Aston Villa v QPR Match Thread - 1st Jan 2019, 3pm | Page 12 | Vital Football

Aston Villa v QPR Match Thread - 1st Jan 2019, 3pm

I think today was a dose of reality but also it was 100% QPRs day, they couldn't have asked for a better referee and it wasn't what he did it was what he didn't do.

Anyway today just completely opened the books and really put it into context. Probably the first time I am really looking at the team and saying it is nowhere near good enough. As a squad it is poor but good enough to make a play-off run.

Its a through and through Bruce setup - couple of stars mixed with grizzled vets and top professionals. Great little battling side and lots of determination and passion but totally devoid of quality and similar playing styles/qualities. It was a squad we desperately needed to get us (the fans) back as one with the team but we now need real quality and a long term solution. We can navigate the play-offs I have no doubt but to actually win it and get promoted we'll need luck of the draw. We'd have to get lucky and end up playing shite bags like Boro who'll sit back and let us play and pose very little counter threat.

As mentioned by someone previous some major surgery is required and reliance on loans minimised. We're all set up for Grealish to be sold in the summer allowing us to build a new foundation. It'll be a sad day when it happens but it might be necessary.
 
Silhillvilla said:
It's a lot more than just the defence, that's the issue.
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I think you're right. We changed the Keeper, CB and the right back today and still no difference. We can't deal with the pace in defence or Midfield, Hourihane resorted to hanging onto Eze's arm to stop him today as he left him for dead, it was the most pathetic attempt to stop a player I've seen in years
 
I think we've been found out, yes we will attack, but if you attack back against us, you've a better chance of a result than just sitting back.
 
I did put the defence mainly in my post. A decent DM would make a massive difference as well. Without Axel our lack of pace at CB is terrible. Its why we keep getting caught out by long balls over them. To keep shuffling the CB,s around is like moving the deck chairs on the Titanic. We need at least 1 CB brought in who has pace.
 
You're saying that having a Chelsea player on loan isn't doing anything for the long term but the team that beat Bristol had snodgrass, also on loan and Terry who was on a 1 year contract.

The entire structure of the club was built around a short term promotion or bust mentality that we are now paying for. Smith is having to clean up the mess left by others.
 
Old Trinity Villain said:
I did put the defence mainly in my post. A decent DM would make a massive difference as well. Without Axel our lack of pace at CB is terrible. Its why we keep getting caught out by long balls over them. To keep shuffling the CB,s around is like moving the deck chairs on the Titanic. We need at least 1 CB brought in who has pace.
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Also Hutton leaves way too much space behind him which he doesn't bust a gut back into .... always been that way
 
JW1985 said:
You're saying that having a Chelsea player on loan isn't doing anything for the long term but the team that beat Bristol had snodgrass, also on loan and Terry who was on a 1 year contract.

The entire structure of the club was built around a short term promotion or bust mentality that we are now paying for. Smith is having to clean up the mess left by others.
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And Sam Johnstone.

To say last year was any sort of success compared to now ?

Blimey. Has last summer been forgotten already?
 
Silhillvilla said:
On this day last season we thrashed Bristol city 5-0 to go 4th on 44 points just 5 points off 2nd.
Fair to say we are regressing backwards at a rate of knots. This season looks lost already as it's not as if we will suddenly learn to defend overnight. JT is a massive miss at the back, Chester is now exposed for what he is. Midfield without Snodgrass and jack lacks creativity and any balance.
We've got a Chelsea player up top having a good time , but long term that does nothing whatsoever for the Aston Villa football club.
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Won 5 drawn 5 lost 1 in the last 11games doesn't suggest we are 'regressing at a rate of knots' and the season certainly isn't 'already lost'. How can it be with 21 games left? Injuries to key players hasn't helped and we certainly aren't playing with the confidence we showed at the likes of Derby and Middlesbrough but we have the transfer window to reinforce and as for the comparison to last year....what's the point unless you're suggesting things were so much rosier last season? Bottom line is that despite winning seven on the spin from Jan to Feb we still didn't end up any where near the top two and failed in the play offs but that has sod all relevance to this season. With 21 games left none of us know what's going to happen. The mighty Hull City have 19 points out of the last 21 and have moved from the bottom 3 up 9 places in just over a month. Teams will continue to take points off each other, top 6 well within our grasp at the very least, even though performances of late haven't been so good. Season still very much alive and all to play for.
 
Very very poor today, especially some serious issues with DS.

Cannot fault the line up, its exactly what I would have done - but the tactics , subs and some other stuff was very worrying.

1st - If Kodjia had gone any wider, he would have been the other side of Aston Park !. He was told to hug the touchline, which totally nullified him, and our attacks.

