Villa (a) Post Match Thread

[El Jefecito]

I thought Alonso was cool and composed again today, at present his main problem is a complete lack of width which instantly negates his range of passing and quick footballing mind. Get some fluidity in our attack and maybe a winger (or two?) and we will see the best of Xabi, of that im sure. Whilst im at it I thought Barry was merely average today, and hes usually like that when i see him play.

See that is where I disagree. The problem today and at other times has been that he doesn't get the ball off quick enough and by the time he does the defence has got tight to our players.

He has got to mix his game up more. Most teams know that when he gets the ball he is going to look to play the long raking ball to the strikers/wingers. Now If I was a defender I'd be loving it as I know all I need to do is get tight to them, put my self between them and the ball and then it's almost impossible to hit them no matter how much they move.

A more rounded CM would run forward into space, create an overload, go into a zone that forces a defender to make a decision and then based on that play the higher percentage ball.

The quick give and go stretches the play and creates openings, but you never see Xabi do that. Likewise he hasn't got the short killer through ball you associate with Benni/Fabregas, so again his options are limited.

For sure it'd be easier for him with even more movement but as I've pointed out he's not helping the situation. The days of the Moblyesque CM are gone and Xabi is beginning to look a bit like an anachronism.

[Johnny]

My problem is none of our rivals will go to Villa Park looking for a draw, it's about the intent. Barcelona just lost to Numancia, they had 28 shots on goal and hit the woodwork, they also kept the ball etc. OK it didn't happen and a defeat sucks but they had a go at least.

I just don't like the way we play football and our mentality. Did Friedal have to make a save today?

Ngog,Kuyt and Keane all had decent chances.It`s not Rafa`s fault they just missed.You like to forget that Gerrard didn`t play and Torres pulled up injured just so you can push on with your agenda.

[Johnny]

Rafa, good football? You mean that?

Give over,it`s getting really really boring now.You think if you say it enough it will make it true.i`ve a feeling your going to look really stupid when Torres,Keane,Gerrard,Babel,Ngog and Kuyt start playing well together.You`ll go missing as usual then like you did last season.Top of the league mate.

[Johnny]

What do chelsea aspire to?

Because they toiled at Wigan and drew at home to a rubbish Spurs today.

I dont think we were crap today. Maybe i saw a different game from Villa Park than i may have done on TV, but i thought we were ok, we showed more in wide areas in the 2nd half and put some decent quality into the box.

We were without our two best players and it showed in the final third, but we defended well, we were decent in building our attacks, just lacked top quality in terms of actually finding a goal.

I dont know what people expect really, i'm bewildered. Are Villa some second rate nobodies? Not from where i'm standing. They're a very good side, the 5th best in the league for me, and we went to their place and held our own without Gerrard and Torres.

Dossena looked very useful going forward, got high up the park on a regular basis and delivered decent quality into the box.

Mascherano was immense, full of power and energy, and MOM for me.

Pretty solid at the back, Reina made a couple of decent saves and N'Gog looked useful. Keane's slowing coming into his stride and Lucas was fairly decent too.

Let's see how Arsenal, Manchester and Chelsea do at Villa Park. I'd be surprised if more than one of them takes 3 points.

People need to gain a sense of realism.

Excellent post.Top of the league is not good enough for some.

[Elvoz]

if your happy with yesterdays performance you need to take a look at your expectations
dress it up how you like and im no andy gray fan but he was bang on

[Rix007]

We had no Gerrard and no Torres, and Villa looked ****, we should have gone at them there is no hiding it.

Agree ...Even without Gerrard and Torres, we should have done well. We can't keep making excuses that Gerrard, Torres, Mash, Babel is missing or that player..This is a team game and we should have capable backup players to complete the task.
Question, what if Torres and Gerrard is out for the rest of the season. Are we going to say our whole season is stuffed cos of that. We can't only rely on Gerrard and Torres to save the day. We need to have players step to the plate and play. Rafa also needs to get over this playing for a draw mentality..Call a spade a spade, no hiding from the fact we are ****e at the moment.
We need to play to win, we play not to lose. So a draw is acceptable, NOT...Against the top 3 sides, a draw is good. Against the likes of Villa and Co, we need to win.

