Aston Villa Silhouettes vs Manchester City Post-Match Thrashing

[VILLA MOLE]

The most disappointed thing is that we ran around keeping a decent five yards off city players without bothering to put a tackle in let them know they are in a game. The only time we put a decent tackle in in centre circle we ended up in their box with the resultant penalty. An unbelievably non competitive performance.

Agreed

how many bookings for fouls ??

[danno]

Slow witted that I am, it just occurred to me Dean may use this result as an excuse to revert back to his default setting of 4-3-3.

[olaftab]

The most disappointed thing is that we ran around keeping a decent five yards off city players without bothering to put a tackle in let them know they are in a game. The only time we put a decent tackle in in centre circle we ended up in their box with the resultant penalty. An unbelievably non competitive performance.

Agreed

how many bookings for fouls ??

That was another awful stat. 5 fouls conceded whilst city had 12. Two players booked including one for arguing and not a tackle. We should have fouled them at 25 plus to stop them from playing and had 5+ booked for tackles to be effective.

[Luke8]

The most disappointed thing is that we ran around keeping a decent five yards off city players without bothering to put a tackle in let them know they are in a game. The only time we put a decent tackle in in centre circle we ended up in their box with the resultant penalty. An unbelievably non competitive performance.

Agreed

how many bookings for fouls ??

That was another awful stat. 5 fouls conceded whilst city had 12. Two players booked including one for arguing and not a tackle. We should have fouled them at 25 plus to stop them from playing and had 5+ booked for tackles to be effective.

That’s not really how it works though. Fouls and bookings are not conducive to good defensive displays. We made loads of both against Leicester in the league and got battered and had only one booking against Liverpool yet put in a good defensive display.

I agree with the wider point about being far too far away from their players though. The midfield in particular were always ahead of their man, which is pretty daft against Man City especially.

[SoccerHQ]

I can accept the difference in ability. They have better footballers than we do. No shame in that. They are very, very good. As well they should be having spent a decent-sized country’s GDP assembling a team. What I struggle with is the meek surrender. The beaten before we even start, not laying a glove on them, talking ourselves into submission nonsense. Surely there’s more to it than this? 

Absolutely. That was the general feeling where I was. Villa came on the pitch expecting to be overpowered - and they were, with the commendable exception of Grealish who must have covered more yards than the rest of that supine bunch put together.

It's been like that for ages though. We haven't gone toe to toe with the top teams home or away since the MON era and exceptions like Lambert turning into Guardiola every time we played at Anfield.

[Villan82]

Lambert also got a good home win against Man City, a win away at Arsenal and was robbed by the ref in a 2-1 defeat at Chelsea..

[Bad English]

Lambert also got a good home win against Man City.

I thought we were excellent that day.

[Villan82]

Lambert also got a good home win against Man City.

I thought we were excellent that day.

Very good!

[SoccerHQ]

Lambert also got a good home win against Man City, a win away at Arsenal and was robbed by the ref in a 2-1 defeat at Chelsea..

We were still rubbish against them all at VP for his near three seasons. We also lost 5-0 at the Emirates the next season. Spurs also started battering us on a regular basis in his tenure.

Our mentality is really poor in these games like we don't believe we deserve to grace the same turf against world superstars.

For me a big barometer will be at home to Spurs in a month. They are awful away having just taken 1 point from aways at Norwich and Southampton. They'll also be missing their best player.

Will we go toe to toe and believe we can get at least a point or will we just stand off them by five yards and then act all surprised when Son or Dele score a couple.

We will hopefully have signed 1-2 players who can actually improve our team by then aswell.

[aj2k77]

As Smith would say ''It doesn't take a betting expert to see we will get dicked by Tottenham''

[LeeB]

The most disappointed thing is that we ran around keeping a decent five yards off city players without bothering to put a tackle in let them know they are in a game. The only time we put a decent tackle in in centre circle we ended up in their box with the resultant penalty. An unbelievably non competitive performance.

The one time Drinkwater went to get tight De Bruyne, he'd gone 5 yards in the opposite direction by the time he got there.

[SoccerHQ]

As Smith would say ''It doesn't take a betting expert to see we will get dicked by Tottenham''

I can't believe he actually said that. You wonder what on earth his pre match chat to the players said. We looked a beaten team from kick off.

Ultimately to stay up we're going to need a win or two from the Spurs, Man. United, Wolves, Chelsea and Arsenal home games. We saw over xmas period you can't just keep thinking you'll just win the six pointers.

[brian green]

I thought that was Reina and Drinkwater.  (our two signings of the window).

[Villan82]

Lambert also got a good home win against Man City, a win away at Arsenal and was robbed by the ref in a 2-1 defeat at Chelsea..

We were still rubbish against them all at VP for his near three seasons. We also lost 5-0 at the Emirates the next season. Spurs also started battering us on a regular basis in his tenure.

Our mentality is really poor in these games like we don't believe we deserve to grace the same turf against world superstars.

For me a big barometer will be at home to Spurs in a month. They are awful away having just taken 1 point from aways at Norwich and Southampton. They'll also be missing their best player.

Will we go toe to toe and believe we can get at least a point or will we just stand off them by five yards and then act all surprised when Son or Dele score a couple.

We will hopefully have signed 1-2 players who can actually improve our team by then aswell.

It was crap under Lambert. Absolute rubbish mostly, and the rot really set in. I'm just saying, bad and all as it was, at least we got the odd good result here and there - something that seems beyond us these days.

Even Sherwood got a 1-0 win at White Hart Lane. We need the odd result like that.

[SoccerHQ]

We've got a 2-2 this season at Old Trafford. For all Man. United's issues they still have a decent home record this season.

Any team can get the odd result in a season but we need to be doing much better to stay up. Even Bournemouth have taken 7 points from Man. United, Chelsea and Arsenal in last two months. Newcastle got a 2-2 v Man. City just six weeks ago.

Think Burnley are the only other team in the league to hardly take a point from the top teams so hopefully that stays the same for them.