Aston Villa v HŠK Zrinjski Mostar Post-Match Thread

[PeterWithe]

Thought Tielemans was obviously lacking in confidence, he’s got a great touch and weight in his passes but far, far too many unforced errors to put any pressure at all on the first choices

Would have been good for that shot to have gone in to boost his esteem.

[Nelly]

Just got in, I thought that was a really difficult game to watch, a ponderous and slow Villa team who barely seemed to lay a finger on them. I was surprised to see we had so many shots. We had a lot of the ball but it was all around the midfield and defenders.

Martinez made two massive saves, we are lucky to have him. Tielemens, I have to say I thought he was really poor. To give the ball away or get pushed off so often is getting hard to watch. Luiz made a instant difference and I thought Traore made a big difference too. Very relieved to have won as we were drifting to a really disappointing draw.

I met a couple of their fans on the train in, they were great.

Also, a lot of the fans near me in the upper trinity seemed about secondary school age, so maybe backs up this claim about villa giving tickets away. I really hope they enjoyed it and it planted a seed for them.

[Brazilian Villain]

Reminded me of Jan Tomazsewski (one for the old ones).

I thought exactly the same earlier during the match.

Who played the role of pre-match Clough?

Ah, so it was Aftab.

[olaftab]

You being a youngster Gary I am impressed at your command of historical  football.

[PeterWithe]

Yeah, plenty of tix given away to local schools, which is in excellent idea I’m completely behind.

[Bent Neilsens Screamer]

I’m in the Tielemans was underwhelming camp. Gave the ball away a bit and on numerous occasions, in the inside right channel, second half his crosses hit the defenders. He certainly needs to do a lot better to shift the current first choice midfielders. It probably is just confidence as he’s trying stuff that I hope he’s capable of but it’s not happening, that attempted back heel from Baileys short corner?!!

Lovely overhead effort by Zaniolo, from the replay in the ground it looked like the save was for the cameras though. I thought their keeper fumbled quite a few shots.

[Small Rodent]

Yeah, plenty of tix given away to local schools, which is in excellent idea I’m completely behind.

Yes. If you can do it, then do it.

[AV82EC]

First half, too slow.

Second half, much better tempo to our play and a deserved win.

I do enjoy winning in the last minute against teams who park the bus, time waste and try to game manage with supposed injuries.

Martinez - 7 - one great save and then sat in his deckchair 
Konsa - 7 little troubled
Carlos - 7 looked solid enough but not yet fit
Lenglet - 7 much more comfortable than at Warsaw
Digne - 6 got subbed but did nowt wrong
Tielemans - 6 - tough first half where he misplaced his first 3 or 4 passes but huge improvement second half.
Dendonker - 5 - so limited with the ball and on the half turn, he just doesn’t work against teams with a low block.
McGinn - 7 - buzzing about good play and excellent goal.
Zaniolo - 6.5 - started well and faded as the game progresssed but kept at it.
Bailey - 6 - usual Bailey 1st half but improved in the 2nd but is he fit, seemed a bit heavy legged despite the improvement.
Dhuran - 5 - have to be honest I’m not seeing it.

Cash - 8 Motm changed the game
Luiz - 8 - ran the second half and set the tempo, his passing is immaculate
Watkins - 7 - ran the channels well and gave us an option, some good control in tight areas
Traore - 6 - nice little cameo that opened up that right side.

Emery - 7.5 - he’s starting to crack some of the conundrum around his second string but some of them just don’t seem to be able to do what he wants. Changed it up second half for a deserved win. He needs to work on some tactical tweaks for teams that set up with a back 5 and 4 in front as we’ve struggled against that 3 times already this season.

[tomd2103]

Went earlier and it was good to get the win in the end, especially given the result in the other game in the group.  Thought they were a poor side to be honest who resorted to shithousery of the highest order which was lapped up by the ref.  If that had been a Premier League game, there would have been at least 10 minutes added on at the end.v Saying that, they did create one clear chance and Martinez made a great save.