[Rix007]

if your happy with yesterdays performance you need to take a look at your expectations
dress it up how you like and im no andy gray fan but he was bang on

[No9]

if your happy with yesterdays performance you need to take a look at your expectations
dress it up how you like and im no andy gray fan but he was bang on

I simply cannot listen to the Bluenose on Sky....

One comment had me in stitches, "Rafa has come here to win 1-0"......... how the hell does a manager of a premier league team set his team out to only win 1-0? any manager with such narrowminded tactics would be hammered week in week out....... you set a team up with a mindset and initial tactics and adjust as the game progresses, that mindset is to WIN and the style and mindset you instill in your players should mean that if they follow your instructions and you have got it right you will get the points, be it 1-0 or 10-0.

I do agree that some of the positions our players play in is odd at times, but if the players took on the fluid style that Benitez seems to be trying then it would work, it just seems that the players havent quite got it yet.......which is not helped by the Olympics and important players like Torres having a long summer and new players like Keane not settling in yet.

We look terrible at the moment, but only when we are in the last 3rd of the pitch. We seem to control possession everywhere else and keep the ball (and remember it was against a top(ish) team away from home that we did this) most of the time but just struggled to pick out the killer pass in the last 3rd to open them up. Its been the same for all the games. We just dont seem quick enough to pick up new positions when attacking and see them quick enough to pass to, if Rafa gets this sorted then we will be much much better and I see goals a plenty from Keane, Torres, Gerrard, Babel and even Kuyt. At the moment we just seem concentrated on keeping possession by passing it backwards and sideways, now we have that sorted we just need to work on picking out the killer pass and move....until then we will always look ****e

[Tee]

if your happy with yesterdays performance you need to take a look at your expectations
dress it up how you like and im no andy gray fan but he was bang on

absolutely agree.

The most frustrating element is that we have the bloody players to win, and win well!!!

[FatTony]

Excellent post.Top of the league is not good enough for some.

Doesn't do it for me sorry.

Firstly, lets not kid ourselves here and pretend we were good until Torres went off. We were poor and created nothing.

The choice of midfield was dubious to say the least. Lucas, Durk, Xabi and Mascher....that lacks on so many levels it beggars belief.

This is the Villa team who let Stoke City score 3 times against them last week and Rafa sets out a midfield with every intention of getting a draw.

He then proceded to leave Babel on the bench, brought on new boy Ngog and replaced Kuyt with Aurelio...bizarre.

The choice of line up was negative and the subsitutions were negative.

I'm sick of people stating we're top of the league...its 3 games in FFS. The position doesn't really matter at this stage, its meaningless. If Rafa had played his best players (which I don't think he even knows who this is 5 years in) and they played poorly then so be it, it is early in the season and **** happens, but it was never going to be any other way with this 11.

This feels like a defeat because the performance was that bad. If Liverpool Football Club cannot go to Villa Park and try and win a game just because their two main players were out after spending £200m or whatever it is, then this to me is a shocking state of affairs and paints a very poor picture of where Rafa has taken us (queue sarcastic Istanbul and Greece). Wenger has had to rebuild his squad on a fraction of this, and I mean rebuild in the last few years and they were still in the title race several months after we predictably fell away before the new year.

Its the same old excuses from those die hard rafa supporters, its time to wake up and smell the coffee, its never going to happen.

[The_weatherman]

Doesn't do it for me sorry.

Firstly, lets not kid ourselves here and pretend we were good until Torres went off. We were poor and created nothing.

The choice of midfield was dubious to say the least. Lucas, Durk, Xabi and Mascher....that lacks on so many levels it beggars belief.

This is the Villa team who let Stoke City score 3 times against them last week and Rafa sets out a midfield with every intention of getting a draw.

He then proceded to leave Babel on the bench, brought on new boy Ngog and replaced Kuyt with Aurelio...bizarre.

The choice of line up was negative and the subsitutions were negative.

