Aston Villa - 2 Lille - 1 Post match chit chat

[aj2k77]

Just for balance our awful defence meant they had 11 shots to our 12.

I get people can become frustrated but the negativity tonight has gone massively over the top.

They did have a higher xG* though (1.05 to 1.61), 7 on target to our 4. I think it's a fair criticism.

*Yes, I don't know how it's worked out either. They did seem to have decent chances, though.

Are you Pochettino?

[pablo_picasso]

That was a good win when we are struggling with injuries in key areas against some decent opposition. And that was with a fucking incompetent referee & VAR officials to not give that stonewall penalty.

Lille are a decent side, but to say we rode our luck undermines the great work done by Martinez. And several of their chances were offside, so shouldn't count in the tallies. Lucy Ward & the chap commentating were waxing lyrical about one particular Lille attack when it had just been flagged offside. They got a corner from another cos the linesman was as blind as I am. But, they are a decent side & that game was two decent sides having a go at each other in between periods of ball control, from both sides.

We are not looking so strong defensively & it doesn't help that Tielemans is playing a more defensive mode when he has all the pace & mobility of a 374 year old oak tree. Douglas Luiz is not a holding midfielder but is doing admirably, but he has little support, which isn't helping the defence.

I thought Duran looked lively in his closing down tonight. And other than one stray pass, Rogers had his best game for us too. Martinez was magnificent & my MOTM.

It was a night of some positives, some concerns & some reinforcements of things we already know regarding the injuries to key players.

[Forge10]

Added to that Luiz will have a rest this weekend which looks needed. I don’t think it’s as bad as some people think, that’s the best team we’ve played so far and passed the ball around far better than us. Maybe it’s just me but I haven’t seen a team that gives away the ball so cheaply so many times in a game?

I don't think Tielemans found a Villa player with a pass very often. He's a big reason why we give the ball away so cheaply at times

I think McGinn looked off it tonight which maybe expected, Luiz has been great but why does he insist on giving away such stupid fouls away in dangerous situations? He wanted too much time on the ball. I liked Roger’s again tonight but he leaves too much space between himself and Digne when the opposition has the ball.

[PaulWinch again]

Good to win, but fuck me, we rode our luck massively there.

We're going to have to be much, much better in France.

I'm worried. We look so powderpuff soft in defence, we switch off far too frequently, and the defence have turned from a finely tuned offside machine into a bit of a mess.

I think Carlos has a similar effect to (last game excepted) Olsen on the rest of the defence, in that when he's part of it, they all look on edge. If Cash isn't ready to come back, I'd genuinely play whoever we have to at right back so long as it's not Konsa, and put Konsa back in the middle - him and Torres looked formidable for most of this season.

Worrying end to the season, though. Other than patches here and there, we haven't played really well for weeks now. When's it going to end? Seem to go into every match of late thinking, this will be the one where we really convince and start to look like the team we were for the first half of the season, but it never happens.

That's my take on it as well. We might as well have one position sorted than 2 not.

Yep agreed, this is a long tail of ropey displays. Our defence, and defensive play as a team is really poor. They’ve gone from looking like they’re a single entity almost to a bunch of players who have never trained together. If that continues we’ll keep conceding, which makes it’s so hard to consistently win games.

[Demitri_C]

As bad as we were defensively at times lets give credit to lille. They are no pushoevers. I think they are a very good side. They showed that. Wuite robust and creative with the ball. They played very well. Ill be honest i dont think we played well tonight but i think if we played to our best we coild win this game comfortably.  Bit we havent seen that kind of performance in a while. Will it happen next week?

Lets hope so

[Aldridge Villa]

We’re a pale shadow of the team that was despatching all and sundry in the autumn and early winter so I’d take a flukey 2-1. Not very confident about the return though but you never know.

[Paul.S]

We are going to have to have our best away performance of the season to go through.
Defensively it’s very worrying and in the first half they ran through from midfield unmarked several times.
We are missing Kamara and need that sitting defensive midfielder. The way teams are finding space in between our fullbacks and central defenders is a concern.
The effort and commitment has never gone away but I feel we need a bit of a change and bring Tim in to sit. Hopefully Cash is back and we can get Konsa back in the middle.
On a plus point we won and their fullbacks aren’t all that so that’s something to work on.

[Tony Daleys Shorts]

Could go either way from here.

We need a big performance 2nd leg to go through, but shouldn’t that be the way? It’s a European QF?

Fuck the rest, Villa are the best!

[PaulWinch again]

Let’s not go overboard though suggesting it was fluked. In spite of our continued awful defending, we had several chances and were denied a nailed on penalty. We could have scored more and I suspect we’ll need at least two next week.

[cdward]

We need to treat the second leg as if it was 0-0, because if we start to think we have the advantage we will start to retreat and concede early.
They are a decent team, but so are we.
We’re just a clean sheet away from a European semi final ( no I don’t think it will work out that way either).
But glass is half full, in Emery we trust.

[PeterWithesShin]

I just hope we don't go 2-0 up over there.

[LeonW]

You know it's fine to take the positives, it's fine to take the negatives. I don't know why either side of that debate gets riled up.

Personally I'm leaning towards us probably getting knocked out next week. We just concede too many chances, or at least it feels like that anyway. Really hoping McGinn is put back in CM as he did when Kamara first got injured but I'd say it's unlikely. With that and Konsa at RB, we're pretty vulnerable.

Edit: We really should have had a pen, though.

Very good summary.

[SoccerHQ]

Would we really be worse defensively if we played Hayden at RB and moved our best CB back to CB?

For me Konsa has to be in the middle

He's not going to throw Hayden in for a huge away tie when he's hardly made it off the bench in prem games we've been winning.

Cash should be ready to return soon, no idea if Arsenal will be too soon but it would be great for him to get 30 minutes at Arsenal and then he'll be in contention to start the second leg.

[andyh]

Don’t think we have done enough.
2-0 and looking quite ok.
Give away another poxy goal and then show absolutely zero ambition to get another.

The subs killed us.
Moreno can only play facing his own goal.
Zaniolo showed flashes but was ultimately chasing shadows.
Dhuran didn’t get any service
And Diaby offered the square root of fuck all.


Martinez MOTM by a country mile with 5 or 6 top saves to keep us in it.

[PeterWithesShin]