Aston Villa v Hull City post match thread.

[KRS]

It all started off so well...the Holte End in good voice and seemingly the team were in good form taking control of the game and scoring within the first 15 minutes...then we allowed them back in the game by conceding possession cheaply, unable to pass the ball to each other for the next 60 minutes and their equaliser came as no surprise at all.

The back four were rarely troubled by a toothless Hull side, however against better opposition we could have been under a lot more pressure. Our midfield is so weak it's pathetic...not being able to pass to each other and not being able to retain possession is criminal so at least Bruce got it right by bringing off Bacuna. As has been said by someone else on this thread, our squad must be terrible if Bacuna makes the starting XI ahead of them...he genuinely is a poor excuse of a footballer and completely one footed.

I struggle to understand how our midfield is so weak in terms of quality and creativity with the players at our disposal, so it can only be that the players themselves aren't good enough. I can only hope that our midfield will improve by dropping Bacuna and Lansbury, but fear that we don't have the quality to bring in to make those improvements at the moment. Similar things could be said of the forward options without Kodjia as Hogan and Gabby simply aren't the answer to scoring or holding the ball up.

One other thing that worries me is that we simply don't have a player in the squad that you look at and think he is a game changer...that player that will up his game to spark some life into the team, create a chance or do something special. Both Kodjia and Grealish do have that in their locker to an extent, but that quality isn't out there at the moment.

edit: ...and bringing on Samba to hump high balls into him was a joke...I was actually laughing at Bruce for being such a dinosaur at this stage as you wont get a clearer sign of a completely clueless and desperate manager.

[Chris Smith]

I think the 'if we scored our chances' argument is a misleading one.  There's a lot of stats been done around this and they all return a conversion rate of somewhere between 1 in 3 and 1 in 6.  If you can think of 5-6 decent-good chances in a game then you'd expect to see 1-2 goals.  That's why I don't like the argument that if XX had scored his chance then... because it's just not realistic.  Sometimes teams will have 3 chances and score all of them, but other times they will have 20 and not score but it will always average out.

When we were relegated our conversion rate was about the same as anyone else in the league, we just had so few shots that we weren't playing the odds.  Last season we were, from what I remember, slightly low on chance conversion and near the 1 in 5-6 end of things so there is room for improvement but we also need to create more and get more people in the box.  Yesterday wasn't massively different.  When we scored we had 3 players in the box, other than set pieces I don't think that happened again all game.

You can quote all the stats in the world but none of them explain a player missing with a free header into an unguarded goal. I just had another look at it and it was an absolute sitter.

but that wasn't my point.  My point was that listing 4-5 chances that we could've taken to win it comfortably is pointless because almost every team could do that after almost every game.  The difference between the teams that win regularly and others is that they have more chances to score, not that they're better at taking them, it's an argument I've seen repeatedly over the last few years and it's just not true.

That we missed a sitter doesn't change that fact.

You can post all the  stats you like but this is the post match thread to a game that took place yesterday and consequently that is what I was referring to.

As was I, we made enough decent chances to score 1-2 and so did Hull so it's no great shock that it finished 1-1.

Yes Green missed a very good chance but so did they when they were through late in the first half and both teams scored when a bit of iffy defending left someone free on the left of the box to put home a right wing cross.

This is the problem with a few posters after games like this, they seem to view every chance that we have as a goal we've missed but don't do the same for the opposition and the post I replied to is another that does that because it lists 5 other chances we had but doesn't say anything about the chances Hull created.  What if ... can be a valid discussion point if it's balanced but doing it as 'what if we took every chance we had and they missed all of theirs' is about as valuable to the discussion as 'what if Benteke never left' or 'what if we'd won the league in 92'.

I am so grateful to you for telling us what is wrong with a few posters on the site, I am sure everyone will try harder to not disappoint you in the future. Is it insecurity that makes you feel the need to patronise everyone who disagrees with you?

[Ads]

You're talking about chances in a statistical way. Other than the goal, they had one meaningful effort just before half time. They had two or three chances in 10 seconds granted.

We had gilt edged opportunities, the same as against Brighton.

[paul_e]

You're talking about chances in a statistical way. Other than the goal, they had one meaningful effort just before half time. They had two or three chances in 10 seconds granted.

We had gilt edged opportunities, the same as against Brighton.

We had 2 of them (other than the goal).  The way you write anyone would think that the Green miss was 1 of 5-6 absolute sitters.

[oswald funkletrumpet]

So many individuals faded badly in the second half it does make you wonder if we're still not fit enough.

My thought too.

