Aston Villa 2 Crystal Palace 2. Post Match Thread.

[Demitri_C]

I'm not going to argue with any of the assessments of our team, all perfectly reasonable.

What I will argue with is the nonsense of VAR who saw a penalty that absolutely nobody appealed for or who wanted.

Now, we may have scored and won the game and it's our fault that we didn't but this sort of reffing the game from afar is absolute bollocks. The same level of scrutiny was missing up in Liverpool.

Many may cry that it was the correct decision, and perhaps it was, but it still smacks of "have a look if you feel like it".

The ref was appalling, and I like to defend officials but alongside a piss poor showing from us, the crap that we have to endure from refs, where inconsistency seems to be the watchword drives me mad

Nev i am confused are you saying that wasnt a pen for us? It was a penalty

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Too many players off it, especially Rogers and Tielemans. Jaden is a waste of a sub at the moment, I am afraid. There's a lack of precision, confidence and being ruthless. I know everyone is Emery's responsibility in the end, but I think part of the problem is a lack of leaders on the pitch.

Couldn't agree more and the lack of leaders on the pitch is something I've been thinking about this week. We're just too nice and everybody is waiting for somebody else to take responsibility. I know we've had our injury problems over the last 12 months but we seem to avoid 50/50 challenges now. Big, strong teams like Palace, even smaller teams bully us and we don't even put up a fight. It wasn't until the 80th+ minute when Little Emi showed a bit of grit, much to the cheers from the fans, to remind Palace we weren't a team of weaklings.

[AV82EC]

Disappointing but at least we didn’t lose and have somewhat stopped the rot but god does our defending in transition need some work. Scores on the doors:

Martinez- 7 that finger tip save onto the post in the 2nd half was superb. Couldn’t do anything about either of the goals. He must feel like Moses at the moment with our defence parting like the Red Sea at every opportunity.
Bogarde - 6 quite what he’s supposed to do here as he was in acres of space in the first half but no one passes to him.
Carlos - 5 hmmm. Just too slow with some
Properly aimless long passes.
Torres - 5 his passing was getting back to better levels but he’s not hitting the heights we know he can.
Maatsen - 5 has an annoying tendency to turn into trouble and lose the ball not too much offensive impact.
Tielemans - 5 one of Youris poorer games topped off with a penalty miss
Barkley - 5 I didn’t think Ross played well today but scores so extra point
Bailey - 6 slowly getting better and had a very good spell at the start of the second half.
Rogers - 4 really poor, lost possession numerous times and ran up every blind alley he could. Looks tired in thought and deed.
McGinn - 6 usual energetic display from Meatball but not much to show for his efforts.
Watkins - 6 scored and missed the chances which could have given him a hat trick and us the 3 points.

Cash - 6 provided much needed impetus on our right when he came on.
Digne - 5 no real impact
Duran - 4 no real impact
Buendia - 4 no real impact
Philogene - 4 no real impact

I think Unai was happy with the point and saving some energy for Wednesday night hence the subs. We’re not playing too badly but desperately need to use our width better to stop teams strangling us in the middle of the pitch. Our defending in transition is appalling and that needs sorting. Conditions were crap today and I thought the ref was a total prick for everyone.

[Legion]

https://www.skysports.com/football/aston-villa-vs-c-palace/report/505918

[Villa in Denmark]

Tielemans shit pen or great save? Not sure till I see it again.

It was a shit penalty.

[Brazilian Villain]

At least we didn't lose 7-0, and AV84's career as a soothsayer proved short-lived.

[Demitri_C]

Shit pen

[olaftab]

Biblical rain at Villa Park today, felt sorry for fans in front rows. Games wise 3 positives. We didn’t lose, we came back twice and Ollie scored. Negatives:
Horrific defending and it’s got nothing to do with hi line. Breakaways are too easy for the opposition.
Morgan Rogers
Leon Bailey
Diego Carlos
Unforgivable penalty missed. If we score they don’t score second goal.

