Aston Villa 3-3 Leeds United Post Match Thread

[Nev]

Having slept on it I think last night was par for the course given the upheaval we have had this season,  Leeds Jekyll and Hyde style of play, and the fact that they appear to be a bogey side of late.

Only 15 mins in last night I mused that Doug's time may be up with us but more concerningly, McGinn seems all at sea. The CB's were exposed and made uncharacteristic mistakes, certainly as far as Konsa is concerned. Ahead of Newcastle  the midfield needs work. Perhaps dropping McGinn to DM, we have enough going forward to sacrifice him in that role and bringing Sanson in for Doug.

[Nunkin1965]

I thought Doug was completely anonymous last night and that didn't help defensively at all.
Also I'm a huge fan but Konsa has no complaints with his yellows. Absolutely stupid decision making on his part and along with Mings he had a night to forget overall.

But it was brilliant to get back to watching a live game again and boy did we see some magical play at times.

[mrfuse]

Can anyone explain why the hell have we got one world class player that takes great free kicks and another very decent left footed player that is also excellent ........and Dougie is taking them?

[Hookeysmith]

Anyone else concerned about the size of Martinez yet how poor he seems to be on crosses into the box. Anything inside the 6 yard box has to be the goalkeepers - absolute basics

McGinn - Have said for a while his personality certainly out weighs his ability - with SG already claiming his love for him i doubt he will ever be dropped - but he should be.

Watkins - needs dropping

Luiz - Not his natural position to be fair but still a waste of a player in there most of the time

Mings - at his best he is a colossus, at his worst a liability

Really need a response on Sunday but i somehow doubt it

[PaulWinch again]

Anyone else concerned about the size of Martinez yet how poor he seems to be on crosses into the box. Anything inside the 6 yard box has to be the goalkeepers - absolute basics

McGinn - Have said for a while his personality certainly out weighs his ability - with SG already claiming his love for him i doubt he will ever be dropped - but he should be.

Watkins - needs dropping

Luiz - Not his natural position to be fair but still a waste of a player in there most of the time

Mings - at his best he is a colossus, at his worst a liability

Really need a response on Sunday but i somehow doubt it

I maintain Konsa was the worst of the lot last night, and that’s rare because I think generally he’s very good. Mings looked worse because he took more risk, but Konsa was consistently terrible last night. There were influencing factors, like Emi being below his normal standards and McGinn and Doug doing very little, but he had a shocker.

[Brend'Watkins]

👆👏 in response to Pat Mustard

Seconded.

Very good summary Pat.

Thirded. 

I'll add that Mings was doing the work of two central defenders due to an under performing Konsa (who looked injured) such was his involvement throughout. There wouldn't have been a mention of his mistakes if Digne had put that good chance he created when he drove forward at the end of the first half.  Leeds were very good that needs to be taken into account too.  In hindsight, once we went 3-1 up we should have gone tighter and contained Leeds' drive.
A draw was a fair result overall.

[Exeter 77]

I was quite concerned with the way we defended last night. Both centre backs were below their best, especially Ezri Konsa whose positioning at times left Tyrone Mings exposed, and the midfield offered little protection. We seemed to defend quite narrow while Leeds had wide players pushed out to the touchlines which caused us problems. Going forward Phillipe Coutinho's speed of thought and execution of passing is brilliant to watch but it was obvious Ollie Watkins hasn't adjusted to playing with him yet but Jacob Ramsey is loving playing alongside him - three goals in two home games all assisted by Coutinho. What Steven Gerrard is trying to achieve and how is becoming more apparent but all of the players haven't caught up yet and we are still a work in progress. A couple of individual errors cost us goals but I'm not blaming Mings for those as he was not helped by those around him. All of this seems like a moan butnwe have come a long way in quite a short time - it was only three years ago that we were nicking a point from Sheffield United with three goals in eight minutes.
One other thing I noticed was how concerned Luke Ayling, a player I don't particularly like, looked when our players went down. Because it was Leeds I'm not sure if it was genuine though.

