I’ve not been too active on here of late and I apologise for it.
Things have conspired against me somewhat and I was frankly too busy to find time to write anything on Friday.
The truth is also though, that I frankly just haven’t had sufficicient interest to be bothered.
It’s not that I don’t care. I do massively and that will never change.
But it just feels like the wheels have come off our season. It’s all a bit uninspiring, as is the football in particular.
We’ve looked clueless for at least a couple of weeks according to the vast majority of us , but I actually think we’ve been poor since pretty much the turn of the year and have said so.
It’s possibly just a poor run of form. Combine it with by far our most influential player in Grealish being out, coupled with Matt Cash, who for me has been eye-opening in showing how much we lack without him, also being injured and it’s all quite understandable.
The good news is that both will probably be back for the Spurs game and we’ll hopefully begin to see a pickup in our form.
What’s been concerning is how we’ve looked a different side with a drop off in form and a couple of injuries.
It’s not to be unexpected of course. After all, I wonder how many of us would have predicted that we’d be guaranteed safe this early in the season?
Certainly I’d got us tagged for 13th-14th, something in that sort of area.
So if we didn’t pick another point up this season, we’d have already done okay.
But as it stands we’ve done brilliantly. So much so that if you were to add in games, such as Sheffield, we could easily have been ten points better off. That puts you on a par with Chelsea and that’s without thinking about it.
Of course, if every team won the games they “ought” to, things would look different, but I’m sure you know what I mean.
The point is the season is already in danger of becoming a big anti-climax.
Which led me to thinking what we can possibly do to prevent a similar situation arising next season.
I know it’s all conjecture and speculation on my part and I’ve often said that I’m not a fan of that sort of stuff, because it’s invariably wrong.
But if we just call it what it is, ie 100% guesswork on my part, perhaps that helps clarify where I’m coming from.
So what do we need?
The goalkeeping doesn’t even need discussion does it?
Unless Heaton agitates for a move. The reality is he isn’t going to get a look in if Martinez is fit, so it’ll be cup games only. Would he be okay with that?
Even if he did end up going, we’d still be in pretty good shape and I’m not even going to counternance the idea that Martinez will be going anywhere.
We’re actually in good shape in defence too. Matty Cash is a great left back. I’d release Elmohamady for a last payday and just think Guilbert will be gone, regardless of what I think of him. So competition for Cash, it is then.
I should probably jump in here and say that I don’t understand how we’d we able to spend much money, but think that we probably will, which means we have to move up a level if we’re too improve. £10 million players are not going to cut it now, but the full backs is where you might get away with it.
Targett has done superb this season, but he also needs competition. Taylor’s contract is up at the end of the season and I just can’t see us renewing it. I some like him, but I’ve never rated him and don’t think he makes adequate backup for where we want to be. So a right back too.
Central defence is probably good enough too. I still have issues with Mings at times, but there’s no doubting that his game has improved. Hence I have to look at the statistics and admit that my opinion of him was totally wrong and we’re in a good place. I believe Hause is good back up as is Engels, even if I think Dean Smith isn’t convinced.
So we may see a central defender in, but I doubt it. We have bigger priorities.
Defensive mids and both Luiz and Nakamba are very inconsistent, but I believe Luiz has room for improvement and we should remember he’s totally pulled the strings for us at times. Nakamba is what he is and if we had boatloads of money, I might replace him. Otherwise I think he’ll stay and I’d be okay with that.
And then things begin to get a lot more complex.
The obvious one for me is Ross Barkley. I like him, because he has flair skill and all the right attributes. But he can be poor as well. Has he done enough to justify us buying him at £40 million or whatever it is?
As it stands, no, not by a long chalk. So he goes back to Chelsea.
Trezeguet? I really like him, but if I’m being ruthless, he goes, the same as El Ghazi. I don’t think they will, because they’re both good enough for the squad. Unfortunately we just need better.
Traore is listed in the official squad as a forward, but he’s more of an attacking midfielder type to me, so I mention him in section. I think he’s too inconsistent too, but he won’t be going anywhere and he will continue to feature. I’m fine with that as he does have something to offer and when he’s performing, is very good to watch.
Morgan Sanson won’t be going anywhere either, that goes without saying.
