Aston Villa v Brighton Post-Match Thread

[Nev]

Every point without 3 key players is almost worth 2. To imagine that without those players and little or no investment we'd just tickle along as before is fanciful.

It was a grind, unappealing, frustrating at times and not what we'd like but we won. Alongside the point on Saturday, it's not a bad return given the circumstances.

I might not have enjoyed the game but fuck me I enjoyed the result.

Up the fucking Villa.

[tomd2103]

Good win, but a poor performance really.  Good to keep a clean sheet and you've always got a chance of nicking it if you can do that.  Interesting to see Mings come over to talk to Bailey before he took the corner he scored from.  We just look a bit blunt in attack at the moment and almost seem to run out of ideas. 

Still a very good result in the circumstances.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Can Bogarde cross a ball? We never found out tonight. Hope Matty is back for Leeds, we need him.

Yeah, really missed tonight Matty's final ball.. back to Konsa. Real game changer. You know Unai prefers just one full back to attack and tonight it was Maatsen.

Forgot to mention, Rogers put in one hell of a shift tonight. Never, ever gave up.

[Nunkin1965]

An absolute grind from start to finish and with so many players missing its got to be one of the biggest wins of the season so far.
Fucking Up The Fucking Villa!!

[pauliewalnuts]

We were truly awful, there's no escaping that.

Then again, we're without our entire midfield, pretty much, including the two players whose absences have the biggest impact on the way we play.

Still, we got a point. The way I see it, we need to scrape whatever we can together until we get at least Tielemans back.

Tell me you left on 90mins without telling me you left on 90 mins

I left so early, I didn't go.

Three points, obvs.

[Legion]

Been there, done that. Leeds at home a few years ago. Left early to sell the fanzine. We were drawing (I think). Possibly winning. Crowd came out really subdued and I only found out when I got home that we'd conceded in the last few seconds. Wondered why it was so sombre at the time.

[andyh]

A massive, massive 3 points but bloody hell it was ugly.
Bogarde deputised well for Cash,I thought he defended brilliantly.
Mings and Konsa we very ponderous with their distribution, and invited far too much pressure onto them and we were nearly punished a couple of times.

I don’t think Onana and Luiz compliment each other.
They both want to come very deep for the ball, at the same time which meant there were no options for playing the ball through midfield because Buendia and Sancho were too lightweight.

Ollie looks shot to me. On his heels for a lot of the time or very slow to react to passages of play.

I thought we looked devoid of confidence tonight, and for large parts of the game players didn’t want to get involved, especially going forward.

With so many key players out it’s always going to a struggle. Not only are we 4 top quality players down, but we are also playing 4 who would not necessarily be starters.

For me though, the biggest loss is Tielemans. Not only is he a brilliant player, but he raises the game of those around him.
You can’t replace that. He can’t get back soon enough.

[brontebilly]

McGinn is a monumental loss too. The drop off in quality from him on the right v Sancho, Bailey or Guessand is tragic really. McGinn and Tielemans back for the run in will be huge for us.

[olaftab]

Crucial three points but absolute blose, deserved to lose. Can see us being outside the top five by the time Tielemans and McGinn are back in April. Rudderless without them.

Deserved  to lose ...NO. Can see us outside the top 5 by the time T and M return....NO.

[Somniloquism]

Yep. Not sure why we "deserved to lose" when Brighton probably had the one chance on target that needed a brilliant save.

[olaftab]

The Yanited forum's reaction to our goal was "£#%&!ing brummie @#%&!s" which is pleasing.

Posted no doubt by "Luke" in Shanghai?

[cdbearsfan]

Draw would have been fair I think.

Brighton deserve some credit for trying to attack a bit second half rather than just attempting to kill the game, but they only really had that one close miss with the attempted thunderbastard that Martinez tipped onto the bar.

We got better after the subs, fair play to Bailey and Barkley and Alysson didn't look out of place, either. Bogarde was my man of the match, generally kept them subdued and added a couple of crowd-pleasing slidebastards, too. If he keeps that up losing Cash won't be as disastrous as it could have been.

I thought the referee was mostly decent, so imagine Brighton fans would have thought he was corrupt.

[ChicagoLion]

We do not have the ability to deal with the press and to transition from defence to attack. Not surprising when you consider who is not available.
It might be that we are going to need to just grind out results with far more attritional football.

[Stu82]

Yep. Not sure why we "deserved to lose" when Brighton probably had the one chance on target that needed a brilliant save.

Even that shot would have hit the bar.

[cdbearsfan]

Just skimmed the highlights and it was a clear penalty before the corner that we scored from anyway. Will retract my "referee was good" comments.

Mental that nowadays a ball can brush your hand from a shot three inches away and it's an instant penalty but a two handed push is waved play on and VAR ignores it.