I'm sick of people stating we're top of the league...its 3 games in FFS. The position doesn't really matter at this stage, its meaningless. If Rafa had played his best players (which I don't think he even knows who this is 5 years in) and they played poorly then so be it, it is early in the season and **** happens, but it was never going to be any other way with this 11.

This feels like a defeat because the performance was that bad. If Liverpool Football Club cannot go to Villa Park and try and win a game just because their two main players were out after spending £200m or whatever it is, then this to me is a shocking state of affairs and paints a very poor picture of where Rafa has taken us (queue sarcastic Istanbul and Greece). Wenger has had to rebuild his squad on a fraction of this, and I mean rebuild in the last few years and they were still in the title race several months after we predictably fell away before the new year.

Its the same old excuses from those die hard rafa supporters, its time to wake up and smell the coffee, its never going to happen.

Rafa should have done better but I think there is something mentally wrong at the club, Rafa and the players seem distracted. We have the thing about Xabi and Barry which probably affected Gerrard as well and other players, then we have Keane coming in with a huge price tag and he takes Gerrards spot as well.

I think Rafa knows he didn't handle the Xabi thing that well and is trying to patch things up there, we have players leaving as well like Riise, Crouch and Kewell who have been here a while and/or were well liked by other players.

Then there are the clowns at the top who are intent at messing everything up, and the squad players are probably scared ****less that they might be sold as everyone was up for sale bar some key players.

I think there is mental problem, they can't get into "flow" as their confidence is not where it should be and their heads elsewhere.

[ntto]

Have to agree to some extent with FatTony. Strange starting lineup and even more strange the substitutions. For me Babel should have been brought on instead of N'Gog - he's quick, direct and with a ferocious shot. N'Gog for me was very disappointing, he's passing was some of the worst I've seen from a top half premiership team.

What worries me even more is we lack some basic technical skills - we seem unable to zip the ball flat and into feet, kill it immediatley before passing it quickly onto the next player. Lots of passes yesterday were bouncing or bobbling and taking more effert from the receiver that it should. The old "pass and move" has deserted us.

Another major worry for me is how isolated our players have become on the ball. Give the ball to Torres or Gerrard and let them do something with it seems to be the tactic. The pass that Torres chased and got injured was a terrible pass, Torres was the only liverpool player within 50 yards of the ball, so even if he had controlled it, he'd have had 4 villas players around him that he'd have to get passed.

We're too rigid, we have no fluidity in our play - and all too often we rely on a moment of individial brilliance from somebody rather than patiently building up play, stretching teams and attacking as a unit

[beabeasdad]

I thought Rafa's plan was basically good. Negate a free scoring Villa team (Sunday was the first time they hadn't scored in 15 games) then catch them on the break.

Would have worked if Torres hadn't gone off then we had to play a workaround.

It wasn't pretty but it was effective. I think we'll get better. "Playing poorly and winning points..." etc

[Kenneth]

I thought Rafa's plan was basically good. Negate a free scoring Villa team (Sunday was the first time they hadn't scored in 15 games) then catch them on the break.

Would have worked if Torres hadn't gone off then we had to play a workaround.
It wasn't pretty but it was effective. I think we'll get better. "Playing poorly and winning points..." etc

Really? I'm not so sure.

We set ourselves up to be ultra-defensive against an attacking Villa team. When Villa turned out not be be attacking at all, it took us a very long time to do anything different. And when we did we did it poorly. It was a poor negative selection to start with. The Subs were laughable. The same problems are there that have been there in all of our games so far. And we play UTD at the weekend. Good job they've been **** too or I'd be very worried.

[Elvoz]

i think we all agree it was not a good performance and worryingly we have not played well imo at any stage this saeson bar the final 5 v boro

we are also not scoring goals early - **** knows why

we have the players to hurt most oppostion if they are allowed to play without the shackle that rafa has put on them

im afraid to say rafa does not appear to of learnt anything re last years pit falls
we had an opportuity to go at villa y/day end the day top with maximum points and bubbling going into playing the scum

now once again we are nervy