Huddersfield v Villa (Thin red line advance another 10 paces)

Its been quite a decent performance it seems, just going to be punished for our poor finishing, as its been said one shot one goal, will we ever have a bit of luck ??????

smetro wrote:
1 shot on target they score .......

(can he stop anything ?)

Can't tell without seeing pictures exactly what happened, so can't say, but he is useless generally.

Blackett-Taylor on.

To be fair the team selection looked balanced, they've stuck to a game plan and generally stifled Huddy, but if we can't score we're not coming away with anything.

Disappointed if we do lose, but lots of improvement, just so frustrated about missing chances and dodgy keeper (regardless of whatever happened tonight)

All over - lost 1-0

fvuk

I'm useless

goodnight

It's the story of our season. Play decent for a spell, miss chances and lose. That's Aston Villa for you. If we're playing 433 you need the two wide-forwards to be able to score goals. Adomah has three goals this season and Ayew/Green/Thor have two league goals between them. Until we get two wide forwards who can score 10 plus goals we're just wasting our time.

Lastly Hourihane needs to work on his finishing asap. Yes it's great he's getting chances but how many one on one can you miss? I count three now. He's meant to be the one scoring goals from midfield and I'm hopeful he'll come good but ffs you've got to take those chances.

fvuk

I'm useless

goodnight

Noses lost 0-1 to Wigan hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

Our choices of goalkeeper this season have been diabolical - really wonder where would have been with even an average keeper....

I know it has been said before but just how much did we spend on strikers this season, it is utterly pathetic!

Same old, same old yet again!

Normal service resumed once we play a team that isn't in diabolical form, really isn't good enough. One plus is that we're still eleven points clear of relegation, so we don't need to panic regarding Bruce, but we really should be making plans to possibly replace him come the end of the season.

And you've got Villa fans who are "happy" with that performance!!! SMH...is that how far we've fallen? That we can be happy with the same old bollox of dominating and NOT winning again?

Sheff Wed away= chance after chance in the second half, had them pinned in their box pretty much, failed to take chances and they score via Gollini's mistake

Bristol City away= Scored via Jack. Had chance after chance to extend the lead, failed again and they score via a mistake and that's that.

Brentford away= Chance after chance in that first half an hour, missed them all and fell apart.

Newcastle away= dominated the first half, they get half a chance, score and it's game over.

Leeds away= Gardner through, miss. Adomah through, miss, they get a chance, score and we lose.

Ipswich= Better team, missed chances and they score with first chance.

Forest away= Chance after chance in that game, get a man sent off and lose.

And these are just the loses!!!..several dropped points with the draws too. it's just so f#cking boring now.

Not saying I'm happy, what I am seeing is better performances and perhaps the first signs of that elusive stability we're after. Hugely disappointed in the result but we've given the third placed side a run for their money in the midst of an injury crisis.
2 weeks ago I'd have been cacking myself about this game, hoping we don't get a spanking. I don't give a shit about who we are or where we were, the fact is we're here, now, thanks mainly to catastrophic and suicidal ownership, so I'm working within that context, brutal as it is, it's where we are.
I think there are reasons to be positive,if not cheerful. I'll take positive, for now, cos I haven't even had much of that over the last few years.

De Kuip wrote:

smetro wrote:
1 shot on target they score .......

(can he stop anything ?)

Can't tell without seeing pictures exactly what happened, so can't say, but he is useless generally.

Blackett-Taylor on.

To be fair the team selection looked balanced, they've stuck to a game plan and generally stifled Huddy, but if we can't score we're not coming away with anything.

Disappointed if we do lose, but lots of improvement, just so frustrated about missing chances and dodgy keeper (regardless of whatever happened tonight)

I haven't seen it either. But we have had so many matches where they score with the only shot of the game. Im still supportive of Bruce - but what was he thinking putting this turkey in goal ?

It's a blessing we aren't going up. One of the biggest differences between this league and the prem is that you need to be utterly ruthless and take your chances. We can't have players missing sitters.

And I'm so over this one-shot/one-goal thing too. I'm not saying it's Johnstone's fault this time as I've not seen it but I'd like to know what his shot:save ratio is.

Isn't the whole injury crisis a bit of a red herring? Bjarnasson, Grealish and Green all out, but they all play the same position pretty much anyway, and even with them all out we've still got Amavi, I mean even before the injuries people were asking for him to be played on the wing. Hutton injured today as well, but he was replaced by the guy who's been brought to replace him.

Also were we really that dominant or is that people were listening to WM, and they tend to exaggerate, whenever we get the ball around the oppositions box.

The bottom line is the keeper is crap, we still don't get enough goals from midfield and our attackers alongside Kodjia don't score goals. I also have doubts about the Chester/Baker partnership tbh because a real quality centre-half pairing can win you points. We keep conceding soft goals with those two in the side and one of them needs to be replaced with a quality centre-half next season imo.

Sooooo obvious we would lose this that i only just bothered to look at the score.

Meh! seasons over anyhow so long as we win a few amidst the obvious crap losses we'll get then we'll stay out of trouble and hopefully get our injured team back fit in time for a better go at it next season.

We need a defender comfortable on the ball to go alongside Chester, doesn't have to be Beckenbauer exactly but just someone who doesn't panic and hoof it every single time, it just gifts possesion to the opposition and has been a problem for us for a while.

In fact I think we'll probably need a number of signings come the summer, more than the two or three that Wyness has suggested anyway.

Sounded like a better performance which is a step in the right direction, but to lose to their only shot on goal is again a big let down.

