Aston Villa v Leicester Post Match Thread

[CJ]

To describe that performance as pants would be an insult to underwear. It could have been even worse - they hit the woodwork twice and missed a couple of chances too. So many poor performances across the whole team with the exception of maybe Heaton.  I'm not sure why Deano persists with Wesley - at least give Kodjia a chance if only to prove us wrong - and why Elmo over Guilbert?

It pains me to say it, especially after that scrote Vardy gave it the big ears in front of the Holte after scoring the first, but Leicester were very good - great pressing, good movement, players all knowing their role, all comfortable on the ball, creative, and deadly on the break. Losing to teams like Leicester won't define our season - but we need to make sure we bounce back over Christmas in the supposedly easier fixtures.

[brontebilly]

We are a lazy team without the ball - far too open and leave acres of space. Vardy must have thought Christmas had come early.

Smith needs to make us harder to play against. For all the demands for another striker it’s not scoring goals that’s our problem, it’s looking like we will concede every time the opposition go forward.

A big 3 weeks coming up.

Luiz and McGinn are key to this problem. Both of them appear a lot more interested going forward than holding their position and/or running backwards. When the alternatives are Hourihane and Lansbury it's clear we have to invest in another more combative mobile option in there.

[Goldie.7]

Don’t blame Wesley for being crap at the moment.

Saying that, I’d drop him for Trez as a forward. All this big centre forward holding up balls stuff is so old.

Smith is too stubborn to drop Wesley and play with a false number 9. He has ONE plan for matches and sticks to it whatever the scoreline is. Then around 80 minutes he'll finally make a sub, which nine times out of ten is the wrong option anyway.

[CT]

How awful must Kodjia be during training to not get any minutes instead of Wesley??

We carried too many passengers today. SJM is an absolute shadow of the player he was.

One thing I noted when we had a corner at 1-3. AEG was trying to get on with it while Konsa was ambling towards the box, talking to someone behind him as he went. The corner came in, Konsa was still nowhere near the box, they broke. Bang. Goal

The whole thing today seemed to suggest we were scared, and we never had the belief we could win.

[rougegorge]

File that one alongside Palace,  Arsenal 2nd half, Wolves, Chelsea.

It's a good point about not working hard enough without the ball. Leicester's team is full of confidence and better than the one that won the league but we helped them along the way.

Smith's refusal to either substitute Wesley or omit him altogether is staggering. I'd sooner play El Ghazi down the middle or try Kodjia as it hasn't worked for weeks and weeks.

To think that Brighton paid less for Maupay than we did for Wesley and someone at Villa thought Maupay was overpriced!

[andyh]

Well, if we go down this season I don’t think it will because we are utterly shit, like a few years ago.
We just ain’t anywhere near good enough.


On a plus point, after 20 odd years of a crap PA system in the DE upper, they have finally installed a system that can be heard.
One positive from today I suppose.

[Villafirst]

To think we nearly beat Liverpool only a month or so ago with a performance full of desire and no little skill. Where was that today ? And we didn't have Jack against the the scousers! 

[Bobby Boy]

This was a debacle. Leicester gave us the runaround and as been said already they could easily have had 8. However good can come from this if Dean Smith is willing to learn from what went wrong.

Leicester were fabulous in possession and tigerish out of it. Too many of our players stood off and let the opposition play. Our intensity (look at Everton yesterday) is lacking and we just make it so easy for teams to play through us.

Dean needs to set us up to be forceful and assertive. We are currently too passive.

The difficulty is knowing how to change things with the personnel we have. John Mcginn looks completely shot at the minute, Douglas Luiz is playing at a pace more suited to the Italian or Spanish game and Wes is out of his depth. He is an easy target but his lack of mobility and touch makes it so much harder to build attacks. Yes, we have scored a decent number of goals but Wes hasn't been involved in many of them.

We need a complete re-think. The next 4 games are huge and we have to take at least 6 points from them. Will Dean Smith be willing to change things? We'll see.

[Malandro]

This was a debacle. Leicester gave us the runaround and as been said already they could easily have had 8. However good can come from this if Dean Smith is willing to learn from what went wrong.

Leicester were fabulous in possession and tigerish out of it. Too many of our players stood off and let the opposition play. Our intensity (look at Everton yesterday) is lacking and we just make it so easy for teams to play through us.

Dean needs to set us up to be forceful and assertive. We are currently too passive.

The difficulty is knowing how to change things with the personnel we have. John Mcginn looks completely shot at the minute, Douglas Luiz is playing at a pace more suited to the Italian or Spanish game and Wes is out of his depth. He is an easy target but his lack of mobility and touch makes it so much harder to build attacks. Yes, we have scored a decent number of goals but Wes hasn't be involved in many of them.

We need a complete re-think. The next 4 games are huge and we have to take at least 6 points from them. Will Dean Smith be willing to change things? We'll see.

Complete rethink?

No, we've had plenty of positives - even against teams that are considered amongst the best in Europe.

[AV82EC]

Well where to start with that....

I felt we were unlucky to be behind at half time but we got destroyed second half.

