Aston Villa

The Blobster

Prediction Champ
Fer again gave the ball away for the goal we conceded. He's a total liability and brings nothing to the team , should be sent to play with the 23s , captain my arse !

Mcburnie twice had the ball on the deck in the middle of the 6 yard box and couldn't sort his feet out to get a shot away.

Still far to slow bringing the ball out of defence.

Grimes was superb today.

Team did enough to win easily but we have again gifted a poor team 3 undeserved points.

We have now lost 5 of our last 7 games , piss poor statistic , will make it hard to attract any decent talent in the January window.

Potter needs to develop a hair dryer attitude , he's too laid back in defeat.
 

Borini

Key Player
Game Statistics
19 Goal attempts 13
5 On Target 5
9 Corners 4
8 Fouls 11
2 Yellow Cards 2
0 Red Cards 0
59 % 41
 

CroJack

Key Player
There will always be loss of possession in the middle of the park. Why on earth do we have defenders for? Why are they called "defenders"? Why on earth can't they block crosses? Why on earth can't they react better in our penalty area? Our defenders are liability, not Fer. Shall we just ask Fer to have 100 % passing accuracy so our defenders have nothing to do?

And when our strikers can't score when they are 3 yards away from opposition goal or from the penalty spot is that also Fer's fault? Football is a team game.

I think our defenders and strikers are much bigger worry and liability than Leroy Fer.
 
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Jackflash

Midfield General
Staff member
A Christmas period of football where we were optimistic prior to the start, no really difficult games to contend with, and looking forward to four points if not six. The reality was we got zero, we were let down by the team, and possibly the manager. The second half of the season starts in less than a week, with nothing to really get excited about with the current form. I think there needs to be some closed door dressing room bollockings for starters,plus extra training. They need to be shown what's expected of them for the wages they get. I say (get) because they're not earning them at the moment, plus a manager who says he's not really sure if the squad needs strengthening this window. Lets see how our Gobshyte Jenkins and the two Gobshytes in America are going to do about it. All three have been very quiet since the (spending money) period approaches. Pretty sure what Jenkins's approach will be, pretty much the same as every other Jan. wait until the last day, then scrape the bottom of the barrel to see what freebies are left,and come up with the likes of the N'gog's and the Lazy Lukes. This season can easily end up as a survival battle rather than a promotion one,
 

Yankee_Jack

Key Player
On recent form a survival battle it is. Considering how easily we capitulate from a position of strength during a game and lack the guile and force (character and method) to recover from such a situation, it is a battle we will lose unless things change and quickly. Form is history. If bad form is permitted to persist it can become a dire future.

Our recent form has been a disaster. Pretty within games for stretches has resulted in pretty bleak at the final whistle with results. We could be even prettier in L1, but would the results be any better. Clearly we pass the ball around a lot in practice because during the game we are pretty good at that. We clearly don’t practice the sharp ends of the game in either box because our performance in those areas during games is abysmal of late and mediocre on average over the course of the season. We have flattered ourselves with some of our wins and have become drunk on that flattery. Teams that are prepared to graft and show character of persistence and a stronger desire to win are beating us. They figure out a way to win and toil until they succeed. We toil in the other direction.

Bony’s penalty miss is illustrative. Given a gift to get back in the game, what should have been a clinical finish from a seasoned pro was executed like a novice with an air of nonchalence. Instead of grasping the life line and powering on to win, we were left floundering as Villa wiped the sweat off their brow with relief and applied themselves to close out the game. Another game of pretty football with pretty dire result.
 

Ladygargar

Fox in the Box
Staff member
I’m not sure what happened there; we had another win in our sights the first half saw some impressive attacking play; the squad appeared drilled and balanced tho I was sorry not to see Routs on the pitch or the bench; the atmosphere was amazing and as usual the Ref showed huge bias against us....their goal was gifted to them and bit by bit we fell apart - again. For some truly bizarre reason with twenty minutes to go we started playing like we were 3 nil up - pissing about in their half with no guts drive or determination - I’m afraid Bony will not bear fruit for us however much we’d love him to, and the subs didn’t have the impact we’d have hoped for or needed either - I wouldn’t say Potter was too laid back he was quite animated off and on - No the issue is he’s trying to make a silk purse out of a sows ear or trying to rear rats out of mice - we need some quality in the area, some ferocity and some penalty practice - wtf were they thinking - SURELY Oil should’ve taken it??? On the plus side we have got some lovely players for the future if we can keep them and team spirit seems still high - there’s a career in the ring for Oil if he doesn’t make it on the pitch for sure........so Wigan then, I’ll be there and I’ll be on side for our boys which is more than can be said of our owners and board COYS!!!
 

Yankee_Jack

Key Player
And further to the above, every manager has their little annoyances .... but I’m getting sick and tired of hearing Potter try to polish a turd by stating once again that there were “positives” from the game. A game we lost. There is nothing fucking positive about it. We lost again. Our recent form is WLWLLLWWLL. I don’t see anything positive out of losing games we should be winning, only winning matches against teams below us in the table, and losing games from winning positions. There is nothing positive about losing to teams that while good are in fact nothing better than us except .... they work to win not play to lose.
 

ivoralljack

Grizzled Veteran
Staff member
I get the impression that, given orders from the top, Potts is not interested in going gung ho for promotion this season. I'm sure he'll take it if the chance is there but, so long as we don't drift too near the relegation spots, I think he'll be content with a decent finish and have a proper tilt at promotion next season.

