Bad
Serious problems remain, however. Leandro Bacuna is barely more of a Premier League right-back than I am, and though the superb Riyad Mahrez gave Jordan Amavi a rough time on the right flank, one shudders to think how much worse the damage would have been if the Algerian winger had been up against the Dutchman instead.
Alan Hutton is hardly Cafu but at least right-back is his best position, and to be honest I find it hard to believe that he would be a worse choice.
Another potential option would be to move Richards out to right-back, where he has played before with distinction. There are two issues with this, however: firstly, Richards is reportedly keen to play only at centre-back, and as captain he is likely to get his wish; secondly, he is a big improvement in the heart of defence, and his two excellent pieces of defending to prevent Vardy scoring showed the quality that we would miss in the centre of the backline if he was moved wide.
Meanwhile, the bizarreness of the selection of Gabriel Agbonlahor as the lone striker was only mitigated somewhat by the lack of other options. Yes Gabby’s pace caused some problems on the break, such as for Villa’s second goal when he also did well to set up Gil for the Spaniard’s stunner, but he is just not a direct danger to defences anymore and hasn’t been for some time.
I don’t think of Gabby as a ‘striker’ anymore, because that term implies that you occasionally do actually strike. If Christian Benteke was our chief weapon last season, Agbonlahor is the gun loaded with blanks that we now rely on as an attempted deterrent, hoping that nobody will realise that it is effectively useless.
Rudy Gestede has failed to impress since coming on to score Villa’s only winner of the Premier League season so far, and Jordan Ayew has yet to settle into English football, although that is admittedly something which comes only with game time. Libor Kozak, in good form pre-season and who netted the winner for the Under-21s on Monday night, surely has to be worth a try in the coming weeks.
Ugly
Losing a game in which you were 2-0 up with 18 minutes remaining is not acceptable in any form or in any situation. Sherwood and Villa had to close the game out – we needed to shut the door on Leicester’s attack by reinforcing the midfield and making it difficult for them to find any foothold back in the game. What we actually did was the exact opposite.
This was an implosion the magnitude of which we haven’t seen in a long while. Villa missed Idrissa Gueye’s energy in midfield, particularly as the game wore on and Carlos Sanchez tired. Sanchez is undoubtedly a good ball-winner and was one of our best players for the first hour, turning the ball over in midfield and acting as the first step in building our own attacks. However, after that point he crumbled, reverting misplacing passes and being caught on the ball, the latter of which directly cost Villa a goal late on.
Sanchez is an important cog in the midfield now but the pace and intensity of the Premier League catches him out in the final third of games, particularly in high-pressure matches such as Sunday.
As a result of this, he should be one of the first candidates to be substituted in games around the hour mark, particularly when Gueye, who appears to have far more energy than the Colombian, is alongside him in the midfield. However, I ask this question seriously: when was the last time that Villa had a manager who was proactive rather than reactive in his substitutions?
Tactics Tim sure as hell doesn’t fit that bill at the moment, and he, Ray Wilkins and the rest of the coaching staff need to improve at recognising the danger that Villa are consistently in of throwing away games in the second half. The fans can see it coming a mile off; we need them to be able to prevent it.
Sherwood was absolutely crushed in his post-match interview, the first time I’ve ever seen him like that. Perhaps it is a good thing, then, that Villa have such a crucial week ahead. At the end of February last season we had just lost 1-0 to an utterly woeful Newcastle United side, Sherwood had been in charge of two games, losing both, and we were sat in 19th place.
We then beat West Brom twice in the space of four days, a week which kickstarted a mini-revival which saw us win five of our next nine games in all competitions to move clear (well, clear enough) of relegation and reach the FA Cup final. It may be an entirely different stage of the season, but with Albion in the league up next and the first second city derby against Birmingham City for four-and-a-half years, three days later, we could really do with another double-derby-win week.
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Daniel and Dave are right. However if the 2-0 was the problem coaching systems crap. The moment England lost the world cup after1966 was Leon Mexico in 1970. England 2-0 up ramsay took off Bobby Charlton to rest him for the next game. WIth the captain gone, west gemany took the English midfield apart, won 3-2
Ramsay never recovered nor Engand. Villa have a chance to do so. The web site comments have all been very good. If we can seeit, so can tim.
we hope. Agree with Dave, water under the bridge. Saturrd ay 110% support, especially in t he last 30 minutes. No booing the lads need total support
trevor fisher
Judging by Sherwood’s manner post match I think it came as a far bigger shock to him than most of the fans. As agonising as it was to watch I wasn’t one bit surprised by what happened and I’m sure the same could be said for most Villa supporters as throwing away 2 goal leads is something we have unfortunately become accustomed to down the years (United and Arsenal spring to mind). I’m no expert on Sherwood’s career but I wouldn’t be surprised if he has never experienced this before as a player or coach. My take on the situation is that Sherwood thought it was virtually impossible to lose that match with 20 or so mins left no matter what substitutions he made, the fact he has since defended his substitutions would suggest to me just that, as naive as it was. He simply could not see what we the fans could see was coming. The guy was literally shell -shocked post match. So in conclusion, now that he has witnessed what the fans have witnessed so many times previous I am hoping that he now sees what we see and will have hopefully learned his lesson, and if he hasn’t hopefully Wilkins and co will have the foresight to have a word in his ear.
losing goals late on goes back. Wolves (1) and Notts Forest (2) in the friendlies were indications the team switches off. The confidence of Sherwood and his tactical stupidity combine. He was deflated in the BBC interview in part because he knows there is something wrong in the mental shape. You could not imagine a pulis team ever doing this. Its attack v defence on Saturday unless the training is right this week. Pulis teams do not score many goals but they sure as hell do not concede many
what role does Wilkins play? He must see all these late goals and have a view.
TrevorFisher
if Gil had to come off, it was Veretout on in his place, Gabby off for Hutton, push Bacuna up into a 4-5-1 and look to put Sinclair in on the break as we absorbed their attempts to run at us. That and probably about another ten permutations all of which would have been X10 better than what Sherwood actually did. The fact that he put out a bench with only one recognised midfielder on it (I’m discounting Richardson) didn’t help either. When Gil scored, Ranieri already had his two subs on the side waiting to come on so its not like Sherwood couldnt see what was coming – and btw a two-subber is something that has to be premeditated (not a spur of the moment type change at all) so something that should have been countenanced by Villa in their prep during the week. I struggle to think of a Lambert sub-frick-up as bad as this one.
I’ve read so many of these blogs and at first I was gutted but i do think there is light at the end of this tunnel. eldoradoslim has it right, the players are there but we have a owner, manager and team all learning at the same time, Tim should look to advice from Ray and Co that has to step up and advise him especially when the fans got what was happening right away, just hope we have time to get it right, UTV,