Aston Villa vs Stevenage Humiliation Post-Mortem

[manic-road]

Never got out of first gear first half, just like the first half against Wolves we lacked any type of urgency.

I was cringeing at those behind me singing "Champions of Europe you'll never sing that" to feckin Stevenage!

At least Unai got a chance to see fringe players in a competative game, he now knows many are nowhere near good enough.

[rob_bridge]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rggggggggggggggggggg hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

What a Shit Sandwich.

The Lot of Them should be utterly ashamed - give your wages to a food bank this week

[TonyD]

You can see he that’s why he’s losing shape on any shots he takes. We’ve seen what he can do when he’s confident.

I good goal every 9 or 10 games is nowhere near good enough though, especially with how mediocre the rest of his play is.

Yep. He is awful more times than he is good.   
How does his old man cope.

[Aldridge Villa]

What really irks is the much lauded Youth team of a year or 2 ago and none seemingly around to replace the dirge that has been bought at considerable cost only to time and time again fluff their lines.

[colin69]

Where do you start?
Absolute shambles. Professional, International, Premier League players who played at a walking pace for most of the game and couldn’t find a way through a League 2 side.
Apart from Sanson, everyone else was utter garbage and clearly not good enough.
Coutinho I’m afraid is a shadow of his former self and Bailey just constantly runs into trouble. The defence and keeper were an embarrassment.
Lots of work for Emery to do but I think he will in the long term.
The only plus point was that I didn’t have to pay for my ticket to watch that shit show!!
But we’ll done to Stevenage, they played well and capitalised on our mistakes.
Hopefully we never see some of those players in Villa shirts again.

[Grande Pablo]

We picked a team good enough to win this game.  Emery needed to see some players get first team experience, & with the likes of Bailey give them what should have been successful attacking confidence.  It was one selection away from the team we guessed at home this morning (we thought Southampton wouldn't want Bednarek cup tied).

It was all to sterile.  Stevenage defended well, & as usual when against such a defensive set up (we always seem to struggle against 10 men too) we had no real ideas.

The massive benefit of this gives Emery the ammunition to go to the board & show them how much change is required for PL sustainability.

Credit to Sanson for his efforts - would hope this might sway Emery to give him a chance as he did look the one spark of energy in an otherwise off-par afternoon out.
 

[Clampy]

The line up was fine. A forward line of Bailey, Ings and Coutinho should have been enough. We clear the ball at the end like we should have and we unconvincingly go though. Woeful.

[Olof's Beard]

There was nothing much wrong with the team selection. All bar one has played for their country and that odd man out scored our goal.

Tactically it was all wrong though. They set up with a bank of 5 and a bank of 4, it was always going to be tough to play through them and we need to play with pace and width. For the most part, we lacked both.

Hard to know how much of that was tactics and the instructions from the manager and how much of it was down to the players just treating it like a walk in the park.

I am chuffing sick of our cup record. 8 defeats on the trot would be unacceptable for any team of any level. The fact that includes several lower league sides makes it all the worse.

Emery has been here five minutes. He will be learning. But coming forward, we looked best in the first 15 minutes of his reign. I don't think he is a pragmatist but if he was, he might consider changing the style of play to suit the players he has.

[Clark W Griswold]

Those who are already turning on Emery, who exactly do you think we'll get who is any better? We're already "punching" with him.

That’s the problem isn’t it. If someone like Emery can’t do it I don’t know who will, and is there some deeper problem at the club such as a comfort zone problem with players that we seem to have had for many years. Very depressing.

[olaftab]

Why should Emery be above criticism?

He's not at all. It's just that the selection is a knee-jerk thing. Clearly, clearly that team was good enough to beat - and this cannot be stressed enough - Fourth Division Stevenage.

But it doesn't work that way saying that selected players were good enough to beat a 4th division team. The players  who come in know that they are only being played because they are not considered good enough for League team. The regular players from the League team who are selected think that clearly they are not special enough  so they have to play. It's just a wrong message all around and results is there for all to see.

[Olof's Beard]

Oh the atmosphere at the end was weird. Not even that much anger from those around me in the Holte
 We have started accepting defeat in the FA Cup no matter the level of opposition.

[Taylor]

There are no excuses for what happened but had Dendonkey or Olsen just belted the ball up field we’d all be saying “job done”. All this shite about how we were ponderous and slow, Stevenage played with 10 men behind the ball, where exactly do we become pacey with no room to play into.

[Clive W]

and we need to play with pace and width. For the most part, we lacked both.
 

We haven’t had any pace or width for years

[rougegorge]

Sanson did show drive and energy, scored a good goal, but he still misplaced passes unnecessarily like everyone.

Also, our insistence on playing out from the back cost us as soon as Stevenage started to press higher as time wore on.  Dendoncker also  mis-controlled prior to the penalty.

We lost today by playing the game at such a slow pace, showing complacency all game, and topping it off by an insistence at playing out from the back with players who are not adept at it. I could only see Stevenage scoring from some kamikaze defending.

There is a time and a place, but the risks far outweigh the rewards, particularly if the scoreline is close, even if the opponents are three divisions below.

Apart from our howler, yesterday there was Allison and Guaita who were culpable,  and I've just seen Bristol City, Norwich and Barnsley all concede unnecessarily doing the same kind of thing today.

[Olof's Beard]

You at least move the ball quickly, like we did for the goal. And perhaps switch play a bit more often.

Are we saying that because they had 10 men behind the ball, they were basically unbeatable?