I couldn’t get a preview post up, because I was simply too busy doing other stuff, apologies.
Whatever, it didn’t matter as the ref’s decision to pull the game back after Lansbury had scored what seemed a legitimate goal, led to quite a few replies anyway.
Okay, we lost this game, but to be honest, I’m not really bothered about that.
We’ll lose a lot more games this season, without a doubt and the reasons why are much more important than a ref’s decision.
So what went wrong?
Well, if you asked me to rate the players, the only one who would score over 5 would be Heaton, who I’d probably give a 7-8.
I then struggle to rate any other player above a 5/10.
A comment that I don’t think I’ve ever made before, which strikes me as odd in itself.
I can’t put my finger on it, but we got this one totally wrong.
The wingers were totally non existent, our midfielders didn’t get a look in, whether attacking or defending and was Wesley on the pitch?
The fact that John McGinn was equally anonymous today, says it all.
It takes some doing for him to not get into a game.
Unless we give Crystal Palace and Roy Hodgson some proper credit in saying that they totally negated anything we tried to do.
Yes, you can bitch and moan about the goal that wasn’t given, but quite simply, Palace bested us in every way.
We had a bright start, but Palace over-ran us at will for most of the game, because of their pacy attack.
Of course, it didn’t help that we had four bookings on our part, before Palace got their first and that no doubt makes players nervous.
But I have to say that many of those bookings were deserved, if you’re a ref who’s reading everything to the rules.
Which is where things should have been replicated on Palace’s part.
Yet they weren’t.
There was a blatant stamp, that went un-punished very shortly after one of our players had just been booked for the same thing.
How does that work?
I’m moaning about the ref, but it doesn’t matter.
When you’re in the Prem, you have to overcome this sort of stuff, as it’s what happens.
I personally think today was a reality check and a glimpse of what we’re going to see much more of.
You win some, you lose some.
But we have to be way better than we were today.
Even Mings looked rubbish, imo.
Badger I’m just as gutted as you, how can any team with a ref like that be safe in a match, the league should take a look and say, any fouls in the striking distance should warrant VAR full Stop. That ref stole the game away from us with a point. Ok over all it was Palace that made the mark, but its the name of the game. We lost a point.
Bill, I think you miss my point, which is I don’t think we deserved one, because we were so poor.
It’s more important, to my mind.
No Badger I didn’t, that’s not the point, its football and its in the game, you don’t concede even when a team takes 95 % , we was robbed of a goal and you don’t say we didn’t deserve it. It’s in the game Badger, win or lose.
And we’ll be given a questionable goal, somewhere along the line, Bill.
It’s how it is.
But we were utter dogshit today and that worries me way more than a one-off decision.
Bullshit badger surprised at yo the fact is we were rob of a goal it was blatant bad reffereing as many pundits are saying one of the worst decisions seen on a football pitch but as you say never mind we played shit
I have given myself time to calm down. I have watched MOTD on Sunday morning and guess what? I’m furious again. Why?
I had previously read that the ref had blown his whistle before the ball was struck by Lansbury. However, MOTD made the visual
Point how the refs hand was at his side when the whistle was blown . Does this mean the ref genuinely thought he had blown the whistle when he had not or is it something more sinister?
The outcome to either question is that this referee is not fit to referee in the Premier League. Further, Villa should do all they can to stop him officiating any other of our matches.
I agree Badger that we didn’t deserve anything based on our performance. Mings and Engels have had far too much on their plate in the first 4 games. Our midfield is too lightweight and has offered little protection. Going forward we haven’t shown enough either. Trezeguet didn’t deserve his first yellow IMO but once on a yellow card he made a foolish tackle and gave the referee no option. Jota has done okay but elsewhere apart from CB’s and Heaton (despite giving a penalty away v Bournemouth) we haven’t had much else to get excited about. Changes need to be made after international break. Davis, Hourihane and Lansbury should be considered. El Ghazi started slowly last season but flourished when he settled. I prefer him to Trezeguet so far. Also I would consider Hause or Targett over Taylor who was poor today. One thing that is noticeable is physicality in this league. The opposition has dominated us in this area and even McGinn is getting caught out now and again.
