Aston Villa vs Stoke Post Match Thread

[Tayls_7]

Gabby as the quick forward to get onto the loose balls

I have spotted your cunning "odd one out" sentence.

According to Timbo Gabby was "absolutely flying in training". Really? I hope you can't fool him all of the time.

[Clark W Griswold]

Gabby as the quick forward to get onto the loose balls

I have spotted your cunning "odd one out" sentence.

According to Timbo Gabby was "absolutely flying in training". Really? I hope you can't fool him all of the time.

Perhaps he meant that while the rest of the squad were training, Gabby was flying back from a lads long weekend in Marbella and something got lost in translation. Sounds more believable anyway.

[brian green]

Respectfully, I don't think we were forced to play it long.   I think, as I posted last night, that we reverted to TSM/TSM2 panic mode when threatened and hoofing it, Guzan included, is our comfort blanket.

[Stu]

Was it a random set of players?

Wasn't it just a fairly logical selection of players if we were playing 442?

It was logical I think; it seemed clear to me that he wanted Gil/Hutton and Richardson bombing down the wings. But then we kept smacking the ball long which was mostly gobbled up by a tall and strong Stoke defence. I said it before, I know we scored, but from then on we didn't cause Stoke any problems whatsoever.

We still looked disorganised and lacking in solidity. There wasn't much of a plan today. If that was indeed Sherwood's plan to hit the ball early and long to Benteke it showed some naivety considering the opposition.

[Chris Smith]

I thought we were ok in the first half but the second half was really, really poor. Losing Richardson completely unbalanced us, perhaps a manager who knows his players better might have been able to do something about it but we just kept trying the same thing.

I thought Stoke were equally poor and that it was a game neither deserved to win but sadly Mr Vlaar had other ideas.

[Damo70]

It would appear from a couple of comments that during the game he didn't play in yesterday Cleverley turned into a player who should be in our 'best' eleven. I don't agree.

[peter w]

maybe because he played well enough against leicester to suggest he shouldn't have been dropped in the first place?

[john e]

We certainly didn't deserve to win. On how shit we were second half we can't complain about losing.

Second half goes down as one of the worst 45's ever, including all the mind numbing shit that Lambert served up, it was truly dreadfull, topped of by one of the biggest balls ups by a defender you will ever see, as Kamara would say, Unbelievable

I have always thought at all times over the last 3/4 seasons that we would have enough to keep ourselves safe, but after witnessing that with all the positiveness of the new manager etc I can't see it happening
There is no way that team yesterday are staying up, even the little quality we had had disappeared,

I like Sherwood, I think he's said and done all the right things right up till 3.00 o'clock yesterday when we all saw the king was wearing no clothes, the king being Villa not Sherwood

[Clampy]

Yesterday was all our own doing with the timing of both goals. We completely switched off for the first and the second was just a stupid thing to do by someone so experienced. A point would have been fair overall and not the end of the world. I think he messed up taking off Gil, unless he was still feeling the effects of his injury. I would have taken off Gabby who did nothing again and Delph seems to have gone off the boil since signing his contract, he was awful.

[Monty]

Yesterday was all our own doing with the timing of both goals. We completely switched off for the first and the second was just a stupid thing to do by someone so experienced. A point would have been fair overall and not the end of the world. I think he messed up taking off Gil, unless he was still feeling the effects of his injury. I would have taken off Gabby who did nothing again and Delph seems to have gone off the boil since signing his contract, he was awful.

I think Gil was starting to fade a bit, and quite possibly due to injury, so I understand that substitution. I agree about Gabby, though - not sure what he did to stay on.

[Malandro]

What is it? Lack of effort, quality, bottle or all of them?

Yesterday palace and hull busted a gut in their games, I don't feel like we've had that.
I think the last spot will be between us and qpr.

[olaftab]

Dead ball delivery might be worst I have ever seen at this level.

There. You made an error and it's now fixed!

[Malandro]

Dead aston villa might be worst I have ever seen at this level.

There. You made an error and it's now fixed!

[Stu]

The players are letting us down as well. There doesn't seem to be any spirit in them. So many played so badly yesterday; the stakes are really high now, you'd think they would put a shift in for the new manager at least, not to mention try and get the team out of the relegation places but they didn't turn up.

I'm starting to think that they already believe we're down and are just going through the motions.

[olaftab]

What is it? Lack of effort, quality, bottle or all of them?

Yesterday palace and hull busted a gut in their games, I don't feel like we've had that.
I think the last spot will be between us and qpr.

Not sure it is. Two weeks ago Hull were dead in the water and now they have climbed out. Sunderland and Hull will still be involved along with ourselves  and QPR. So it's two out of 5.
By the way it's confidence. Yesterday you could smell the lack of it out there on the pitch and terraces.