Aston Villa 4-0 Saints - Match Thread

[woodsaint1]

5 hours ago, Nordic Saint said:

Ironically, we let both Chambers and Mings go and they looked far superior to Bednarek and Stephens. But, I'm optimistic that Salisu and Valery will form a good partenrship.

Wouldnt want either near our side. Yes they looked better today, but we barely troubled them. Mings and Chambers have been very average the last season or two.

Valery may have stepped up when called upon in cup games, but longer term he isnt the answer I dont think. You dont suddenly go from being a squad level RB to a starting PL CB. Its a completely different ask.

We need to tie Salisu down longer term and add another quality CB to partner him. We should look to move Bednarek on in the summer. Problem is we have 4 CBs who are 3rd/4th choice quality at PL level, but only one who is good enough to be a regular starter

[Saint86]

Watched the motd highlights only. But every single attack on there involved an unmarked coutinho receiving no pressing and doing whatever he wanted. Bizarre tactically from us of all teams. 

We were due and off day however, and you would hope his was a fluke for both us and villa. 

Edited 5 March, 2022 by Saint86

[JRM]

7 hours ago, Saint86 said:

Watched the motd highlights only. But every single attack on there involved an unmarked coutinho receiving no pressing and doing whatever he wanted. Bizarre tactically from us of all teams. 

We were due and off day however, and you would hope his was a fluke for both us and villa. 

Over the years Courtinho always seems to hit form against us, or at least it feels like that, been a good signing for Villa. 

[ButtikonSaint]

19 minutes ago, JRM said:

Over the years Courtinho always seems to hit form against us, or at least it feels like that, been a good signing for Villa. 

Certainly a big difference between the teams yesterday, a 100+million attacking midfielder, mostly unmarked, able to spread passes around and dictating play.
Would love our club to have someone like that to deploy but we've got to be realistic.

With hindsight, RH got his tactics wrong, should have gone with a defensive / counter attacking line up  such as a 5-4-1 but the players didn't really turn up and Villa were good value. 

No issues with Ings, would love for him to still be at the club but he gave us some real good shows whilst with us and didn't celebrate yesterday...  

Big wake up call... would be a pity for the season to fizzle out after some real improvements. COYS

[Wurzel]

Let's not forget every time we beat or do well against the big boys according to the media it's always because they have an off day

Yesterday was our off day, to be fair were due one and I'm happier it came yesterday than last Wednesday. Draw a line under it, and let's get back to where we left off against Sandcastle this week.

[Saint Billy]

Unfortunately for a club our size with limited squad depth it would always be difficult to maintain the run we were on. All it needed was a couple of key players to get injured to make a difference. 

Yes we managed to get past WHU in the FA Cup, but we have become a lot stronger at home. But there were signs in that game that we were missing Salisu etc, but Valerie stepped up and did a good job but didn't start against Villa for some reason. 

So, the defeat had to come at some point but a shame it was so heavy and could of been a lot worse. Let's just hope we put that behind us and get back quickly to our previous form. 

[Nemi]

Problem for Saints is we have decent depth but the quality is so much lower it makes the whole team play worse. 
 

Feel like that’s why JWP was worse last season as he had two awful CBs behind him and McCarthy. Take out some of our most important players and suddenly the whole team struggles.

[Charlie Wayman]

Most of our players obviously fancied the day off yesterday and collectively took their feet off the pedals. At one stage Villa were scoring for fun and 9-0 headlines were looming again! Thanks to Forster and a bit of reorganisation it didn't happen.

Both ex-Chelsea youngsters were awful, Livramento hesitant and resorting to safe and easy backwards and sideways passes while Broja was largely invisible and unwilling to do much running.

Tactically we were out-thought and out-fought in mid-field which is normally our greatest strength and we seemed to play the game at a snail's pace. Unusually Oriel Romeu couldn't get into the game and maybe should have been subbed earlier. The CBs were depressingly error prone but to be fair were not given much protection.

