Aston Villa vs Stevenage Humiliation Post-Mortem

[RamboandBruno]

I don't blame Emery for today at all, as the only way he's going to get to know what he's working with is by seeing them play. He will have learnt an awful lot today in that defeat.

How many times does he need to see Olsen exactly? He picked a bad team, and seemingly couldn't organise or motivate them properly to see off a 4th division side.

Other than Chambers, Benderak and Sanson, those players playing today have been getting regular game time under Emery and before him. There have been cup games in recent seasons where we’ve changed 8/9/10 players, this wasn’t one of them. I don’t think the selection was the problem, it was the players.

[Meanwood Villa]

We've had 11 managers since we last won an FA Cup... Tie. Never mind the fucking trophy.

Apologies if I'm missing a joke but I count six even if you include Eric Black (which I don't normally)

[Stu]

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

Seriously though, that is messed up. Glad they had this weird shit stuck right up them.

[PeterWithe]

I am not going to knock Emery for the team, it should have been good enough to win and for 88 mins it was, embarrassing as the defeat is, we were pretty much in complete control until those two gaffes out of the blue, Dendonker simply wouldn’t have tried that against other opposition so he deserves all the stick coming his way, no real surprise Olsen dropped another clanger but real Parks league defending.

Of for some pace in the side, with them being very well organised and working hard to get in shape we should have seen more attacking intent from the full backs, no excuse for them being so conservative with two holding midfielders to fill in.

Desperate for a new creative player, Bailey looks shot and Buendia a little boy lost.

[Toronto Villa]

So who should have played that makes a significant difference? Emi Martinez sure. But if as a club we are at the end of the game only 1-0 up against Stevenage that’s not a keeper issue. How about Ollie Watkins? Hardly known for his scoring or individual brilliance. The midfield created nothing for Ings so how would Watkins have done better. Kamara is DM. Did we really need a DM today? Do Digne, Mings and Konsa make a huge difference had they played? McGinn was hurt so that’s moot. I don’t see why this team today couldn’t win this game. If we’d played a better Championship side or PL then maybe we needed closer to the first XI. But we had more than enough to win the game. And as much as the keeper pissed me off at the end it wasn’t all down to him. We had 60%+ possession and did pretty much fuck all with it. That’s why we lost more than the ultimate ineptitude of the keeper.

[Brend'Watkins]

The only reasoning behind it is that we have a match on Friday night. Even so, play your best 11 and try to get the game done asap. But no. Piss around with the ball slowly going nowhere is what we did for the most part. Where’s the invention, ability to get beyond players from Division 4?

[pablo_picasso]

I don't blame Emery for today at all, as the only way he's going to get to know what he's working with is by seeing them play. He will have learnt an awful lot today in that defeat.

How many times does he need to see Olsen exactly? He picked a bad team, and seemingly couldn't organise or motivate them properly to see off a 4th division side.

Other than Chambers, Benderak and Sanson, those players playing today have been getting regular game time under Emery and before him. There have been cup games in recent seasons where we’ve changed 8/9/10 players, this wasn’t one of them. I don’t think the selection was the problem, it was the players.

It wasn't so long ago that a group of our reserves & youth players absolutely battered League 2 Barrow 6-0...

[Risso]

I don't blame Emery for today at all, as the only way he's going to get to know what he's working with is by seeing them play. He will have learnt an awful lot today in that defeat.

How many times does he need to see Olsen exactly? He picked a bad team, and seemingly couldn't organise or motivate them properly to see off a 4th division side.

Other than Chambers, Benderak and Sanson, those players playing today have been getting regular game time under Emery and before him. There have been cup games in recent seasons where we’ve changed 8/9/10 players, this wasn’t one of them. I don’t think the selection was the problem, it was the players.

Augustinsson's played 80 minutes all season. Dendoncker's got 30 minutes of first team action spread over the last 4 league games. Coutinho hasn't played for more than an hour since the middle of October. The least said about Olsen the better.

[Drummond]

We've had 11 managers since we last won an FA Cup... Tie. Never mind the fucking trophy.

Apologies if I'm missing a joke but I count six even if you include Eric Black (which I don't normally)

Reverse order..
Emery
Danks
Gerrard
Smith
MacDonald
Bruce
Clarke
Di Matteo
Black
Garde
MacDonald
Sherwood

[Drummond]

And it is a bloody joke isn't it?!

[Meanwood Villa]

It's largely irrelevant now, but the ref's made a mistake hasn't he with the sending off and penalty?

The double jeopardy rule says that it's only a red card AND penalty if there was no genuine attempt to play the ball. The shirt pull was worthy of a red card, but that took place outside the area, so if that was the action that got him sent off, it shouldn't have been a penalty. If the penalty was for Dendoncker bringing him down in the area with his legs, well that was an attempt to win the ball. Still a penalty, but no red card.

I wonder whether there will be an appeal and overturned as I reckon you're right.  Clearly, the foul started outside the box, I can only presume the referee didn't want to give the shirt pull as a foul?

VAR made the decision & when they were focusing on the shirt pull they looked at it from when he started the shirt pull, which was clearly outside the box, & then focused on where it ended. Which was inside the box. I was under the impression that free kicks are given from where incidents start. Otherwise, one could easily start pulling the shirt from inside the box & let go when they run outside the box. Would that make it a free kick or a pen? But whether the VAR made a mistake or not, should not detract from how complete & utter shite we were.

I'm not sure what VAR were looking at to be honest. They seemed to slow down on the shirt pull outside the area so I thought they were going to give a free kick. I think it is probably fair to penalise the offending team in the way they did, it's like they've played advantage for first foul and given second one, but I doubt this is some sort of shift in policy and more that they're making it up as they go along.

[Meanwood Villa]

We've had 11 managers since we last won an FA Cup... Tie. Never mind the fucking trophy.

Apologies if I'm missing a joke but I count six even if you include Eric Black (which I don't normally)

Reverse order..
Emery
Danks
Gerrard
Smith
MacDonald
Bruce
Clarke
Di Matteo
Black
Garde
MacDonald
Sherwood

Remi Garde won a cup tie as manager

[Monty]

So? Are they or are they not, by all reasonable estimation, good enough to beat Stevenage? Seriously, there are so many things to criticise about today, this proper correlation-causation goof up is not one of them. The team had Philippe Coutinho in it. Coutinho! I know he's not what he was but are we kidding? This is some sort of unacceptable risk against a fourth division team? It's nonsense, I'm sorry.

[Toronto Villa]

A front line of Coutinho, Ings and Bailey - all three internationals now or at some point of their careers should have been able to get 1 shot on target between them.

[LukeJames]

We've had 11 managers since we last won an FA Cup... Tie. Never mind the fucking trophy.

Apologies if I'm missing a joke but I count six even if you include Eric Black (which I don't normally)

Reverse order..
Emery
Danks
Gerrard
Smith
MacDonald
Bruce
Clarke
Di Matteo
Black
Garde
MacDonald
Sherwood

You don't fully appreciate just how much shit we have had until you see it in front of you like a shopping list.