Liverpool vs Aston Villa post match thread

[Villa Lew]

At least we didn't get a hammering and goal diff has not been damaged too much, that may well come on Thursday. As everyone is saying absolutely power puff up front and only real decent chance created was Jack's effort in stoppage time. Gotta be worth a try, starting with Vassilev he can't do any worse than Samatta and Davis and surely Barry should at least be on the bench.

[manic-road]

The difference in quality of substitutions as well as the starting 11 was huge, Jota ran so slowly after coming on it looked like he had just run a marathon for his warm up.

We lack quality up front and poor wide players with no pace, if we go down which looks very likely we will need better players to be in with a chance of coming straight back up.

[villa `cross the mersey]

Aston Villa manager Dean Smith: "I'm disappointed. I don't want to be a valiant loser, we're scrapping for points. To out-shoot Liverpool at home at Anfield, in terms of efforts on goal, it's excellent - but need to take our opportunities. We never found the quality in the final third they did.

"Was it the best time to come to Anfield? Jurgen Klopp teams don't take their foot off the gas, I don't thank him [Klopp] for bringing the three subs on, that strengthened them but we were in the game the whole way through. Unfortunately they beat our press with their quality in the end.

"It's a tough task but we're still in it that's for sure. Our performances since the restart haven't got the results they deserved. We have got to make the most of our chances. We need to keep the belief in the dressing room, it's some achievement to come here and play as we did but we have to maintain the belief. I thought we more than matched them."

He's claiming a moral victory ....deluded or just thick?

[Legion]

Archer especially would offer far more than Davis but there is currently no Academy training provision.

[Gareth]

That was our best performance since restart for me but as I’m others have said it’s about outcomes not performances.

The ridiculous & corrupt decision to allow 5 subs so as to favour those clubs with bigger & better squads definitely shafted us today, there is no way Klopp brings on Henderson, Wijnaldum & Firmino as a job lot to change the game.  This whole restart nonsense should never have allowed the PL to change rules that didn’t need changing mid season, games taking place with no crowds should have been the limit.  There is no doubt in my mind this 5 subs was used as a carrot to get the ‘big clubs’ to toe the line.

Hopefully we stick with 4411 for the rest of the season - it looked pretty solid and hopefully for those last 4 games where you won’t be against a Van Dijk we might get a performance from a striker.

[hilts_coolerking]

At least we didn't get a hammering and goal diff has not been damaged too much, that may well come on Thursday. As everyone is saying absolutely power puff up front and only real decent chance created was Jack's effort in stoppage time. Gotta be worth a try, starting with Vassilev he can't do any worse than Samatta and Davis and surely Barry should at least be on the bench.

I thought Luiz's shot in the first half was a good chance but unfortunately he smacked it straight to the keeper.

[Risso]

Davis was utterly abysmal.  A complete non-striker. Every game we have at least one player you don't realise is on the pitch until half time.  So many games where it's like we're playing with ten men.

[RamboandBruno]

Aston Villa manager Dean Smith: "I'm disappointed. I don't want to be a valiant loser, we're scrapping for points. To out-shoot Liverpool at home at Anfield, in terms of efforts on goal, it's excellent - but need to take our opportunities. We never found the quality in the final third they did.

"Was it the best time to come to Anfield? Jurgen Klopp teams don't take their foot off the gas, I don't thank him [Klopp] for bringing the three subs on, that strengthened them but we were in the game the whole way through. Unfortunately they beat our press with their quality in the end.

"It's a tough task but we're still in it that's for sure. Our performances since the restart haven't got the results they deserved. We have got to make the most of our chances. We need to keep the belief in the dressing room, it's some achievement to come here and play as we did but we have to maintain the belief. I thought we more than matched them."

He's claiming a moral victory ....deluded or just thick?

Not defending smith for the sake of it and like others have no idea why Trez stayed on so long and why jota came on at all. But there was nothing wrong with his interview, I’m not really sure what else he could say?

[olaftab]

Davis was utterly abysmal.  A complete non-striker. Every game we have at least one player you don't realise is on the pitch until half time.  So many games where it's like we're playing with ten men.

Davis is nowhere near good enough and having to play our way out of a relegation dogfight with this young lad upfront is absolute damnation of Pitarch and Purslow's management of our club.

[hilts_coolerking]

Not defending smith for the sake of it and like others have no idea why Trez stayed on so long and why jota came on at all. But there was nothing wrong with his interview, I’m not really sure what else he could say?

For once I don't really have a problem with what he's said post-match but I can't agree that "we more than matched them".  They had 72% possession for one thing.

[Villan82]

Project re-start with the 5 subs is truly disgraceful.

As I said here at the time, the charade has killed my (already dwindling) love of football.

[Toronto Villa]

Davis was utterly abysmal.  A complete non-striker. Every game we have at least one player you don't realise is on the pitch until half time.  So many games where it's like we're playing with ten men.

Davis is nowhere near good enough and having to play our way out of a relegation dogfight with this young lad upfront is absolute damnation of Pitarch and Purslow's management of our club.

True. But then we went out and bought a striker and he can’t get into the side over a kid who is horribly short of the required quality at this level. Why does Dean Smith think Keinan Davis is a better option in a relegation fight than a more established and significantly better footballer in Samatta?

[tomd2103]

Looked more organised and I thought McGinn in particular was a lot better.  We looked fairly comfortable, but it was inevitable that they were going to open us up at some point.

[olaftab]

Did Smith play Reina at Anfield for sentimental reasons?

[hilts_coolerking]

Why does Dean Smith think Keinan Davis is a better option in a relegation fight than a more established and significantly better footballer in Samatta?

Basically because he doesn't know what he's doing.  He lost control of it all some time ago.