Aston Villa v Millwall, Sat 9th December @ 3pm | Page 8 | Vital Football

Aston Villa v Millwall, Sat 9th December @ 3pm

Sir Den

Is it total bollocks - tell me , apart from Norwich and Ipswich - tell me another game where we have played well. You know , well, like how Wolves played against us. The type of game where you say "If we had scored 4 - it wouldn't have flattered us"

Coz mate, I have seen most our games and I can't name another one.
 
To me, there is so much wrong on and off the pitch, its actually too much to say.

Two quick examples from about 30 I could mention

Injuries - are we "unlucky" that Terry, Jedinak, Snodgrass, Kodjia and now Samba have got injured. Or , is it the fact that every one of them is over 30, most of them in their "Mid" 30's and it is just a plain fact that when you get that age, you pick up more injuries, and it takes longer to recover - buy an aging squad, ou can't complain when they can't manage 50 odd games (and especially when one of them travels the entire world every 6 weeks !!!)

Midfield - am I correct in saying Hourihane had the most assists in the EFL at Barnsley , and am I correct that we all thought that when we bought Lansbury, we were buying a player in an Aaron Ramsey mould that scores goals, creates goals gets in the box at every opportunity - so why the bloody hell are we playing them in a defensive midfield role

AND

Saying that , why the bloody hell are Aston Villa (not Burton Albion but ASTON VILLA) playing a goalkeeper, 4 defenders , AND TWO defensive midfeilders AT HOME to the likes of bloody Millwall !!!!!!

It is far far far far too negative and defensive.

And the reason I am losing patience with Bruce is, in every interview, I keep hearing him saying "this is what the Championship is about" - well excuse me if I am wrong, but from what I have seen over the past 5 or 6 years, I haven't seen that.

I have seen last year, Brighton and Newcastle go up by playing attractive, attacking fast football. The years before that , I have seen Bournemouth, Southampton, Watford, Burnley all playing attractive, attacking, fast, in your face football. This year I am seeing Wolves go up with the same thing and I would hazard a guess Derby will be joining them.

In fact, I can only think of 2 of 15 teams that have gone up playing this way in the last 5 years - Boro and SB's own Hull

We have the players with ability miles more than them teams I have mentioned bar only Newcastle, so why the hell are we playing so negatively.

And as I said, thats only 2 points from about 30 I could mention
 
I did say I will mention only two, but I am going to make it 2 coz I think this one is important.

Onomah is so clearly off form it is alarming, and yet, we are not even putting our own young player, one who is getting rave reviews on the bench - where the bloody hell has Calum O'Hare disappeared to.

But then again, where is Mitch Clark who is getting rave reviews , or Easah Suliman who captained the England U19's to World Cup victory, or Jordan Lyden or Adam McGurk

Every week we see the same old players, putting in the same old dross performances, and I am not saying put the entire youth side in on mass - but can anyone disagree that OHare doesn't deserve a chance, or Suliman - I mean he captains the England U20 side, That is a year ahead of the likes of Chalobah and Sessignon so he can't be that bad !
 
If a few of our own reserves made the effort to play for Hull
then I think they'd have a much better chance of being picked tbh
(or pulled their socks up and were reserves at utd or spurs)

still it'll all be different when the red hot (3 goals in 3 years) striker waddles back

utv

:8:
 
holtelower - 9/12/2017 22:54

Injuries - are we "unlucky" that Terry, Jedinak, Snodgrass, Kodjia and now Samba have got injured. Or , is it the fact that every one of them is over 30, most of them in their "Mid" 30's
Click to expand...

Quick (pedantic) point of order:

Kodjia is 28. Snodgrass is 30. But as Meatloaf didn't say, 3 out of 5 ain't bad.

Carry on...
 
danvilla2 - 9/12/2017 21:58

villasince67 - 9/12/2017 21:06

danvilla2 - 9/12/2017 19:19

Felt like a bigger police presence today than a derby day, exaggerating slightly but all seemed a bit OTT. Thought the wall fans were good actually from afar, but they probably only turn up for the big games.
Click to expand...

Wow - any comment that attempts to portray their fans as acceptable is unacceptable. :26:
Click to expand...

Don’t get me wrong they’re in the same bracket as blues fans, I meant they were quite loud - I was expecting a few hundred to turn up like we usually get from the smaller London teams.

Did look lively in the Doug Ellis/north stand corner
Click to expand...

They are not in the same 'bracket' as small heath fans, they are particularly vile. I know first hand, not many here, if indeed any, were at The Den when we won 3-1 on a Tuesday night in '75. I will never ever forget that night that I somehow escaped with my life.
 
holtelower - 9/12/2017 22:54

To me, there is so much wrong on and off the pitch, its actually too much to say.

Two quick examples from about 30 I could mention

Injuries - are we "unlucky" that Terry, Jedinak, Snodgrass, Kodjia and now Samba have got injured. Or , is it the fact that every one of them is over 30, most of them in their "Mid" 30's and it is just a plain fact that when you get that age, you pick up more injuries, and it takes longer to recover - buy an aging squad, ou can't complain when they can't manage 50 odd games (and especially when one of them travels the entire world every 6 weeks !!!)

