Brentford v Aston Villa post match thread.

[john e]

Brentford are 15th in the league and below us

they pissed all over us last night and they aren’t all that according to the table
we are dreadful the worst I’ve ever seen at Villa and fuck me that’s saying something

Smith seems as stubborn as all the other Brit managers unless he finds a way I don’t hold out much hope for his chances

[Nev]

I think its pretty clear Dean doesn't think they are good enough but realistically what can he say except what he has said?  He can't come out and say they are crap can he?  If he did that he would lose the dressing room and before you know it he is out on his ear without having a chance to mould his own side.  There again I'm not sure this lot would take an apeth of notice if he did say they were not good enough.....

I buy all that to a certain extent, but how about trying to get the best out of this bunch? We haven't got the players to play 433, lacking in midfield quality and our wingers are all woefully out of form so why not try 4411? Or 451? Or even 44 fuckin' 2??
Every time I see the team sheet I'm incredulous as to what the thinking is behind it, Smith just swaps the defensive midfielder, the two wide men, the odd full back and then appears to hope for the best.

This apparent narrow (rearranging the deckchairs on the titanic to use a well worn phrase) thinking since the injury to Grealish worries me greatly. It's been in my mind, and was mentioned by Lee Hendrie last night and previously on here, why not use ELG in Grealish's role? Not an equivalent replacement but similar and enables continuity and that free role draws markers to create space and he may draw a few fouls for set plays. We might not register barnstorming 3-0's all over the place but it's got to be worth a try.

[Lastfootstamper]

Sorry, who's ELG?

[andyh]

He charmed us with all his chat about ‘high press’, ‘setting traps’ ‘overlapping fullbacks’ etc etc.
It all sounded mythical and magical.

Now he just sounds like another bitter and out of his depth clone of Bruce.

[Nev]

Sorry, who's ELG?

El Ghazi

[Three Spires Villa]

It is really bad at the moment, last night & Reading make going away so hard. He is being stubborn or stupid, he’s got options instead of playing the same system again & again. We were never in that game last night, ever

[Legion]

He charmed us with all his chat about ‘high press’, ‘setting traps’ ‘overlapping fullbacks’ etc etc.

I genuinely think that is what he wants but the players at his disposal are incapable of doing it.

[andyh]

He charmed us with all his chat about ‘high press’, ‘setting traps’ ‘overlapping fullbacks’ etc etc.

I genuinely think that is what he wants but the players at his disposal are incapable of doing it.

Agreed Legion, but we did it from when he came in until the Forest game. Just because Jack isn’t playing it doesn’t mean the rest of the tosses can’t still try.

[Risso]

He charmed us with all his chat about ‘high press’, ‘setting traps’ ‘overlapping fullbacks’ etc etc.
It all sounded mythical and magical.

Now he just sounds like another bitter and out of his depth clone of Bruce.

Sad but true. His priority now has to be to try to somehow produce a big improvement until the end of the season. He needs to show that he’s worth persevering with.

[Axl Rose]

It's hard to watch Hutton, Whelan, Hourihane, Elphick and company ambling around week in week out. Don't they ever get fed up of being shit?

Anyway, as I thought they would be, Brentford were too good for us. Enough!  A day of work ahead and Villa have made me grumpy as fuck. Again.

Let's beat the Baggies on Saturday.

Feel your pain fella. It’s now a proper bottomless pit of misery☹️

Haha. Hello pal. I'm alright now. Always feel better after a good old moan.

Watching the game in bed, on my mobile in the early hours of this morning, my wife woke up and asked me; 'why do you bother? They either lose or it's boring'. I also had my dad texting me about how much better Brentford were during the game. (which he went to with my sister and sat with the Brentford fans)

I know exactly why we aren't playing well, but I don't want to state the obvious.

We can't lose to the Baggies.

[Marlon From Bearwood]

A thoroughly shit night, the only highlights being finding a decent pub near the ground and getting back reasonably quickly due to lack of traffic.

It often looked to me like they had an extra player - several times one of our players was surrounded by 3 or 4 Brentford players. They had so much more energy than us. We were strolling around as if a 0-0 would do us. In the end we got what we deserved.

I certainly didn’t expect a decent response at full time however the levels of abuse dished out by some of our fans to the players, in particular Hourihane, as they walked in front of the away fans was pretty shocking. Confidence must be absolutely rock bottom now. Not good going into a big derby on Saturday.

[mr underhill]

simboy - the point made about the owners was that money doesn't equate to success. Other clubs in the league - most clubs in the league - don't have billionaire owners to constantly fall back on. They wheel and deal and find ways of at least being competitive. We don't. Nobody wants to see us out of business. What we want is some indication that we resemble a functioning football club and not a car crash. Smith isn't working  at the moment - 2 wins in 12 is shite by anyone's standards.

[Nev]

A thoroughly shit night, the only highlights being finding a decent pub near the ground and getting back reasonably quickly due to lack of traffic.

It often looked to me like they had an extra player - several times one of our players was surrounded by 3 or 4 Brentford players. They had so much more energy than us. We were strolling around as if a 0-0 would do us. In the end we got what we deserved.

I certainly didn’t expect a decent response at full time however the levels of abuse dished out by some of our fans to the players, in particular Hourihane, as they walked in front of the away fans was pretty shocking. Confidence must be absolutely rock bottom now. Not good going into a big derby on Saturday.

Sky showed our defenders heading towards the box for what I think was our first corner, strolling would be over-egging it. The air of indifference, the casual manner that they made their way towards the area was shocking, as I said in the match thread at the time, "no rush lads".

For that they deserve as many rounds of fucks as the fans can manage.

[LukeJames]

It often looked to me like they had an extra player - several times one of our players was surrounded by 3 or 4 Brentford players. They had so much more energy than us. We were strolling around as if a 0-0 would do us. In the end we got what we deserved.

It genuinly felt as if they had more players on the pitch than us, there over lapping fullbacks and there two wingers/inside forwards were doubling up on our full backs all game.

[Lastfootstamper]

He charmed us with all his chat about ‘high press’, ‘setting traps’ ‘overlapping fullbacks’ etc etc.

I genuinely think that is what he wants but the players at his disposal are incapable of doing it.

That's what I think, too. We've a squad full of players whose ability level has never been that good, despite a massive amount of caps amongst them. And now you can add to that that they're old. Had Smith got his hands on them when they were all four or five (or 6,7,8 in some cases) years younger, he could've drilled his ideas into them, and plenty of time to weed out those that were unresponsive or incapable. Not now, though. We're fucking stuck with them.