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

artanevilla

I'd say the Southampton defence are happy with the night off.

CSF

Looks like a bunch of lads who have never met before.

BBC quick summary on the Football Social simply said “not much to say, possession split and no shots on target”

after 34 minutes. Sounds like a brutal game

CSF

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119628103#Comment_119628103

Yeah, it’s a weird feeling being 1-0 up in a game like this.

OneColdHand

Kamara off injured? Typical. Hopefully its not serious.

artanevilla

Tripe absolute tripe. Tactically hopeless. No width, goes out to the full back, no support wide, back to the defence, rinse repeat.

JPA

That was turd. Does any other team have worse ball retention?

Still, 3 points is welcome.

Esse85

Shows how bad Southampton were.

Despite all the warnings and red flags, nothing changes, he has to go yet this win has just extended his tenure and slightly covered over the mighty cracks.

CSF

Weird to watch a win, and be even more sure that this is not the guy. A progressive club would pull the club now rather than waiting for a sacking time that would be deemed acceptable by the UK media/Talksport brigade.

rebelomar

Absolutely dire. There was no sense of a plan and we were totally out of ideas early. Southampton were awful which is why we won. We were bad. They were worse.

Nobody sprinting past Coutihno when he had the ball....surely that's a no brainer. Ramsey used to do it constantly when Phil first arrived.

The team is getting worse. His spiel about going back to being solid might be lapped up by Carragher and Neville but it's not by the fans.

The team and players individually have regressed under him. The red flags are increasing every week.

In my own experience when you see players so afraid to take a chance or be creative on the ball it's because the environment is wrong. I believe he's exceptionally harsh on them behind closed doors and the confidence is draining from the players.

None of the players look happy. The ones who have played well like Buendia and Luiz dropped again. Carragher backing up his buddy now with his snide remarks about our players is every bit as bad as Neville was with Ole.

I wanted Gerrard to be a success. I saw glimpses last season where I really thought we could kick on but it's been dire now for a good while. Gerrard looks lost both tactically and on the line without Beale.

Hopefully we improve and I'm miles off.

LeBash

Beundia was everywhere last night when he came on. Didn't do much other than the through ball to Warkins that he left 6 inches short of a good opportunity but he looks like a guy pushing too hard to get his place back, which imo he shouldn't have lost.

CSF

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119629919#Comment_119629919

You’re right, but Coutinho was good last night to be fair to him aswell

Panrich

I think we can expect Kamara to miss significant time based on what’s going round and a tweet from the club wishing him a speedy recovery.

chases0102

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119632690#Comment_119632690

wow....just....wow.

Back to last year's team so.

CSF

Digne injured now too. One of the worst bits about it is that it’s gonna create more and more excuses for Gerrard to stick around.

pavb2

After the Southampton game Gerrard came out and said we were going back to basics, it wasn’t pretty to watch and we were taking a more pragmatic approach. What I don’t understand is that during his tenure we’ve hardly been playing scintillating, exciting all out attacking football, the approach up until now has hardly been you score 2 and we’ll score 3.

We did have some nice passing interchanges against Southampton but invariably the moves broke down in the final third, so while we can admire Coutinho’s slinky touches they were by and large ineffective and rather pointless.

So what style are we actually changing from? What is the new philosophy?

Bounty Hunter

2 months for Kamara supposedly.

Esse85

Didn't realize Austin MacPhee is currently assistant coach for Scotland as well.

Amazing seeing McGinn in a Scottish jersey, like he has a twin brother playing for Villa. Night and day. Regularly gets into the box for attacks, sometimes he's the highest man forward, as a result he does far less Hollywood style passes.

JPA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119660868#Comment_119660868

Simply tactical. Push him right up and he has a much bigger impact. He's a poor passer and tackler.

The ideal scenario for Villa is that he's a sub and comes on in an attacking role.

jacool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119664851#Comment_119664851

You need that ref to do all his games as well, as he is a bad tackler. Then he can hack away all night, kick the ball away, and not get booked. He's on 2 yellows from 7 appearances in the Premier League. His record is 12.

Panrich

More turgid stuff against a poor Leeds team. Two very poor sides so far, and a bit of a nasty undercurrent as well.

OneColdHand

Augustinsson off injured. Our back ups now getting injured.

Esse85

Leeds with 10 men, this should be a 3 pointer.

artanevilla

Brutal stuff.

remoteboy

Dunno why we’ve waited until 82 minutes to bring Ings on.

artanevilla

Remember when people were worried Man City would activate Douglas Luiz's buy back clause?

rebelomar

Watkins limitations really on show today.