I can’t say I’ve seen much in Jacob Ramsay up to now, but he’s one for the future. I could argue that I think he’s getting too much time, but it is good that Dean Smith is keeping a lot of faith in him. The question for me is how long does he get to really start to show something?
And here’s one that might upset some of you.
How long does John McGinn get to start performing? It seems like blasphemy to even ask that, but if we’re being honest, the vast majority of us think he’s been awful ever since he came back from injury. How long do you give a player to start showing some form? Well, he gets the rest of the season. He even gets a while next season. But what happens if he hasn’t started performing by the winter window? It’s a long way off and I just hope he comes good before then. But the harsh reality is that he’s been nowhere near the player he was in his earlier Villa peak.
Again, we need better than he’s been playing.
Grealish doesn’t even need discussion.
And finally, Strikers.
Ollie is the main man and playing a blinder. He’s beginning to look very tired to me, but it’s to be expected.
He’ll still be the main man next season. The good news with him is he’s not the finished article and I look forward to him improving. I just hope we can supply adequately to keep his desire going.
Wesley will be the interesting one. I’ve said many times I don’t rate him, but that doesn’t mean I’m not willing to give him every chance. He’s been out for 15 months and reading between the lines, is still weeks away. I seriously wonder how that will have affected him and have a nagging feeling it won’t have been in a good way. No doubt we’ll see.
Which leaves Keinan Davis. I like him. When there was talk about him going to Derby, my Derby supporting mate asked what I thought. I replied that I thought he had the lot. Except that he just doesn’t score. We seem to like to hump the ball at times and it seems to me Davis is exactly the type of player you bring on to lump it to, as part of a close front two. He then just holds the ball, to relieve pressure if we’re under the cosh or he knocks down for Watkins.
Unfortunately Smith will not and never will play him like this. Hence my opinion says Davis playing in the middle with Watkins moving out wide, to not feed off anything Davis gives, means Davis is a total waste of time at the club.
If I was him, I’d be demanding to go out on loan to a club that would play him to his strengths or sadly, just bang a transfer request in. The money might be good, but the manager is destroying him as a player, in my opinion.
So where does that leave us?
Goalkeeping is fine. The defence is okay. The attack isn’t brilliant, but things aren’t desperate either. Could we use another striker? If Wesley doesn’t turn out okay, we’re definitely short.
Which leaves the midfield, which I believe is where all of our issues are. There’s not enough creativity and not enough goals. Grealish has got 7, as has El Ghazi. I’ll include Traore, who has 6. And then next highest is Barkley on 3.
And a massive issue is we don’t have a simgle player who puts a decent cross in. When Elmohamady is your best bet, there’s a problem. Forget Hourihane. I have and he will not feature next season because he just isn’t good enough in open play.
A lot revolves around how much money we have to spend, but I’d like to see a couple of quality midfielders in and would expect that’s where any money will be concentrated.
It’s been a very decent season, which has led to massively raised expectations, which is perhaps making our current drop in form seem a lot worse than it really is. I’d expect us to pick up again, especially when grealish and Cash are back and firing, meaning we’ll pick up more points.
Hence we’ll have progressed.
That’s about what most of us wanted isn’t it?
Apologies for me taking so long to get something up.
It took me ages to write that and I’ve had other stuff to look at in between.
Let’s just say I’m far to helpful to other people 🙂
Feel free to knock me down. I’d expect a few of my thoughts to not tie in with some fans’ views.
Is there any chance you could help me on my allotment then. ? We need to look at why players cannot measure a cross ball or lack of awareness going forwards, midfield is our major problem beyond a doubt Badger in my mind. We’ve shot ourselves in the foot on the European games and my guess is 11th or 10th finish for our season. We have to buy .
You’re right in saying that it’s a lack of creativity that is our biggest problem. Without Grealish we look like a relegation side. Barkley looked good early days but he’s not worth £40m plus huge wages so he has to go back to Chelsea. I believe our owners will back Smith although I expect as many players to leave as incomings.
I recently posted that now we reached the magical 40 points target, then why not blood some youngsters. Sink or swim! Unearth one future premier league player and save millions. This is the first season in a long time that we haven’t been either fighting relegation or pushing for promotion when it was too risky to play kids.
