Man Utd vs Aston Villa post-match thread

[The Edge]

Piss poor defending for all their goals. Dendoncker had his back turned before their player even struck the ball for their second goal.  What's that about? That's where we miss Mings. Given the same situation Ty would of squared up to him and that goal just wouldn't happen. Also we missed two absolute sitters by McGinn and Bailey. Either one would have put the game to bed. Let's get our full squad back to fitness and take it from there. At least we lost fair and square and not from a dodgy VAR decision or a last gasp dodgy penalty by Ratface.

[German James]

I stopped watching after their second, but I find it interesting that, after each of their goals, we reacted immediately, sliced through them and created good chances... Straight afterwards we were pegged back without a clue. I don't know why that was, but it really stood out for me.

[itbrvilla]

There are times when the manager has got to help the team.Half time last night was one of them
Ramsey was offering nothing, there was a huge hole where our midfield was supposed to be, Watkins was in Evans pocket and they had worked out that kicking the ball into the space behind us was working.
Yet we continued with the same formation, personnel and tactics. Baffling.

Spot on. Lucky they didn't score 5+. At least Fernandes didn't score

[brontebilly]

My frustration with emery is why wont he put a youngster like k young or kellyman on the bench? When you have a squad suffering fatigue why waste a spot with two keepers? I mean look at Newcastle they gave miley and a chance and he has been a revelation

He totally messed it up yesterday.  Should have made the subs alot sooner than he dod as we all saw this happening.

Get some young energy in the team to help ffs rather see that than having tired players who cant be asked. Second half they were a disgrace

I'm not buying the tired player excuse. Luiz & Digne both had a game off recently. Donk and Lenglet, two of our better players on the day, have hardly played, tired a bit late on fair enough. Carlos has been rotated regularly. Moreno and Ramsey should be very fresh but struggled badly yesterday.

It was an awful performance and defeat yesterday. That second half collapse was embarrassing.

[john e]

People on pre-match thread saying why should we be fearful of Manchester United because of our history with them

That’s why

Haven’t scored for four games. Welcome Aston Villa
Rasmus Hoyland hasn’t scored a single goal in the premiership. Welcome Aston Villa.
Two nil up at half-time, welcome Aston Villa

It’s so predictable

[VillaTim]

My frustration with emery is why wont he put a youngster like k young or kellyman on the bench? When you have a squad suffering fatigue why waste a spot with two keepers? I mean look at Newcastle they gave miley and a chance and he has been a revelation

He totally messed it up yesterday.  Should have made the subs alot sooner than he dod as we all saw this happening.

Get some young energy in the team to help ffs rather see that than having tired players who cant be asked. Second half they were a disgrace

I'm not buying the tired player excuse. Luiz & Digne both had a game off recently. Donk and Lenglet, two of our better players on the day, have hardly played, tired a bit late on fair enough. Carlos has been rotated regularly. Moreno and Ramsey should be very fresh but struggled badly yesterday.

It was an awful performance and defeat yesterday. That second half collapse was embarrassing.

Agree and I'm not buying the tiredness excuse either. That was a full on bottle job collapse and it was hugely embarrassing in probably our most watched game of the season via a global audience. I hope Emery makes them watch it again and again to sort it out.

[Ian.]

It was a stinker very soon after going two goals up. I find it hard to blame Emery though, there was enough quality out there to play them off the park. I think we were a very naive with the ball and allowed them back into the game. We wasn’t quick enough on the loose balls either, they seemed to want it more which was out of character for us.

An away day at Old Trafford on Boxing Day was written in the stars for that scenario and I know we shouldn’t think it, but how many of us did? We’ve been here so many times and our insecurity probably rubs off. Football players and fans alike are a superstitious kind and we can’t help it.

[Rudy65]

Even with an extra 9 mins I never thought we’d score. In reality they should have been getting nervous then but it didn’t happen.
Is it me or do we seem to want to pass it into the net. We need to shoot more. Perfect example was the late chance for McGinn who should have shot but slipped when trying to come inside on his weaker foot and the opportunity was lost.
Anyway roll on February for the home game against them. Revenge will be sweet

[Risso]

An away day at Old Trafford on Boxing Day was written in the stars for that scenario and I know we shouldn’t think it, but how many of us did? We’ve been here so many times and our insecurity probably rubs off. Football players and fans alike are a superstitious kind and we can’t help it.

