AFC Bournemouth v Aston Villa (Saturday 1 February 2020): Match Thread | Page 37 | Vital Football

AFC Bournemouth v Aston Villa (Saturday 1 February 2020): Match Thread

Well I do -

Home
Played 12. W5 D2 L5 GD -5 Pts 15

Away
Played 13 W2 D2 L9 GD -10 Pts 8

On home form we are 14th in the PL
Away we are 19th.

So yes I do think our away form is significantly different.

That said if we could get most of the 4 wins needed at home then we could still be safe. What I’m annoyed about is just not giving ourselves a chance away by being far too open and easy to score against.
Its nothing to do with how we set up. We've been close in a lot of away games this season and very unfortunate. Palace, Arsenal, Spurs all come to mind immediately.

We dont win away from home because we are a newly promoted team. Losing to a newly promoted team at home is absolutely disgusting, would you be happy if we stayed up and Leeds, Tesco or Brentford took points from Villa Park next season? Its mentality of the opposition which prevent us from winning away. They're losing, getting hammered, then they look at who they are playing and they're like hang on a minute, we cant let aston villa leave here with points, and they go up a gear.

Apart from United, because they're shite.
 
We expected to win yesterday as Bournemouth are shite. This league is full of surprises and we will get some unexpected results.
Look at today - how many of us expected Arsenal to win at Burnley?
We went to Burnley and won and Arsenal could only scrape a draw if you look at the stats/report.
The only certainty in the league this year is that Liverpool will win - although we nearly spoilt that record
 
We’ve had to shore up the defence by sticking another centre half in. Alas, it’s not working. The PL experience in the back 5 is negligible, we look like frightened rabbits when under attack. Not helped by the equally total lack of experience in every other department on the field. We’ve put them in then hoped it would work and it hasn’t. Not a particularly professional strategy but one we’ve seen many times before.
 
We’ve had to shore up the defence by sticking another centre half in. Alas, it’s not working. The PL experience in the back 5 is negligible, we look like frightened rabbits when under attack. Not helped by the equally total lack of experience in every other department on the field. We’ve put them in then hoped it would work and it hasn’t. Not a particularly professional strategy but one we’ve seen many times before.

Sadly this is the strongest defensive unit we can muster. I call it a strategy of 'overlapping responsibility', we're hoping that enough bodies plug the gaps. Marv is overwhelmed in central midfield, he doesnt have a competent partner without McGinn.

Lansbury, Hourihane, Luiz, Drinkwater - lightweight, unfit, inconsistent, weak in the tackle, immobile, poor passer, poor concentration. Those 3 players each carry at least two of those 6 weaknesses.

I don't know if it is overanalysis or not but the more I look the more I understand the madness, maybe I am going mad. We play the extra man in the backline because we dont have an extra man to play in midfield. Engels not starting or even making the bench is because 4 of the 5 centre backs have all played the formation except Engels. This might be disaster mitigation by Dean by keeping Engels out of the backline until he is more comfortable. I cant see any other reason to play 2 of his 5 weakest CBs consistently.
 
Its nothing to do with how we set up. We've been close in a lot of away games this season and very unfortunate. Palace, Arsenal, Spurs all come to mind immediately.

We dont win away from home because we are a newly promoted team. Losing to a newly promoted team at home is absolutely disgusting, would you be happy if we stayed up and Leeds, Tesco or Brentford took points from Villa Park next season? Its mentality of the opposition which prevent us from winning away. They're losing, getting hammered, then they look at who they are playing and they're like hang on a minute, we cant let aston villa leave here with points, and they go up a gear.

Apart from United, because they're shite.

We watch very different games if that’s what you think.
 
My criticism of the 3 choices at the back is the reliance on their pace and athleticism.

I don't know if its defeatist or a smart acknowledgement of our lack of quality. It's almost immediately conceding and acknowledging we're going to be breached but maybe we can recover from the breach / mistake with pace. Are we already set up to fail because we havent worked on the basics of shape and pressing and remaining patient and solid?
 
