29 Sep 2020 21:35:05
Watched the Fulham game again tonight and have a few things to say about the performance in the cold light of day. First the good stuff. We scored 3 very good goals and took our chances well. Defensively seemed to be reasonably solid. McGinn appears to be back in some kind of form and hopefully his injury is well behind him.
Now the not so good. We cannot seem to hold onto the ball for any decent amount of time. Because of this we put pressure on our defence. I've said before that if we control the ball we have less defending to do. Fulham actually out passed us and had far more possession. Against a better team this could be a big problem.
As I said earlier I watched the game again knowing the result and to revel in the victory but also to cast a critical eye.
To finish on a positive I thought Trez played well in parts and Traore could be a real gem.
I'm sure some will see it differently but for me it was clinical finishing but not necessarily a great dominating performance.
Looking forward to the Stoke game where the 2nd XI will get a chance.

1.) 29 Sep 2020
29 Sep 2020 21:59:13
Fair comment Johnny, I happen to agree with you totally mate.
I have not said anything about the game last night, and have watched from a distance the views put forward.
Its amazing how a bit of honesty and truth, can generate the comments that have been made.

2.) 29 Sep 2020
29 Sep 2020 23:14:48
I'd agree with this sentiment, Villa are either all out attack or all out defence - We never seem to dictate the pace of the game, put out foot on the ball and maintain possession. But. recently that has been working for us.

I was speaking to a friend of mine last week, massive Liverpool and Ireland fan, he was raving about Hourihane and he laughed at me when I said "take goals and assists out of his game and what does he contribute"? That might sound stupid but I just feel the top midfielders are able to dictate the pace of the game and this is something he is lacking, he doesn't score or assist every week and in those scenarios you need your MF to add value in other ways. For me Hourihane would be better served as an impact sub and we need another body in the first 11 that can add what we are missing, composure in the centre of the park.

3.) 30 Sep 2020
30 Sep 2020 00:00:40
All fair points and generally agree. Its always difficult to analyse a game where to opposition have such obvious flaws. There's a reasonable argument to say that we took our foot off the pedal because we were three goals up and probably got complacent. too many flicks and tricks in the second half and allowed Fulham to play. but then we earned the right to do that by being up in first place. Only time will tell if we follow similar patterns in future games but this season is going to be strange as we've already seen with several results.
I'm inclined to think that we'll be a better team this year and have shown glimpses of real promise already. but several teams who you'd think would be battling at the bottom also seem to have improved. I think most people would see Fulham and West Brom struggling and then any one of 5/ 6 other teams could get dragged down too, but I'm certainly more confident in Villa's ability to pick up points than I was last year. Plenty of reasons to be positive but I think finishing outside of the bottom 6 would be a successful season all things considered. There will be plenty of ups and downs along the way but we have momentum and some exciting new signings so at least it will be entertaining! Utv.

4.) 30 Sep 2020
30 Sep 2020 07:02:35
Johnny I need to understand a bit more about what you mean when you say control the ball. If you are talking about possession then I am not sure I agree with you to be honest, it’s what you do with the possession that counts you only have to look at the Leicester game where they had something like 35% of the ball but scored 5 Fulham had a lot of the ball agreed but they largely played in front of us the only threats came down our left and that’s because both of our recognised left backs aren’t premiership quality and where I do agree with you is they will undoubtedly be exposed when we play against the better teams and I really worry that Salah will run amok on Sunday as If Targett can’t stop his winger when playing against the likes of Sheffield Utd and Fulham he sure as hell won’t be able to do it against Liverpool.

5.) 30 Sep 2020
30 Sep 2020 10:31:57
VJ yes I mean possession. You're right to highlight that possession doesn't always equate to results however, my point is that a better team would surely have made more of it than Fulham did and without the ball we have to do more defending which although we have 2 clean sheets it is against 2 struggling teams. We had spells of possession and looked good but not enough. How many times did our defence have to clear the ball? 30, 35 times. Holding onto the ball longer will reduce opposition chances.

6.) 30 Sep 2020
30 Sep 2020 12:55:37
Johnny I take your point but I must admit I am not a fan of playing our way out of defence all the time, there are times when playing it out from the back makes no sense and yet all teams do it and on occasions pay for it. There were times when Macca who I think we can all probably agree one of our best if not the best centre back we ever had would launch it into row z and there’s nothing wrong with that in my opinion. I think the problem is when we lose the ball we look unbalanced on our left side which is what I think needs to be addressed rather than just keeping hold of the ball for its own sake. Nice tone having this discussion after 4 wins on the bounce though 😀.

7.) 01 Oct 2020
01 Oct 2020 16:41:22
Fulham had the possession they did and created Nada.
Having too much of the ball just allows the opposition to get organised before hitting ylu on the break.

It's not how much of the ball you have, it's what you do with it that matters.
It might not work every game but don't try to fix something which is working for us. The passing is improving but not yet at a level we can reliably ping it around without giving away more/ worse chances.