Having said all that, it’s still early days and our players are adjusting to the demands that come with playing premier league football. It doesn’t help when you have inept, London / top 6 biased refereeing to contend with.
Keep the faith! Dean Smith and his coaching team plus the best owners we have had will eventually bring us success.
Nath, I think someone went to the ref and said watch Grealish he goes down easy , that twat had no guts because he was worried being a home team he might get harm at some stage, I believe their was trouble after the game. He’s a weak ref,
the are videos of police with their baton swinging, at a poor villa supporter, one villa supporter was being dragged out of the villa seating area, but villa fans where grabbing him back. then one police officer starts swinging at anything in claret and blue. another cop pulls that cop back. also stewards have been accursed of baiting / goading the villa fans.
he was bad referee before yesterday game, but he keeps his job, with all these experts calling his decision a joke. you wwould think somebody from the premier league, would come out and condemn his decision to disallow . but i heard they have backed him.
So VAR is supposed to ensure that poor decisions are overturned – bo**ocks. What it does is disallow goals on the finest of margins.
Badger, I didn’t see the game and I don’t care a toss whether we ‘deserved’ a point or not but it seems pretty certain that we were denied a perfectly legitimate goal by shite refereeing and VAR failed to do what it’s suppose to do.
OK we’re biased claret and blue but it seems in 50% of our matches so far we’ve been the subject of poor (some would claim biased) refereeing decisions.
I look forward to the days when it goes the other way but I’m not holding my breathe.
On a different note went to a fantastic house today Abbey-Cwm-Hir owned by a Villa fan who, on the personal tour, took the piss out of the Blues / Baggies teams and fans and has decorated a number of rooms in claret and blue. Highly recommended – look it up. (apologies for the advert!)
It was an odd game. I felt sure Smith would substitute one of the yellow carded players at the interval and had an eerie feeling when he didn’t; then Trez made his second offence and was off. I thought it was harsh and also thought that Palace had lighter treatment from their Friend when it came to their bad tackles.
After that we were under the gun but oddly, we seemed to cope fairly well. I thought that Davis was excellent and really made a difference. He should cause Smith pause.
Unfortunate result, but Palace are certainly no push-over. We should not feel disheartened and I felt that at times we played some very slick football… and then there was the goal….
football games are always influenced by referees, unless your the big club or London based,otherwise you will find yourself on the end of dodgy decisions.
the referee yesterday was so poor,it ended up being the difference between the two side.
nobody has said we were great yesterday, few make the point we were poor and deserved nothing. but had the referee not made a balls up at the end, we would be now talking about a good point earned away from home, when your up against it, with the crowd and referee
hard to comment on game, we wasn’t at our best. but the referee was so harsh on villa first half, we were consistently up against 12 men. i said before palace made the same amount of fouls and of similar standards. but ended the half with no cards.
palace game plan seemed to be wind up villa players, like the stewards were winding up the villa fans allegedly. before taylor was late on zaha to earn yellow. zaha laid one on taylor in what was almost identical foul, but one difference zaha got nothing. grealisg was shoved off the ball two or three times and was told to get up. but the truth was it wasn’t shoulder to shoulder. it was a barge. = little things like this wind up players and palace used the referee to win that game,
also somebody put” we were awfully negative” well we were sent out no different, to how smith normally send us out. but sometimes you cant influence the game in the way you want to. being the opposition job is to stop you doing your job. add this to the referee not doing his job and you get nothing in a game, which you should have earned a point in.
quote from tyson, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
Their you go, motd deemed it to be the worst decision from a ref, as I said no dive and didn’t use the VAR, he should be relegated to ref in amateur football.