Its nothing to do with how we set up. We've been close in a lot of away games this season and very unfortunate. Palace, Arsenal, Spurs all come to mind immediately.

Unfortunately those games were at the start of the season, Palace and Spurs both in August a long time ago now

Ultimately we have to take responsibility for our own results which haven’t been good enough at times. I’m not sure if its a particularly horrific away form or if it’s because we appear to be the only team incapable of picking up the odd result against the more decent sides, maybe a combination of both
 
Still taking a few a long time with Hourihane SD but I'm sure Reo Joker retiring to the MLS at 28 was proof enough, was it AC Milan he said wanted him and he went to Real Bolton then Canada and failed miserably.
One person who no longer posts on here actually bet me he's the long term Captain of Villa and England , needless to say, he never paid the £100 .

I thought Reo-Coker ended up at Napoli for a bit. Wasn’t the greatest but he’d walk into this midfield
 
My criticism of the 3 choices at the back is the reliance on their pace and athleticism.

I don't know if its defeatist or a smart acknowledgement of our lack of quality. It's almost immediately conceding and acknowledging we're going to be breached but maybe we can recover from the breach / mistake with pace. Are we already set up to fail because we havent worked on the basics of shape and pressing and remaining patient and solid?

I think we're very much having to "make do" mate - clearly, and more often than not recently, the defence are struggling to find anyone in midfield to work with and we're struggling to keep the ball when they do get rid of it for more than five seconds. I don't get, however, how our defence, especially with three centre-halves, are so vulnerable to a counter-attack, they seem to be all over the place with people running at them with the ball.

My boy Nakamba was clearly bossed by Billings in CM yesterday and that's going to happen sometimes, despite Nakamba's cracking recent form, everyone comes up against players/teams that have them over but that's styles rather than outright ability I think.

The problem of course is that when you have more than one or two players not playing well on the day then it can throw out the entire team if others don't/can't make up for it. Guilbert and Luiz were shocking again yesterday, truly shocking to the point I asked during the game whether they were drinking buddies because their form has gone off a cliff at exactly the same time. Show pony Ghazi is the last player you'd expect to firm up the right hand side for us as he's completely anonymous in every game so if Guilbert doesn't turn up either then we're going to struggle on that side.

All told, and while I expect inconsistency, we often look completely clueless at times, like literally no idea what to do but perhaps if you've only got one swinging dick away from defence then this is how it's going to look unless Jack is on the ball but tbh, even that is wearing thin with me, I'm almost sick of the sight of him having to fetch and carry everything at times, sometimes from the edge of our own area.
 
. I don't get, however, how our defence, especially with three centre-halves, are so vulnerable to a counter-attack, they seem to be all over the place with people running at them with the ball.

It starts in midfield. Playing 2 central midfielders vs 3 is too easy to brush aside which allows the opponent to get at our defence too quickly, causing the disarray. Add to that weak midfielders and inexperienced defenders and it’s no surprise really
 
Its nothing to do with how we set up. We've been close in a lot of away games this season and very unfortunate. Palace, Arsenal, Spurs all come to mind immediately.

We dont win away from home because we are a newly promoted team.

Sheff Utd are doing very nicely, as did Wolves last season taking points off the top 6. We played with a confidence at Arsenal and for some of the game at Spurs, also vs ManU - perhaps we saw them as a free hit so no pressure. Since that game at Old Trafford the confidence has evaporated and we look like rabbits in the headlights, especially early on in games. Burnley an exception but we almost fell apart 2nd half and would have drawn or lost but for their poor finishing.
 
Aye, it was noted - I'd like to know what happened to Konsa at HT yesterday too.
Yes Hause was shit but Konsa got subbed off

Perhaps he was injured. If so it really makes the decision to not replace Chester look quite stupid