Rightdm00

7 hours ago, sidcow said:

Yes, it's not even about goals and assists.  He's a player who can deliver that but for much of the time, he's running into defenders or allowing attacks to break down in other ways.  Quiet for large periods of most games. 

I would rather a winger who scores a couple less goals but who is a pain in the arse for defenders, relentlessly running down the wings, taking players on and going round them. 

What we are talking about is the whole demeanour of the team, how it affects our general attacking play all round. 

As I said in the match thread I am totally sick of all these posts about El Ghazi haters, negative naysayers etc.

Why are people not allowed a middle ground in this?  It's always WHERE ARE THE HATERS NOW? 

It's perfectly OK to not be so keen on a player without hating him. To question a players worth to the team without giving him dogs abuse. 

I'm delighted for him and happy he's adding to his goal tally and hopefully his price tag. 

Our wingers are generally an issue.  We will need better if we are to progress.  One way to do this would be to sell Elghazi and/or Trezeguet and use those funds plus a few more million to buy another winger who can score those 7 - 8 goals, get a few assists AND terrorise defenders helping us to pour forward from all areas of the pitch. 

But he's also shown he can be a decent squad player.  I'm torn about which one but him or Trez need upgrading, and next year we'll be having the same discussions about Traore if we want to step up again. 

How can it not be about goals and assist though. From an offensive perspective that's the only thing the front 3 is there for. An attack that doesn't generate goals and assist is not a good attack no matter how many times they dribble past their marker.  

Currently El Ghazi has the best strike rate on the team per 90.  If we are to kick on up the table we need bench options like him going forward, especially on the LW if Jack is going to continue having issues. 

If Dean is to have options next year we will need players like El Ghazi on the bench. Currently averaging .57 goals per 90. That's an amazing return for a winger. Ollie averages .37 per 90 as our main striker. 

If someone finds that Bertie cutback including Allan tumbling like a felled tree please post it here. 

1 hour ago, villalad21 said:

Some managers are doing it

Bielsa spent just a hair less than £100 million in transfer fees alone this year. So it can't be him. Who is this mystery manager?

8 minutes ago, Mjvilla said:

In absolute full troll mode this evening.

 

Wants Dean to turn water into wine but can't even be bothered to write a half decent troll post. 

1 hour ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

The progress is thanks to our fantastic owners.

Sure, Smith has done good but it's not as if he's not had the funds to do it with either.

 

This is why people say football is broken. If the progress a football team makes in winning matches and gaining promotion is mainly down to how much an owners spend then it's no longer a sport.

It's just a rich person measuring contest that happens to involve a rectangular pitch and a leathery round ball. 

3 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

When we lose against the crap teams, we play crap this is the frustration. It's not as though we play out our skins, but just could not manage, it's like we to go into the games thinking it's too easy. The Sheffield United game against 10 was the one of the worse I seen us play this season, even the first half against Fulham recently was awful, but we proved we can do it. It's a rare occasion, we play to the best of our ability and lose.

That's the issue with young teams the variance in performance level is large. Sometimes they will look like world beaters and then others completely inept. That's why managers tend not to trust youth players because you don't know what you will get day to day. A big part in the maturation of a footballer is learning how to deliver your best effort game after game. We have to give this team time to grow. 

We have Mings as one of the older heads trying to bring a level of calmness on the pitch but even he is vastly under experienced for his age.  I think patience is the name of the game or we start buying older, more experienced players. 

2 hours ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

That's pretty much a contradiction, oxymoron or whatever the right word is.

Most professional footballers have a very high ceiling. What seperates the best of them is consistency. If you can't stay fairly consistent you aren't good enough.

Can't really agree with that statement.  Our time under Lambert had multiple footballers who could never make the grade at the Prem level. Holman, Sylla, Tonev... I could go on. 

4 minutes ago, vreitti said:

Can you please enlighten me, as to why we "should be taking maximum points" from those teams? 

We are probably going to finish just a couple places above the bottom 6 yet we are supposed to maintain a perfect record against them as well. A top 4 team doesn't even have that requirement. 

2 hours ago, MrBlack said:

I heard him say the covid outbreak hasn't had an impact.  I'm guessing they've tested everyone's vO2 max and found it's largely consistent with what it was pre covid, they're probably showing the same stamina data in training. But I think the point @Rightdm00was making (correct me if wrong) is that it isn't a direct outcome of covid, and mental fatigue might not obviously show in physical data metrics.

I put it down to the indirect fact that we've had games stacked up as a result, and had to play them more often than we would have otherwise. This has also been impacted by other teams having games delayed against us by their own outbreaks.  Throw in injuries/suspensions and our lack of squad depth, and that is almost certainly having an impact on our team fatigue levels, be it mental or otherwise.

