david-avfc

He needs players moving off him and exploiting the space he generates when he pulls defenders / midfielders out of position, but at times it looks like all we want to do is cut back into the middle and pass sideways and backwards. Not even a player like Coutinho can create chances when none of the team mates are trying to make anything happen. Not sure if that’s individuals or tactical but someone needs to tell the players the goal is at the end of the pitch and not on the half way line.

Should have shown him some tough love last summer and said if you don’t sign now we’ll send you back to the U18s for the remaining 2 years of your contract. Surprised at how badly this has been managed and how long it’s rumbled on for. If he’s genuinely that good then £30k a week is peanuts to us nowadays but the problem is every other youngster will now want the same especially as this lad has yet to make any impact on the pitch

Marvelous off for Carney. What on earth was the manager thinking? Certainly not how can we keep hold of the draw that’s for sure. Taking off the defensive midfielder for an 18 year old lazy attacking midfielder, yes fine 3-0 up vs Burnley, at 1-1 vs a top class side like Liverpool… nonsensical 

Overall decent performance though

Presumably we’ll pay off a higher chunk of his remaining Barcelona contract to compensate for the lower fee, but nonetheless a great signing and seems like it’s on our terms not the other clubs for a change 

52 minutes ago, Steero113 said:

Hause has been class every time he's been called on. He's titanic in the air and he has a goal in him too. 

He's been kept out of the side by an established England international. Take a look at this seasons promoted sides, would Hause walk into those defences? Absolutely yes.

When we came up we paid £20m for a player who had barely had a run at his last two sides, had a fairly dire injury record and was being outcast by the football titans Bournemouth. Hause is worth a lot more than £2m. 

Mings was constantly injured though and he joined us from Bournemouth for fitness reasons and he actually cost Bournemouth  quite a lot of money initially. Hause on the other hand just hasn’t been fancied as a regular starter since he signed, even in the championship he was in and out of the side behind Mings and Tuanzebe in the pecking order. I like Hause he’s not done anything wrong for us but he’s a squad player and won’t attract a proper PL-level valuation

4 minutes ago, MWARLEY2 said:

Agree with all of these but you can add Luiz 25  mill  and Sanson and Traore  on loan  to the list.  

Hause will be at least 15 mill and will be worth it to a newly promoted club. He is left footed which means a big premium. 

Hause £15m! We’ll get £2-3m for him, he’s never been first choice so why would a promoted team pay £15m for someone proven to be not good enough to get regular game time for a mid table side

We have to work out a way to get Buendia and Coutinho on the same wavelength and playing in the same team together. Both are too good for a side like ours to be regularly missing out. Buendia lacks the pure technical ability of Coutinho and is more prone to sloppy moments, but he works 10x harder and that offers creativity in different ways, as well as providing the extra support to rest of the team helping out defensively which is always underrated 

Maybe one of those players who just played better with no fans in the ground. Before lockdown we were a calamity at the back and Konsa was part of that, and he only properly nailed down a guaranteed starting 11 place during project restart as before that he was competing with Engels. The disappointing thing is that since he joined us he’d been consistently improving, until recently and now he’s looking like he’s rapidly regressing.

He’s still young for a centre back, just 24, so hopefully enough time to get back on the right track. But  I’m not sure Gerrard will show him the same love that Smith gave him, and we saw how quickly Gerrard discarded Targett who looks like a very similar case. I think selling him would be a mistake but then if he’s going to be a liability then we need to bring someone new in. 

Last time I looked at an U23 game we had a bunch of 16 year olds in the side. All our best young players have been loaned out, so can’t expect too much results wise from the U23s.
 

Maybe Delaney is seen as decent but not exceptional, and we want to push higher. It’s hard to judge from the outside. If we bring in an ex-Gerrard or Purslow connection I’ll be sceptical though 

Wycombe bullied MK from the parts I saw, they were far more physical whereas MK were  trying to be more technical, but at that level of the game the passing ability left much to be desired to say the least. As for Kesler, he wasn’t able to get on the ball much as the team were mostly dominated by the opposition, he was guilty of some wayward passes as well as a few other players as they struggled with the pressure of the tough Wycombe side. He did come alive early in the second half, winning a few free kicks, although I gave up shortly after as the game descended into too much fouling on both sides. In defence he struggled to make a difference with the long ball approach from Wycombe which mostly came towards the centre backs anyway. Not sure if it was tactical or individual but I couldn’t work out his positioning, he was neither covering the defensive areas nor pushing up high enough to contribute an attacking threat.

