Aston Villa v Southampton Thread - 1st Nov - 12 noon | Page 31 | Vital Football

Aston Villa v Southampton Thread - 1st Nov - 12 noon

Langoe66 said:
Plenty to criticise and improve upon but I think criticism of Martinez is one of the more controversial critiques of the day mate....I really think any keeper in the world would have struggled to get anywhere near them. Fairer to blame Targett especially and Luiz and Cash who gave away free kicks in areas which were ideal for Ward Prowse to assist and smack in the top corner!
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That's why we need Jack in the centre and we'd be getting free-kicks in that area every game
 
Langoe66 said:
Plenty to criticise and improve upon but I think criticism of Martinez is one of the more controversial critiques of the day mate....I really think any keeper in the world would have struggled to get anywhere near them. Fairer to blame Targett especially and Luiz and Cash who gave away free kicks in areas which were ideal for Ward Prowse to assist and smack in the top corner!
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Totally agree, I doubt any keeper could have done much about any of the goals.... however It would have been nice to see the taller members of the wall JUMP when the ball was struck not stand there like knobs watching it sail over their heads.
 
After the lock down Smith said that the improvement in defence was brought about by talking to individual defensive players and identifying where they were making mistakes during each game and worked on eradicating them. Not so easy with the last two games as these have been due to poor organisation. First goal in any premiership game is all important. It was criminal negligence to have McGinn marking Vestergaard at any time during the game, never mind at a set piece. There can only be two reasons for this. One, it wasn't practiced during training. Two, the players disregarded the instructions from coaches.

Villa need to go back to shoring up the midfield and making us hard to beat. With the start we have had, a few draws would do no harm. Bang in another defensive midfielder to start the game and be more expansive if needed in the second half. Even when we were struggling last season, we still outscored most of the teams in the lower half of the league.

Cash, although a prospect has been targeted in the last two games. Bring in Elmo for a bit of experience. At least he puts in a decent cross from time to time. Something that Watkins has been crying out for.

Time for Smith to freshen up the bench if he does not intend on making tactical changes during the game. Put some of the kids in just to get some match day experience. What has happened to Ramsey?
 
Said this game would be a marker for how our season will go. Now we know.

To ship 3 goals against Leeds was one thing; it happens to any team from time to time. To ship 4 in the next game is diabolical. It shows the ghosts of last season are still around and having fun.

By far and away the most important thing in the PL is to avoid shipping goals. For the first 4 matches of this season (and the last 4 of last season) we did exactly that. Brilliantly. We kept out a tough Sheffield and nicked the goal which won it. We nullified a very useful Fulham attack and in the end cruised to an easy win. Much has been made of our tactical plan getting in behind Liverpool for that win, but it was built on keeping a strong Liverpool attack quiet for much of the match. We knew Leicester could get loads past us, but we kept it tight enough to stop them and got the win we deserved. An organised, disciplined team, the defence in particular. What could go wrong?

Something went wrong, and it's not a one off, we have a deep seated problem somewhere which needs to be sorted. Manager? Players? Both, probably. We knew what Southampton could do, it should have been possible to stop them; they aren't Leicester. Arsenal next. Play to the same standard as we did earlier in the season and we can win; play like today and we'll ship another 4.

DS after the match:
The way we finished the game was really good and we need to take that into next week at Arsenal.
Delusion. How we finished the game is neither here nor there. Shipping goals was the issue and stopping that leak is what we need for Arsenal.
 
col8 said:
Totally agree, I doubt any keeper could have done much about any of the goals.... however It would have been nice to see the taller members of the wall JUMP when the ball was struck not stand there like knobs watching it sail over their heads.
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The walls were perfectly placed, but the problem is that we had giant fairy in the middle of them. The first goal is 100% the fault of the coaching staff, who for some bizarre reason seem to think that John McGinn should be defending the biggest player on the pitch. We saw it last season a couple of times where McGinn was matched up with a 6’+ player on set pieces and we conceded as a result. It’s the definition of insanity. Ward-Prowse is a set piece specialist and we gave him the opportunity to prove it four times inside the first 25 minutes (we got very lucky on the disallowed effort - how embarassing was the space afforded to Adams who was an inch offside)
 
I won't mention the first half - we were awful.

Very pleased with the second half response.

Grealish - I'm starting to notice at last what others have criticised him for. Slows play down and needs to play a quicker ball.

Watkins - not getting the supply. Still believe he will succeed at this level.

Trez - fair play to him. I can see him keeping Traore out of the side. Battles hard and several good strikes of the ball on goal today. Just didn't get the rub of the green.

Mings - poor first half but showed good leadership in taking the game to Saints 2nd half.

Luiz - much more involved second half.

Barkley - needs to make much more effort when we don't have possession.

Traore - serious concerns already. OK we have to give him a chance but from what I've seen so far he strikes me that he would be good if he's in a winning team. For those of you who know your rugby union (can't think of a soccer equivalent) he reminds me of David Campese. Moments of brilliance but a player that doesn't work hard enough and is prone to a mistake. I blame him for Saints first goal. If crowds were allowed I could see the faithful getting on his back very quickly.
 
Villan57 said:
I don't think many would have said that about Southampton manager after Their 0-9 game last season, there was no doubt Saints fans would have been saying what you are now
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Was thinking the same 57. From memory Saints had a shocking start to the season last year; they've really got it together this year
 
Watched the game in the pub today with my mate who is a Leeds fan. Interesting to hear an impartial view, most of which I agreed with.
First half we were hoofing it too much.
Why is Grealish stuck out on the left wing ? He should be in the middle and much more involved.
At the end of the game you could see John McGinn going off , he said to me "When did he come on ?"
 
Time for some pragmatism at Arsenal. I dont care how ugly it is. Get Marvellous in for McGinn and start with Trez. Do anything and everything to get a clean sheet firstly.
 
Didn't see it, and turned off the radio at 2-0 because of a family thing, but I'm not surprised Southampton are a decent side. One thing that does surprise me is Dean Smiths comment after the game....
" The players thought it was something more tactical was involved but there wasn't in my opinion. " Is there trouble in paradise?
 
McParlandTheGreat said:
Said this game would be a marker for how our season will go. Now we know.
DS after the match:
The way we finished the game was really good and we need to take that into next week at Arsenal.
Delusion. How we finished the game is neither here nor there. Shipping goals was the issue and stopping that leak is what we need for Arsenal.
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PLEASE tell me he didn’t say that!! A four year old could see the only reason we got the last two goals was due to Southampton relaxing knowing it was done. I am speechless if someone who is paid to be a professional coach would say something like that....
 
Wurzel said:
Didn't see it, and turned off the radio at 2-0 because of a family thing, but I'm not surprised Southampton are a decent side. One thing that does surprise me is Dean Smiths comment after the game....
" The players thought it was something more tactical was involved but there wasn't in my opinion. " Is there trouble in paradise?
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Jack doesn't want to play left wing does he and you can see why . Perhaps there's a clique and dropping Trez pissed them off. Whatever it is they suddenly seemed to click late on. That may well be after Southampton made subs and just settled for 4 or we may have upped it a bit too
 
A lot of players put in a shocker today but to criticise Traoré & Martineze seems crazy to me. Traoré was on for about 25 minutes & looked sharp and no keeper would of saved any of those goals today.
The blame lies with our powder puff midfield. McGinn thinks he can stick his arse in to players and spin them 20 times a game & Barkley strolls round like its a Sunday walk.
Barkley surprises me the most as he looked like he had a real engine to get box to box in his first couple of games.
 
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