Heaton - 8 MOTM (again) good saves and he stopped it being embarrassing.
Elmo - 3 really poor, appalling crossing and he was shown up several times. He’s patently not good enough for this level as a starter.
Konsa - 5 showed his inexperience at times with poor positioning and distribution
Mings - 5 not really on long enough.
Targett - 4 good first 30, tailed off badly, really badly.
Nakamba - 4 cant see what the fuss is about to be honest, looks limited with the ball and never really got hold of Madison from a defensive perspective.
McGinn - 5 usual energy but his use of the ball was atrocious.
Luiz - 5 meh
El Ghazi - 2 absolute disgrace. No commitment or effort and Chilwell had him in his back pocket pretty much the whole game.
Wesley - 4 he tried, but his lack of composure at times meant he gave the ball away.
Grealish - 6 tried but poor distribution and blind alley running meant he was less than effective.
Engels - 6 composed but lacks pace but issues were elsewhere in the defence.
Guilbert - 5 not really on long enough
Trezeguet - 5 not really on long enough

Deano - 3 good start but totally outthought once Rogers got his diamond system working. As soon as they went to 3-1 a quick tactical change and they locked the game up, Dean made no response other than changing personnel in a system that wasn’t working or making headway.

We need to get back to basics with this team, it’s all very well trying to go toe to toe with these top of the table teams, we need to build from a much more solid base. We also lack pace below our first choice 11. Our crossing and deadball delivery was really poor, those times we got free on the left in the first half hour resulted in pretty much no clear cut chances despite being at the byline. As for El Ghazi and Elmo on the right, I despair.

See you all in Sheffield next week.

[itmustbe_it is!]

Read a lot of posts bemoaning Hourihane not starting today.

He was totally anonymous against Chelsea. No way he made a case to start today. We got hammered today, ergo the players on the bench would have been better. That's not how it works though.

Similarly Trezeguet. Yes he scored Wednesday but up till then he touched the ball three times in total. Again reasonable to pick AEG.

Personally I'd have played Guilbert over Elmo but I could see the reasoning.

Hindsight is 20:20 always, but a team picked after the final whistle is never going to lose.

[Bad English]

Basically, I hate fucking losing; I don't think we're doomed though.

[nick harper]

I don’t understand when he plays Luiz and Nakamba why it’s not 4-2-3-1. I don’t think either of them understand their role in the midfield at times. Neither of them played with much defensive discipline today.

Leicester counter attacked numerous times and within a couple of passes were running at our back four.

[AV82EC]

I don’t understand when he plays Luiz and Nakamba why it’s not 4-2-3-1. I don’t think either of them understand their role in the midfield at times. Neither of them played with much defensive discipline today.

Leicester counter attacked numerous times and within a couple of passes were running at our back four.

Yep, really unsure on the roles people are playing.

[itmustbe_it is!]

Can everyone take stock before conceding relegation in early December. We've been soundly beaten by one of the best sides in the country if not Europe at the moment.

Had a really bad run of fixtures, and if anyone thinks we WEREN'T going to be in a relegation battle after coming up through the playoffs, you're having yourself on. We've looked good in all but one of the games against teams we are ACTUALLY competing with this season.

That doesn't mean there haven't been poor mistakes from players and management today - but can we get a bit realistic

Sorry mate, but this is blind optimism. We’ve played almost all of the other sides in the league, spent the GDP of a small country, and are hovering around the bottom three.
I’d be optimistic and a little more patience if I could see at least small improvements in performance, team selection and subs, but frankly, we’re not. If anything we’re going backwards.
Being plucky underdogs will not keep us up. Smith and the players need a rocket. And fast.

It is literally the opposite of blind optimism. And also the opposite of the sensationalism you see on here in comparison to this time last weekend when everyone was "Oh look how far we've come in a year".

Our last six games. City-Liverpool-Newcastle-United-Chelsea-Leicester.

In four of them, we have been beaten by teams, that in our current position, we cannot possibly define our season on. 4 points from 18 is about what anyone with even remote knowledge of the gap between top and bottom in this league would have confidently predicted us picking up !

We have spent 100m in a few months - Leicester have been rebuilding this team over three years ever since they won the title. £100m and we're just about able to keep our heads above water this season.

It doesn't excuse the mistakes of only having a 22 year-old with no PL experience as your only striker. Or Mings trying to "run off" a hamstring... But if we want to stay up, the players and management are going to have to be pragmatic and have perspective - and make sure we get the points we need in the next five games, which are all eminently winnable.

Keano I agree with everything you’ve said above and these are literally some of the only sensible comments made on here. We got battered today by the only team capable of stopping Liverpool this season. They may only be Leicester but they won the league 3 years ago and whilst we have be in the championship they have got to the QFs of the champions league and been regulars in top ten or above in the league.

Saying all that some poor selections today and performances, but some ‘fans’ on here who I’m not always convinced go to games, calling for Smiths head are just f**king stupid. How’s that helped Watford this season or Everton, Fulham and countless others in recent years. What our club needs is stability and for all fans to pull together. 10 months ago we were a bang average mid table championship side, the best run we’ve ever had got us up and we had to buy a new team. If anyone on here thinks ending the season 1 point above relegation isn’t a success this year, they seriously don’t know anything about football. The players need VP rocking over xmas

Yes . This. Excellent post, thank you