As for the Spurs game the cynical side of me says that Grealish will play because he wants to be part of England squad.
Creativity is key as the standard of defenses is at it’s highest and lumping balls into the box just doesn’t do it anymore, nor do speculative shots from outside of the box. It’s all about the measured pass into the space where you know your man to be. We’ve excelled at this many times this season with all our midfielders providing some superb through balls and cross field passes to Ollie in particular. We’ve clearly got the talent but can’t reproduce it in every game.
Not having JG is a major loss as he carries an enthusiasm and dedication that drives the rest of the team. Just his presence improves the other players around him – I think that Targett has admitted as much – and without Jack there’s almost a loss of offensive intelligence. Terrible to say it but he’s become a vital fulcrum and Smith needs to find another player or players to fill in the gap when he’s not available. We simply need to expand our squad and I think you correctly identified the weak areas.
As regards the season as a whole, I think it would be madness to even consider being disappointed. So far we’ve far exceeded expectations. True, we’re not firing on all cylinders at the moment, but when we do, we can beat any of the top teams. The boys have done well.
I can see why players like El Ghazi, Trezeguet and Hourihane tear opinion. On paper, they get goals, sometimes important ones and it’s hard to convince others that in between those goals, they do very very little. I think Traore has done enough to demonstrate he’s a threat but for the price we paid, we weren’t going to get a Mohammed Salah. I think both Trez and El G have had enough time to show that they’re not really going to improve any and we need to replace them perhaps more of a priority before competition for Ollie. I don’t think we need Berkeley – to me, Samson was brought in for that position expecting that Ross just isn’t going to cut it between now and the end of the season. I’d love to see us sign another young CB from the championship with similar potential to Konsa and let Engels go. Would like to see similar for LB position to compete with Targett. But I agree CM is a huge problem right now. Is it form? If not as you say, the end of the year, we’ll know.
Well it’s a funny old world, Ollie picked for England but Grealish has not.
Just going to comment on that Bill. The suggestion is that Grealish misses out through injury so I doubt we’ll see him back this side of the International break whatever Smith says.
Rather he wasn’t involved at this state anyway as I want him fit and refreshed for a push in the final league games.
Surprised Konsa didn’t get a mention. I think he’s a class defender and it’s only a matter of time before England come knocking. We need to sign him on a longer contract as a priority – we don’t need another ‘Cahill’.
Should have added – congratulations to Ollie; his call up on merit.
You would imagine Horseface has spoken to Smith or Grealish and knows something we don’t.
I’ll be surprised if Grealish starts against Spurs.
But it’s ok, there are things in our favour.
Thomas Sorensen has heard he’s playing.
And Smith did say he was only out for a game or so.
You really do have to laugh.
But yes, massive congratulations to Ollie.
As for Konsa, we signed him in July 2019, so he’s probably on a 4 year contract. Plenty of time there, I’d have thought.
Confirmed, a 4 year contract, with a one year extension option.
Aguero’s contract is up this summer and he wants to stay in the PL, allegedly. If this is true, could Emi have a word with his countryman and snare a monster of a marquee signing and spark a title assault next season? I’d save the very silly money quoted for Barkley and give it to Aguero in wages, with a bonus if he gets us top 4. The shirts sold would pay most of his wages! Just imagine it! I remember how excited I was when Ginola signed. This would be off the scale!
You heard it here first!
As for Dier selected over Konsa, words fail me, which is unusual.
🙂
Apparently according to lazy reporting, Emi is off to Man Ure to play second fiddle to Henderson. Also Citeh are favourites to sign Grealish for £100m!
Villa will use the money to sign Kane and Salah. 😒
But it’s not even lazy reporting, is it?
It’s just so far off the mark, you know it’s entirely made up.
I’m surprised they’ve said £100 million and not £45 million for Grealish.
Just read a stat that Spurs have lost all of their last 8 games against top half clubs. So who would be a good team to play to break that hoodoo?
And the last time we beat Spurs, Noah was setting sail in the Arc 🙂
Or Ark even – predictive text duh!