The subs - sorry, if Bruce had of bought Whelan on 89 mins and needing a goal, boos would ring out followed by "you dont know what your doing". Surely to god bring Davis on and go 4 4 2. Extremely poor.

Then, the most worrying for me. 10 minute stoppage - 10 minutes !!!!. 1 minute into that, McLaren booted 2 balls on the pitch and told their players to keep warm and knock it about. What did we do, just stood there for 10 minutes doing absolutey sod all - and then wonder why we were caught cold and conceded after 3 minutes !!!!!

Sorry, really, really REALLY poor today

2nd to everything for 70 minutes.

10th in the league and closer to 15th than 6th.

Good job we are having a run of easy games.

I dont know the issue either. Its too easy to say Grealish. We are scoring 2 and 3 a game and missing 7 or 8 good chances, so we are creating. Its just so poor defensively all over the pitch, and I dont see where Greslish improves that. It just seems to me the entire side has gone back to the Bruce "lack lustre" attitude, and Smith is frightened to try youth and reverts to the Whelans and Elmos - ie:doing a Bruce.

Motm for me was Bree, which begs the question, why not give a few other youngsters a go as well

Cup game, I would go 3 at back in Bree, Ches and Elph, and bring the two U23 full backs or Clark on and experiment on 3 5 2 with Kodj n Abrah ip front.

Just tty something different !!!
 
I could only keep up with the latest score today and missed most of it, just seen the goals now.

Why was there 14 mins of injury time added?

Disappointing result, but still a long way to go.
 
@holtelower we are definitely missing Grealish, I know you don’t like him but he is a class act and even on a poor day he can link up the play between midfield and attack far better than any other player we have, and he is a constant worry for opposing players which probably gives the other attackers more space. That filters through the whole team.

I also think the players look exhausted. A few players out injured and suddenly our squad is threadbare and most of them have played virtually every game over Christmas. Whether Smith could have rotated more I am not sure as even the back up options are limited
 
pvb1968 said:
I said to bring hurry up off for whelan. With 10 mins to go playing 2 in midfield and one more striker would have been suicide, the midfield struggled all game with three. Hutton and hurry up are piss poor, one can't defend and the other one can't and won't tackle.
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Agree I thought bringing Whelan on made sense as we weren’t playing well, especially in midfield Bjarnasson was woeful and McGinn looked out of energy by the end, so I don’t think weakening the midfield further would have been a wise move especially considering some of the late goals we’ve given away recently so I will give Smith a pass on that particular substitution this time
 
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Also two things about the ref, one plus for us, one minus.

The laws of the game is once the last player from their team is in their half, you are allowed to kick off, it is their fault if they are stupidly celebrating. Abraham clearly knows the law, I know the law - why doesnt the bloofy ref !!!.

However, I do think Kodjia should have gone. The ball was in the goalies arms long before he kicked him in the head, very dangerous challenge, hence a 10 minute delay, and was a red - so we got lucky.
 
Been watching the replay. If we had a bit more luck we'd have won. Or a bit more skill in shooting; Bolassie's late header was poor, for example. McGinn had a cracker which came off the bar; one of their's did something similar and scored.

Saw their second goal and if Nyland had been in goal he'd have been slaughtered on here.

As Langoe66 said above, 20 points from 11 games isn't bad going. Keep that up and we'd end up on around 74 points, probably short of the playoffs. But we're not too far off. I think we can still get there.
 
Seems a bit "fudging the figures there" . I honsstly dont know the figures, but under DS, we have definately lost to Ipswich, Norwich and Leeds, so dont know where this lost 1 comes from.
 
As for the missing Grealish thing. I am not saying we dont miss him, we clearly do. What I am saying is, our issues seem to stem from both the defence and midfield not defending as a unit - and that isnt Grealishs strength, of to be fair , his job - so even with him, I dont know if we would be any better , after all, he was in when we conceded 2 v Blues, 5 v Forest , 2 v albion etc...

It seems to me, its tactics, not personnel.
 
holtelower said:
Also two things about the ref, one plus for us, one minus.

The laws of the game is once the last player from their team is in their half, you are allowed to kick off, it is their fault if they are stupidly celebrating. Abraham clearly knows the law, I know the law - why doesnt the bloofy ref !!!.

However, I do think Kodjia should have gone. The ball was in the goalies arms long before he kicked him in the head, very dangerous challenge, hence a 10 minute delay, and was a red - so we got lucky.
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The ref still has to blow his whistle to restart the game which he hadn’t done. I don’t know what the rules or guidelines are about how quickly the ref should restart play, I imagine he could have allowed the kick off sooner but bottled it.

Agree about Kodjia - it looked naughty to me the keeper had already claimed the ball and I could clearly see Kodjia swung his foot towards the keeper on the floor as he ran past
 
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