Based on this game and another one I saw, maybe another loan spell in a more technically competent side preferably in the championship might be best. Hopefully Gerrard takes a proper look at him in preseason though. Of course it’s all about experience at the moment, his first year of senior football, and winning young player of the season at Swindon despite leaving in Jan, and then play offs at MK is a great start

25 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

Interestingly, I'm pretty sure I read it was Liverpool's scouting team who really pushed for Salah when plenty of other names were in the hat. Luckily Klopp signed off on it!

I don't think the manager should come up with any targets. Just approve the final decision.

The world is too big. There's hundreds of attainable players out there who would improve us. There's not enough hours in the day for someone involved with training to be finding players.

I don't believe the Coutinho/Digne signings were anything other than Gerrard saying I want this exact player. I hope that doesn't happen this summer because it's a poor way to work in 2022.

Yeah completely agree, if Gerrard knows individual players in the French / German etc leagues then he probably isn’t spending enough time concentrating on his current players. This is why we employ scouts, head of recruitment, football directors etc, the days of the manager managing the whole business are long gone and attempting to return to that would be a monumental step backwards.

I’m sure he is in constant dialogue with the other guys to discuss his requirements and any players which have been identified or have suddenly become available 

55 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Dybala will have much better offers than Villa sadly, some Champions League teams are already speaking to him

Botman has pretty much signed for Milan as Maldini wanted him

Didn’t Dybala pull out of a move to Spurs once because he had crazy wage demands… £300k+ a week level of crazy

Can’t see it happening at all

56 minutes ago, lexicon said:

Against a team like Norwich, he's excellent. They don't have the attackers to give him a hard time and he can show off his good technique on the ball. He's not a good enough defender to be first choice against top half opposition, but he's a very useful squad option. 

The question for me is where does this leave Konsa? 

Yeah I agree I think Chambers is a very decent squad player and is more than capable of doing a solid job in most games for us but can’t see him being a first choice solution in the long term. When he’s been first choice before it’s been at Middlesbrough and Fulham - relegated both times, not that it’s his fault but I don’t think he has that extra bit of quality that’s going to push us up closer to the European places. 

As for Konsa, he’s got to up his game. He is still young so has a lot more to come. I’d like us to sign a new top class centre half and then Mings,  Konsa and Chambers fighting it out for the second centre back spot.

2 hours ago, allani said:

I really don't rate DCL as a striker.  Last season he scored loads but if you look at his goals an awful lot of them were lucky finishes - missed the header went in off his shoulder type goals.  He's really struggled this season because he hasn't had luck on his side (plus injuries).  Some players (Rush, Lineker, etc) earn their luck through their exceptional reading of the game which means that they have an inherent knack of just always being in the right place at the right time - their luck isn't luck at all it is skill.  DCL doesn't read the game well at all - he's often on the wrong side of the defender, not attacking where the ball is likely to go.  He certainly wouldn't be an upgrade on either Ings or Ollie.

I always thought he was one of the worst regular-starting centre forwards in the league until he had a couple of seasons when he was on fire and looked a completely different player. Before that he worked hard but never showed any real quality. Jury is out which one is the “real” DCL.

On 30/04/2022 at 17:07, messi11 said:

So what his gerrards style of football?
I dont see a identity 

Sorry not to pick on your comment specifically but this saying about no style which gets bandied around by fans of all clubs after a few poor performances is one of the blandest criticisms in football.
 

Of course we have a style of play, every team does unless your absolutely clueless and bottom of the league. We attack through the middle, try to pass through the midfield and push the fullbacks high for width whilst the front 3 play narrow. Whether you think that approach is good or bad is up to your opinion, personally I think Gerrards approach isn’t helping us. If anything the style he’s trying to implement is the problem, rather than not having a style at all.  A bit of a rant, nothing personal, but I just find it a frustrating criticism. 

7 hours ago, Villa 59 said:

I think both Emi and Coutinho can play  in the same team as long as with have the assurance of 2 defensive midfielders in the team...would be really exciting to watch. I'd play Ings up front if they're both in the side.

Considering the outlay we made for Buendia, £38m, we have to try to get him in the team with Coutinho. We can’t buy players for close to £40m and then bin them arbitrarily because the gaffer wants to sign his mate, as class as his mate is it’s not really a professional or sustainable way to do things. I think Buendia is good enough to adapt although I admit there probably is work to do but we at least need to try it. We have Ings + Watkins enough second chances to see if it would work.