We were poor ourselves for long periods of the game.  The drop off in quality between the starting XI and the rest of the squad is alarming at the moment.  Tielemans is putting the effort in, but he gives the ball away so many times at the moment and often when it is a pretty simple pass.  Emery clearly doesn't rate Dendoncker as that is twice now in just over a week that he has been taken off at an early stage.  When you need players to really ramp it up in games like that and really show their quality, Bailey and Zaniolo just aren't the type who are going to do that. 

Second half was better to be fair, mainly because of the substitutions. 

[Olneythelonely]

Missed it live, but just finished watching it back, knowing the final score.

Second half was much better. We were actually very good in the second half. Unai’s tactical change at half time was very important, completely killed them, but it was the change back to 4 at the back that finally finished them off.

Dendonker is too slow at everything, he doesn’t fit our style at all. Tielemans had a very strange game, very well in patches, awful in others.

Thought everyone else played well, pretty much. Special mentions for Bailey, McGinn and Luiz.

Watching Villa is much better without the stress of us not winning.

[TonyD]

Great win in the end!!!

Maybe we are going for this cup after all.

Bloody hope so.

[nordenvillain]

Thought that their playacting as if they'd been injured throughout the 2nd half came back to bite them on the backside and cost them the game with the time added in which we scored. Konsa definitely not a RB, twice or three times their left sided midfielder got away from him - Moving to CB, his strongest position, steadied the back 4. I also thought Tielemans and Bailey were gash. When will Bailey actually beat his man and put an accurate pass to a team mate and not try to beat 2 or 3 of the opposition, then lose the ball or go backwards.
Part of the problem in the 1st half was that Carlos saw too much of the ball and has not learnt how and when to pass it on in a quicker manner. As I don't remember seeing much of Dendoncker, I can't comment very knowledgeably on his performance.
The positives were that the 3 half time substitutes lifted the temp and stretched Mostar into places that they didn't want to go and saw them spending most of the 2nd half with 9 or 10 behind the ball and play acting.
Hopefully Unai has learnt a lot tonight and will play stronger starting line ups until we qualify and then involve the 2nd string - We don't have enough experience among the players of playing in European competitions.
Final positive was that it's the 2nd time we've used the park & ride at Tame Bridge Parkway, then train to Witton. I'd stopped for a coffee at the services, dropped my elder son off in Manchester and was home in Rochdale exactly 2.5 hours after the final whistle. It used to take us 3 to 3.5 hours when we've parked on Gypsy Lane !
UTV and onward to AZ Alkmaar via Wolves etc. !!

[AV84]

It's a tough call in terms of starting strong or keeping the better players on the bench for these games.

Emery said after Everton (cup) that the plan had been to share the minutes more equally, but the starters obviously let him down and some players had to stay on to chase the game, and we still lost.

With that in mind, I guess you can manage certain players minutes better if they don't start, so until we're injury free, or buy in January, I'd expect to see Donk, Lenglet, Tielemans etc. starting these games

[Rory]

It's a tough call in terms of starting strong or keeping the better players on the bench for these games.

Emery said after Everton (cup) that the plan had been to share the minutes more equally, but the starters obviously let him down and some players had to stay on to chase the game, and we still lost.

With that in mind, I guess you can manage certain players minutes better if they don't start, so until we're injury free, or buy in January, I'd expect to see Donk, Lenglet, Tielemans etc. starting these games

I can see both sides, because we do need to rest players, and on paper our squad players should be strong enough, but the cup teams have generally let us down.

Unai's reaction to the goal tonight was very different to those at the weekend. He looked furious.

[Matt C]

Vital win in the context of the group, we’d really have been up against it, especially given the other result tonight.

Still work to do on making the squad rotation work. There’s a drop off in quality of course but I don’t think it’s purely down to that, we just lack the cohesiveness you normally see when we ring the changes so perhaps as more players get more minutes, it will improve.