On the day Villa were by far the better team with Cash especially invincible at RB and Coutinho showing why he should be playing in a much better team at a much higher level what the heck is he doing at Villa Park? 

I hope this doesn't set in panic and wholesale changes against Toon because that will not be the answer. We have a formula that has worked well recently and this is not the time to try and re-write it.

[Charlie Wayman]

6 minutes ago, Saint Billy said:

Unfortunately for a club our size with limited squad depth it would always be difficult to maintain the run we were on. All it needed was a couple of key players to get injured to make a difference. 

Yes we managed to get past WHU in the FA Cup, but we have become a lot stronger at home. But there were signs in that game that we were missing Salisu etc, but Valerie stepped up and did a good job but didn't start against Villa for some reason. 

So, the defeat had to come at some point but a shame it was so heavy and could of been a lot worse. Let's just hope we put that behind us and get back quickly to our previous form. 

Cheer up!  No good throwing in the towel after one bad result. Any team losing a couple of key players will struggle not just Saints but that had nothing to do with what happened yesterday.

As for "managing" to win against WHU, we played mostly bench players (nine changes!) yet still comprehensively outplayed a strong Hammers side who are 4th in the PL table and beat them convincingly. On that basis losing a couple of players to injury should make no difference to our performance.

[Turkish]

I don’t get why people are passing this off as being due an off day. You don’t have an allocation to use up a season. We were crap, plain and simple. Shambles at the back and completely ineffectual going forward. They had far too much space and time all over the pitch. We’ve been in a good run of firm but form is temporary.

[manji]

I loathed the Ukrainian virtue signaling. I’m not going to get into an argument about it other than to say it’s far more complicated a situation than most lightweights make it out to be. Maybe we all should have Yemeni flags for the Newcastle match. 

[trousers]

1 hour ago, Turkish said:

I don’t get why people are passing this off as being due an off day.

It's just a turn of phrase. Careful you don't turn into an MLG clone, taking everything literally and all that

[Turkish]

21 minutes ago, manji said:

I loathed the Ukrainian virtue signaling. I’m not going to get into an argument about it other than to say it’s far more complicated a situation than most lightweights make it out to be. Maybe we all should have Yemeni flags for the Newcastle match. 

It’s all part of the match day experience mate. Taking the knee, Ukraine flag, rainbow shirts earlier in the season. Our PR team are champions league level at virtue signalling on social media as well. 

[Turkish]

3 minutes ago, trousers said:

It's just a turn of phrase. Careful you don't turn into an MLG clone, taking everything literally and all that

Why do you think that would happen? There has been no transition of MLGs organisms or cells to me to enable the process of cloning to commence 

[manji]

15 minutes ago, Turkish said:

It’s all part of the match day experience mate. Taking the knee, Ukraine flag, rainbow shirts earlier in the season. Our PR team are champions league level at virtue signalling on social media as well. 

We are going the way of American Football. Endless breaks in play to fit in the virtual signalling.

[JRM]

41 minutes ago, manji said:

I loathed the Ukrainian virtue signaling. I’m not going to get into an argument about it other than to say it’s far more complicated a situation than most lightweights make it out to be. Maybe we all should have Yemeni flags for the Newcastle match. 

It feels like football fans are being used a bit by the govt/ Premier league PR machine? If it was organic fans organised stuff then fair enough but it's all being micro managed at premier league level , just feels a bit forced 

[JRM]

I saw a clip with a picture of our end holding up scarves saying "Saints fans took the opportunity to show solidarity with Ukraine" as if it was a major political statement 

Whereas the truth is we were given free scarves by the club in the team colours and most fans were still singing about Stuart Armstrongs hair 

 

[SNSUN]

2 hours ago, Nemi said:

Problem for Saints is we have decent depth but the quality is so much lower it makes the whole team play worse. 
 

Feel like that’s why JWP was worse last season as he had two awful CBs behind him and McCarthy. Take out some of our most important players and suddenly the whole team struggles.

