I knew I was in for a shit day when I locked myself out yesterday morning before leaving London and had to call a locksmith. I should have asked him to lock me in.
Random thoughts from a large selection of negatives to choose from:
A club like Villa should not need to play Jedinak at centre half. And playing a high line with him there is lethal.
We lack pace, particularly in midfield.
If Davis is not dominating his centre halves we have no attacking platform.
Snodgrass really adds nothing. Drop him and play Adomah on the right.
Hourihane should be payed close to the attack. As an all round midfielder he is lacking and has no pace.
Whelan actually broke play up well and played some decent passes in the first half. However not mobile enough (no pace) and I would tell him to not cross the half way line.
Grealish has the ability to beat players and create space but needs more players to move for him. However he does slow play down as he usually has ha.f a dozen touches in possession
We play far too many sideways and backwards passes
On several occasions our panicking clearances put us in deep trouble. Hoofing to row Z is acceptable when in trouble and gives you a chance to reorganise.
The atmosphere was dire. I was in the Holte upper and it was utterly dead. My last game was against Wednesday and I put the silence down to the early goal and being shit. Even at 2-0 yesterday it was quiet. That tells me something is seriously wrong. The only real animation came from anger at the ref, who awarded us a penalty that looked ropey to me, missed an obvious one for a push in the back on Davis, and should have sent off their number 6.
Highlight of the day was meeting Axl Rose with his wife and dad before the game. I think his Japanese wife was somewhat taken aback by the dowdiness of the Witton Arms, which incidentally has a Villa mirror on the wall proudly stating, "Aston Villa 1875".
Taylor offers no attacking threat.