We havent looked fit for i dont know how long which is a disgrace given that we employ fitness coaches

However it comes as no surprise as gabby got a couple of stone overweight during the season without anyone noticing

[Ads]

You're talking about chances in a statistical way. Other than the goal, they had one meaningful effort just before half time. They had two or three chances in 10 seconds granted.

We had gilt edged opportunities, the same as against Brighton.

We had 2 of them (other than the goal).  The way you write anyone would think that the Green miss was 1 of 5-6 absolute sitters.

We should have been out of sight at half time. You're in a minority if you saw it any different.

[paul_e]

I am so grateful to you for telling us what is wrong with a few posters on the site, I am sure everyone will try harder to not disappoint you in the future. Is it insecurity that makes you feel the need to patronise everyone who disagrees with you?

See I found 'you can post all the stats in the world' to be a patronising so I replied in kind.

I posted stats because the posters I'm referring to tend to like terms like 'a win is a win' so talking about anything qualitative is a waste of time.

[PeterWithe]

I've just had a rewatch of the game, maybe we weren't as bad as I thought we were during the second half, it was all us first half as all agree but they hardly created anything worth repeating save the goal. Then at the end it was all us again.

[Clampy]

You're talking about chances in a statistical way. Other than the goal, they had one meaningful effort just before half time. They had two or three chances in 10 seconds granted.

We had gilt edged opportunities, the same as against Brighton.

We had 2 of them (other than the goal).  The way you write anyone would think that the Green miss was 1 of 5-6 absolute sitters.

We should have been out of sight at half time. You're in a minority if you saw it any different.

We should have been.

[paul_e]

You're talking about chances in a statistical way. Other than the goal, they had one meaningful effort just before half time. They had two or three chances in 10 seconds granted.

We had gilt edged opportunities, the same as against Brighton.

We had 2 of them (other than the goal).  The way you write anyone would think that the Green miss was 1 of 5-6 absolute sitters.

We should have been out of sight at half time. You're in a minority if you saw it any different.

We should've been 2 up on the chances, the others in the first half were 50/50 at best.

I've said there were promising signs in the first half but if things go back to the '1 good half-1 shit half' that we saw all last season then I fail to see how us having a couple of decent chances that we missed is relevant.  The gabby one on one was a great chance by any measure but add in that it's gabby and he's shit at them and it's not such a  good chance.  Same with Green, we know he's missed a couple of good chances and he's not great with his head, add the pressure of wanting to get his first goal and it wasn't as simple as it seemed (it's still a shocking miss).  Both good chances but they fell to the wrong people.

[Ads]

Gabby should have scored. Hogan should have had a brace.

We didn't have an entirely shit second half. We had control once Green came on.

For Cardiff I'd like to see Hourihane come in and rotate with Lansbury in hitting the box and getting closer to Hogan. Lansbury worked very hard, but it was laboured second half.

I wouldn't be adverse to Onomah providing the legs in there, but Hourihane gives the midfield balance. 

[Des Little]

It basically comes down to this - Green nods that sitter in, and everyone's happy. He fluffed it so we aren't. The lad desperately needs a goal soon to settle him down...see also Hogan, S.

Keep the faith!

[paul_e]

Gabby should have scored. Hogan should have had a brace.

We didn't have an entirely shit second half. We had control once Green came on.

For Cardiff I'd like to see Hourihane come in and rotate with Lansbury in hitting the box and getting closer to Hogan. Lansbury worked very hard, but it was laboured second half.

I wouldn't be adverse to Onomah providing the legs in there, but Hourihane gives the midfield balance. 

See the top line is what I was talking about when I say some fans expect us to take every chance we get, it's just unrealistic to expect a team at our level to take all of those chances.  If we'd had 9-10 chances like that then we'd have probably taken 2-3 of them.

I agree we didn't have an entirely shit 2nd half, when Bruce woke up and realised he had options to change things we got back on top, that's the thing I found most frustrating about the game.  He waited for them to score before he even got players to warm up, it's something he's done too many times.

I'm worried that opposition managers know that if they ride things out for the first half we'll simply let them take control after the break and not do anything about it until it's too late.  It was blamed on fitness last season and even this thread has posts about us being unfit.  I don't know if that's true but it's definitely a worry.

[Tayls_7]

Bruce has now had enough time and more than enough money to be sending out teams better equipped to deal with Hull City at home than we saw yesterday.  Forget Kodija and Grealish.  Forget ifs buts and maybes.  If we get another half dozen performances like that then he should start screening his calls.

[Ads]

I expect chances like that to be scored.