1 hour ago, HalfTimePost said:

This feels a more realistic target than Kamara if I'm honest. I don't know much about him other than 'OK' WhoScored match ratings.

FBRef has him as a fantastic passer for a CB but the actual defensive metrics seem very poor. The WhoScored ratings though are OK, and not really sure how they'd be possible if his defensive stats were as poor as FBRef say. 

Anybody seen him?

 

Pretty sure football insider’s approach to transfer rumours is a broken clock is correct twice a day

17 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Will be more of a Veretout 

Veretout is 18 months older than Sanson, and we had him what 7 years ago? Completely different phases in their careers when they signed for us and when they leave/left us 

To be fair the one game he started recently vs Wolves was the absolute worst we’ve played recently and in particular the midfield was awful offering no defensive protection and created nothing going forwards. We only regained our shape once Luiz came on and Sanson came off.

McGinn gets a lot of stick but honestly since he signed for us has never let us down even if he is going through a slightly weaker spell (which is at least partially due to the tactics as well) so I can’t see him getting dropped, nor do I want him to.

Ramsey is obviously highly thought of by Gerrard and I agree with some fans that he should be rested from time to time, but in the long term it’s Ramsey who has the potential to help turn us into a top half team, not Sanson, so he’s got to be playing most weeks.

So where does that leave Sanson? On the bench. I’d like to see him given more chances but I don’t think there’s anything too controversial about his place in the squad, based on the other options.

18 minutes ago, VillaParkAvenue said:

So he could be back in time to beat Man City.

This injury is a real pain. Young has done well many times this season but at left back he's a liability, opponents target him. 

At 36/37 it’s probably difficult for him to step in once every couple of months and immediately have the required level of match sharpness. With a run of games, he might be more solid. 

21 hours ago, Laughable Chimp said:

Ok, I've seen this narrative pick up recently, but I don't remember Smith having to contend with too many injury issues. The only 2 players who missed a significant amount of games under Smith under were Traore and Bailey, and its not clear whether they would've been able to get into the starting 11 had they been fully fit either especially in hindsight considering Bailey's recent form with us. The 3-5-2 we played was also not forced upon him either, he chose to play that formation to accommodate Ings and Watkins together. I agree Gerrard has the better squad but I don't think he's had much better luck with injuries. 

Smith's PPG for us this season was 0.9. Gerrard's is 1.3.  To put it into context, that PPG ratio under Smith if continued for the rest of the season would put us in the relegation zone. The PPG under Gerrard would have us in the top 10. I consider that a dramatic improvement. Now you can make the case that Gerrard isn't performing better with the team compared to Smith last season, and that's a different can of worms, but this season its not even close. 

 

 

Targett, Watkins, Buendia were all injured for 1-2 months in preseason in addition to the injuries Traore and Bailey, and Trezeguet (whether or not he counts or not is debate-able) plus Luiz, Martinez, Mings coming back late from international duty in the summer. Fundamentally as a squad we just did not look fully fit during the opening weeks of the season. The 5 losses in a row was poor management, not fitness, but the lousy start in August before the first international break was definitely fitness related 

Not worried about relegation, there are other teams between us and 18th and there’s a 8 point gap with just 6 & 7 games to go. Someone might go on a winning streak but not 2 or 3 teams all at once- they’re at the bottom for a reason. And we’re bound to pick up points at some point.
 

The realistic worry is finishing 15th or 16th and struggling to attract targets to help us push on in the summer, or existing players like Martinez wanting to find the exit door

3 minutes ago, Zatman said:

I would have went with Chrisene but since we could be on for a 5th loss in a row I think they will go with Young for the famous experience 

Yeah I’d like to see him at some point, even if it’s just off the bench, but there’s a fine line between throwing him into the deep end and risking a disaster and giving him a sensible taste of top flight football 

Davis is an enigma, a lot of his attributes mark him out as a top player, but never really seemed to click with him for us. All players need games to develop, Davis has been unlucky with injuries and at times being considered too good to be sold/loaned but not good enough to start games. In most games for us when given reasonable minutes he’s been powerful but rusty in front of goal, if he’d played 100 games in his career by now maybe he’s be a completely different player. He’ll never be a 20 goal a season striker but if he can be a 10+ goal striker with everything else he adds he’d be a very useful player.

If we do sell him it might be the best for all parties, I can’t see him pushing for regular starts in the PL for us, equally I hope there’s a reasonable fee as I can see him getting back into the PL one day