Why can't we score goals from the chances we create? a couple of good ones in the first half and hit the post. someone mentioned it earlier but our wide players either need to be very creative, or score a few goals and at the minute they don't. I'd like to see someone like Foristieri (completely wrong spelling i know) come in during the summer. looked very good everytime i've seen him play and could add that to the team.

i would also expect a very good and experienced keeper to come in, not sure who though.

3 wins on the bounce and a decent performance against 3rd place though is an improvement after what we've had to put up with these recent years. now lets do it again...

I also think this summer window will be the best a manager has had for a while as they can buy to strengthen the team/squad in areas it's needed whereas the last 2 has been all about starting from scratch as every position in the squad needed replacing!

Sounded like we were a bit unlucky with our chances. We'll get there.

AstonThriller wrote:And you've got Villa fans who are "happy" with that performance!!! SMH...is that how far we've fallen? That we can be happy with the same old bollox of dominating and NOT winning again?

Sheff Wed away= chance after chance in the second half, had them pinned in their box pretty much, failed to take chances and they score via Gollini's mistake

Bristol City away= Scored via Jack. Had chance after chance to extend the lead, failed again and they score via a mistake and that's that.

Brentford away= Chance after chance in that first half an hour, missed them all and fell apart.

Newcastle away= dominated the first half, they get half a chance, score and it's game over.

Leeds away= Gardner through, miss. Adomah through, miss, they get a chance, score and we lose.

Ipswich= Better team, missed chances and they score with first chance.

Forest away= Chance after chance in that game, get a man sent off and lose.

And these are just the loses!!!..several dropped points with the draws too. it's just so f#cking boring now.

From your opening comment, I guess you weren't there. Fact is the performance as a whole was much better. Yes the defence went to sleep for the goal - and we lost. Yes the attack if blunted partly by a maverick CF and we are not right in the the final third, but in the main this was a much better performance.

Oh - and lay off Johnstone. I couldn't see the goal in detail as it was at the far end BUT he looked much more confident last night and generally played well.

Gordonsleftboot wrote:

From your opening comment, I guess you weren't there. Fact is the performance as a whole was much better. Yes the defence went to sleep for the goal - and we lost. Yes the attack if blunted partly by a maverick CF and we are not right in the the final third, but in the main this was a much better performance.

Oh - and lay off Johnstone. I couldn't see the goal in detail as it was at the far end BUT he looked much more confident last night and generally played well.

Er is this another "I'm a better fan than you" line just because you were there? The game was shown on Periscope, plus the commentary was on BBC wm, so it's not like I didn't see or hear what was going on. Playing "better" means absolutely f#ck all when we've spent 70m this season. Losing in this manner has been the story of the season and it's getting tedious, fullstop.

And you can praise Johnstone all you like but the lad is a liability, it's as simple as that. That goal was soft and he barely even moved for it. And no the attack isn't "blunted" by Kodjia at all. But for him we'd be right in the mire. The attack is blunted by the fact that the people who play alongside him can't score a bloody goal, that's what it is.

AstonThriller wrote:

Gordonsleftboot wrote:

From your opening comment, I guess you weren't there. Fact is the performance as a whole was much better. Yes the defence went to sleep for the goal - and we lost. Yes the attack if blunted partly by a maverick CF and we are not right in the the final third, but in the main this was a much better performance.

Oh - and lay off Johnstone. I couldn't see the goal in detail as it was at the far end BUT he looked much more confident last night and generally played well.

Er is this another "I'm a better fan than you" line just because you were there? The game was shown on Periscope, plus the commentary was on BBC wm, so it's not like I didn't see or hear what was going on. Playing "better" means absolutely f#ck all when we've spent 70m this season. Losing in this manner has been the story of the season and it's getting tedious, fullstop.

And you can praise Johnstone all you like but the lad is a liability, it's as simple as that. That goal was soft and he barely even moved for it. And no the attack isn't "blunted" by Kodjia at all. But for him we'd be right in the mire. The attack is blunted by the fact that the people who play alongside him can't score a bloody goal, that's what it is.

No, this is not a 'I'm a better fan than you' Interesting that you take that line from the off.

Mine was a simple statement that the team played much better than your criticism implied. This is an opinion site that and that was/ is my honest opinion. And yes Johnstone did play much better last night. Sorry of you don't like my opinion, but that's life.

Regarding Kodjia, it's almost impossible for anyone to play with him as he takes everything on himself. Whilst this can be good on occasions, it must be intensely frustrating for others at times and maybe they no longer expect a return ball. It would be interesting to see Hogan in the centre, when fit, without Kodjia. Again an opinion but he supplies almost nothing to any other player.

A solid argument can be made for the position that we're improving week on week; especially in.light of comments from Huddersfield fans that our league position is false given the football we offered up.

Equally solid an argument is that which states that with the money we've spent, "switching off" shouldn't even be a thing. And failure to be ruthless and put away our chances - not just this week either - is not something that's anywhere near acceptable given the price tag, experience and expectations placed on this team.

I can see both sides. They're as valid as each other. I do wonder if, in order to try and vanquish the demons lurking about the club, if Bruce and his coaching team are fostering some kind of easy going atmosphere. That would certainly explain the lack of killer instinct and the casual approach of our defence at times.

But I'm not sure this is the case. I can't imagine Bruce is any less pissed off about the one-shot/one-goal syndrome than anyone else.

There's something not right though. Is it that we don't have a specialist defence coach or striker coach? Or is it that we're trying to specialise individual areas too much to the detriment of the team as a whole?

Is there confusion/conflict between how Steve Round expects us to play in order to develop a "Villa Way" that's against what Bruce wants to do?

When was the last time we put 90 mins together well? When was the last time we have someone a proper hiding? When will I end this post?

There's something still fundamentally not right at Villa. Maybe it's the old adage that you build from the back and our backs don't have confidence in the keeper? I dunno.