[Bobby Boy]

Really frustrating. Palace are a poor side without their most creative player and they cut through us at will. Our midfield just offer no defensive cover so one ball through and suddenly there were 3 Palace attackers running at our defence.

Again, we insist on this dreary walking football tempo which I cannot see any benefit from.

There are multiple problems which keep on being repeated game after game.

Worrying.

[ROBBO]

The lack of pace in our centre backs is alarming, we have been caught out by the ball over the top too many times. Rogers needs to be given a rest, Carlos needs to be sold.

[pelty]

Why are people annoyed with Emery? How about because you had to be blind not to see the train wreck that is our defense. Been bad all calendar year. Nothing was done to remedy it and then, to cap it off, he starts Bogarde who is terrible at present. Maybe he gets better, but he is terrible right now.

I love and trust Unai, but to act like he is getting it right and the players are not executing is part of the story, but he has to shoulder some of the blame, too. We have been getting burned by counter attack goals and yet, after working hard for two weeks (according to reports), that is the best he could come up with?

I trust him to get it right eventually, but he has been off it, too.

[Beard82]

Disappointing but at least we didn’t lose and have somewhat stopped the rot but god does our defending in transition need some work. Scores on the doors:

Martinez- 7 that finger tip save onto the post in the 2nd half was superb. Couldn’t do anything about either of the goals. He must feel like Moses at the moment with our defence parting like the Red Sea at every opportunity.
Bogarde - 6 quite what he’s supposed to do here as he was in acres of space in the first half but no one passes to him.
Carlos - 5 hmmm. Just too slow with some
Properly aimless long passes.
Torres - 5 his passing was getting back to better levels but he’s not hitting the heights we know he can.
Maatsen - 5 has an annoying tendency to turn into trouble and lose the ball not too much offensive impact.
Tielemans - 5 one of Youris poorer games topped off with a penalty miss
Barkley - 5 I didn’t think Ross played well today but scores so extra point
Bailey - 6 slowly getting better and had a very good spell at the start of the second half.
Rogers - 4 really poor, lost possession numerous times and ran up every blind alley he could. Looks tired in thought and deed.
McGinn - 6 usual energetic display from Meatball but not much to show for his efforts.
Watkins - 6 scored and missed the chances which could have given him a hat trick and us the 3 points.

Cash - 6 provided much needed impetus on our right when he came on.
Digne - 5 no real impact
Duran - 4 no real impact
Buendia - 4 no real impact
Philogene - 4 no real impact

I think Unai was happy with the point and saving some energy for Wednesday night hence the subs. We’re not playing too badly but desperately need to use our width better to stop teams strangling us in the middle of the pitch. Our defending in transition is appalling and that needs sorting. Conditions were crap today and I thought the ref was a total prick for everyone.

TBH I think we're playing pretty badly.  We rarely look like scoring from open play.  Palace, Bournemouth, Ipswich all will have thought they should have beaten us given there chances.  We havent layed a glove on any of the better teams we have played in the league.  We scraped wins against Wolves and Everton. 

Only against Bologana this season have I thought - we showed what we're capable of. 

[jon collett]

From my seat on the half way line Crystal Palace had the perfect tactics to handle us. A back line of five with five in central midfield in a box in front of them when defending.

This completely stopped us building slow methodical attacks through Barkley, Tielemans and Rogers.

The obvious approach was for us to use the width but the passes weren’t there and Maatsen played strangely deep. Bailey got better as the game went on when he finally dared go around the outside.

I think we’ve been rumbled now along with our bizarre approach to corners which leaves us so exposed.

No doubt Juventus have been watching closely.

Finally goodness knows what Monchi’s role at the Club is. We didn’t replace Luiz and signed players playing in England and two make weights from Juve.

It’s strange but as we got heavily ambitious off the pitch we got complacent on it!

[Legion]

Bayern?

[SaddVillan]

Memo to Unai

SORT
OUT
THE
DEFENCE

Sieves and colanders belong in the kitchen, not on the pitch.