I’m a hard person when it comes to my football team the cheating swine.
i totally agree bill 100%
i stand by my first assessment we got cheated out of a point. whether we deserved it or not, its still a point robbed by a corrupt referee and it wasn’t by accident, he was looking to rob villa from the first whistle.
i missed motd last night and again this morning, but i seen what all the top pundits say on twitter, that ref won’t receive any discipline in fact nothing will be made of this. swept under the carpet. its only villa after all
Just watching Sunday Supplement on Sky and the main consensus was that the issue of VAR is taking away from a shockingly poor referee decision.
I’m confused about VAR though because one minute I’m hearing that VAR couldn’t be referred to because dickhead had already whistled for a dive. Next minute I’m hearing that VAR was consulted and it wasn’t considered to be clear whether Jack had dived or not, so in that instance the dickheads decision stood.
Does anyone know what the point of VAR is? If VAR WAS consulted, why wasn’t there a delay? Some games they have taken 2-3 minutes to make a decision because replays need to be viewed from different angles. Surely if VAR was used it would have been clear that Jack had been fouled as he was charging forward and did amazingly well to lay ball off as he was falling.
I’m well pissed off! But it’s only Villa so the experts and London mafia media won’t give a shite.
nobody really knows what happened. most think the referee decided it was a dive and decided to instantly blow for that. he definitely booked grealish for the simulation. clear as mud innit. the are stories var was consulted and they agreed it was a dive. so there you go, probably only two ppl who thought it was a dive was the idiot who ref the game and the other was var
Things will even out over the season…they did yesterday.Might be wrong but thought we go away with one against Everton…Trez fouled their bloke in area when it was 1 nil and no pen or VAR…
Villa should appeal Grealish’ yellow card – see how ‘those in authority’ react! There is no doubt it should be rescinded and the referee sent to the ‘naughty step’
Friend has a poor reputation as a referee – how come nothing’s done?
There will be games this season where we will (hopefully) get points even though the other side played better. That’s football.
However, when you’re up against a biased referee who can’t wait to blow his whistle, even though we have VAR these days, then it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. If footballers can get yellow and red cards for clear transgressions then why not referees? Kevin Friend is no stranger to controversy after all it was over Friend that Klopp copped a £45,000 fine for guess what? Bias in favour of a London club.
Perhaps things will even out, perhaps not but rubbish referees are not something we should have to put up with in the Premier League.
I see the Premier League have come out with a statement which is absolute nonsense.
VAR decided Friend had not made a clear and obvious error – well must be the only ‘person’ in football (barring anyone associated with Palace) that came to that conclusion!
Just at the moment I’m hating everything associated with the Premier League.
Hitch, I agree that the statement was ridiculous. The problem is that Friend blew the whistle. If he hadn’t then the game would not have been affected and VAR could have had a look at whether the goal should stand. The statement smacks of refs backing up other refs even when they are clearly in the wrong.
If refs are professional paid officials then there should also be a system whereby they can reprimand a ref when he’s at fault and even ‘relegate’ them to lower leagues. After all this is the case in any job in any walk of life.
This is what makes fans seethe, refs publicly fuck up but (apparently) nothing is ever done about it.
One thing’s for sure, any non-London club who gets Friend in future will be groaning at the thought.
The premier league is all about looking after the top 6 and the London elite. It’s one of the reasons why I found the championship so refreshing. Any club could beat another and despite the officiating being poor we all enjoyed the games we played (mostly anyway)
Realistically we knew it was going to be tough to survive this season. Teams promoted through playoffs haven’t got a good record.
Are officials intimidated by big name established premier league players? Much easier to punish clubs whose players are new to the show.
I think the truth is that Friend is incompetent and he has been for years. Wherever you get a major refereeing row he’s usually involved. That being the case what’s being done about it?
The refs secret society PGMOL are supposed to be monitoring refereeing standards but they are about as useful as a chocolate teapot. There is no transparency whatsoever so fans, players and owners are all left in the dark.
It wouldn’t change the result but at least fans wouldn’t feel quite so furious if they knew that the ref in question was going to be e.g. suspended or face a fine or anything really.
PGMOL is a fucking shambles and not fit for use.
