Fulham v Aston Villa post-match thread

[itbrvilla]

did their goalie make a save?

Nope.

[Richard]

Abysmal, Fulham wanted it more and deserved it.
Not a great way of setting up for Thursday.
Play like that and Forest will battter us.

Forest absolutely favourites now for the tie imo.

Erm, no!

[Toronto Villa]

We’re going to make the CL. That I have confidence in. But today was just a collectively poor performance. We just weren’t at it. Usually it’s a player or two, but they saw we were lacking and exposed it. At this level those slips in the mental game are punished.

[SamTheMouse]

Fulham were like Duracell bunnies. They never stopped running.

The only two conclusions I can draw from our performance are that (i) the players looked like they were saving themselves for Thursday, and (ii) we have two midfield "enforcers" at the club, and both of them have a disastrous tendency to miss vital matches through injury. Our win-rate plummets without them. So we need to replace one of them with someone who doesn't have legs made of filo pastry.

[ROBBO]

It was obvious at half time that changes were needed yet he waited til the seventieth minute,
I can't name one Villa player that had a decent game. Why do Villa always leave us on edge.
One nil down and only a few minutes to play and we pass the ball back and back and back.

[aj2k77]

Really disjointed going forwards again. The Summer needs an overhaul of how we go about attacking.

[JUAN PABLO]

I think the title is over now.   

[Deano's Mullet]

Rubbish league form since Christmas, its only those two home wins over West Ham and Sunderland - plus a poor showing from our CL  competitors - which has kept us.up there.  Very average today and Fulham wanted it more.

[Cropley10]

When I saw Sancho & Bailey coming on, I knew we’d lost! Abysmal the pair of them. Emery should have started with Barkley, Bogarde is not good enough at PL level and I have yet to see him pass the ball forward.

[ChicagoLion]

They won the midfield, they went in hard on every challenge and we didn’t fancy it..
Some really poor performances Pau, Buendia and poor Bogarde looked completely out of his depth.

[Somniloquism]

That was back to a performance from the first 5 games of the season. Dreadful.

Oh well, onto Thursday.

Yep. At least when we were playing like that in Jan/Feb/Mar we didn't have McGinn and Tielemans so that could be the excuse. In this one we reverted back to slow play, and poor creativity / finishing as we didn't really get to the bylines like we had in recent matches. Poor excuse if they were "looking to save themselves for Thursday" as winning begets winning. If we play like that on Thursday it will be 5-0 to Forest again.

[jwarry]

Despite looking blunt today we actually had 4 guilt edged chances and failed to hit the target with any of them (Rogers, Watkins 2 and Tammy).  Any one of them taken would have changed the game.  Im expecting Unai to give them extra shooting practice before Thursday!

[itbrvilla]

It was obvious at half time that changes were needed yet he waited til the seventieth minute,
I can't name one Villa player that had a decent game. Why do Villa always leave us on edge.
One nil down and only a few minutes to play and we pass the ball back and back and back.

Its not just the subs. He didn't react to press at all.

[Baldy]

Hard work 1 Pretty football 0.

We lose intensity with no midweek match!!!

[ChicagoLion]

When I saw Sancho & Bailey coming on, I knew we’d lost! Abysmal the pair of them. Emery should have started with Barkley, Bogarde is not good enough at PL level and I have yet to see him pass the ball forward.

I am still trying to understand why Emery thinks that it is a good idea to play the,.