The team has lacked creativity and a spark of course and he's tried hard but his end product has been hopeless.

We're a poor team at the moment lads.

CSF

There’s just nothing there. This team has no idea how to attack. Doesn’t even look like that’s even coached. He has to go tonight but unfortunately I feel this misery will drag on for some time yet.

remoteboy

it’s all so predictable and easy to defend against. No ideas.

basillarkin

whats the problem with buendia lads? any time i have seen him, he looks decent, tries to make things happen and he does work back when losing the ball

OneColdHand

The problem with Buendia is that he's not Coutinho. There's only really room for 1 of the 2 in the team, and Gerrard is always going to play Coutinho.

Esse85

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119693427#Comment_119693427

He hasn't performed in the games he's started in.

Beginning to wonder whether there's something in Coutinho's contract where he has to start.

Gerrard has devalued every asset we have since being in charge, will go down in the same breath as Remi Garde for me.

CSF

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119693536#Comment_119693536

Garde was given a poisoned chalice that was almost certainly going down barring management heroics. Gerrard has taken something promising and turned it into poison.

LeBash

That was a seriously hard watch. Listened to the first half on newstalk and shouldn't have bothered with the second half.

Leeds went out to make sure we couldn't play and we kind of helped them. Buendia was very good when he came on and at least made things happen, McGinn must have ran more than any other 2 players as well.

1 full back at the club will be a great crutch for the management team to lean on I reckon.

rebelomar

Depending on how bad the injuries are....do you recall Kaine Kesler?

On Gerrard.. it looks like he's made a firm decision to be soild...similar to what Lampard is doing at Everton.

That just says it all for me...he's out of ideas and I doubt this coaching ticket's ability to coach and organise the team into a coherent attacking system.

I've said it already but Beale was a big loss to Gerrard even if we were running out of ideas towards the end of last season too.

Gary Mac just looks like he's there for the paycheck. A miserable looking sod.

Esse85

Gerrard clearly doesn't fancy many of the players, when you setup so negatively and don't encourage players to express themselves etc. Just seems like survival mode. Batton down the hatches and be tough to beat.

While I don't like Gerrard or want him as manager, I'd love to hear his honest take on why the 12 months have been so awful. Are the players simply just poor and fans like us just have blinkers on and can't see that?

Can imagine his frustration having played with the likes of Owen, Rooney, Torres and Suarez and then having to manage absolute dross like Ollie Watkins, a complete disconnect.

Panrich

Gerrard seems to have totally lost his way. He also seems to be an arrogant character and has rubbed up many of his squad the wrong way based on how many are in his sin-bin.

Yes we have looked harder to beat in the past few games but it’s not very entertaining to watch Martinez time-wasting after 15 minutes yesterday.

pavb2

I think most of us would agree that Ollie should have took one of his chances yesterday and will criticise him for it but Gerrard as the manager even if he thinks it he shouldn’t go public as he did. He didn’t specifically mention Ollie but his comment that ‘it was down to individuals not taking their chances’ obviously refers to Watkins.

The problem is that Gerrard will probably start him for the Forest match

sc86

I'm finding it hard to watch us now and can't stand our manager , sooner he's gone the better

pavb2

Steven Gerrard reported to have said that he promises to give Emi Buendia opportunities but insists he won't be handed starts just because he's AVFC record signing - SG wants more consistency.

if that’s the case he really is deluded, Buendia has been our best player by far since the last few games of last season.

OneColdHand

If he actually said that, its a pretty silly thing to say. Aside from the fact that Buendia has been decent, how is he supposed to be consistent if he doesnt get starts.

Panrich

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119721991#Comment_119721991

Up there with saying Mings had to look him in the eye to get a start. Look at Archer as well. Sitting on the bench without ever getting a chance except for a couple of minutes in the EFL cup against L 1 opposition.

I can’t wait to see him sacked.

CSF

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119723929#Comment_119723929

This, so much. Can’t wait to be excited about the future again.

pavb2

its crazy with the sentiment around Villa at the moment that a win would put us into 9th and 4 games unbeaten.

Given the chances missed at Leeds, Ings and Buendia have to start tonight.

LeBash

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119726348#Comment_119726348

And I doubt either will. Not sure what he has against starting Buendia. Ings is hit at miss.

Esse85

Buendia is in.

Watkins remains in the side.

Ings on the bench.

OneColdHand

Cash is back too thankfully.

Esse85

1 down already, awful defending.

I didn't think it was a free kick to begin with.

Zero pace in the side.

remoteboy

can we sack him yet?

circadian

**** abysmal. Really need to get a bit of urgency into the game to get anything. 60%+ and we've seen nothing from it.