Aston Villa 1-2 Bournemouth Post Match Thread

[Mister E]

I came away from the game yesterday much less negative than many seem to be around here.
Yes, we screwed our own gameplan with two soft goals.
Yes, AEG is really not very good at the moment.
Yes, Grealish looked poor for most of the game.
Yes, Bournemouth have learned how to manage games.
Yes, the ref was strangely lenient throughout.

However:
- Heaton is a fine keeper: he will not be the reason we lose many points this season
- Luiz looks very classy: he will need to pick up the pace and intensity of this league, and then he'll be fine
- McGinn will become more and more influential in this league
- we have a fine set of CB's.

The issues we need to resolve quickly are:

• getting Grealish playing with more intensity and influence: yesterday he was poor, the goal-scoring pass aside. He doesn't have the luxury of dwelling on the ball unless he is committed to beating his man, so his roele needs to be to move the ball as quickly as he can into someone who has space.
• using the fullbacks in a more attacking role: they played okay yesterday but that is not good enough
• giving Wesley the coaching to make himself more space: I thought he showed glimpses of becoming a decent player yesterday, but he needs more guile and more support
• getting more effective set-pieces going
• finding space: all 10 outfield players need to be far better at using the space rather than remaining static
• setting up with a more robust midfield combination: both Spurs and B'mouth bullied us somewhat.

In both games so far, it was clear that refs are allowing more robust challenges, and we are lightweight.

We will get better, and we will stay up if we rectify some obvious issues quickly

[Brend'Watkins]

A good point Brian. We made it 7 mins extra time should have been added for all the stoppages. As soon as we showed a bit of momentum down one of their players went. It happened too often.

I thought we put in a decent performance overall. Giving them the 2 goal start was the killer. Heaton never has and never will in future make such an error as he did for the pen. I can’t say any of our lot had poor games. Jack probably had his least effective game for some time and should have buried that header chance. Wes, who’s coming in for some criticism on here I thought had a decent game. Douglas was MoM, we’ll only have him for 1 season on that showing.

[hilts_coolerking]

Among the many depressing things that game highlighted, one of the ugliest is the way "game management" has spread unchecked into the game.  The way the Bournemouth players kept blatantly breaking up the flow of the game by feigning injury once they knew they had a weak referee was shameful.  But of course there is no shame in cheating in the game any longer.  It will never happen but any player who rolls around as though he has a multiple fracture one minute then magically is sprinting the length of the pitch the next should get a retrospective card for being a cheating twat- sorry, simulation.

I agree.  Two of ours did exactly that against Spurs and it's not good to see.

[QuintonVilla]

We have to change to a 4-2-3-1 and sit Luiz and Hourihane in front of the back four. We're not good enough to only play one sitting midfielder, only Man City and Liverpool can get away it.

El Ghazi looks well off the pace and standard and needs dropping.

[AV82EC]

Negatives

Heaton Mistake
Luiz Mistake
Martin Atkinson’s refereeing
AEGs performance
Taylor offensively

Positives

Luiz - love this guy absolute quality
Mingles
McGinn - drove and drove
Shots and Chances in General

Whilst it’s not great to lose the first two I’ve seen enough to think we’ll be ok.

[Hampshire Villa]

more positives than negatives, Lady luck against us with that massive deflection, poor ref, Bournemouth should have only had 10 on the pitch.Give Wesley a little more time, remember Benteke looked like a cart horse when he first came into the team. I'm sure Wesley will come good. Dougie Lewis outstanding goal, more to come from him, Mings and Engels didn't do much wrong. We'll get there. My fear is when we have to play Man City and Liverpool, but those top 6 games don't count, we need points from those around us, that's why yesterday was disappointing.

[Risso]

Scores on the doors

Heaton 4 - sorry, however good he might be, making such a horrendous cock up 30 seconds in effectively cost us the game.
Taylor 6 - defensively sound again, but nothing going forward.
Mings 7 - solid as ever and the defence didn't look troubled apart from the two goals which came from keeper and midfielder errors
Engels 7 - as Mings really, solid and good distribution
Elmo 6 - didn't do a whole lot wrong
McGinn 7 - lots of surging runs and had some good attempts on goal
Grealish 6 - didn't really seem at the races and doesn't look happy in his own play at the moment.
Luiz 8 - concentrating on the positives, comfortable on the ball, great goal and pivots himself out of trouble brilliantly.  Needs to cut out the errors.
El Ghazi 5 - another poor game.  Doesn't look to have the ability to trouble Premier League defences
Wesley 6 - the difficult settling in period continues
Trezeguet 7 - the best of the attacking options for the second week running.

Subs:
Jota 5 - lack of pace is going to limit his effectiveness if he plays out wide I reckon
Davis 5 - no real time to make any sort of impact, but didn't do much when coming on.

[four fornicholl]

Negatives

Heaton Mistake
Luiz Mistake
Martin Atkinson’s refereeing
AEGs performance
Taylor offensively

Positives

Luiz - love this guy absolute quality
Mingles
McGinn - drove and drove
Shots and Chances in General

Whilst it’s not great to lose the first two I’ve seen enough to think we’ll be ok.

Mingles, love it!!

[Fred Crump]

Didn’t see the game as I’m on me hols abroad but from what my lads have told me there is still plenty to be positive as the above posts sum up well. By the way, AV82EC “Mingles” - Love it. I now have a two for the price of 1 bromance !
I don’t usually question Smith’s decisions but I am puzzled by the full back decisions - not sure why both new signings haven’t been picked given that they featured heavily pre-season as others have said. Worrying if they are slow to / unable to pick up what is required. Particularly strange in Guilbert’s case as he played really well in pre-season, I thought.

[andyh]

Where is Marvelous?

[Clampy]

In that first 15-20 minute spell, you could tell who was the established Premier League team. They looked quicker, sharper but as the game went on we got into it. I think we'll be ok but it's going to take us a few games to find our feet.

[Deano's Mullet]

How quiet were the away fans yesterday? Barely a peep other than the cheering for their goals. Only time I heard them sing was at the final whistle or on the train platform at New St.
Strange day yesterday, mixed bag performance. Defensively i think we will be ok but i fear for us scoring goals as only one who looked consistently dangerous was Mcginn. Ref was shocking , and as people said,  Bournemouth players were made of glass.
Away from the match itself I couldn't get in the club shop as the queue was out the door and well into the car park. The queues at Witton Station afterwards was horrific and my train out of New St was cancelled, I eventually got home at half ten. The joys of following the Villa!

[Hampshire Villa]

Just watched MOTD - Danny Murphy really hates us doesn't he.
Strange editing showed nothing of the yellow card and several potential second yellow

[baddowvillans]

How the hell is a penalty against our keeper and not theirs for the foul on Wesley.  In their case Wilson could never have got the ball but for Wes the ball was still in play

[Mister E]

How the hell is a penalty against our keeper and not theirs for the foul on Wesley.  In their case Wilson could never have got the ball but for Wes the ball was still in play

Correct. Both were similar: the strker beats the keeper to the ball, which then runs away from both; but on one the late keeper touch is penalised, with the other not.
Bizarre.