Aston Villa 0 Watford 1 Post Match Thread

[Mister E]

Our home support had become crap too. On the players backs most of the game and fucks off with10 minutes to go, having barely made a peep. There's a sense of entitlement and sneering expectations rather than a sense of togetherness we had in the promotion run and first year back.
The lower Witton have always been shit houses, but it's infecting everywhere. Just catching the Kane winner and our away end would have been half empty given the late equaliser, if it had been us.

I read it differently. The crowd was quiet out of a sense of impending doom. When the goal went in, most people realised we wouldn't pull it back.

[Smithy]

I think that's the season done as far as achieving anything of note is concerned.  This three-game run against bottom-half clubs, two in a relegation fight, should have set us up for an outside shot at the European places, but clearly that's done now.  I was hoping for 9 points, expecting 6, and getting just 1 is crap.

Clearly we're playing poorly, and whether that's the players not adapting to what Gerrard wants, or whether what Gerrard wants doesn't work, I don't know.  He's got a dozen or so games to get a tune out of these players, or come the summer he'll be gone, OR the club will back him and it'll be a big turnover of players to come in who CAN play how he wants.

What I don't understand right now is how we can play so well early in his tenure, and so lacklustre of late.  We ARE a work in progress, but right now that progress seems to be in the wrong direction given how we were playing before Xmas.

[Mister E]

Well, it was pretty bad. By the time I got back, I didn't have the enthusiasm to come on here.
With the ball, we played actually okay for much of the game, and Ings appeared to be the player we thought we'd bought; playing well with Buendia.
But - as some others have pointed out - we are not maximising the system Gerrard is trying to play, making 5m passes between CBs rather than stretching the play. And, I really don't get that McGinn and Ramsey spend half their time as auxiliary fullbacks. Baffling.
When you look at Watford, it was obvious how they would play: tight and compact until a break presents itself, utilising the speed of Sarr and Dennis. This is exactly how it played out, but we did not adapt to address this obvious approach.
The 3 substitutions were rubbish - yes, perhaps the Cash one was forced on us by his deteriorating display; but Bailey and Watkins were inept. I continue to challenge Bailey's ability to play in this league.
Luiz is gone, for me. I just don't see what he adds to the team.
Coutinho is a waste of space in this system and appears as confused as the others in terms of what to do.

It's shite, and we've gone backwards.

[Goldenballs]

Cash must've shagged the missus of the bloke who was sitting next to. He was moaning at everything, when the ball was down the left and Cash was keeping wide to give us the width he was screaming at him to tuck in and make a congested midfield even worse, every single time. I'd never say anything to another fan, they're entitled to their opinion but I was very close to telling him to shut his ugly fat face.

[Villa Lew]

Watching Match of the Day we were lucky it was only 1 nil, Newcastle and Watford 2 of the worst teams in the league and we having even tested their keepers and why Sanson can't get into that team, I'll never know.

[Nev]

The pace has all but vanished from our game. The keeper collected the ball from a corner, looked to get us on the counter and the ball didn't leave our half for 30 seconds, by which time they'd reset and that pattern continued throughout the game.
We are slow, ponderous, unimaginative and predictable so poor teams can play poorly and still win.

However bad the players are performing, that is down to formation, tactics and coaching and at the moment all three are sorely lacking.

[Risso]

The pace has all but vanished from our game. The keeper collected the ball from a corner, looked to get us on the counter and the ball didn't leave our half for 30 seconds, by which time they'd reset and that pattern continued throughout the game.
We are slow, ponderous, unimaginative and predictable so poor teams can play poorly and still win.

However bad the players are performing, that is down to formation, tactics and coaching and at the moment all three are sorely lacking.

I'm not sure that we've ever had any real pace. It was a noticeable difference between us and Watford yesterday. They were mostly really crap, but had the pace of Dennis on the break. We played some OK football, but had the total non-pace of 87 year old Danny Ings.

[Richard E]

Ings looked knackered after an hour. He was puffing out his cheeks.

