Aston Villa 3-3 Leeds United Post Match Thread

[KevinGage]

Lucky to get a point against an understrength LeedZzz outfit. Shite. Ramsey and PC before he tired - OK. The rest - NoK.

Imagine if we’d have played one of the actual big clubs tonight. Could have been embarrassing.

[stubbsyandy]

Taking off Coutinho for Young was a dreadful decision.

Young was embarrassing when he came on. Time for clear heads and calmness on ball. Young was charging around the field looking to kick Leeds players. Bit of an old pals act with Gerrard that needs ending.

Really?? Sad

[TonyD]

Taking off Coutinho for Young was a dreadful decision.

Young was embarrassing when he came on. Time for clear heads and calmness on ball. Young was charging around the field looking to kick Leeds players. Bit of an old pals act with Gerrard that needs ending.

Really?? Sad

Young offers very little.  Better of letting younger players have game time.

[nick harper]

Leeds do seem to raise their game at Villa Park and we always seem surprised by their pace and intensity.

We tried to take the pace out of the game in the second half but just handed Leeds the initiative. Might have worked at 3-1 but we didn’t look as if we would defend the one goal lead.

We struggled to get our full backs up the pitch but Harrison and Raphina are very good wide players and never stop.

[Villa Lew]

Positives Phil, JJ and Buendia all superb and will get even better, have supported Mings all season, but that was a horror show, Konsa now out for 2 games, as this was his 2nd red, so looks like been Chambers and Mings CD.

Their 2nd goal was a killer, a bit unfortunate as it could have gone anywhere of Doug's boot, I reckon if we had gone in 3-1, we have seen the game out. McGinn off form at the moment, but confident he'll be back to his best soon.

[Beard82]

Would love us to sign Coutinho, he really created so much amazing.

Last year the defence was one of the best in the PL, not sure what has gone wrong. 

Midfield balance still isnt right, and means we never controlled the game other than the 15 mins when we were controlling it in the final 3rd.

Leeds had 2 or 3 of there best players out, so I think this has to go down as a poor result, particularly when we are 3-1 up.

I assume the tatic is that SG will attract better players, with Coutinho the case in point, other than that, if I'm honest I am no more convinced that he is the right man for the job then when I joined.

Having said that, he has certainly won me over, with his approach, the way he handles himself, and what he is trying to achiev.  I like having him as our manager, and tbh I didnt think I would.

The excitiment around it all has been amazing - and according to most pundits we have "won" the transfer market in the summer and jan - but I cant get away from the fact that we are not any better than we were this time last season.  Did we over achieve last season?  And if so, does mean whoever the manager was. they were set up to fail this season.

We've won 1 of the last 6 and have played a shite man utd side twice, brentford, leeds and everton.  We have had spell's in all those games when we have really good, but have been poor defensively in all apart from Everton, and the midfield seems to have lost most of the gains we have in SG's first games. 

I hope it starts to click, as when it has we have looked amazing.  Clearly, its still early days, but we're still less then the sum of our parts, and until that changes we will continue to have results like tonight.  My gut says that its not just the players that are the issue.

[SoccerHQ]

Throwback to the championship that.

Enjoyable watch but two points dropped even if we didn't play that well.

Sloppy goal to give away right on half time and that cost us the win.

Leeds is a dodgy match up for us but results like this will stop us getting much higher than 10th really.

Frustrating season in which we have long breaks just when we're getting momentum or our best players can't complete 90 minutes.

Still Ramsey is starting to look a very special midfield player and his link up with Coutinho is beautiful to watch.

Not sure Gerrard got the subs right either, think this would've been a good one to put Sanson on at 3-2 so he could rat around their midfield. Carney didn't do much at all.

[achilles]

That was atrocious, basic football ability lacking of actually being able to pass to each other!

Coutinio MOM by a country mile, shone like a beacon!
Ramsay above criticism for his two well taken goals, still learning and will get better.
The rest of them rate between mediocrity and abysmal, with a few of them needing to take a good hard look at themselves and realise it is just not good enough!

Fair play to Leeds who played all the football and looked a very good outfit, it is just lucky for us that their defence is as crap as ours was tonight! James looks an outstanding player and never stopped working for Leeds, causing us all sort of problems.

[rougegorge]

I agree with most of the assessments about tonight. We had a purple patch of 20 minutes and the rest was chaotic at times.

Mings spent the game trying to make amends for his mistakes and ended up compounding them and Konsa hasn't been great recently. I think that's a two game ban now for his second red this season.
Why on earth there was applause for him as he went off,  I do not know.

McGinn looked as if he'd put on a couple of pounds and I don't know what is happening with Ollie.

Raphinha actually didn't do much tonight, but we were poor against Harrison and James and failed to exploit Leeds's equally dodgy defence in the second half.

On the plus side Coutinho had a great spell and Ramsey continues to belie his age.

[CT Villan]

Konsa, Mings and Luiz absolutely abysmal. Watkins not far behind.

JJ, Coutinho and Buendia were brilliant.

[SoccerHQ]

For those who have suggested the importance of the DM was a bit of a myth, watch that game back.

I wondered pre match if Chambers might get in at DM.He'll start on Sunday, just a question of which position.

[CT Villan]

Hindsight is 20-20, but it would have been better to put Chambers into DM when Buendia came off and push Luiz further forward.

[Nii Lamptey]

Good points… Ramsay and Coutinho. Bad points… McGinn and Watkins who were both dreadful.

In particular, I’m calling out Ollie. What the hell is up with him. He’s not even looking like scoring recently. He could still be out there now and not look like grabbing one. On that performance, he has to be dropped

[BC Villain]

Taking off Coutinho for Young was a dreadful decision.

Young was embarrassing when he came on. Time for clear heads and calmness on ball. Young was charging around the field looking to kick Leeds players. Bit of an old pals act with Gerrard that needs ending.

And this is the most experienced player on the field as well.

[pauliewalnuts]

Ings is a much better player than Watkins.

He's got to start the next match.