Aston Villa v Chelsea Post-Match Thread

[Ian.]

I’m not sure if the replacements on the bench for Buendia, Bailey or Watkins will make any difference. Sancho? Nah, he’s just wrong. Barkley? Doesn’t look any better. Abraham? Not that convinced yet.

I wouldn’t mind sitting Bogarde in the middle and drop Buendia and use him as an impact sub again and Torres for Mings, but I do wonder if he’s carrying an injury and being used sparingly, same with Luiz, he’s been take off when we really could do with him on the pitch. I don’t think that’s been a tactical change, but forced.

[Demitri_C]

Chucking away Champions League qualification from the position we’d gotten ourselves into would be unacceptable.

If unacceptable happens you would obviously  want Unai to be sacked?

I would rather a host of these players were sacked (when i say sacked moved on not let on a free for example)

They have let the fans down and the manager from the turn of the year. Im not hiding behind the injury excuse. Some of the performances from players like buendia and konsa have been  absolutely  pathetic since the start of 2026. Bailey who has been very criticised was one of our better players yesterday.  Dougie was the only player trying. Rogers another one thats fallen off the cliff. Fatigue  probably as played too many games because players  like sancho not contributing enough and the manager doesnt have enough trust in starting them.

Say like Nev said it seems like we have had our time and it feels like we are going to be back in a midtable club. Only way we compete is if we become ond this state owned clubs as they acn do what they want and get away with it. E.g citeh

[eye digress]

It's getting warmer, shall be taking up cricket.

Keep the faith.

UTV!

[Rigadon]

If we had a functioning centre forward we’d have won the game.  The result was freakish.

The biggest issue we have is Ollie Watkins.  He is now inept.  Abraham - what was the point in signing him?  Yes, the offside was extremely marginal, but fuck sake, he had chances to score again didn’t he. 

We have been kicked out of a league title challenge. 

[PaulWinch again]

Chucking away Champions League qualification from the position we’d gotten ourselves into would be unacceptable.

If unacceptable happens you would obviously  want Unai to be sacked?

No. I always find this type of reaction odd, you can be critical of the the team and still support it. The levels of performance of late, both tactical and physical, have not been good enough and yesterday’s performance and result was unacceptable. “Unacceptable” does not mean sack everyone - it means don’t do it again. Unai needs to reflect as what he’s doing at the moment is not working. I still think he’s the right man, but he’s not infallible and he needs to stop repeating very obvious mistakes.

[PaulWinch again]

If we had a functioning centre forward we’d have won the game.  The result was freakish.

The biggest issue we have is Ollie Watkins.  He is now inept.  Abraham - what was the point in signing him?  Yes, the offside was extremely marginal, but fuck sake, he had chances to score again didn’t he. 

We have been kicked out of a league title challenge. 

We absolutely had those chances and should have scored some. But the result wasn’t freakish. Chelsea were much better than us, and we did nothing to address the obvious tactical flaws they were exploiting.

[Steve67]

The only freakish thing about it is that our world class manager seems to have a blind spot. Both the Wolves game and the Chelsea game were inept performances. Utterly unacceptable, without heart or fight.

[Olneythelonely]

Yeah, there was nothing freakish about it. We set up in exactly the way Chelsea would want us to. A zig zig high line, without any pressure on their best passers. Madness.

Continuing with Watkins, Buendia and Mings is like a form of self-harm.

I think we’re coming to the end of the Unai era, and I’m worried about what’s next.

[ChicagoLion]

Yeah, there was nothing freakish about it. We set up in exactly the way Chelsea would want us to. A zig zig high line, without any pressure on their best passers. Madness.

Continuing with Watkins, Buendia and Mings is like a form of self-harm.

I think we’re coming to the end of the Unai era, and I’m worried about what’s next.

Completely agree.

[Baldy]

Our forward press lacked any co-ordination. Buendia, Watkins, Bailey and Rogers were running around like blue arse flies, to easy to breakthrough and left our fullbacks exposed. It was easy to see Chelsea scoring 4, 5 or maybe more.

Until SJM and Tielemans return we should be defending in numbers from the back and then counter attack.

Something like:

                             Martinez

Cash             Konsa                 Mings/Pau            Maatsen


Sancho      Onana        Lindelof         Luiz         Rogers

                                 
                                  Tammy

Unai knows better than me but maybe it's time to try something new before it's too late.

[cdward]

2025/2026 season,  - Malen, Guessand, Abrahams and Watkins, Watkins has the lowest Goals/Assists contributions.
This is becoming a problem.

[Clampy]

The only freakish thing about it is that our world class manager seems to have a blind spot. Both the Wolves game and the Chelsea game were inept performances. Utterly unacceptable, without heart or fight.

I dont accept that there was no heart of fight. We lack quality, depth and possibly a bit of belief. We were a inch from going 2-1 in front last night but like i said, the quality and class told in the end.

[Rigadon]

Score the chances we had, we’d have won.  It absolutely was a freak result.  They scored their chances, we missed ours. 

[Olneythelonely]

I’m not a huge fan of xG, but 0.78 vs 3.60 tells its own story. We had a few chances but they were cutting us open at will.

[Bent Neilsens Screamer]

The only freakish thing was Chelsea not scoring more, it’s hardly a new phenomenon that Ollie Watkins misses chances and yesterday was one of his better games.