Aston Villa 1-3 Newcastle Post match cry

[DB]

Couldn't get our game going last night due to Newcastles high press which resulted in Emi kicking long passes instead of our normal patient build up, a few players look off it at the moment and to be honest we haven't played well for a few weeks now. Hoping for a turnaround in form very soon.

They looked like a team who were going through the paces at the end of a season with nothing to play for. Hopefully just a blip and Emery get's the fire back.

[Dogtanian]

I know I hide it really well, but it might shock you all to learn that I actually intensely hate Poocastle's owners. So I hate losing anything to that scum regime.

But with how we have been since just before Christmas, this hasn't been unexpected and I'm not going to dwell on it. There's something not quite right with the team at the moment, beyond rest and injuries, and the sooner Unai and the coaching team figure it out the better.

We need to go smash the Blades now. And I'm treating myself to a takeaway afterwards, come hell or highwater.

[Baldy]

From a 'well oiled machine' to just 'well oiled'.

There is a spanner or two in the works at the moment but Unai will get us functioning again. Sooner rather than later, I hope.

[Rigadon]

On reflection, though we were undoubtedly poor in the first half last night, it was kind of similar to the game up at their ground in that we had chances to score that on another night the score would've been different.  Their goals were all soft. 

At our worst, we play the high line without effectively pressing ourselves.  That's happened at Newcastle, at Liverpool and again last night.  I'm not clever enough to know who isn't doing what they should be doing - but at a guess Tielemans was probably the culprit on the press and Cash had a poor game with the result being diagonal balls for Gordon to chase. 

At our best we are exciting and irresistible, pressing and creating.  We didn't do any of that until Bailey came on.  And we are missing Torres.  Is there any notion as to when he is likely to return?  Isn't there usually some kind of indiction on this kind of thing?!   

All of the teams in the top 6 have ad poor runs of results and form and this is ours.  I trust Emery to pull us out of it, starting with a win against Sheffield.  Diaby needs resting though.

[Proposition Joe]

Playing out from the back has become ineffective. The defenders get pushed back into the corners and the midfielders don't make themselves available.

This might be a result of Torres being missing. What happens now is we play around at the back like we used to, only for Martinez to then boot it and give it away 9 times out of 10. Defeats the entire object.

As an aside, once it was clear we were going to lose, and we were for some reason passing it around square trying to preserve Newcastle's lead, I'd have liked to have seen KKH given a go to see if he could offer something different from Cash.

[AV82EC]

We were second best pretty much all over the pitch last night. Howe got his tactics spot on to nullify us and we had no answers. We’ve been nothing more than OK since the Man City home win and 2W 2D 2L is not a catastrophe or the wheels falling off but teams are definitely succeeding in altering their approach and nullifying us. We also seem to have lost the ability to play pinged or driven long passes, the number of times we played floated or lofted balls with no pace just meant we were always giving them a chance with headed interceptions and clearances. Scores on the doors from me.

Martinez - 7 - loses a mark for some poor distribution but 3 or 4 top quality saves, my MOTM
Cash - 5 - poor delivery, poor decision making both attacking and defending but he was our best outlet for most of the night.
Konsa - 6 - a bit in and out last night with moments of real quality and some indecision.
Lenglet - 5 - was ok but nothing more
Moreno - 2 - own goal, sore plums and probably his worst performance in a Villa shirt.
Kamara - 5 - he battled away but was nullified by their midfield.
Luiz - 2 - was he on the pitch? He floated around as if he was in a daze and Longstaff had him in his pocket all night. Dreadful.
McGinn - 6.5 - the only one seemingly trying last night, always bright and competitive but was doing it on his own
Tielemans - 4 - ineffective, really doesn’t seem to influence play in that role.
Diaby - 2 - ineffective, out of form, lightweight on the ball, not good at all
Watkins - 6 - I watched Ollie a lot last night and the runs he makes which aren’t spotted are ridiculous, found it tough against their centre halves but battled hard and got no service until Bailey arrived. Good goal.

Bailey - 6.5 - instant impact but they nullified it quickly with Livramento.
Zaniolo - 1 - appalling.
Ramsey - 5 - solid and unspectacular.

Emery - 5 - think he could have changed that much earlier and he needs to find some tweaks to get us playing with more tempo and purpose again.

Us - 2 - from kick off we were appalling, a few renditions of songs, got a bit lively around the goal and the disallowed effort but the team gave us nothing and we returned the compliment.

All in all a very bad night at the office and we need something a bit different.

[eamonn]

We could/should be 6 points further ahead of Yanited and Newcastle now, effectively too much for us to be caught. But we bottled both games. I knew last night at half time that there was no chance Newcastle would be naive enough to let us back in the way we did at Old Trafford.

Our unbeaten home record stat appeared on-screen in the second half. Erroneously citing 15 wins and 1 defeat in our last 16. Apparently our late equaliser against Sheff Utd didn't count. More worryingly, my reaction was less "Come on, this is a fortress. There's still half an hour left, get into these fuckers and give them a game" and more "Wow, how have we stayed unbeaten here for so long, we look awful".

There's now a big danger we undo all the great work in the first half of the season. Same as it ever was with the Villa.