Agree, though the quality in depth exists in our full back positions. Bearing in mind that was accomplished with 2 full back signings in the summer (and Small as one for the future), the idea would be to strengthen the first team in other areas with the existing strong players still there e.g. Salisu. Keep Salisu (if possible extending his contract) and sign another top CB, and along with our full backs we'd have a top defence next season. IF we can keep Salisu that is.

 

I'd upgrade the spine in the summer depending on budget. GK, CB, DM, AM, Str (if Broja loan cannot be extended) but that's a lot for a sell-to-buy club.

[Wade Garrett]

The defensive marking was non-existent.  Stephens reverted to type, ball-watching with no awareness of who was around him.  Bednarek looked poor.

We we’re ripped apart by Coutinho, Ings and Watkins.  We were a little fortunate they only scored 4.

Still, we’re not Man City and we’re not going to be on top form every game.  We need to dig in on Thursday and control the midfield.

[LiberalCommunist]

48 minutes ago, manji said:

We are going the way of American Football. Endless breaks in play to fit in the virtual signalling.

And add to that the obligatory defibrillator related crowd medical emergency. 

Strange times, strange times indeed. 

[manji]

10 minutes ago, LiberalCommunist said:

And add to that the obligatory defibrillator related crowd medical emergency. 

Strange times, strange times indeed. 

50 year old fat blokes running on the pitch to get a shirt.

[Jack]

First time at Villa park and it wasn’t a great experience. Trains only every 2 hours so it was heaving, and expensive. Decent beers in the city centre then a pretty miserable hour at Villa Park before getting the train home to avoid another 2 hour wait for the train.  Rubbish. 

Was surprised by our performance and Villa’s to be fair. We were far worse than normal and they were far better. 

[WALK DMC]

Its strange that our home form is now so much stronger than our away.

While it has been 3 months (Arsenal away) since we saw a performance anywhere close to yesterdays, over the course of the season it is beginning to look very average (it is virtually identical to Watford's). It is only due to 1-2 magnificent away performances (notably West Ham & Spurs) that the attention on our away form has not been in focus.  We still play very open away and quite often get penalised.

Even in the first half against Man U which was seen as a good result, they missed a couple of big chances when they caught us on the break and the H-T score could have been much worse. 

I know the absence of Salisu makes a huge difference to our performance (missing Villa and Arsenal away), but maybe it would be better to change our style away from home and start with a more defensive line-up. I know 3 at the back didn't work in the 2nd half yesterday but the game was already lost by then. In 1 of our only 2 victories away from home since the end of October, we actually played 4-1-4-1 (West Ham) so maybe we need to shake it up a little as I fear our attacking 4-2-2-2 is becoming very predictable. 

This isn't a knee jerk reaction to an awful display yesterday, as I feel that the there is a trend emerging for some time that has not been highlighted due to our excellent home form and morale boosting victories against Spurs and West Ham.  

It will be interesting to see if Ralph refines our tactics in our next away game. 

ps I wouldn't change anything for our home tactics.....

 

[VectisSaint]

3 hours ago, Charlie Wayman said:

 

Tactically we were out-thought and out-fought in mid-field which is normally our greatest strength and we seemed to play the game at a snail's pace. Unusually Oriel Romeu couldn't get into the game and maybe should have been subbed earlier. The CBs were depressingly error prone but to be fair were not given much protection.

On the day Villa were by far the better team with Cash especially invincible at RB and Coutinho showing why he should be playing in a much better team at a much higher level what the heck is he doing at Villa Park? 

 

