We lack enegery and legs in midfield these past three games. Bacuna and Tshibola have pace to drive the game on and get advanced of the forwards. Bacuna did this well against Reading.
While Grealish and Adomah are both wingers. We crave a little balance.
Can you honestly say that Grealish is a winger as he has no pace and he will cut back inside?
I just want to see him driving into the penalty area, being more positive and not picking the ball off our back four which he has been doing the last couple of games.
While I think Grealish can be played both inside or out left , but Ads point is valid if you consider balance in our midfield. We already got a stationary (but strong) tower in Jedinak. While everyone agree Jedi is our most important player he is not very mobile and need 2 midfielders to give him time to position himself to break off attacks and start counters. Ideally those midfielders need to bring what Jedi lacks...that is primarily pace and mobility. Especially away (Leeds, Norwich) then Bruce makes the mistake by bringing one of those (Westwood) back and leaving Grealish alone in front like so:
Grealish
Jedinak Westwood
This resulted in 3 bad things for Villa
1) Westwood who hardly ever play the ball forward (21 passes in 90 min and only 5 forward at Norwich), kicks it left to Jedi or right to Hutton in our buildup...that effectively turn it back to the opposition.
2) Jedinak is slightly unbalanced to the right and can't give the even slower Elphick the extra time and cover he needs. Westwood is made of paper (1 challenge all game) and brings no help for Elphick or Hutton.
3) Grealish is left our sole midfield offensive playmaker...now despite all his talent he rarely combines to bring our forwards in play with one touch. He prefers to run at the defenders with the ball, something that might work coming from the side where he facing 1 or 2 defenders...but in the middle he got swarmed.
The remedy (though not perfect) might be playing him left where Ayew sometimes play (like Ad suggested). The other option is to use 2 cental mid infront of Jedi. Like this:
Grealish Bacuna
Jedinak
I prefer the idea Ads advocating with Grealish LF and someone like Gardner paired with Bacuna.. Then you can sub Grealish for Ayew and maybe RMC for Gardner without rearranging the entire formation. Bruce got this right in some of his earlier games I think (against Reading for sure) but have since then screwed up his own recipe. Bacuna who had some good games before his short injury spell have been left weltering his form on the bench in favor of Westwood (sigh). Ayew have sulked from being moved aside to accommodate Gabby, something that also seems to have impacted Kodjia.
Hopefully we get something from QPR. 1-1 ?
