Aston Villa 0 Spuds 2 Post Match Thread

[RamboandBruno]

2 assists.

He's a good defender. Very aggressive and competitive.

Doesn't say much for his delivery, does it? He attacks a lot but delivers little.

Great, he is competitive. By diving in nearly every time on an opponent. Gives away countless free kicks, two penalties (and should have been a third at Soton), six yellows. His throw ins really piss me off too...

He is wildly overrated on here, if Elmo had performed like Cash did tonight the abuse he would have got would be off the charts.

You think everybody is shit and cowardly though.

Go easy on the bed time Bovril, petal

Cash has the 10th highest assist record for a defender. Seems pretty reasonable. If he lands a cross on Watkins head that goes in against Fulham he will become joint 6th.

He makes a raft of blocks, is defensively sound, highly aggressive and part of the reason we've improved defensively.

When he was injured we kept 2 clean sheets and really should have been a third against Newcastle. Defensively didn’t even notice he was out.

I think this is inaccurate, we did notice he was out. As much as I like Elmo and what he has done for the club, Elmo was culpable for soft goals against Leicester and Sheff Utd and hasn’t got the legs to get forwards in the way Cash can.
Cash is also a better player than Guilbert.
We have the second/third best defence in the league, it seems a bit bizarre to single out one of that unit, all 4 of them and the keeper have superb this season, even in this current slump in form. The problems we have at the moment are varied and largely related to midfield and in particular the wide attacking areas, in that context to single out an individual who is part of the best defense we have had in over a decade, is strange.

[aj2k77]

Can we not change the fucking formation at least for one game to see what happens? Instead of just shuffling El Ghazi, Sanson and Trezeguet (who needs to be sold in the summer) around. Luiz aswell, fucking hell, worrying about Man City coming in for him? Don't make me laugh, he doesn't do anything.

Going forwards we look as predictable as Smith's game plan.

It's been very, very poor for 2 months now and throwing the same thing out on the pitch over and over again isn't working. Yes we will get a bit of a bounce when Grealish eventually comes back but the manager has to be much more proactive about changing bad runs when things have gone flat.

The midfield this summer needs a royal kick up the arse. Luiz, McGinn, Trezeguet, Traore and El Ghazi. None are safe such has been their deterioration as the season has gone on.

[PaulWinch again]

I don’t think it helps that the midfield three is set up wrong. It could be that Sanson is getting up to speed, but we appear to have two players who in the main hold - Douglas (who’s out of form) and SJM (who loses a lot of his game in that role). If you’re going to do that then you need a really creative link player playing in front of them. We don’t have that, perhaps a fit and firing Barkley would be it. But at the moment it means the midfield looks horribly ineffective, which undermines the attack. It’s no coincidence that Traore looked much better earlier in the season, because he had players to link up with from the midfield. Now he tries to beat one man too many because our play is so siloed.

[tony scott]

I think we should ditch the wingers, play Luiz further forward and play Davis until ,Wesley is ready put McGinn behind them, and play marvellous and Elmo as dms it’s different and just might work.

[N'ZMAV]

Imagine how good this season could have been if we hadn’t got the beach towels out in January.

I suppose, this is more like the form we should be expecting for a squad of around 8 good players.

[CT]

Can we not change the fucking formation at least for one game to see what happens? Instead of just shuffling El Ghazi, Sanson and Trezeguet (who needs to be sold in the summer) around. Luiz aswell, fucking hell, worrying about Man City coming in for him? Don't make me laugh, he doesn't do anything.

Going forwards we look as predictable as Smith's game plan.

It's been very, very poor for 2 months now and throwing the same thing out on the pitch over and over again isn't working. Yes we will get a bit of a bounce when Grealish eventually comes back but the manager has to be much more proactive about changing bad runs when things have gone flat.

The midfield this summer needs a royal kick up the arse. Luiz, McGinn, Trezeguet, Traore and El Ghazi. None are safe such has been their deterioration as the season has gone on.

I was crying out for this last night. 55 minutes and we hadn’t had a shot, on or off target against a side in poor form who’d just been thrashed in Europe with a long trip back.

[Si]

Leicester looked superb playing 3 at the back against man utd. Dean Smith needs to consider this formation change as a plan b. We have the players to play that system, and Traore/Al Ghazi can't be no worse down the middle with Watkins than out wide.

[ldavfc4eva]

Trying a 5-3-2 with Targett and Cash as flying wing backs could work.

Middle 2 of Nakamba and Luiz with either SJM or Sanson at the head of a midfield triangle.

Davis and Watkins up top, worth a try against Fulham at least

[Ian.]

We’re very toothless in the final third and have been for ages, however Kane cheated us big time yesterday. That’s taking the piss in the stakes of cheating, he lost the ball and took advantage of Cash diving in. Konsa throws his body in the line all game long, how long will it be before a striker throws himself over him?

It may not have changed the game as we’re was terrible but still the game is very wrong to allow that to happen. Even after rewatching it in VAR they came up with the same decision.

[PaulTheVillan]

God help us next season.

[Ian.]

Some of us really go from one extreme to the other.

We play well for a few weeks and we’re going to qualify for Europe. We go on a bad run of form and next season we will struggle and heading for relegation.

Maybe at the moment we’re a mid table squad having a bad run of form and have a world class player missing. We’re still re-building from a decade of dross. We’re going to invest again this summer and add quality and depth, we know that’s a given.

We’ve still only be paying small amounts per player when you compare it to the top half of the table. We’ve been hindered by FFP as well so that’s been a noose for the re-building.

[Neil Hawkes]

We have the nucleus of a very good team, with limited options we do not have a very good squad.
Upgraded recruitment in the summer, provided we are allowed to spend on what we need, should improve both the starting eleven and the squad options for next season.
Work in progress with huge improvement from last season, I am hoping to see more improvement next season.

[sid1964]

We could not beat a side with their reserve defence and most of the team had played 48 hours before and lost after extra time and then travelled home from abroad.

We should have beaten them easily but we just looked so lethargic (i think a few are either thinking about their holidays or the Euros)

If anyone thinks Conor is the answer (watch Cardiff's goal on Saturday) he was lucky he did not give away a penalty from the corner and then had no desire to win the 2nd ball from which they scored their goal! the bit I watched Bacuna (yes that one) bossed the midfield.

[Allan C]

Some of us really go from one extreme to the other.

We play well for a few weeks and we’re going to qualify for Europe. We go on a bad run of form and next season we will struggle and heading for relegation.

Maybe at the moment we’re a mid table squad having a bad run of form and have a world class player missing. We’re still re-building from a decade of dross. We’re going to invest again this summer and add quality and depth, we know that’s a given.

We’ve still only be paying small amounts per player when you compare it to the top half of the table. We’ve been hindered by FFP as well so that’s been a noose for the re-building.

Spot on

[Drummond]

Some of us really go from one extreme to the other.

We play well for a few weeks and we’re going to qualify for Europe. We go on a bad run of form and next season we will struggle and heading for relegation.

Maybe at the moment we’re a mid table squad having a bad run of form and have a world class player missing. We’re still re-building from a decade of dross. We’re going to invest again this summer and add quality and depth, we know that’s a given.

We’ve still only be paying small amounts per player when you compare it to the top half of the table. We’ve been hindered by FFP as well so that’s been a noose for the re-building.

Spot on

Yep.