Aston Villa - 1 Southampton - 0 Post match thread

[ADVILLAFAN]

Well, we won I guess

[Vegas]

I love Friday night games. Few beers in town, up to the ground, under the lights, decent atmosphere. If it’s not Saturday at 3 p.m. Friday night would be my first choice I think.

I’m not a fan of the royals so I ducked the National anthem ashf stayed on the concourse, but it looked spectacular coming up at the end of the silence / anthem.

Obviously we won but what a missed opportunity to really start to build a style of play. The most forgettable game I’ve seen in a few years, we just had nothing going forwards, no identity, no tactics, no energy. I just don’t get what our management team is bringing.

[dorsetvillian]

I was amazed that Gerrard dropped Dougie. Then played the diamond formation, which effectively leaves a black hole in the centre of our midfield. If the injury to Kamara is long term then I can't see any more than Villa just scrapping above relegation. We have not improved since Deano left and in many ways have gone backwards. It's going to be a long season watching this terrible football under Gerrard.

[PaulWinch again]

Well we needed that win but we should have wrapped this up before half time. We hugged and puffed against a very poor team. Coutinho was a class above everyone on the pitch but we are so lacklustre in our movement and positional play.

McGinn worked extremely hard off the ball but he really slows the game down and gives it away to easily.

Thought Mings was excellent at the back.

Is that the same Coutinho who didn’t create a chance, didn’t last 90 minutes, didn’t score ?

He’s a busted flush.  We’ll never improve by starting with him.

Don't talk daft. Coutinho is a magician.

What’s the evidence for that?

Huh? He was instrumental in the bits when we actually looked alright last night.

[Clive W]

Only on here can a post of: 

“Yeeeess!!
Get in!!”

be followed immediately by a post of:

“Just papering over the cracks”

Brilliant
Long may it continue

[PaulWinch again]

McGinn is crap. He does nothing with the ball and the amount of times he loses 50/50 balls is incredible. Not good enough, unless we want to finish 16th.

His constant losing of possession is the biggest problem. You can accept that from an attacker, trying to engineer chances, but as a midfielder trying to link play it makes it impossible.

[Nunkin1965]

Well we needed that win but we should have wrapped this up before half time. We hugged and puffed against a very poor team. Coutinho was a class above everyone on the pitch but we are so lacklustre in our movement and positional play.

McGinn worked extremely hard off the ball but he really slows the game down and gives it away to easily.

Thought Mings was excellent at the back.

Is that the same Coutinho who didn’t create a chance, didn’t last 90 minutes, didn’t score ?

He’s a busted flush.  We’ll never improve by starting with him.

Don't talk daft. Coutinho is a magician.

What’s the evidence for that?

Huh? He was instrumental in the bits when we actually looked alright last night.

Coutinho played well last night.
It's up to people whether they want to see it or not.

[Mister E]

Replace McGinn, Watkins and Bailey with better footballers we might stand a chance. All 3 for me epitomise why we struggle. A midfielder that can't pass for shit but works like a dog so is lauded, a forward who can't finish his dinner but works like a dog so is lauded, and a winger-come-forward who can finish but appears to offer literally nothing else at all, but lives off 2-3 nice finishes. All 3 offer so little to our actual function as a football team in an attacking sense. Agree though, Ings is even worse so utterly pointless. I would flog all 4 and get our scouting team to go and find better. It should not be hard. Coutinho might be a busted flush, but he's 20 times the footballer that lot are. People think Mings is a problem. He's a bloody godsend, actually does his job much of the time.
Rant over sorry.

Agreed. After a match resembling a fight between two bald men fighting over a toupee, I made the 2-hour journey home reflecting on 3 things:
- SG has to be removed ASAP: he seems to  have no conception of what good should look like, despite having a decent enough squad. Why was his first (or near so) signing a leftback? - Digne was v poor last night and shows little resemblance to a £25m full French international.
- Why has the coaching not enabled us to make the best of our best players? - support for Phil in the form of purposeful off-the-ball running is almost zilch; yes, Watkins, Bailey and Ramsey, I'm looking particularly at you!
- How is it that Ramsey has regressed so far under SG from his previous form? - yes, he scored but his general play (particularly tracking back without conceding petty fouls) was poor.

Awful, awful game which - I think - epitomises the team under SG. He's got to go. Three players that need replacing with better alternatives: Watkins, McGinn and Bailey. We have Archer, Luiz, Sanson as potential replacements but need better alternatives from elsewhere.

[Vegas]

Well we needed that win but we should have wrapped this up before half time. We hugged and puffed against a very poor team. Coutinho was a class above everyone on the pitch but we are so lacklustre in our movement and positional play.

McGinn worked extremely hard off the ball but he really slows the game down and gives it away to easily.

Thought Mings was excellent at the back.

Is that the same Coutinho who didn’t create a chance, didn’t last 90 minutes, didn’t score ?

He’s a busted flush.  We’ll never improve by starting with him.

Don't talk daft. Coutinho is a magician.

What’s the evidence for that?

Huh? He was instrumental in the bits when we actually looked alright last night.

Coutinho played well last night.
It's up to people whether they want to see it or not.

He looked tidy in parts, but it’s still basically true to say that in a home game against very poor opposition he didn’t score, assist or create a chance (other than for himself from outside the box), so let’s not go overboard about playing well.

[john e]

Mings was superb man of the match best game I’ve seen him have in a long while, I think I’m correct in saying he won absolutely everything although  the standard of the opposition was piss poor

Watkins
For endeavour, work rate, running around a lot, pressing, putting in a proper shift, 9/10
For holding the ball up, Touch, Control, danger to the oppositions net, 1/10   (1 for the header)
Sorry he’s just too lightweight gets knocked off the ball far too easily

Coutinho - only bit of star quality on the pitch but very sporadic

Dendonker- ffs

Respect for the Queen and NA - 10/10

[Richard E]

I’ve seen a lot of people slating Dendoncker. I appreciate it wasn’t like watching Messi in his pomp, but what exactly did he do wrong, or which causes people to label him ‘crap’? I don’t remember him giving the ball away, ducking out of a challenge or being caught out of position.

[Risso]

He just lumbered round like a big lumbering thing.  Early days, but I wouldn’t expect him to bring much dynamism to the midfield.

[john2710]

Win or lose I try to make it a rule not to come on here until the day after a game. The negativity is nauseating. But we needed the win, deserved the win & never looked like losing. It was dull but ultimately who cares.

Dammed if we're too open, dammed if we're too cautious. A win is a win. Let's build from here.

[john e]

I don’t mind grinding out a few wins as long as it’s interspersed with some decent football in between
But when grinding football is all you’ve got it gets a bit depressing

[PaulTheVillan]

Some good points from Kendrick on the C&B podcast. If we were in form and scrapped out that 1-0 we’d be thinking decent, we can win ugly.

I’d have taken 4 points from the last 2 games, if someone offered me that.

Still concerned how we still don’t seem to know our best team & our best shape.

Any news on Kamara? Gerrard was worried after the game in his Sky Sports interview.