Aston Villa vs Stoke Post Match Thread

[oldham_villa]

I'm not sure Sherwood will persist with Agbonlahor, should he continue to play as he is. He's likely to be dropped or have some "injury".

Think our midfield has also shown that none of them are up for playing in a middle two, it will be interesting to see how how alters this.

[Holte L2]

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

That's my take on it. Same goes for Weimamn and Bacuna. I'd even be tempted to play Gil in a forward role just off Benteke with Bacuna and Sinclair as the wide men.

[Bad English]

I haven't watched us play for quite a while. This is mainly because watching a stream eats up 10-15% of my laptop's weekly bandwidth allowance (I get my home internet via Eutelsat and Tooway : 20 gigs per month shared between all wifi devices).

I watched yesterday (for obvious new manager reasons) but the overwhelming pusillanimity of our "Lions" left me agape.

I don't think I am as gloomy as I was during the O'Fuckwit years but there will be time for that if we go down.

[Ron Manager]

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.

I was absolutely positive Stoke were going to win with 20mins to go. I was sure Hughes would bring on Crouchy and fully fit or not he would score. But no we found another way to lose!

[oldham_villa]

Just reading the report in the Sunday Times.

Look at the player ratings. He clearly didn't go to the match. This is indicative of the bullshit in the media.

Guzan 7
Hutton, Clark, Vlaar, Richardson and Sissoko 6
Gil 7😳
Sanchez, Delph 6
Sinclair 7
Benteke, Agbonlahor, Wiemann 5

[oldham_villa]

I thought he'd bring Crouch too, and I thought he would be the architect of our downfall.

[nick harper]

Very much reminds of 86/87. I can remember looking at the next game as the one where the team would turn things round and we'd go on a run but it never happened.

 Sherwood needs some luck - to hit on a formation or scratch a result from somewhere to instill a modicum of belief into these players. The lack of leaders on the pitch is really telling at the moment.

[fredm]

We started ok and got the goal, then seemed reasonably comfortable up until letting in the stupid equaliser.  Second half we didn't show any drive or determination as if we wanted to win and I was always thinking that Stoke were going to score a winner.  As the 90th minute crept up started feeling a bit relieved that we had managed to secure a point. Then wham.  Undone by the most experienced player on the pitch.
What little confidence we might have gained with a draw has been taken away and TS now has to try and rebuild them again.  The first ting he needs to do is get them playing at a higher tempo and getting them closer to the opposition.  Stoke were allowed far too much time on the ball without being hassled and put under pressure and when we did get possession we were too slow in moving it around to pull them out of position.
I think he was right in taking Gil off when he did, he seemed to be running out of steam but I would have put Bacuna on and put Weimann on instead of Gabby.  Andi runs around a lot and when he is up top alongside Benteke in the past has seemed to take some of the defenders attention away allowing Benteke a bit more freedom.

But as others have said, overall the quality of our players is not very high but with effort and determination they should show themselves to be better than some of the other teams in the league.  It will just depend on how much they want it.

[Damo70]

I haven't watched us play for quite a while. This is mainly because watching a stream eats up 10-15% of my laptop's weekly bandwidth allowance (I get my home internet via Eutelsat and Tooway : 20 gigs per month shared between all wifi devices).

I watched yesterday (for obvious new manager reasons) but the overwhelming pusillanimity of our "Lions" left me agape.

I don't think I am as gloomy as I was during the O'Fuckwit years but there will be time for that if we go down.

Just watch our goals. That will take up less than 1% of your allowance.

[Damo70]

Very much reminds of 86/87. I can remember looking at the next game as the one where the team would turn things round and we'd go on a run but it never happened.

 Sherwood needs some luck - to hit on a formation or scratch a result from somewhere to instill a modicum of belief into these players. The lack of leaders on the pitch is really telling at the moment.

Have a look at our record in '86/'87. Very similar as you say. Not many hammerings but not many goals for either. If I remember right from Boxing day onwards our goalscoring record was as abysmal as our record so far this season.

[class-of-82]

Have always said put the whole squad up for sale and with maybe the exception of guzan,Delph and benteke see who comes in for them.
Maybe Leicester hull and a few championship teams and that folks is where we are at this moment in time.

[supertom]

Newcastle away is absolutely key. I think we're going to struggle against solid, well organised clubs like Stoke. Newcastle are slightly in disarray. It's a bit of mess there. It's a good time to play them (it's a fucking marvellous time to play us of course too). So we really need to be taking a point minimum from that.

We have to go all out against sides around us and sides in a bit of a slump. The other games are probably a write off. We're just too awful.

The next 3 are games we could take points in, so we've absolutely got to. If we have to start hoping for surprise results against the top sides, or solid sides, we're fucked. Beating QPR at home will be an absolute must too.

[Monty]

Sherwood did say after the game that 'yeah, perhaps' we played the ball long too much to Benteke. Let's hope we see a bit of a backtrack from that method, because it did not work. If Benteke's free, and you can get the ball to him so he can control it and hold it up, great, but he was surrounded by giants a lot yesterday and we still punted it up to his head. Not smart football from the defenders.

[silhillvilla]

We are a dire football side . Boring , lethargic and isolated . The premier league will breathe a sigh of relief when our relegation is confirmed .

[Bad English]

I haven't watched us play for quite a while. This is mainly because watching a stream eats up 10-15% of my laptop's weekly bandwidth allowance (I get my home internet via Eutelsat and Tooway : 20 gigs per month shared between all wifi devices).

I watched yesterday (for obvious new manager reasons) but the overwhelming pusillanimity of our "Lions" left me agape.

I don't think I am as gloomy as I was during the O'Fuckwit years but there will be time for that if we go down.

Just watch our goals. That will take up less than 1% of your allowance.

I could afford to stream those in full HD or 4k