It's the only reason I can think of as to why he's chopping and changing the team, sometimes on an apparently non-sensical basis. I think he's after giving various youngsters a chance to get acclimatised to the pace of the game at this level and imbue them with valuable experience for next season. Undoubtedly they will be better equipped then PROVIDING they take on board the lessons from this campaign.

In my opinion this is a risky strategy but then I also understand the logic behind it. The likes of James, Rodon, Celina, Oli, Byers, Roberts and even Dhanda all have the ability to make a big impact with more experience under their belts. Certainly, many of the mistakes this season that have led to a glut of lost points, are born of naivety rather than a lack of ability.

So basically I'm saying that I have accepted that promotion this season has now become an unlikely scenario. BUT, if that's the case, I shall expect nothing less than a balls out, one hundred per cent effort to go up next season.
 

Jackflash

Midfield General
Staff member
I get the impression that, given orders from the top, Potts is not interested in going gung ho for promotion this season. I'm sure he'll take it if the chance is there but, so long as we don't drift too near the relegation spots, I think he'll be content with a decent finish and have a proper tilt at promotion next season.

It's the only reason I can think of as to why he's chopping and changing the team, sometimes on an apparently non-sensical basis. I think he's after giving various youngsters a chance to get acclimatised to the pace of the game at this level and imbue them with valuable experience for next season. Undoubtedly they will be better equipped then PROVIDING they take on board the lessons from this campaign.

In my opinion this is a risky strategy but then I also understand the logic behind it. The likes of James, Rodon, Celina, Oli, Byers, Roberts and even Dhanda all have the ability to make a big impact with more experience under their belts. Certainly, many of the mistakes this season that have led to a glut of lost points, are born of naivety rather than a lack of ability.

So basically I'm saying that I have accepted that promotion this season has now become an unlikely scenario. BUT, if that's the case, I shall expect nothing less than a balls out, one hundred per cent effort to go up next season.
That's on the assumption we keep all these youngsters Ivor, with the way this club is being run at the moment there will be plenty of other clubs that can offer them earlier success along with encouragement from their agents, it's a very thin line.
 

CroJack

Key Player
I'd rather lose some games whilst playing good football than winning most of the games by grafting and being lucky. Because I am SURE good football will give us good results in the long run, and crap football will get us relegated. Have we not learned any lessons from the past?

Monk's 2014/15 season with us was a fake one. It was pretty on paper, but still fake. As it was Sean Dyche's 2017/18 season with Burnley. Here is Burnley in 2018/19:

IMG_20181227_181605.jpgIMG_20181227_181605.jpg

Why? Because it's easier to fix naivety at the back and lack of ability up front than fix the style of play.

You can't perfect free flowing attacking style of play if you don't apply it and practice it in the games you play. Ups and downs are perfectly normal. Do you really think opposition will always score 3 goals against us from three chances they create? Do you really think we'll always miss so many chances in front of the goal? Lack of concentration is a short term fix, attacking style of play is a long term fix.

Even for the best managers in the world it takes one to three years to fix structural problems. And God knows we have structural problems.

It took one year for Pep to fix Manchester City's defensive problems. We all know how they leaked goals in his first season there. It took Klopp three years to do the same. Look at Liverpool now. 19 games played, unbeaten, W16 D3 L0.

Manchester United fans laughed at Poch and Klopp in the past three years. No trophies they said. Mourinho, on the other hand, won the League Cup and the Europa League title. In the process Mourinho totally destroyed Manchester United by playing crapy, defensive football. They have no chance to win the Premier League title, whilst Klopp, Poch and Pep are in the title race.

So, dear friends, we need to be patient. Free flowing, attacking football will pay off in the long run. We have to look at the bigger picture, not only at some unlucky results.
 
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Yankee_Jack

Key Player
This holding pattern idea smells of the Sousa season. Good coach doing a good job. Being dealt crap cards by the owners thinking they can out smart the other 20 odd clubs in the league all trying to be just as clever.

I'm not complaining about the football ... it's the results and more importantly the manner in which results are not being achieved that is the issue. It's all very well to develop and prepare for a better next season, but this is not a development league, this is a league where if you show your under belly to the opposition they are going to take merciless advantage. A loss here and a loss there and pretty soon you're scrapping to save yourself from relegation. It's arrogant and stupid to think that we're too good to go down. At the moment we're not good enough to win matches where we appear to be the best team on the field ... the result calls bull shit on the notion that our football is good and that we're a 90 minute team. The manner in which we lose matches clearly indicates that there's a deficiency.

Let's review ... Rogers' team was successful because he played the same system every game - system fit the players and vice versa. Everybody knew their role, their role didn't change from game to game, when they lined up to start a game they knew without looking who was standing next to them and what they were about. This was true even in the Prem and Rogers had one of the youngest squads in the Prem and plenty of players who were not close to Prem standard but in combination managed to make it work.

Under Potter, every game it's a different line-up, different system, different roles. Against Villa we could still be playing and we'd still have no goals to show for it. Pretty football, like passing without purpose, is just pretty it is not necessarily effective. We need to start playing effective football. Against Villa we had spells of pretty, a few spells of very pretty ... but Villa had one moment of very effective and won the game. Same against Hull ... Hull played effective football. We're lacking effectiveness.
 
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