Aston Villa 0 Watford 1 Post Match Thread

[SoccerHQ]

As soon as I saw Mings starting and only one change from Newcastle, I thought, this is only going one way.

Mings isn't perfect but he's been o.k today and at Newcastle. Don't rate Chambers much so hopefully Konsa is back in and we can grind our way to clean sheet against whoever we're playing next.

[Chris_Jephcott]

This feels like an post-mortem. It’s taken a few games to finally get there, but today was dreadful. Simply dreadful. I want to find some positives but I simply cannot. The biggest one is that it was only 1-0. If it wasn’t for Emi Martinez, it would have been much much worse.

Big calls. Mr Gerrard called for big changes after Newcastle. He said there would be changes. When the team was released, I was excited but that simply drifted into a feeling of resignation and acceptance when the only change was Watkins for Ings. There was a golden opportunity to try to do something different today - why the hell did we not put Hause in defence and then shift Chambers into the DM position ahead of Dougie who hasn’t been looking like a player for a good few weeks now? Why stick with what gave us a massive arse showing in front of Newcastle last week? The changes were needed. We didn’t get them, the result is no surprise. It’s been coming for a while though - we have ridden our luck and we’re bang smack in relegation form now. Our only hope is that there are 3 teams worse than us in this league. Sadly, I have to say that Newcastle and Watford clearly aren’t 2 of them!

Our Strikers - Watkins looked initially lively when he came on. Ings looked brighter in moments. But it’s not working. It’s not working somehow. There’s no balance. They both look painfully short of any confidence at all.

Our midfield! This is the main crux of it for me. A 3 person midfield isn’t working at all. Not in the slightest. Dougie has been anonymous, McGinn has been pushed into positions he’s not familiar with. McGinn has been shocking and not good enough with his passing - but the same can be said for most of our team too. But we are losing this in midfield at all. It’s hard to pinpoint the blame on just one player, but Luiz has been totally anonymous and it’s almost like we’re playing the midfield with 1 player down to start with.

I can’t believe I’m writing this. It is dreadful. A massive, special thanks to Villa for ruining a perfectly reasonable weekend. Again.

I genuinely don’t know what’s going wrong behind the scenes at all - but something must be. For the results we’re “achieving”, our players are a lot better and a lot more capable. But it’s not happening.

This shit needs sorting out, and sorting out fast.

Tonight, I am very very frustrated with this team, the manager, the coaches. Anybody involved in the debacles that have been the last few weeks. 

[AlwaysVilla]

The decision to replace Luiz with Watkins ( to go 2 up top which has failed all season) was simply bizarre.  If he doesn't rate Sanson then don't  have him on the bench,it's plainly ridiculous . As if that didn't make us go backwards, the decision to bring on Young for Cash made us do so at gallop. All three subs made us worse. Luiz may be playing poorly but he is the scapegoat having to play entirely out of position while out of form. I put today on Gerrad. He worries me

[Lastfootstamper]

All went a bit Sherwood towards the end before giving it the full Lambert. Hmm.

[nick harper]

That non penalty was a replica of Mings on Salah.

What has happened to the intense pressing that Gerrard said was a hallmark of how he wants his team to play. I cant believe how easily Watford were able to knock it around - we don’t work anything like hard enough and are far too slow in possession.

He needs to get back to basics and we need to be harder to play against. Only one of the 10s can play and until we get that DM, we need two holding players. Luiz was just non-existent.

[dicedlam]

Something is not right between the management and players. My lad said that when they were in the tunnel the body language of the players seemed like they were not collectively a team.

[ROBBO]

You can't say changes have to be made then pick the same players bar one. Watford were better organised all game, we were huff and puff with nothing behind it. Bringing young on was a disasterous decision too old and past it, thats down to Gerrard, we had much better options. If you keep making the same mistake over and over and expecting a different result it's a sign of insanity, well that's gerrard and the midfield. I had great hopes for him but he is starting to appear clueless.