Not having that sorry Ian. All you could hear first half on the TV were the Villa fans, and the Man U supporters booed their players off at half time, and were actually booing Onana during the first half. We just collapsed like a deck of cards second half. None of our current players have experienced the sorts of defeats we have, so superstition won't come into it. We lost last year because we didn't play very well, and won the year before that.

Last night was down to a failure of tactics, missing Kamara and Torres, poor subs and too many players having an absolute stinker of a game. Superstition was absolutely not a factor.

[Demitri_C]

My frustration with emery is why wont he put a youngster like k young or kellyman on the bench? When you have a squad suffering fatigue why waste a spot with two keepers? I mean look at Newcastle they gave miley and a chance and he has been a revelation

He totally messed it up yesterday.  Should have made the subs alot sooner than he dod as we all saw this happening.

Get some young energy in the team to help ffs rather see that than having tired players who cant be asked. Second half they were a disgrace

I'm not buying the tired player excuse. Luiz & Digne both had a game off recently. Donk and Lenglet, two of our better players on the day, have hardly played, tired a bit late on fair enough. Carlos has been rotated regularly. Moreno and Ramsey should be very fresh but struggled badly yesterday.

It was an awful performance and defeat yesterday. That second half collapse was embarrassing.

Logically you are absolutely correct but what about players like ollie? Konsa? Mcginn? Luiz?

They all looked completely depleted that 2nd half. They were not even trying. It was shockingly poor.

I do think it may have  played a role in the above players but players like dendonker amd lenglet i agree. They have absolutely zero excuse.

I do agree with the above poster though emery has to take responsibility yesterday.  We all saw the warning signs before it happened and he failed to react.  For him to not even use torres yesterday depsite the awful performance from carlos says to me he wasnt fit so why have him on the bench? Why not get a cb from the u21s like feeney for example?

[jon collett]

In some ways its admirable but the coaching of Unai seems absolutely drilled into the players.

If we hadn't messed about with the ball at the back and playing the high line it would have taken a lot of the pressure off and we didn't need to open them up because we were 2-0 up. even at 3-2 down we persisted with the laborious patient build up.

I suppose it shows how seriously the players take him that they don't deviate according to the circumstances.

I can't criticise him because he's been so wonderful for us but i cant see how those tactics helped yesterday.

[baddowvillans]

The warning signs were there in the 15 mins before half time & we changed nothing to stop it. We handed that to them & it's fucking sickening.

Still an Emery fan but I've got to agree with John here.  It was obvious we had to do something but we appeared to do nothing and that gave them heart.  This loss won't define our season anymore than the  Newcastle game did as long as we learn from it and move on.

[ez]

I agree tactics lost us the game.  I still reckon we have better players than them. Keeping the high line was suicide. There's nothing wrong with parking the bus deep sometimes like sheffield utd.

[Ian.]

An away day at Old Trafford on Boxing Day was written in the stars for that scenario and I know we shouldn’t think it, but how many of us did? We’ve been here so many times and our insecurity probably rubs off. Football players and fans alike are a superstitious kind and we can’t help it.

Not having that sorry Ian. All you could hear first half on the TV were the Villa fans, and the Man U supporters booed their players off at half time, and were actually booing Onana during the first half. We just collapsed like a deck of cards second half. None of our current players have experienced the sorts of defeats we have, so superstition won't come into it. We lost last year because we didn't play very well, and won the year before that.

Last night was down to a failure of tactics, missing Kamara and Torres, poor subs and too many players having an absolute stinker of a game. Superstition was absolutely not a factor.

I can’t remember an away day on Boxing Day we’ve ever played well and I said two days ago on here why do we have to play that lot of all teams. Last night I was sat with my daughters father another Villa fan and we felt uncomfortable as soon as it was two nil and we let them into the game.

Anyway, all that baloney I wrote about fate, superstition and written in stars, it’s true, it bloody is, I tell thee! But so was the fact as soon as it was two nil we had a complete stinker. Nobody comes out with any praise, Emery included, I’m just not pointing the finger at any one of them.

[Flamingo Lane]

Piss poor defending for all their goals. Dendoncker had his back turned before their player even struck the ball for their second goal.  What's that about?

Both hands firmly behind his back, almost on his knees, he looked more like a man bowing in front of a firing squad than a man trying to stop a ball about to be kicked by a player on his weaker foot.