[john e]

I love Emery hes the best thing that’s happened to us in donkeys years, but how are you can sit on your hands for an hour watching Diaby and co play like that and do nothing is beyond me
That’s what British managers do, that’s what they’ve always done make the changes on the hour it’s pathetic

I don’t buy this thing where if the second goal had been allowed we might have got something as if that was the difference.
It wasn’t the difference. We were 3 nil down already difference was our defence was shit and there’s was good

All is not lost, and its still a great season so far
But we’ve got to get back on track tactically we have to be more imposing on the oppositions goal

[Proposition Joe]

Unai Emery has it in him to fix this rut we're in, but he has to battle against our innate Villaness, meaning once the Top 4 is but the slimmest of outside chances, we'll go on a barnstorming run, just miss out, and then look back on all these "if onlys".

[boozey182]

I have disagreed with Unai's lineups on quite a few occasions since he took over, but last night was the first time that I ended up being proved right. I'd have had Carlos and Bailey in from the start, and I think we really missed Carlos' physicality and Bailey's bravery on the ball. I will, however, concede that Emery is probably still better positioned than I to lead the team for the rest of the season...

We just never got into the game last night, and Newcastle were just better than us. If I was to design a team to beat Villa, they would all be over 6ft and be willing to run all day - and that's basically what they are. With us not playing as well as we can, and not moving the ball quickly enough, we just couldn't get a foothold into the match. They could smell blood and scored when they needed to.

We're definitely in a bit of a rut at the moment. Most teams will go through one at some point in the season, but what matters is how we wrestle ourselves out of it. I trust Unai to identify what is wrong, but I'd really like him to do it quickly! We are in such a good position right now, we can't let it just sip away. We just need a couple of decent wins to get us back on track. The next two weeks are huge.

As an extra point, and I hate it when other people go on about this, so I'm being a massive hypocrite here - I thought we, as a crowd, were really poor last night. I get that we respond to what's on the pitch, and the players didn't really give us much to get behind, but given the last 12 months we've had at home, I would have hoped that we might pick up the slack a bit. I get the nervousness about seeing it all slip away, but for the last few home games (Sheff U, Burnley and Newcastle) I think we, the crowd, have been poor when the team could have really done with a bit of a lift. Perhaps we're the Youri Tielemens of supporters, great when things are going well, but when things get tough, we may as well not be there... To be fair, I think the mess with the hospitality etc has made an impact on that - treat us like customers and we'll act like customers, so I'm not really blaming anyone, and I'm really not trying to tell people how to support their team, I'm just a bit surprised about how quickly the positivity can evaporate.

Anyway, when Newcastle battered us on the opening day, I think it did us good. It kept us humble, it highlighted some weaknesses and forced us to improve. We need the same response now, and I believe we'll see it. We don't have anyone that can do what Torres does, so getting him back is key to how we finish the season.

[The Edge]

 Night's like that can happen when your struggling for form. We are missing three quality centre halves and it's starting to take it's toll. But we wasn't as bad as some are making out. Bailey looks class and but for a toecap being offside we would have pulled it back to 2-3 then who knows what might have happened. I'm confident Unai will sort it out and I'm confident we will go on another run of top form in the very near future.

[The Edge]

I love Emery hes the best thing that’s happened to us in donkeys years, but how are you can sit on your hands for an hour watching Diaby and co play like that and do nothing is beyond me
That’s what British managers do, that’s what they’ve always done make the changes on the hour it’s pathetic

I don’t buy this thing where if the second goal had been allowed we might have got something as if that was the difference.
It wasn’t the difference. We were 3 nil down already difference was our defence was shit and there’s was good

All is not lost, and its still a great season so far
But we’ve got to get back on track tactically we have to be more imposing on the oppositions goal

I agree with most of that but I do think that marginal offside "goal" may well have seen them crumble as they are low on confidence in the PL lately. We'll never know now and as the old saying goes "if my auntie had bollocks she would have been my uncle" Although these days that might not be true.

[PeterWithe]

I agree that the atmosphere was crap and its normally electric at night when we need a win. Don't know why, I'm guessing a lot if us feel that we are on the verge of chucking the great season away and the nerves take hold?

I know what doesn't help, the god awful racket pumping out of the speakers right up until they kick off. No time to build a ground wide atmosphere.

[john e]

I love Emery hes the best thing that’s happened to us in donkeys years, but how are you can sit on your hands for an hour watching Diaby and co play like that and do nothing is beyond me
That’s what British managers do, that’s what they’ve always done make the changes on the hour it’s pathetic

I don’t buy this thing where if the second goal had been allowed we might have got something as if that was the difference.
It wasn’t the difference. We were 3 nil down already difference was our defence was shit and there’s was good

All is not lost, and its still a great season so far
But we’ve got to get back on track tactically we have to be more imposing on the oppositions goal

I agree with most of that but I do think that marginal offside "goal" may well have seen them crumble as they are low on confidence in the PL lately. We'll never know now and as the old saying goes "if my auntie had bollocks she would have been my uncle" Although these days that might not be true.

No you’re right they might well have crumbled and we might well I’ve got something out the

But people are saying that’s the difference that that off side decision was the difference on night
I’m saying it wasn’t. We were already three nil down
We’d played an hour without mustering anything on their goal whatsoever, running around (not very fast) going nowhere with the ball

That Offside decision was big on that night, but no where near as big as the previous hour of doing absolutely bugger all and not having the wherewithal or inclination to do anything about it

[andyh]

I agree that the atmosphere was crap and its normally electric at night when we need a win. Don't know why, I'm guessing a lot if us feel that we are on the verge of chucking the great season away and the nerves take hold?

I know what doesn't help, the god awful racket pumping out of the speakers right up until they kick off. No time to build a ground wide atmosphere.

i said exactly the same thing last night about the stadium noise taking over the crowd