A monumental effort from most of the players at the back end of last season, a very short pre season, a build up of fixtures, and it stands to reason that the majority of the players will be reaching the limits of what they can do at the top end of their performance bracket.

I do worry for our international players that will feature in the Euro's (and consequently world cups) as they will be getting virtually no real break over the course of 2 years.

McGinn is the most prime example, and Dean has to take some blame. Played every game for us, played virtually every minute for Scotland, it's no surprise his levels have dropped off lately. He needs a rest, and annoyingly its one position in the squad where we do have cover.

I think this, along with playing Barkely, are my two biggest gripes with Dean at at moment.

Exactly what I was driving at. Thanks!

1 minute ago, TRO said:

but that is not the view shared by the manager.....not saying you are wrong.....The manager refutes the notion that Covid or fatigue, plays a part.

If the manager, wanted to hide behind that, it would have given him a legitimate excuse.....but he chose not to abide by that.

Dean is an honorable man, and one I trust, to tell the truth.....He may have his views as to why the form dip, but clearly keeping his cards close to his chest.

Is Dean this first manager to shield his players and not hide behind an excuse. Also, I'm of the school that blaming things out if your control is pointless. You should focus on the items you can fix. 

It seems Dean tends to have that line of thought as well. So he isn't going to pull a Jose blaming the players, the lack of signing "x" player, or whatever other excuse he can find. I love that Dean steps up there takes the blame and moves on. Villa should be blessed to have a manager like him. 

1 hour ago, VillaFaninLondon said:

Exactly my thoughts. Our ability to give the ball away is really concerning - we may have had 70% possession last night but seeing the likes of McGinn and Traore lose the ball so cheaply was agonising. 

I made this mention in the match thread. The same 2 or 3 kept making the same mistakes.  I don't think it's a talent issue as we have seen them perform at high levels for multiple weeks in the past.  For me, mistakes like that are usually due to to a lack of focus or mental fatigue. Which, given the pandemic, project restart, no pre season, and a compressed fixture schedule is really not that surprising. 

I can't find the tweet now but I saw that Villa have been averaging a match every 5.5 days since the covid outbreak. That's almost a european campaign fixture spread and we definitely don't have the squad for that.  I think most of our team has ran it's race.  Mentally they are just wiped. This is where having a squad would come in handy but we just aren't there yet in terms of our rebuild. 

Will be good to see how Konsa bounces back from his first stinker of the season. The one thing I love about our CB pairing is they don't hide after making a mistake. 

It finally happen. So proud for the lad.

Just now, villalad21 said:

Apart from Jose there ain't any top tier manager available on the marked right now.

The Gerrard rumour may happen sometime in the future if he keeps improving at Rangers, but i can't see Dean not getting next season.

How is Gerrad a top tier manager? He won a league easier than the championship. 

Great watch.  Entertaining Villa is back. Just not the kind I like. 

Just now, DCJonah said:

Haha from day 1?

Brilliant. 

lol probably moaned away the 10 game winning streak. 

Just now, PieFacE said:

I wonder if Davis actually scores goals in training. 

I try to always be positive to fault with our players but I wonder that myself. 

Just now, OutByEaster? said:

He doesn't teach them to make daft unforced errors - that's not coaching.

It's the usual suspects with the brain farts. At some point players have to take responsibility. 

Midfield needs to do more.  Supposedly we have 66% of the possession. Doesn't feel like it because we keep giving the ball away. 

I've usually checked out by this time of the season since Villa wasn't in the Prem to keep my attention. Didn't realize how template most teams are at this point. 

Honestly, it simplifies the game a bit. Pick the 5/6 guys most people own and just get a couple of your differentials right. Captain choice can still screw you but that's a given every week. 

As long as you get 1 or 2 of your differentials right you can see at least a small green arrow. If you get more like 4/5 then it's .

24 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

That may explain why we seem to end up losing quite a few games we really might have won with the right attitude. You need to focus on winning games by hook or by crook in the premier league. Playing beautiful football is always nice as well but it’s the icing on the cake. If the players know they are going to get assessed on how they “performed” rather than whether they got the points in the bag, no wonder we have been slipping down the table.

This is the youngest team in the Prem. I feel it's far more important to teach them the right way to play even if it cost a couple points over a season. Over the course of the season you can't argue that performances have improved immensely when compared to last year.  For example, we went from not being able to beat 10 man Palace to wiping the floor with them while have 10 men ourselves. 

 Results matter, and Smith has delivered there as well. 3rd year on the bounce we have improved under his management. Long may it continue.