I’m not going to dwell on the Palace game too much, as most of it has been said already here and elsewhere, save to say that their handball goal should have stood and Grealish, in all honesty should have been booked for trying to deceive the ref.
The performance was adequate and it seems many sites gave very decent player ratings for most of the team.
But being realistic, I think the truth is that it was more about Palace being very poor. Even Taylor was rated as very good, after all and we all know how he’s rated by the Villa fans. Good professional yes, but by no means a quality player.
Perhaps I’m being harsh.
You can only beat what’s put in front of you after all.
And anyway, it doesn’t matter what I think; all that mattered was us getting the points.
Which we did.
Grealish looked brighter, but seems to have lost a bit of attacking instinct and seems to hesitate at times. He certainly should have shot first time in the play that led up to the non-penalty, imo.
Elmo did well, as did Trezeguet, in the second half at least. I pointed out a couple of weeks back that he looks our best hope as a finisher lately and seems to have better positional sense when we do threaten. So much so that I wonder if there would be any mileage in putting him up top?
Nah, it’s a daft thought and it’s too late anyway.
Which leads me nicely into the Everton game.
I watched bits of their game against Wolves and they didn’t look very good. The classic “they’re already on the beach” definitely sprang to mind, with even some of their own players admitting that they lacked desire and need their backsides kicking.
Which is what I think the game will boil down to.
Who wants it the most?
There’s no doubt the Villa lads worked hard and played for each other yesterday and it was good to see, as it means we ain’t quite down just yet.
For me, our best hope is that Everton don’t fire themselves up. Our luck says they will, but it’s hard to see how. They have nothing to gain, after all, apart from maybe a few quid in position money and it’s hard to see that motivating the players much.
I’m too scared to predict the score, because I don’t want to jinx us, so I’ll just say I’ll be keeping everything crossed come kickoff.
And then, I can’t finish without commenting about Man City.
CAS mostly overturning UEFA’s decision is horrendous and scary.
This has now moved all the power away from UEFA and towards the clubs.
In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if FFP is dropped, because it seems it’s unenforceable.
A German paper, Der Spiegel, found evidence that Etihad sponsored the club for £67 Million, yet the airline itself only paid around £8 million or so, with the rest paid by the Abu Dhabi group.
How can they get away with this?
Every man and his dog knows this is bent.
The worrying part is a Football expert who helped write the FFP rules said on the Beeb that if we’re not careful, the European game will be controlled by just three middle Eastern entities, which are basically countries (Saudi, Abu Dhabi and the UAE).
How on earth have we let it come to this?
Actually, it’s probably quite easy to answer that.
Football has sold it’s soul to pure and unadulterated greed.
And Sky and the Premier league are the most guilty.
I strongly suspect that those of us who said the Premier league will kill the game are slowly being proved right.
Shit 1-1, Konsa nets trying to keep it out.
Despair again 🙁
Christ!!!!!
Sorry but the inability to tighten up the back when yr in the lead, that’s the managements fault.
All season we have allowed wing backs a free cross. Inevitable.
I was a shit full back 40+ years ago but if i allowed a crosser that much time my team mates would give me such a bollocking.
The basics have gone.
El ghazi !!!!!!
Disgraceful tactics sitting back inviting pressure.
Everton stepping it up a gear.
I’m not convinced that’s good enough for us.
Despondent, but thinking about it before I post.
Gutted, f gutted.
No we are sitting back
so close yet so far away. turning point for me was el ghazi missing a simple tap in, he made a great run around the back onto a delightful grealish cross. but some how el ghazi cleared the ball rather than just side foot it into a open net,
we couldnt see the game out sounds like the story of our season. we are just not good enough at this level and this moment in time. but can not fault the effort. we tried our best and bust a gut giving our whole.
lots of our games could have gone our way had we had more luck and more quality at times. we miss too many and concede to many by our own doings our own mistakes,
hope the boys give arsenal a good game, its not over, but last chance saloon is up next, if we took this down to the wire against hammers i think thats the best result all round. i predicted we would survive just, but even i didnt expect it to go down to last game last kick. my poor ticker is still in for a bashing yet
Gutted but not going to fault our effort.
As Nath says we’re just not good enough at this level. What we don’t want tomorrow is a draw – a Watford win would probably suit us best.
The fat lady continues to tune up her vocal chords 🙂
I disagree. A West Ham win would suit us best because Watford have got Man City and Arsenal to play after that.The Hammers have Man Utd then us. I am probably tempting fate by discounting Bournemouth because their games against Southampton and Everton are games they could easily win.
The bottom line is,defeat to Arsenal and we are down.If we can still have our fate in our own hands when we get to Stratford,I would take that now.
Sums up the season really. Can’t see out a game, in game management extremely poor again, miss an open goal and then concede a horribly poor goal.
It’s the fine margins in football – El Ghazi should be throwing himself at the ball but again gutlessly wimps out and then stays down for a couple of minutes feigning injury. Really is sickening.
Forget Watford and West Ham – its over. We needed to win OUR games, we failed and deserve to go down.
Its gutting to concede so late but in my gut i could feel it coming. We are Villa after all. But until its mathematically impossible I will retain some slim hopes of pulling off a mission impossible.