[LeeB]

Exhilarating and frustrating in equal measure

we are watching some really good football now chaps, exciting players who have the ability to get us out of our seats and blow our minds, after the drizzle and shit we’ve had to endure over the last decade Villa Park is a great place to be again, although anything can happen at any time good or bad

my lad is nearly 14 now, he had no interest in football at all until Benteke made him fall in love with the game, but the years to follow were some of the worst ever as a Villa supporter
Now he’s watching Coutinho, Ramsey, Buendia, McGinn, Martinez players he will remember for the rest of his life just as I look back at Gray, Shaw, Little, McGrath and Platt

yes we made too many mistakes last night especially in defence
Our expectations and playing standards are higher than they have been for the last 10 years and i’ve always advocated we aim As high as possible and not just settle for mediocre

So I was pissed off that we let a two-goal lead go but it’s still a great time to be a Villa fan



 

I agree with John, it's a good time to be a Villa fan, I'm trying to just sit back and enjoy it rather than worrying about what we should or should not be doing.

[Cropley10]

This formation where our full backs are our wide men,relies on the defensive mids to cover and they just didn't do it last night.
This puts pressure on the centrebacks to over stretch themselves -------Konsa was caught out many times and Mings always has an error in him.

Dougie was rubbish (and I agree,why is he taking our freekicks?) and JMG wasn't in the game at all.

I can't help thinking that Ings would be better suited than Ollie to the probing through balls of Buendia and Coutinho too.

A great game, but 2 points were given away.

[LeeB]

And, to add, the last 5 goals I've watched us score at Villa Park have all been fucking brilliant and light years from anything we've seen at Villa for decades.

[john e]

its unusual for me to be the cheer leader but i cant agree with a lot of the negative comments about last nights performance
no way was it perfect but a decent overall performance punctuated with a few big clangers

i probably starts with the fact that i didn't think we were ever going to batter Leeds as some were expecting, i was reading a lot of Leeds are poor comments before the game and Biesla is some sort of management myth, and if you were looking at the game in that frame of mind where we just turn up and thrash them i suppose its a bitter disappointment
but for me Leeds are a good hard working side, with a lot of attacking intent at times, Biesla is a top class manager, the job he's done there is frankly astounding given the state they were in and investment
thought their second half performance was a bit spoiling which surprised me, but they were always going to be difficult to beat

so i knew we would be pushed, and we were, we played some really lovely stuff, scored some great goals but also made a lot of mistakes especially at the back
Mings and Konsa struggled but as i keep on saying neither are technically gifted footballers and some times that comes home to roost
upgrading them will have to be done in time but its difficult as there is a dirth of CB talent right across Europe

dont agree that Doug and McGinn were anonymous last night, maybe they weren't at the top of their game but i still think they contributed in some good attacking build up play any talk of dropping them is just ridiculous in my opinion 

Ramsey, Bundia and Coutinho were our best players when they all went off momentum had gone and that bit of class, thought Gerrard got it wrong a bit there
Sanson would have been a more positive sub

on the whole i'm not as disappointed as some on here, it was a privilege to see some of the football played last night

[chrisw1]

Good post John.

It feels like an opportunity missed to me, but we did play some great stuff.  Dougie probably was a bit more advanced than I expected and I don't know if that contributed to the ridiculous amounts of space James kept finding, but that's more down to set up than his individual performance, which I thought was fine.

It was incredible to watch how Leeds just destroyed the flow of the game in the second half.  It was a game management masterclass.  I was a bit surprised as they looked the more likely winners to me.

[Risso]

I said at the time that not signing Bissouma was a missed opportunity, and last night just proved that. McGinn and Luiz are rubbish both as defensive midfielders and attacking forces. One or the the other would probably be OK next to a Bissouma type and Ramsey.

[sid1964]

Good game of football last night - with regards to Mings / Konsa, it was noticeable in the first half that whenever Mings or Konsa received the ball from Emi (goal keeper) that they were then pressured by James etc..

The once Mings got knocked off the ball with a shoulder charge from 5ft 8 inches James

They were poor, but we don't have anyone better than them at the moment, I would imagine that in the Summer a new spine of the team will be brought in as replacements

It will be interesting to see who goes in the summer, I think there maybe a few surprises in who Gerrard allows to leave.

[chrisw1]

I said at the time that not signing Bissouma was a missed opportunity, and last night just proved that. McGinn and Luiz are rubbish both as defensive midfielders and attacking forces. One or the the other would probably be OK next to a Bissouma type and Ramsey.

I know it's not ideal over paying, but given that we may only be borrowing Coutinho for a short period of time, I do wonder if paying £10m too much for Bissouma may have been a sensible decision just to see what we could have achieved this season?  That MAY have been the diference between 10-12th and 6-8th.  And MAY be the difference between retaining Coutinho and attracting top players and not.