I’m sure it was Kevin Friend who also made the absolute bewildering decision to give Chelsea defender Ivanovic a yellow card for deliberately elbowing Christian Benteke in the face when Villa played at Stamford Bridge a few seasons ago. It was clear violent conduct and therefore a red card. I think, just to add insult, Ivanovic went on to score the winning goal. I can’t say that I was entirely surprised at yesterday.
Watching Arsenal v Spurs game and why on earth didn’t Xhaka get a card for Spurs penalty? Premier league refereeing is a joke TBH, and as for VAR well……
Christ what is wrong with you all, Badger is spot on, yes we were robbed of a point, however, we didn’t deserve that point as we were total carp.
What he’s saying isn’t rocket science.
The main point is, we have to be miles better than we were today or it’s Championship football next season.
What worries me is that we beat Everton at home, then thrash Crewe, yet played yesterday like a side low on confidence and bereft of ideas.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong.
Nobody’s disputing that our performance was below par but we never gave up and for that alone we deserved the point of which we were robbed by terrible refereeing. Not just the decision that denied us a perfectly good goal but also the harshness (and one sided nature) of the first half yellow cards which ultimately led to Trezeguet’s dismissal.
Or perhaps you believe that Friends terrible decision was justified because we played poorly?
Hitch, have you seen Trezuguet’s offences?
Both were correct decisions, imo.
It definitely seemed that Palace players were let off somewhat though, which is the point I made in the OP.
Another point that we could look at is the fact that Jack has a rep for diving (I think it’s wrong, but Young was the same, because of his skinny frame). Maybe Friend had that in mind and just assumed he’d dived?
Even so, I don’t see how it affects the goal being scored, but just putting it out there?
Bore off Hitch, seriously, if you have taken what i have said and translated that into me saying that Friends decision was justified because we played poorly then you are hardly the intellectual you parade yourself to be on here on a daily basis.
The point is the bigger picture here is the performance and tactics, simple, go and join the rest of your cronies in the corner, you annoying wally.
Mr ‘guest’, if you’re going to come on here and insult regular posters who make valid and valued posts, please be more polite, seeing as you’re a ‘guest’. I wait for you to call me a ‘wally’ or something worse…to save you the job, yes, I know I’m a pretentious asshole.
Badger, please don’t allow posts like this. Obviously the site is open to everyone, but regular contributors shouldn’t be personally insulted by passers-by.
Passers-by …. amazing.
I built this website you wally.
I’ve been posting on here for years, i just do not come on here very often anymore as there seems to be a clique of posters who do not like differing opinions, there’s a reason there’s only about 8 members on here now.
HItchens reply to me was a thinly veiled attempt at a wind up, he knows full well i wasn’t suggesting that Friends decision was justified because we played badly.
Badger is welcome to ban me if he pleases, absolutely no skin off my nose.
I stand corrected; well done for building the site. I didn’t ask Badger to ban you; I asked that personally insulting posts not be allowed through, as they serve no purpose; the site you built is ‘a community’, and communities generally function better when its members respect each other, even when their opinions differ. There are plenty of different opinions on here, so I don’t know how you came to that conclusion. Show me one person in the world who likes it when someone disagrees with them. So what you’re saying is somewhat bizarre.
Ironically, it would seem that we agree on the problems with the team’s tactics and personnel. So your site is working perfectly. We agree on some things but not on others; you should post more often!
It’s not my site, it’s Badgers, I just re-built it with a new look as the old one was dated, i’d love to re-update this one with a completely new design but i just don’t have the time.
But the point is i’ve been on here for years.
I’m not trying to be insulting, when i say Wally i actually mean it with affection, i call my son a Wally, i call my friends Wallies, it’s not like i dropped the C-bomb, i mean no malice.
If we all agreed with each other there would be no debate, so i am personally happy for anybody to disagree with me, but comments like “Or perhaps you believe that Friends terrible decision was justified because we played poorly?” are designed to irk, and Hitchens has a terrible habit of thinking he speaks for everybody on here.
However, i wish no harm.
And yes, i totally agree with your post further down, and with Badgers view point on it, which i feel is being missed in anger by others.