Basically if we get 4 points from our last 2 games
Bournemouth manage only 3 from last 2
And either West Ham or Watford fail to get anything from their last 3.
Its clutching straws but its still a possibility. A draw tomorrow night will kill us off I think.
Story of our season. Most goals conceded in final 15 minutes! 😡
Our overall display, particularly in the second half deserved a victory, but our feeble defence let us down again. Walcott with a header when Targett goes AWOL yet again. Also like already mentioned, we concede so many unnecessary crosses that it’s always likely we will concede.
We blew a chance to turn the heat up on Watford and West Ham. The fact is that we are where we deserve to be. Only Norwich have been poorer although they didn’t spend £140m!
When you analyse our signings, the fact is we have signed duds.
Wesley for £20+ million probably had 3 – 4 decent games before he was injured,
Mings for the same amount always looks like he will cost us a goal.
El Ghazi, Trezeguet and Jota have been massively disappointing.
Nakamba is industrious but loses possession constantly.
Guilbert and Targett have both been awful. I actually think we defend better with Elmo and Taylor.
Samatta came in and showed early promise but looks more like a pub player post lockdown.
Drinkwater and Baston on loan simply WHY? WHY? WHY?
Heaton was decent until his injury and Reina on loan has been okay if we exclude Leicester game.
Konsa, Engels and Hause have all been hit and miss. I sometimes think they will improve if playing consistently, but all of them have been in and out the side, which hasn’t helped in forming an understanding between the back line.
I have left Luiz till last. Post lockdown he has been head and shoulders our best player. Pre lockdown though he was inconsistent like Nakamba who he shared game time with in the CM position. Unfortunately just when I think he would be outstanding in the championship, I think he has raised his profile enough to bag a transfer to stay in the premier league.
140m spent on a lot of average players without premier league experience and all lacking leadership except Mings and Heaton.
We should have seen it coming at the start, but we hoped that we were ‘unearthing’ gems that other clubs had missed, when actually only Villa were stupid enough to make the same mistakes we always do.
There’s that saying, “you get what you pay for” we bought shite and we’re getting relegated.
Apologies for long post. Hopefully our owners won’t do a Lerner and they will persevere. They too need to learn from their mistakes however!
UTV and KTF 🙂
Goalkeepers. If you take the GK’s who have played the most games for the EPL clubs and rate them in order of performance, you will get a list that closely matches the final EPL league table.
I am a lone voice in this blog who groaned when we bought Heaton because he concedes too many goals. Look at Burnley now. Better keeper higher place in the table. I hoped Raina would be as good as ever, but he seems to have have declined. Yesterday’s concession an example. Walcott is poor at heading a ball with power, but he is accurate. Walcott knows that and goes for the looped header to the far post instead of a power header to the near post. Raina should know it also – and cover the back post. He didn’t.
Villa came up because we had a better goalkeeper on loan than the GKs we had on our books. If we go down then a new #1 is the #1 priority.
to be fair when you head from the position Walcott was. his only option was back post looping header. and for the goalie Reina he was positioned correctly. he had to cut the angle down and cover the near post position as that was the easiest option. so for me it was down to a well taken headed. looking at it from villa point of view, we should have done better to cut out the source (cross) reina would have been at fault if he protected his back post when the danger was near post. you can not expect a bluff as goalie you just have to cut down the angel and be on your toes to react
Holte66. You summed up AV to a tee its my view on our team we bought shite and all season we have suffered we done a Fulham. VTID
That’s the problem Norman. We saw what Fulham did wrong last season and copied them. The incompetence of those who oversee our transfer activity is staggering.
are we watching the hammers and hornets play out a draw. i am just to make sure they do not cheat. i heard its best if one wins over the other. i really do not know which result is best. all i hope is we go out and beat arsenal.
villa have run of of games now and also run out of excuses. time is now no tomorrow. no point looking to hammers on last day. everything has to be left on the villa park pitch against arsenal.
all season we have been the architect of our own downfall. i think if we had cut out the mistakes by half we would now be save. if we had better FAIRER decisions by half we would be save now. defensively and i mean without the ball not just the back four / five if they had been better like they are playing now we would be save.
finally wesley if he had not got injured, i believe he was just starting to find his feet. he had improved up to the burnley game and he was really good in that game, not only was he more of a goal threat than what we have now. he was more mobile just as good at holding the ball up as davis, was better passing of the ball and was good at seeing a decisive pass forwards. its no coincidence we looked blunt on the offence without him. with him he was just finding his feet but we looked far more dangerous with him in the team.
look back at luiz before the lock down, he never put in this sort of performances after lock down, he had more time to address his communication skills. he was lost before not quite at the races, wesley had to be given the same time to adapt. its bad transfer policy to expect two young lads to come over and not speak the lingo and expect they fit in straight away. luiz has proven he is class and so will wesley
Watford and West Spam probably already agreed to a draw!
Off topic but it’s beginning to look like WBA are going to miss out on automatic promotion – again.
West Ham 2 Watford 0. After 10 minutes play.
West ham 3 Watford 0 …