Midfield - am I correct in saying Hourihane had the most assists in the EFL at Barnsley , and am I correct that we all thought that when we bought Lansbury, we were buying a player in an Aaron Ramsey mould that scores goals, creates goals gets in the box at every opportunity - so why the bloody hell are we playing them in a defensive midfield role

AND

Saying that , why the bloody hell are Aston Villa (not Burton Albion but ASTON VILLA) playing a goalkeeper, 4 defenders , AND TWO defensive midfeilders AT HOME to the likes of bloody Millwall !!!!!!

It is far far far far too negative and defensive.

And the reason I am losing patience with Bruce is, in every interview, I keep hearing him saying "this is what the Championship is about" - well excuse me if I am wrong, but from what I have seen over the past 5 or 6 years, I haven't seen that.

I have seen last year, Brighton and Newcastle go up by playing attractive, attacking fast football. The years before that , I have seen Bournemouth, Southampton, Watford, Burnley all playing attractive, attacking, fast, in your face football. This year I am seeing Wolves go up with the same thing and I would hazard a guess Derby will be joining them.

In fact, I can only think of 2 of 15 teams that have gone up playing this way in the last 5 years - Boro and SB's own Hull

We have the players with ability miles more than them teams I have mentioned bar only Newcastle, so why the hell are we playing so negatively.

And as I said, thats only 2 points from about 30 I could mention
Click to expand...

holtelower - absolutely effing bang on right, it is SB who shackles the whole show, who is scared of losing. He ain't my cup of tea as they say.
 
holtelower - 9/12/2017 22:36

Sir Den

Is it total bollocks - tell me , apart from Norwich and Ipswich - tell me another game where we have played well. You know , well, like how Wolves played against us. The type of game where you say "If we had scored 4 - it wouldn't have flattered us"

Coz mate, I have seen most our games and I can't name another one.
Click to expand...

QPR , Preston , Burton , Barnsley , Fulham.
 
Yesterday afternoon when I got in I was extremely pissed off and was still pissed off when I posted. I shouldn't have called Bruce a gormless moron, personal attacks aren't really warranted in football unless it's against someone really obnoxious like a blues fan.

I won't be dissuaded however in my opinion that he is a very average manager who is making this season far more difficult than it could or should be. Again this is my opinion and the only person who can change it sits in the dugout at villa park.

We were awful yesterday. Truly God awful. That atrocity of a game had my granddad, a fairly placid 88 year old who has been going to villa park since the late 1930s despite breaking his hip a few years back shaking his fists in fury towards the pitch leading me to think that we are so bad it might actually finish him off.

Whatever I might say about Bruce he is obviously a lucky manager. We have won and drawn games we had no right to, yesterday included. Maybe he will take us up. We sit in the play offs with no teams bar perhaps wolves who have nearly as good a squad as us. I'm just sick of desperate, gutless performances. I've seen many over the last few years so I know what they look like. I'm still seeing too many this season.

 
villasince67 - 10/12/2017 01:10

danvilla2 - 9/12/2017 21:58

villasince67 - 9/12/2017 21:06

danvilla2 - 9/12/2017 19:19

Felt like a bigger police presence today than a derby day, exaggerating slightly but all seemed a bit OTT. Thought the wall fans were good actually from afar, but they probably only turn up for the big games.
Click to expand...

Wow - any comment that attempts to portray their fans as acceptable is unacceptable. :26:
Click to expand...

Don’t get me wrong they’re in the same bracket as blues fans, I meant they were quite loud - I was expecting a few hundred to turn up like we usually get from the smaller London teams.

Did look lively in the Doug Ellis/north stand corner
Click to expand...

They are not in the same 'bracket' as small heath fans, they are particularly vile. I know first hand, not many here, if indeed any, were at The Den when we won 3-1 on a Tuesday night in '75. I will never ever forget that night that I somehow escaped with my life.
Click to expand...

Don’t misconstrue what I said, I’m talking about yesterday not 40+ years ago. Im not disagreeing with you about them in general.

Back to us, the atmosphere at VP is poor these days given we’re flying relatively high but we can’t seem to get the players going it’s always them who have to get us going.
 
Is it the players or is it Bruce’s tactics that make us appear so poor so regularly? One shot is not a statistic that should be coming up at home when we are relatively high flying. No wonder the atmosphere is poor.
Bruce is responsible for both areas, buying and tactics, so is ultimately responsible for what we see. 12 months ago in the January window he spent a large sum of money on Hogan. Complete failure. We lack pace and power in midfield and up front.
On the plus side he has shored up the defence so we’re not leaking goals like before he came. Whether that’s to the detriment of attack I don’t know.
Overall I’m backing Bruce to pull us through but he’d better have 2 or 3 good loans lined up or I see us struggling for the play offs.
 
If we get loans in would we know how to use them? We need that spark which can unlock defences like Millwall. Jack for one has that spark, but he was only on the pitch for that tail end of the match, and probably in the wrong position. Hourihane can produce but not if he's played as a defensive midfielder. Davis was ineffective because Millwall could afford to mark him out of the game. No point in getting in a loan forward if there isn't the game plan to support that forward.
 
A decent Manager would have us comfortably top 2.

As already mentioned though, how we are in top 6 considering how we play is amazing.
 
The referee seemed to think he was doing a rugby game. The number of times our players were dragged down or back by Millwall players was ridiculous. He can't have been unsighted all the tIme.
 
Yestereday was unacceptable I think. Hoofball v Millwall?

Millwall played quite well, I didn't think they were the over physical kick everyone in sight type of team either.
 
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