Aston Villa v Burnley post-match thread

[Marlon From Bearwood]

Jack needs to take pace of the ball when he shoots everything going skywards at the moment.

It’s not the pace of the ball that’s the problem, it’s the technique. De Bruyne strikes the ball harder than anyone whilst also keeping it low and accurate.

[ktvillan]

I hope that Taylor is ditched now. He’s been ok this season but he was back to his goal-costing worst yesterday.

Me too.  Ok is not enough in this league, and we need full backs who can get forward and play a bit as well as defend reasonably solidly.  Taylor failed to do even the latter yesterday and was at least partly at fault for both Burnley goals (although Heaton and the CBs can take a share of the blame for the second).  If Targett isn't fit I'd much rather see Hause play LB.

[Dazvillain]

Marvellous is turning world class and is our best performer by far. Watching live yesterday, his no nonsense tackling, constant distribution, going forward decision making and loads of taps and flicks to dispossess opposition was top drawer. Luiz started season well and I liked him but something dramatic needs to happen to get his place back unless Luiz plays odd game as a sitter with marvellous further forward giving jack or mcginn an occasional rest .
Good to see Connor back and Targett will be reliable if they can get his hamstrings sorted. I’m glad Deano had balls to tweak system and personal.
He needs to have balls to put Hause LB whilst Targett out and drop Engels for a bit as he’s made poor decisions last few weeks and cost penalties/goals to give Konsa a chance to play with mings .

Until we get another quality striker option to start as choice from Wesley and another decent option off bench we will be in the bottom 5 until January unfortunately .
If we make those January acquisitions and pull a run out of the bag half as good as last year between feb - April hopefully we’ll survive

[RichardBatchelor]

We’re playing ok. Need to have faith with Keinan and put him in. The ball will stick.

[Pat McMahon]

I coach an Under 11s team and am constantly telling the full backs to do everything they can to stop the cross coming in in the first place and to never turn their back on the ball. Burnley’s first goal was bad enough but the second was unforgivable, especially from Taylor.

The consistent emotion after every game is frustration. The first half was really enjoyable and McGinn was sensational. At HT everyone was saying the same thing - can we keep this up for 90 minutes and not let it slip again? Unfortunately not. Again.

Frustrating but IF we can beat Norwich, I fancy us to then beat Brighton and we’ll all be much happier going into a tough run of fixtures.

From the angle I had (viewing from the DE), for the first goal, Guilbert was initially outmusceled by Woods and then had his shirt held as Woods used it to slow Guilbert down and also enhance his own run.  After that, Burnley had the luck of the bounce in much the same way as Palace did when they scored against us.  Hindsight is a wonderful thing but there were opportunities to kick the ball out for a throw that weren't taken.  Easy to say this from row PP, I know.

I was in the Holte lowers and felt exactly the same as you re the first goal. Gilbert could have stuck a toe in to push the ball away for a throw. Thereafter Taylor was on his heel but I would never fancy him against Rodriguez in any aerial duel.

We were poor in stopping the second cross, really amateurish, but the central defenders were weak too.

Amongst other issues, I think we lack an element of physicality, and at times athleticism. It has been noticeable how our players have been outmuscled in several games. I was struck at Spurs by how much bigger their players were, and even McGinn was bouncing off Sissokho et al.

I thought their central defenders yesterday had the upper hand in all set pieces and Wood was a real handful for them. If you swapped him and Wesley we would probably have won the game.  I never felt comfortable when they attacked,  though we were more solid with Targett at left back.

We also need to wise up. We play well in parts but have spells where we switch off and teams  take advantage of this - Palace goal was a counter when we were down to 10 men, giving away 3 bad goals v Arsenal, switching off yesterday after scoring the second.

And finally, Jack needs to improve his shooting. Two skied efforts yesterday were abysmal, the second when Trezeguet was free.

[UK Redsox]

Jack's shooting yesterday was Tonev-esque

[olaftab]

Jack's shooting yesterday was Tonev-esque

He's been watching George Ford.

[olaftab]

For all the positives yesterday, we (again) didn’t win. If we aren’t beating Burnley at home, who are we going to beat?

Someone else?

[RamboandBruno]

First time poster but avid reader of all your comments. Firstly I’ve been going down VP since I was 8 and I’m now 45 so seen some highs and lows over that time. A couple of comments over the start to this season; posters may be right about billionaire owners getting twitchy about investing millions & getting no immediate return. However we as fans should not be helping a situation get out of hand. Stuff posted online gets out there in the real world and will start to make VP a twitchy nervy place and we all know what that can be like. IMO Dean Smith is playing the best football we’ve seen in a number of years, he’s the best manager we’ve had since O’Neil and better than O’Leary before that. That’s not to say mistakes haven’t been made and he’s beyond criticism, but are we really questioning him after 7 games, absolutely mad. 8 months ago we were getting hammered by Wigan and scrapping draws to qpr and hull, but we all stuck together and he and the team came good and that wasn’t all down to the return of grealish though granted it helped massively.

Secondly I’m old enough to remember the last time we came up in the late 80s under Graham Taylor. We all I assume loved what Taylor did for us? Well that season we escaped relegation by a point & finished 17th, from memory we needed Liverpool to tonk West Ham on last day off season to send them down instead of us. From my memory we had some good players then as well, mcinally, platt, Daly, Chris price I could go on. The point is, football has changed etc etc but by and large promoted teams have always struggled for first year or so apart from odd exceptions, Watford in 80s, Ipswich in 90s, wolves last year. We stuck with Taylor and nearly won the league the year after.

We need to stick with smith and get behind the boys, it’s going to be a long tough season, but we need to keep believing in these players and manager. We cannot call it relegation after 7 games. UTV

[Legion]

Great first post.

[Axl Rose]

Yes, seconded. Welcome Rambo.

[SamTheMouse]

I think if we had a decent striker with a bit of nous, we'd be winning these games.

Wesley has been terrible so far, apart from the Everton game. He gets beaten and bullied far, far too often for a guy of his size. Then instead of working to rectify his mistakes, he sulks and moans.

Because he can't protect the ball or find space, we end up under more pressure than necessary.

To be honest, I'd rather we'd shelled out for Maupay, who might not be brilliant but looks like a clever, niggly little bastard.

[London Villan]

A lot of good points there. Also compared to the everton match the atmosphere was pretty flat too. That extra effort is needed on and off the pitch.

[Toronto Villa]

Jack's shooting yesterday was Tonev-esque

Massively unfair Mr Sox. At least he had one that the keeper had to save. After all of these years Tonev still has balls in orbit around B6.

[Lastfootstamper]

Regarding the atmosphere, someone earlier mentioned along the lines of how our crowd allow themselves to get wound up over, well, not very much. I doubt it'll have gone unnoticed to the rest of the division that if you want to distract us and quieten us down, simply pick the ball up and move it to the other side of your six yard box.