Post-Match Thread - Aston Villa 1 - 3 Abominable Kit Stealers

[brontebilly]

The age of the side and us being the baby in the league is obvious sometimes.

As is the size of our players; we seem to struggle against big, physical teams.

But it wasnt set pieces that WHU dominated us last night. It was mobility really, they ran us off the pitch.

It doesnt appear if Sanson will be helping much on the physical side on the basis of his cameo last night.

[simon ward 50]

Poor all round! Move on to the next?

[The Edge]

El Ghazi played like a player with a grievance. That wasn't just an off day it was more of a Dwight Yorke at Everton who had been tapped up by Man U and wanted to make a point to the manager. Very strange performance indeed. Looked like a kid in a park watching a game of football instead of someone who was actually playing. Does anyone know his contract situation?

[martyn ellis]

Having had time to think about it and watched extended highlights, I think a combination of things beat us.
Firstly, West Ham were bloody good - no getting away from it; they pressed well, they stifled Jack, they broke well and they passed well, and just our luck to come up against a revitalised forgotten man of United. For all of the above I applaud Moyes.
Secondly, we were  generally off the pace and off colour with poor control, poor passing, naive defending and the decision to replace Traore with El Ghazi simply didn't work (I don;t blame EG as much as some on here - he simply didn't get any service.
Thirdly, I'm a big fan of Martinez but I think all three of the goals were saveable given his recent form (even the first one I thought he was marginally slow across his line - at the same time Watkins (twice) and Barkley one both had very presentable chances whichon another day may have gone in.
Fourthly: We need to learn from what happenedand put it doen as a bad day at the office which needs to be resolved - what better time than Saturday.

[Damo70]

I have only just about calmed down. I thought we were shit last night. I am hoping it was just a blip in a decent season so far.

[Dr Butler]

Having had time to think about it and watched extended highlights, I think a combination of things beat us.
Firstly, West Ham were bloody good - no getting away from it; they pressed well, they stifled Jack, they broke well and they passed well, and just our luck to come up against a revitalised forgotten man of United. For all of the above I applaud Moyes.
Secondly, we were  generally off the pace and off colour with poor control, poor passing, naive defending and the decision to replace Traore with El Ghazi simply didn't work (I don;t blame EG as much as some on here - he simply didn't get any service.
Thirdly, I'm a big fan of Martinez but I think all three of the goals were saveable given his recent form (even the first one I thought he was marginally slow across his line - at the same time Watkins (twice) and Barkley one both had very presentable chances whichon another day may have gone in.
Fourthly: We need to learn from what happenedand put it doen as a bad day at the office which needs to be resolved - what better time than Saturday.

thanks Martyn you summed it just about right for me.

UTV
The Doc

[fredm]

I think that if there were a criticism of Jack, God forbid, its that when he did get the ball and there were three around him, he didnt move the ball fast enough for others to take advantage of the overload possibilities elsewhere on the pitch.

This.  When the team sheets were handed in they should have realised what WHU tactics were going to be in relation to Jack.  So why did we keep working the ball down our left flank and give it to him when there was always plenty of opponents around him? Why weren't they instructed, either before or during the game to make more use of the right hand flank? Or why wasn't Jack told that when he received the ball and immediately two or three opponents surrounded him to play the ball away from them quickly so as to isolate them and give our players more room?

[jwarry]

I think that if there were a criticism of Jack, God forbid, its that when he did get the ball and there were three around him, he didnt move the ball fast enough for others to take advantage of the overload possibilities elsewhere on the pitch.

This.  When the team sheets were handed in they should have realised what WHU tactics were going to be in relation to Jack.  So why did we keep working the ball down our left flank and give it to him when there was always plenty of opponents around him? Why weren't they instructed, either before or during the game to make more use of the right hand flank? Or why wasn't Jack told that when he received the ball and immediately two or three opponents surrounded him to play the ball away from them quickly so as to isolate them and give our players more room?

This
Dean should have moved Jack to 10 as soon as he realised what they had done and then they would have been stumped with two right backs on the pitch. Instead he left it until 20 mins to go

[The Edge]

I think that if there were a criticism of Jack, God forbid, its that when he did get the ball and there were three around him, he didnt move the ball fast enough for others to take advantage of the overload possibilities elsewhere on the pitch.

This.  When the team sheets were handed in they should have realised what WHU tactics were going to be in relation to Jack.  So why did we keep working the ball down our left flank and give it to him when there was always plenty of opponents around him? Why weren't they instructed, either before or during the game to make more use of the right hand flank? Or why wasn't Jack told that when he received the ball and immediately two or three opponents surrounded him to play the ball away from them quickly so as to isolate them and give our players more room?

I agree with your point about Jack. Once the teamsheets were in we knew WH were doubling up on Jack. Shifting the ball quickly to the right hand side was the obvious response from us. They tried and Matty Cash got in some pisitions which led to some decent crosses. But for whatever reason AEG just wasn't up to it last night so what should have been a productive right hand side just wasn't. Coupled with the form of Soucek & Rice dominating the middle of the park I'm afraid the writing was on the wall from very early on.

[hipkiss92]

I think that if there were a criticism of Jack, God forbid, its that when he did get the ball and there were three around him, he didnt move the ball fast enough for others to take advantage of the overload possibilities elsewhere on the pitch.

This.  When the team sheets were handed in they should have realised what WHU tactics were going to be in relation to Jack.  So why did we keep working the ball down our left flank and give it to him when there was always plenty of opponents around him? Why weren't they instructed, either before or during the game to make more use of the right hand flank? Or why wasn't Jack told that when he received the ball and immediately two or three opponents surrounded him to play the ball away from them quickly so as to isolate them and give our players more room?

I agree with your point about Jack. Once the teamsheets were in we knew WH were doubling up on Jack. Shifting the ball quickly to the right hand side was the obvious response from us. They tried and Matty Cash got in some pisitions which led to some decent crosses. But for whatever reason AEG just wasn't up to it last night so what should have been a productive right hand side just wasn't. Coupled with the form of Soucek & Rice dominating the middle of the park I'm afraid the writing was on the wall from very early on.

They seemed to have pinpointed Cash as one to press quickly when had the ball, and were doing it in 2s and 3s a lot in the first half. Got minimal support from midfield to play a quick one-two, and kept getting turning back inside and back to Konsa, which took a lot impetus out of our game.

[PeterWithe]

Yes I thought Cash had a poor half with the ball, seemed lacking in confidence as his first touch was constantly bad.

[Cropley10]

Double marking on Jack should've meant that the rest of the team step up to the plate, 'cos someone isn't being marked! -----but they didn't!

[Percy McCarthy]

i am not sure Luiz is either, neither player did what Rice did for them
Moyes spotted that and had Lingard run off the back of them.
We were carrying Barkley and AEG so no wonder we were being over run, Smith did nothing to stop the gaping hole in midfield.

 I think it was pretty simple, the first touch was just poor all through the team, we played the ball, moved into position as we normally do but the recieving player lost it and we looked out of shape in a way we haven't often this year.

That was exactly as I saw it. So hard to get our normal rhythm going when so many first touches went astray.

[KevinGage]

We can't afford to have 3-4 players in the current line up off their game.

Last night we had about 7-8.

[Mouse Potato]

It was weird how a lot of the players continually had such a poor first touch when that part of our game had quite emphatically improved this season