Aston Villa v Bournemouth Post Match Thread.

[Demitri_C]

It feels to me like we have a much stronger squad this year compared to last season. Equally, however, I think our best eleven from September, October, November and December 2023 would beat us right now.

I don't know if it's a case of us not quite 'clicking' the same way we did 12 months ago or if, as some of us suspected, both Luiz and Diaby were real quality players to lose and possibly brought something to the pitch that has been difficult to replace. Edit, for example, it's the kind of game today where Luiz would pop up with a goal and maybe Diaby would have a burst of pace that could change the game.

I'm very happy overall, especially with us being so hard to beat, but it would be great to replicate that unbelievable form of 2023.

We look worse defensively than last year and i agree we are missing diaby and luizs goals/assists. Dont think we have really replaced diaby. Zero league goals for bidace so far and baileys the same.

Diaby wouldn't get in this team. Opposition players bounce off Rogers or they need to double and triple up on him. Diaby was as weak as piss and effective only when running onto the ball. How's he doing in Asia, by the way?

I think diaby would have come on for rogers who i think didnt have a good game. Bailey wasnt great either tbh so i do think diabs would have come on today if he was still here.

Diaby has more assists than jaden and bailey combined from waht i saw. But hasnt scored when i last checked

[Ads]

If Philogene didn't have the strongest finger tips since Bruce Lee, he'd have probably got some minutes.

Bailey assisted the goal today...

[Demitri_C]

If Philogene didn't have the strongest finger tips since Bruce Lee, he'd have probably got some minutes.

Bailey assisted the goal today...

Was a harsh sending off but avoidable

[Russ aka Big Nose]

Deeply frustrating.

The game was neither physical or niggly, yet the ref gave us 7 yellow cards for 12 fouls conceded. Ridiculous.

[eye digress]

Only had one eye on the game this afternoon, which makes picking out individual performances difficult. Overall, I didn’t think we were too bad, but our final ball was lacking and we were not clinical when we did make a breakthrough. For example, we seemed to work our left side overload 6 or 7 times, but did not find our man with any of the crosses.

The game management was very poor in the last 10 minutes, in which we were punished for not showing the opposition respect, I felt. We must learn that lesson.

The bigger picture is that we’re picking up points at a rate of 2 per game, but without performances - rather like we did last year from January (though our points haul was slightly worse in that period). We’ve started the CL positively and are still in the Carabao. But of course the second portion of the first-half fixture list is so much harder than the games we’ve played so far. So a smallish bump in the road, everything still to play for and a stronger squad to lean on.

UTV!

[walsall villain]

I only had to watch that uncharacteristic last 20 minutes once, I fear the squad will be made to pour over it for many hours. Not at our best today but looking like a deserved win once we scored only for us then to play like Steve Bruce was back

[VillaTim]

Some of our approach play whilst nice on the eye is overly elaborate and we need to mix it up a bit more . With all our possession and chances today to come away with a single goal is massively disappointing and needs looking at , again plenty of set pieces too that resulted in not much .

[AlexAlexCropley]

Just watched El Classico and how I wish we'd have bagged Raphinha. Pace to burn ,an eye for a pass and can finish. We'd win the league with him

[Stu]

4 to 6 points thrown away so far this season. We’re spoiled currently but also not winning this kind of fixture has the potential to stymie the chances of playing Bayern et al next season too.

[SamTheMouse]

We're usually pretty good at managing the latter stages of games in which we have the lead, so it was baffling to see us constantly hoofing panicky clearances in the last ten minutes.

All very annoying, but it's a learning curve I guess.

[TelfordVilla]

As exciting and entertaining as it was, beating Bayern and Bologna but only drawing with manu and Bournemouth has done us no favours. It would have been better in the long term if we had drawn the champions league games and won the Premier league games. We would still be in contention for top 8 champions league and would be top of the premier league tonight.

[andyh]

What pisses me off is that results like this and Man U , feed the narrative of lazy journalists who say that Villa will struggle to cope with CL and PL fixtures.

[olaftab]

As exciting and entertaining as it was, beating Bayern and Bologna but only drawing with manu and Bournemouth has done us no favours. It would have been better in the long term if we had drawn the champions league games and won the Premier league games. We would still be in contention for top 8 champions league and would be top of the premier league tonight.

We still wouldn't be top of the League but I get what you mean however we have more chance of correcting it in the PL than CL.

[olaftab]

We're usually pretty good at managing the latter stages of games in which we have the lead, so it was baffling to see us constantly hoofing panicky clearances in the last ten minutes.

The problem is that those were not panicky clearances, we were deliberately using the tactic for Emi to kick is long.

[VillaTim]

What pisses me off is that results like this and Man U , feed the narrative of lazy journalists who say that Villa will struggle to cope with CL and PL fixtures.

It suggests they are doing their homework well.