[robbo1874]

It was clear today that the system doesn’t suit McGinn, so, unfortunately, I would look to move him on in the summer to bring in a proper DM, unless Tim Ignebuem (?) gets his chance and shines.

Deigne was awful today, never made any real progress, he played no better than Targett going forward, but at least Targett can defend.

Swapping to 442 was utterly ridiculous

i thought Digne was one of the better players. He was moving into space out wide but the pass would mostly go inside to the nearest player in the middle. It gets very congested around the edge of the opposition box. And we usually seem to lose momentum and pass the ball back. Lots of possession but we really struggle to make it count and then got done on the break.

[PeterWithe]

Watford carried out their game plan very well and could have had more.

The good thing about this poor run is we can all see what’s wrong, McGinn and Ramsey aren’t carrying a goal threat because they are covering our only width, the full backs, so when/if a cross arrives there aren’t enough players in the box as Buendia and Phil want the ball to feet on the edge of the box.

On Gerrard, Ive a bit of sympathy as he did try and change things but none of the subs made a positive impact, Coutinho looked utterly lost after the changes

[Risso]

Wish we could find a bargain like Dennis from time to time. £3.5m he cost apparently. 9 goals and 5 assists already for a terrible team like Watford. They'll probably get £50m at least for him when they go down.

[RamboandBruno]

Watford carried out their game plan very well and could have had more.

The good thing about this poor run is we can all see what’s wrong, McGinn and Ramsey aren’t carrying a goal threat because they are covering our only width, the full backs, so when/if a cross arrives there aren’t enough players in the box as Buendia and Phil want the ball to feet on the edge of the box.

On Gerrard, Ive a bit of sympathy as he did try and change things but none of the subs made a positive impact, Coutinho looked utterly lost after the changes

Pretty much agree with this.
Digne was getting frustrated in the 2nd half, as the amount of time he was acres of space and the ball just kept being played around at the back between Chambers, Mings and Luiz. Im not sure if the system is totally flawed or whether its just being deployed really badly by some of the players. Cash and Digne may not always have the best delivery, but if they got the ball quicker it would make a lot of difference.
For me i thought the game was lost in the 1st half and i said to some friends at half time if Watford scored first we were done. The opening 3 or 4 mins when we kept the ball, but didn’t actually make it over the half way line, set the tone for the rest of the game, not enough urgency. Saying that we should of had a penalty and that would of done a number of things, including change Watfords approach to the game and liven the crowd up.
On the crowd, the Holte End has been quite subdued for weeks, even the Leeds game, when i thought it would be bouncing. Possibly just the football being poor, but i think there is also some thing about mid table, 3rd season back in the premier league syndrome. Its mirrored a bit on here, with talk about worst football since Remi Garde etc. Things aren’t great, but are they really as bad as the years before relegation and then 2015/2016, or the championship years under Bruce, even the almost relegation year in 2019/2020? Gerrard needs a summer and full season next year and we all need to have some patience. We’re not going down, we need 4 wins and a draw out of 14 games.
Anyway going forwards for the next few games, There must be something up with Sanson, so think we need to forget about him. Luiz needs to come out though, so dont know if Chambers can play there, maybe we try him, Konsa will come back in at the back i would of thought. Id probably stick with Ings for next week, he looked lively first half and needs game time to get his match fitness up. Also can we please let Coutinhio take a free kick!
We just need to scrape a win from somewhere to calm everything down.

[Steve67]

Every team for the rest of the season will pack out the midfield against us because they will see that this is our obvious weakness.  We are going to have to scrap and battle for every point unless Gerrard does something different, for which, we just don't have the personnel.

[Ads]

Why weren't we given that most obvious of penalties in the 2nd minute? It was a clear penalty in real time, it took 10 seconds to see the replay and it was even more obvious.

VAR wants burning.

[olaftab]

Yep. You have someone on here saying Coutinho has turned  from a prince into a frog just because he's not had two great games. Some of our fans are just ridiculously childish.

Yes people who pay good money to watch are childish. You should have said fickle as well just to rub it in.