set pieces may also have helped. And Gabby moving now and then may have helped. It just goes on and on.  Started brightly but we were bullied in midfield throughout a very poor game.

I really think we're going down now - we're simply running out of games and everyone around us is picking up odd points. The blame won't be with Sherwood though - it will rest squarely on the shoulders of Lambert, and Lerner's refusal to sack him before Christmas when we would have had time and games to get clear. Too little too late I'm afraid

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Re: the tactics discussion, Sherwood is faced with players who had three years of counter-attacking and punting it up to Benteke, then all of a sudden being told to keep hold of the ball at all costs.  Lambert couldn't have made more of a pig's ear of things if he'd tried, and Sherwood s going to have the devil's own job putting that right.

The trouble with Lambert's holding the ball at all costs was it was too slow, it needed tweaking to speed it up, you know, the way most decent teams play. To revert back to hoofing up to Benteke despite it's failure for most of the season was a ridiculous decision, especially given the opposition.

Where do we go from here next week? Stick with hoofing or drop it completely and try and improve what Lambert failed to do? On today's performance I'd imagine Sherwood never got to see any videos of us this season so hopefully his new video chap can show him how to work the DVD player.

[Michel Sibble]

Best prepare for life in the Championship.

[silhillvilla]

Best prepare for life in the Championship.

Yup.

[oldham_villa]

My observations (in no particular order )

We were the equivalent of leaving a bag of chocolate raisins on a radiator. Started off alright, then lost all shape, before melting into a complete unusable wreck

Formation:
The two in the middle were badly outfought and outnumbered today. They offered practically no out all from defence, resulting in us going too direct, most of the time.
Gill was far too deep, dropping deeper to pick he ball up and getting himself into trouble too often. Any mistakes in those areas will result in him losing his confidence instantly. It seemed to affect Hutton's play too, as the link up play was pedestrian and poor.

Style of play:
Sherwood talked of variation. If Benteke was no available, another player would have to be found. Far too often we played it direct to Benteke, who didn't win very much (I was impressed with the German they had a centre half). Where was Agbonlahor, and why was he not running the channels?
Only Sinclair showed any desire, putting a good shift chasing them in possession, and had some decent touches.
Why was Gill not pushed further up the pitch where he can play those deft passes, or even get in a good position to shoot?
It was pleasing that our centre halves (in particular Clark), stopped playing those stupid 5 yard passes to the full back, when the full back clearly has no when to go.
Set pieces again were diabolical. Martin Laursen used to make an average ball a goal scoring opportunity. Blamanche Ron is a tart for a big man and should be sticking his head in areas where he has a chance of scoring

Players
Guzan - decision making poor. Distribution poor. Not his best game.
Hutton - always puts a shift in. Gill dropping so deep got in his way, and if he bombed on he was more often than not caught out when someone lost possession
Richardson - had a good first half and worked hard. Unlucky to get injured.
Sissoko - the Villa left back disease strikes again: good start to the season, the a drop in focus/ confidence. Offers zero attacking threat
Vlaar - both goals came from his mistakes. A captain should be installing belief into his players, but Ron displays little of those qualities. Lacks character.
Clark - has got stronger and stronger as the season has progressed. Making up for his lack of pace with good reading and positional play. Looks like he wants it and will be hurting tonight.
Delph - why oh why does he keep going on his right food, thus halting any impetus in an attack? He's clearly been told to be more direct, as he placed balls into the box, rather than working the ball back to the keeper from good positions, as in previous weeks
Sanchez - does he not know "man on", or could it be that there was no-one close enough to him for most of the game? Does some good things and then tries to be too accurate at other times.
Gill - why drop so deep? Thoroughly disappointing today. Not sure if it was injury niggles or the first sign in a loss of confidence
Sinclair - excellent game. Scored, worked his bollocks off and looked to link up at most opportunities.
Agbonlahor - hmmm. The coaches need to get a grip of him and tell him to start working the channels. Absolute waste of a shirt at the moment. Shows little sign of wanting to put it right. Ironic how Keane had problems with him and Delph. They clearly like it on their terms.
Benteke - is he lacking confidence, or desire? Didn't win much in the way of headers today. Bearing in mind he wasn't up against Shallcross or Huth. Too easily marshalled. To be fair, it doesn't help when Agbonlahor doesn't offer any threat, so defenders can double up on CB
Wiemann - dear me, that was terrible. He clearly isn't a winger.

I honestly think we will stay up. For that to happen, we need luck, perspiration and application (probably in that order).

[Legion]

Abject, especially the second half.

It's got to the stage now where such bad times call for desperate measures. I'm going back to starting the pre-match, match and post-match threads, starting with Newcastle.

[supertom]

I'm going to get shot down in flames for this but I think its more than possible Benteke won't score for us again,  stay up or go down, he'll be gone.

He looks unenthused, totally lacking in confidence and devoid of energy. It's shocking a player who looked on the verge of being a Worldy, suddenly looks fucking awful. He's not getting the service, and the standard of player around him isn't always brilliant but he's not working hard enough for me.
We'll be lucky to get 10 mill for him. A player who on top form could have fetched us around 25 million.

He's a 1 season wonder.

I don't think he's like a Roque Santa Cruz by any stretch. Benteke can do some astonishing things, and has done this season on all too few occasions. I think there's a bit too much sulking going on to his end, and it undoubtedly must be frustrated, but his career is in danger of going the way of John Carew. That may be enough for Benteke's ambitions, but really he should be pushing to be playing in the Champions League every season.
He just needs to pull his bloody finger out. I honestly think he's sighing his way to the summer where he'll probably fancy a more solidly footed (if not CL) club to come in for him. Does it bother him if he fetches 10 million for us, or 20 million? No.
If he had Weimann's determination and work-rate, he'd be banging them in right now.

But Benteke is in danger of being an astonishing waste of talent.

[Marlon From Bearwood]

Sherwood guaranteed in his press conference that every player would give 100%. So what happened? They looked as half arsed as ever.

Benteke looks liked he'd rather be somewhere else.

Weimann - I admit I was wrong about him when I called him a Championship player; he's League 1 at best.

Gabby- just fuck off. If you can't be arsed to even look like you give a shit whilst we are deep in the mire, then just do one.