Oh, and thanks for explaining the general ethos of communities to me, you really do learn something new every day.
See you are still pot calling kettle black ‘Guest’.
Don’t think anyone on here disagrees with Badger in that the performance for the most part was poor. What we have witnessed however is one of the worst refereeing decisions not just in a Villa game but ANY game! It might have been an undeserved point but come the end of the season it could prove crucial. The Arsenal game just proves the inconsistency of refereeing. Martin Atkinson somehow waited till the 90th minute to show a yellow card to Xhaka even though he was lucky to still be on the pitch for a 2 footed lunge to give away a penalty (where was VAR?) and another definite yellow card offence midway through second half. Kane took a dive at the end of the game and didn’t get booked! Much worse than Grealish incident. VAR was used to determine an offside against Arsenal and it took a while but they came to correct decision in the end.
Consistency for fucks sake is what we should be getting at the highest level but officiating and VAR is proving to be a joke at the moment.
Hah, I knew this post/my opinion would be controversial.
But it still applies.
Look, we had a poor decision go against us.
And indeed, it cost us a point.
But are some of you so naive to think that this shouldn’t happen, or anything’s going to be done about it?
I’m fuming just as much as every Villa fan, trust me.
But it’s done and we can’t change it.
I suppose us moaning about it generally might help, but I doubt it, tbh.
The game overall is geared to suit Sky and that’s where the complaints should be aimed at, imo.
We’re participants in a money making machine; a male soap opera, as much as many of you won’t like me saying that.
What do you think “Super Sunday” is about?
Us and everyone else complaining about what was a shocking decision is all part of the Prem and maintains the soap.
My final comment is a question;
Would you have been as angry if we didn’t have that incident, yet still lost 1-0?
My opinion?
No way.
We’d be discussing how we got this game totally wrong and lost convincingly.
Which over the season, is the way more important part.
Sorry, but that’s the truth as I see it.
Now that the dust has settled, our problem is clear, and it’s almost identical to this time last season. Bruce left us with no defence, and this time last year, we were saying we have to hang-in until January, when it can be sorted. Smith sorted it. Fast forward to today. I’m not going to say that Smith has left us without an attack; that would be extremely harsh. However, we’re paper-thin in the most critical area. So once again, we have to hang-in until January, when at least one potent forward must arrive.
We think we play with 3 forwards but we don’t. Liverpool are the model; they have 3 out and out strikers who are natural finishers and whose movement can’t be handled by most defences. What do we have? A bulky striker who holds the ball up well but has no experience at this level, and two wingers, both of whom are unproven at this level. Trezeguet looks way out of his depth. So we have a problem, because if Smith wants to persevere with impotent wingers and one isolated striker, we’re not going to get anywhere. Rather than buy an extra winger, which looked possible before the window, I’d like to see a change in approach, and at least 2 pacy strikers brought in, with good movement and who can finish, and who will play on each side of Wesley. Failing that, the wingers must play further up and closer to Wesley, or we’re going to struggle.
There is also an argument that at this level, Grealish and McGinn in the same side is risky if they’re not producing goals and assists, as they don’t offer enough ‘steel’ against well-drilled PL teams.
This is what Dean Smith gets paid for and he needs to sort it. For me, the two wingers don’t work. I’d seriously consider reverting to the Wolves model and going 3 CBs (we have the players there). Ironically, Traore and Enda Stevens both had superb assists this week. At the moment, the system isn’t working, and still has remnants of Bruce’s regime. Work to be done over the international break…
Perfectly said.
P.s. their goal came from us having possession in their half but Jack hoofed one straight to their goalie. A few seconds later, they’ve scored. Shouldn’t happen.
And if it hasn’t been said enough already, booking Jack for diving was scandalous and must put serious question marks on Mr Friend. Jack took two hits, but carried on and played the pass. Cahill, a bulky CB who made the second foul, went flying from the impact he made on Jack. So did he dive too? Absolute disgrace of a decision and the referee’s integrity must be called into question.