Spot on Charlie. We were completely out fought in midfield, torn to shreds by their midfield 3, with Coutinho (usually) completely unmarked. Ralph tried to fix the problem second half but it was too late and their quickfire post half time goals finished us off before we could get the revised system going. It was always likely that eventually a team would do this to us, when we play with two in the middle and two CBs behind with the FBs bombing forward. In some ways it is surprising no one has done us before, perhaps it is just that previously Oriol and JWP have played out of their skins to counter it, unfortunately yesterday they were both well below par. I don't think the CBs actually played badly, and I don't think Salisu would have made that much difference on the day, you cannot expose a CB pairing to what we saw yesterday and expect them to deal with it. Ralph clearly set up to win the game but failed in my opinion to take account of Villa and how they would set up[ and play. Coutinho is a superb player and has the capability of pulling any team apart. Ralph should have started Diallo alongside Romeu and JWP, but the trouble is that we only have 3 effective CMs, so it would have left us with no one on the bench. To me, CM remains the position where we need to strengthen, don't get me wrong, we have some of the best around, but we need more cover in there. None of our attacking MFs really have the ability to drop back into the middle and defend effectively. Yesterday we were tactically out thought and outnumbered, and we lost to a better (on the day) team as a result. Coutinho given a licence to roam (unmarked) with Luiz, McGinn and Watkins all pulling the strings in MF, and with Watkins being very much on form meant we were no match for them. I think Newcastle will be a completely different matter unless Howe suddenly finds a genius in midfield and some other competent players to out muscle us again.

[Toussaint]

4 hours ago, Charlie Wayman said:

Most of our players obviously fancied the day off yesterday and collectively took their feet off the pedals. At one stage Villa were scoring for fun and 9-0 headlines were looming again! Thanks to Forster and a bit of reorganisation it didn't happen.

Both ex-Chelsea youngsters were awful, Livramento hesitant and resorting to safe and easy backwards and sideways passes while Broja was largely invisible and unwilling to do much running.

Tactically we were out-thought and out-fought in mid-field which is normally our greatest strength and we seemed to play the game at a snail's pace. Unusually Oriel Romeu couldn't get into the game and maybe should have been subbed earlier. The CBs were depressingly error prone but to be fair were not given much protection.

On the day Villa were by far the better team with Cash especially invincible at RB and Coutinho showing why he should be playing in a much better team at a much higher level what the heck is he doing at Villa Park? 

I hope this doesn't set in panic and wholesale changes against Toon because that will not be the answer. We have a formula that has worked well recently and this is not the time to try and re-write it.

Re Cash, I think we made him look world class. (I was at the match), I like Elyonoussi but I though he reverted to his worst form yesterday, Peraud was continually left isolated with two on ones, which made him look bad. I don’t know if Elyonoussi was being pulled out of position trying to nullify something Villa were doing, or he was just having a bad day, one thing that was glaring yesterday however was his lack of pace. But it wasn’t just him, several had shockers, but I felt if we could have got to half time at just one nil Ralph could have sorted it, but a two goal deficit made life so much more difficult.

[manji]

Sorry off topic again but the authorities having a go for singing pro-Abramovich songs

[manji]

We will have to be careful Slavak is almost definitely a pro- Russian Serbian.

[Toussaint]

17 minutes ago, manji said:

Sorry off topic again but the authorities having a go for singing pro-Abramovich songs

Scary times

[St Steve]

Yesterdays away day vlog - 

 

[Toadhall Saint]

33 minutes ago, manji said:

We will have to be careful Slavak is almost definitely a pro- Russian Serbian.

I thought it was the other way round tbh.

[cloggy saint]

1 hour ago, manji said:

Sorry off topic again but the authorities having a go for singing pro-Abramovich songs

It was a shitty thing to do, no?

[manji]

48 minutes ago, Toadhall Saint said:

I thought it was the other way round tbh.

No Serbs are very close and Slavak is against pro- EU government which means he is most likely pro- Russian.

[LiberalCommunist]

23 minutes ago, cloggy saint said:

It was a shitty thing to do, no?

He's been a great owner for them. Created the most successful 20 years in their history. 

He's Russian, but he didn't start the war. Let them sing a song.

[Micky]

5 hours ago, Turkish said:

I don’t get why people are passing this off as being due an off day. You don’t have an allocation to use up a season. We were crap, plain and simple. Shambles at the back and completely ineffectual going forward. They had far too much space and time all over the pitch. We’ve been in a good run of firm but form is temporary.

