Aston Villa Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours/Champions League Thread 2024/25

Moronic from Cash, absolutely dumb.

What can Smith do now, realistically...

Engels for Nakamba, play 3 at back, Traore as R wing back?

Ohhh jaysus, Nakamba for Barkley.

I suppose if you're losing might as well go all in, but jaysus we're exposed at the back now

This is one shyt match.

Testimonial pace

Nalz wrote: »

This is one shyt match.

Testimonial pace

10 v 10 for an extended period doesn't happen very often. Should come alive in the last 10 if Villa go for it.

Sky commentary said the Ramsey half time change wasn't injury related.

I'd be happy to never see the following in a villa shirt again:

Davis, Barkley, AEG, Traore, Nakamba

I'm losing patience with McGinn and Luiz too, they have no presence on the pitch.

Martinez kicking has been really poor tonight.

We are already in spain on holidays.
Best just blood the kids now as i said a few weeks back.
Be better for the club , and they might actually try

Esse85 wrote: »

He's not technically good enough. He's not able to beat a man out there.
Take away his attitude and effort and your left with a very limited player.

He is good in his central role, different skill sets. He is very quick to react to a ball, able to improvise and 'poach' chances. He's also got strenght and acceleration.

But as a winger he's not fast enough, especially dribbing to take on players. He can't 'sell' defenders either, it's obvious what he wants to do and block.


Amazing the difference in the team since the start of season, when Targett, Grealish, Barkley were terrorising defences. Without Grealish, Barkley has imploded and Targett has lost his freedom to get forward

Thing is though, as poor as we have been recently, the season has been a big success.

The new signings of Martinez, Cash and Watkins have all been good, big positions now sorted.
Defence has been solid, forgetting last few weeks, you only have to look at how many Fantasy teams have Martinez in.
Traore has his moments, Grealish is just world class, Luiz has been good.

So going into next season we now have a very solid base to build on, and a clear idea of whats needed. Better midfielders, especially a depth of talent there. A 'great' winger to upgrade on Trez, El Ghazi. Another option to Watkins - maybe Wesley's return will fill that gap.

Sort those shortcomings with 2 maybe 3 signings. Continue to develope Ramsey, start to introduce Barry maybe some other youth players, and hopefully we push on to next level next year

If you get beaten 2-1 by that Man City team you can accept it. It's not an awful result on the face of it but the performance was a different story.

We saw again a total lack of presence or impact in the middle of the pitch. You can expect to be outplayed tonight but we were dire in there.

Traore was hopeless but I was impressed by Ramsey. I've been saying play him wide left for a while and I thought he was tidy and had an impact. He finds the space. Tonight the space was in behind City and he attacked it. His substitution was a huge mistake.

Our play once they went down to ten men was as expected...Very very pedestrian like and it has been for nearly 10 games now. That was the time to go for it. We were so lethargic and there was a genuine lack of ability in the team to create anything.

This is very worrying going into next season. If we get our signings right we will kick on but if we sign poor players like Traore, El Ghazi and Trez etc then we will regress badly.

This will be our third season back in the PL. We are established again. We have money. There's no excuses now imo for not attracting quality players. Smith and the recruitment team need to earn their money now.

Of course if you sign 3 or 4 players then they all won't be successes but we need to get it right 75% of the time.

I've been watching our youth cup games and while there is obviously a huge jump in standard to senior football there is great talent in that side for sure. 3 or 4 have a genuine chance of being top class players imo.

I think Matheus Pereira is a player you should be targeting and bringing back a former player as an option off the bench might be a good idea, that player being James Albrighton whose minutes have been cut a bit at Leicester this season.

LeBash wrote: »

We've been poison since the Covid break. I'm not expecting a change this season. Maybe the Covid, maybe that many players 2 weeks without training or no training and they can't get up to a proper level.

I've been noticing everytime a commentator mentions Emi is 1 clean sheet away from Big Brad's record for a season, one goes in within 5 mins. It's like a cruel inside joke.

The team lost its ability to pass and keep the ball for some reason after the second half of the Burnley away game and never got it back.



We played against city away far better then we did last night and it wasnt just down to Jack being injured.



I dont know what happened us, but at one stage during the season in Jan we looked like a really top quality side on the ball, but overnight that changed and we have looked really average since then. CM's and wingers badly needed this summer.

circadian wrote: »

I think we're looking good. Even without Jack. It looks like the team is fatigued and burned out now. We need more depth and some better quality in there too but I don't think we're too far off the mark.

Could be that, we have used very few players as a squad, and Smith is loathe to even make subs early. The likes of Konsa, McGinn, Targett, Watkins must have played almost every match so far without break

Edit: Mind you, that's no excuse for last night as they had had 11 days without a game

https://twitter.com/AVFCOfficial/status/1386364409480634368


Elmo in for suspended Cash is understandable...

El Ghazi for Ramsey.....OK

Barkley for Nakamba..... ah here


Edit: Just noticed Wesley on bench, that's good, some match practice before season end, and chance for Smith to see if a year out has affected him, and do we need striker in Summer.

Also another youngster on bench Bidace (without copy and paste I'm not trying full name). Google says he's a left winger, would be so sweet if he was an option to El Ghazi next year

Barkley gets the reward he deserves for his inspired substitute appearances.

Esse85 wrote: »

El Ghazi has a few goals against West Brom from memory.

2 CBs, a left back and DM on the bench, shows the lack of dept.

I hope Wesley gets a few mins.

There's 9 subs, that is normal.

Is sanson injured? Hasn't been on the bench for the last couple of games

Realistically the choices for today were ramsey / davis for Barkley / el Ghazi. I'd have preferred to see ramsey but we have a lack of depth in attack

Peno.


jaysus Villa are playing abit like City here, lots of flicks and tricks

El Ghazi from spot makes it 1-0

Barkley fouled for peno, and I'll say it - it was a foul but he made a meal of the contact