John McGinn interview is on Football Focus at 12 noon on Saturday. Think it would be well worth watching
McGinn. It seems to me he is another player, like Ray Graydon, who appears to have recovered physically from a serious injury, but has not recovered mentally. The McGinn who ran 40 yards at Spurs last season to score the opener has not been seen this season. I fear it is terminal.
Sanson. So far I have seen nothing to justify £15million. In the EPL you do not get the time to play the ball that he seems to need. It is a concern because there are numerous French players, often passing through Newcastle, who fail to repeat their Ligue 1 form when playing here.
You may well be right OLL.
For me I’m not prepared to write off either of them just yet.
I think it’s too early to judge Sanson; positives are that he’s two footed and runs well with the ball and I think there are signs of improvement.
McGinn’s loss of form is worrying but to what extent is it a product of Smith playing him in a more defensive role? I also think the introduction of Barkley has negatively impacted McGinn – imho it would be a massive mistake to make Barkleys move permanent.
Thought you might want cheering up lads. Ive every film they made. This ones for you Badger.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/astonvillafcATCB/permalink/2903311813247131/
Grealish out tomorrow unfit. another lie. Why don’t they say?
Bill, it was pretty obvious when he wasn’t selected for the England squad.
Hopefully he’ll be back after the ridiculous international break taking place where Covid rates around the world are a mess. Why can footballers travel when almost no one else can?
I despair.
That Hitch was my thoughts , it was pretty obvious him not picked and whether he play at all tomorrow. You’d think Hitch having such loyal fans a little respect in letting them know would be on the cards. I watched the under 23s yesterday and we do have a good load of talent coming through although we lost 4-3 to Stoke. I believe Grealish has brought this on himself due to not having pads and it will now tell for the rest of his playing life, clubs won’t and aren’t interested in moves for him knowing this. 10 place is my thought on our season and no more, still we’ve done well and I’m well pleased for them.
Agreed Bill. We’re not ready for Europe and, if we were to qualify – not that I think we will – the danger would be it distracting from next season in the Prem.
We’ve seen other teams prem league form suffer having qualifying for Europe without the necessary quality and depth in the squad.
Around mid table would be an excellent result after last season but we will need to strengthen further in the summer.
If the injury is due to not having pads, that’s totally unprofessional from all concerned, not just the player but management also.
He has to wear pads but he chooses to wear very small ones.
Both Arsenal and Leeds are ‘on our tails’ and in decent form. We’ll need to hit some form or we’ll be finishing in the bottom half of the table. That would be a shame after the exploits of 2020.
Sanson playing the Hourihane role this evening. Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Or not.
First mistake, concede a goal, more than likely we have now lost as we never come back from a goal down
Exactly, Adam. We’ll have to do something we’ve not done before. Any takers?
No 🙂
Spurs guaranteed 6 points every season,
Turned on late just as Spurs scored – that’s pretty typical for me.
No shots in first half and what I’ve seen has been abject crap – and that’s being generous.
It’s not over till the fat lady sings. Ok mistake by our goalkeeper give him that one. As for the game we are still in it. I can see efforts and that gives me hope .
I’m not impressed with Sanson up to now. He’s playing the No. 10 role but contributes nothing offensively. Trezeguet works hard but offers little danger to Spurs. Watkins again looks off the pace and Traore has a few tricks but I’m still not convinced. What’s worse is we are playing a poor Spurs team low in confidence with a makeshift defence and a terrible record against the top 10. Game is over now because we can’t turn things around when going behind. I’m getting bored watching us if I’m honest. If Steve Bruce was in the dug out I could understand it. No shots on goal FFS! Are we really a one man team? Who is more important for Villa, Grealish or Smith?
What do we need you ask? Quite a lot including a manager who can motivate. Leaving that aside – since Jack has been out the responsibility for creating chances and attempts on goal has fallen to ‘the rest’ of the midfield and attack.
Watkins excepted, that shows them up as bottom half, indeed relegation quality.
Olli needs to play with players who can shoot hard, because he doesn’t. Both of our wingers, Trez and Traoré aren’t good enough. Their crossing is poor though to be fair, they have very little to aim at, but they present no threat themselves. El G at least shoots at goal, but never does the alternative and pass to a better placed colleague.
McGinn, Luiz and to date Sanson have done nothing but defensive work adequately this season. We need a better engine room to move above mid table.