Villa v Leeds Post-Match thread

[Taylor]

Could have won it in the end. We battled well. I don't think Leeds were the better team, Rob green kept them in it.

[jcsutv]

I don't want to see Ayew again, he is a luxury player we can't afford and I hope we sell him.  Other players were below par tonight too including Jedinak and Amarvi who had a shocker I thought.  Bruce needed to change things earlier than he did, but made the right calls I thought. 

Special mention to Jansson, who is the most annoying opposition player I can remember for a good long while.  Took Grealish out and the ref didn't even give a free kick - that happens in the premier league and it's at least a booking. 

The sort of player we could use.

[VillaAlways]

Happy with that as after they scored we looked like we were going to completely capitulate. Looking forward to seeing penalty as couldn't look .

[ROBBO]

Gestede gave us something at the end but we were outplayed for most of the second half, still not seeing any cohesion between the midfield and forwards. Jedinak should have been off earlier he was knackered and Adomah earlier. I don't know about Gestede he really became a focal point and Leeds defence were under a lot of pressure when the ball was put in the box. The result keeps our home record and gives Bruce a chance to strengthen, if we had lost then the impetus would have been lost.

[themossman]

This was a good barometer of where we are. We've struggled twice against a bog standard, workmanlike, playoff places team and failed to beat them at home. Ergo we're not good enough for the playoffs with this squad.

[PeterWithesShin]

Big plus is that we're approaching the window in touching distance of the top 6 despite not being able to score goals, giving everyone an 11 game head start, having no real midfield, and rather erratic full backs.

[Matt Collins]

we only played with 10 men westwood and hutton are half each

Worse than amavi and Jedinak today?

[jwarry]

Well with a manager that has promoted clubs willy nilly, and so far hasn't chosen any of these shit players I guess I have to be content with that, but the clock is now ticking. He has 4 weeks to sort us out or I want Gary Monk in!

[Holtemeister]

Not playing well and picking up points and showing resilience we weren’t earlier in the season ... will only take marginal gains now to kick start us playing the football that we want.

Bruce has done wonders to be fair in the time with us on so many levels ... its now time to kick on and use this window to shape and mould the team into a promotion winning one ... plenty of time yet albeit the most likely route through the playoffs.

We need full backs / wingers and a midfield to finish the jigsaw and get our attacking players into the game more often.

 

[QuintonVilla]

You know you're crap when Westwood is your best player.

Ayew is atrocious. Head down, runs into players, slows everything down.

Amavi can't defend.

Overall we were very lucky again. Luckily for us you need to play very, very badly to lose in this league. We haven't played well for weeks but are on a decent run which says more about the standard of opponents.

We were slow, predictable, boring and play with no tempo at all. We looked better when Adomah and Gestede came on, which begs the question; are they good subs from Bruce or is he picking the wrong starting 11?

Hate to say it but Leeds look well ahead of us and can count themselves very unlucky.

[ciggiesnbeer]

Jedinak and Ayew were poor, Amavi was awful at times defensively. Westwood did well overall.

You're not allowed to say that about Westwood apparently

I dont know about "well" but he was definitely better than Jedinak, Ayew, Amavi, Hutton and (sad to say) Grealish who really was poor even before he was clobbered.

We are REALLY going to miss Kodjia.

[supertom]

If you believe the papers we could get around 30 million for Amavi and Gestede. Ayew must be at least 10 on market rates. 40 odd mill for players who have done the square root of sod all in two different divisions for us is crazy. Cash in on them. Re-invest into buying some solid players. Bruce needs a talisman, like he had with Huddles-Tonne.

[Jimbo]

A draw, as expected, but forget promotion this season.

You do know we are only 5pts off playoffs and have just drawn against the form team in the league in a game we could have so easily won with two v good late chances (I know we could have also lost) I fail to see how you can write off promotion with a multi millionaire owner, a manager that has done it four times before and half the season left to go

I can by watching performances like that week in week out. We need to be winning, and scoring, more than we do. I'll be delighted to be proved wrong, however.

[KevinGage]

Our biggest problem is that our defence, midfield and attack appear to act as completely separate unrelated units. There is no common cohesion.

Maybe they just work on fitness and set pieces all week.

Nothing else looks like it gets much attention.  We rely on individual brilliance for the majority of our goals.  Fine if Kodjia bangs in that first one first half, or a similar effort in the second half. Take that out of the equation and we offer little else.

[Rudy65]

This was a good barometer of where we are. We've struggled twice against a bog standard, workmanlike, playoff places team and failed to beat them at home. Ergo we're not good enough for the playoffs with this squad.

100% agree