I've done this.  Why? Because of our total second half collapse of last season,  I really do not want a repeat of that disaster show.  We've got ourselves into a decent league position this year, with good performances against good sides - let's not blow it again.  Yesterday was just a bad day at the office.  Roll on Thursday and I'll update you. 

[JRM]

7 minutes ago, manji said:

No Serbs are very close and Slavak is against pro- EU government which means he is most likely pro- Russian.

I've visited Serbia and spent some time in Belgrade, can tell you they're not too fond of NATO who bombed the City,  I think they also have strong ties with Russian orthodox Church

 

 

Edited 6 March, 2022 by JRM

[cloggy saint]

7 minutes ago, LiberalCommunist said:

He's been a great owner for them. Created the most successful 20 years in their history. 

He's Russian, but he didn't start the war. Let them sing a song.

Agreed, but don't you think they could have joined in the applause for Ukraine and then they could sing Abramovich's name to their heart's content for the rest of the game?

[Toadhall Saint]

1 hour ago, manji said:

No Serbs are very close and Slavak is against pro- EU government which means he is most likely pro- Russian.

I’ll have to take your word for it. 

[Saint Billy]

6 hours ago, Charlie Wayman said:

Cheer up!  No good throwing in the towel after one bad result. Any team losing a couple of key players will struggle not just Saints but that had nothing to do with what happened yesterday.

As for "managing" to win against WHU, we played mostly bench players (nine changes!) yet still comprehensively outplayed a strong Hammers side who are 4th in the PL table and beat them convincingly. On that basis losing a couple of players to injury should make no difference to our performance.

I was actually being upbeat. We were due to have a loss at some point and it happened. As long as it doesn't continue into a long line of poor form I'm ok with that. Off late we have been playing superb football but it's too much to ask our squad to be a team of invisibles.

[Holmes_and_Watson]

13 minutes ago, Saint Billy said:

I was actually being upbeat. We were due to have a loss at some point and it happened. As long as it doesn't continue into a long line of poor form I'm ok with that. Off late we have been playing superb football but it's too much to ask our squad to be a team of invisibles.

It's the age old question of which super power you'd prefer. Invincibility or invisibility?

[Badger]

3 hours ago, manji said:

No Serbs are very close and Slavak is against pro- EU government which means he is most likely pro- Russian.

The only thing I've read is that he is against what he considers a corrupt government, no mention of EU, Russia or anything else. Too little detail to form an opinion on his views on other matters I'd have thought.

Edited 6 March, 2022 by Badger

[Chez]

It will only be a bad day at the office if we bounce back on Thursday. I am not sure how accurate this is, but I get the feeling we haven't bounced back terribly well or quickly for a `bad' defeat in recent years. No just for his quality, but for confidence stakes, Salisu's return on Thursday could be massive.

[Viking Saint]

On 05/03/2022 at 17:46, wadesmith said:

On the plus side Broja didn’t score &  Chelsea got four. Basically he’s ours if we want him.

Like your thinking, every cloud......

[Lighthouse]

Some of the Ukraine chat has been moved to the lounge, if anyone wants to carry it on there.

 

 

[Saint Billy]

12 hours ago, Holmes_and_Watson said:

It's the age old question of which super power you'd prefer. Invincibility or invisibility?

Oops. 

[TWar]

15 hours ago, Holmes_and_Watson said:

It's the age old question of which super power you'd prefer. Invincibility or invisibility?

Definitely invincibility. Being invisible would suck, people would just keep walking into you.

[Toadhall Saint]

12 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

Some of the Ukraine chat has been moved to the lounge, if anyone wants to carry it on there.

 

 

👍

[Dman]

Generally, just a bad day at the office. They happen, move on (easy to say when you’ve been on a good run!)

A few observations from me: 

- Without Salisu, our defence is not up to scratch. Bednerak and stephens as a partnership just doesn’t work. 

- Villa have a real exciting team, especially going forward. No shame losing to them. 
 

- Couthino and Ings showed that form is temporary and class is permanent. Ings looked like the player they thought they were getting for 30m. I’d have loved to have seen him and Broja together for at least a season!