[TonyD]

Has he done a post match interview yet?

[Beard82]

Has he done a post match interview yet?

No, they all agreed to just rerun the one from the newcastle game

[Beard82]

You can't say changes have to be made then pick the same players bar one. Watford were better organised all game, we were huff and puff with nothing behind it. Bringing young on was a disasterous decision too old and past it, thats down to Gerrard, we had much better options. If you keep making the same mistake over and over and expecting a different result it's a sign of insanity, well that's gerrard and the midfield. I had great hopes for him but he is starting to appear clueless.

The problem is the formation/tatics - we dont have the players for it.  End of.  I dont know if it is even possible for that formation to work in the PL unless you are one of the top teams.

The problem is everyone said about how good it was to have someone straight talking and honest - but were a few months in and hes already showing us that he is spouting the same shit.

[Villatillidie1982]

I wouldn't fault the effort which was okay until the goal but there isn't enough quality. The substitutions baffled me. Buendia was our one quality player. Gerrard has never managed a struggling team. Can he cope with this?

[brontebilly]

Once they scored, most of our players hid. Says it all about the character of them. Watford were absolutely rank but you could sense that their very rare attacks had a lot more purpose than ours. 0-1 flattered us for a finish.

Dreadful and all as our X1 were, our three subs were embarrassing. Watkins of course negated any influence Ings was having. The Scouse Sherwood as many have said finished up like Lambert v Bradford. Should be the end of his reign tonight and that of Lange/Purslow. A complete shambles.

Martinez 8 - couple of brilliant saves
Rash 3 - rotten, utter whingebag aswell
Chambers 3 - not even championship standard
Mings 6 - solid enough
Digne 4 - very poor, suspect when going got tough
Luiz 4 - wanted to be elsewhere, though our midfield disappeared once he went off
McGinn 3 - horror show, sad to watch in truth
Ramsey 6 - tried hard but as suspect as any of them without the ball
Coutinho 6 - average enough but did look the most likely to make things happen
Buendia 5 - guilty of overplaying throughout
Ings 5 - decent first half but disappeared without trace after Watkins came on

Watkins 3 - rubbish, confidence on floor
Young 3 - at fault for their goal, nowhere near up to the standard
Bailey 3 - rotten cameo again
Gerrard 0 - disasterclass

[Ads]

Yeah, let's react by sacking our second manager, CEO and Head of Recruitment mid-season.

[HolteLower]

Once they scored, most of our players hid. Says it all about the character of them. Watford were absolutely rank but you could sense that their very rare attacks had a lot more purpose than ours. 0-1 flattered us for a finish.

Dreadful and all as our X1 were, our three subs were embarrassing. Watkins of course negated any influence Ings was having. The Scouse Sherwood as many have said finished up like Lambert v Bradford. Should be the end of his reign tonight and that of Lange/Purslow. A complete shambles.

Martinez 8 - couple of brilliant saves
Rash 3 - rotten, utter whingebag aswell
Chambers 3 - not even championship standard
Mings 6 - solid enough
Digne 4 - very poor, suspect when going got tough
Luiz 4 - wanted to be elsewhere, though our midfield disappeared once he went off
McGinn 3 - horror show, sad to watch in truth
Ramsey 6 - tried hard but as suspect as any of them without the ball
Coutinho 6 - average enough but did look the most likely to make things happen
Buendia 5 - guilty of overplaying throughout
Ings 5 - decent first half but disappeared without trace after Watkins came on

Watkins 3 - rubbish, confidence on floor
Young 3 - at fault for their goal, nowhere near up to the standard
Bailey 3 - rotten cameo again
Gerrard 0 - disasterclass

Pretty fair summing up. Subs disastrous. Now looking down instead of up the table. Season over effectively - only avoiding getting sucked in to a scrap is the target. Forgetable again. I really begin to wonder what the fuck they do in training.

[Legion]

Smile for the cameras.