Aston Villa 4-1 Newcastle United - 19/04/2025

[nufcjb]

If we had 1 last bad defeat in our season left, hoping yesterday was it. Brighton, Arsenal, Chelsea and Everton are games that we can get wins or draw at the very least. I feared a loss and a hammering at Villa and it duly happened.

[Sean]

5 hours ago, duo said:

3 games is 6 days is a lot for any team - Villa's bench won the game.  Now it's a weeks air gap between the remaining games. 

It is something that we need to be able to deal with next season though - we really don't want a repeat of last seasons injury crisis.

 

 

Edited Sunday at 14:18 by Sean

[Kanj]

Hopefully Mitchell can pad depth and we can sign a few ready made starters and really have the depth we sorely need! 

[PauloGeordio]

 

[alexf]

Targeted that left channel and got in behind Trippier time and time again, in fact didn't all 4 goals come from that side initially? The most frustrating thing is we didn't look to fix the problem in-game and the inevitable happened 2nd half. 

[Rod]

8 hours ago, Heron said:

I felt we started with the wrong tactics and kinda went in too open. It could have easily been 4 - 1 at half time let alone full time.

 

If we started the game doing what we seemingly did at the start of the second half and sat in, looking to break out, and kept it tight then I think we'd have fatigued less and not been pulled around so much. Our midfield 3 were stretched apart often trying to cover full backs too much and trying to help struggling, slow centre backs.

 

By the time the second half came we'd been chasing the game to get it level and were fucked. I get why we kept stronger players on for so long in recent games but this was always the danger tbh.

 

Their change in personnel then won them the game in the scoresheet but performance-wise they got what they'd deserved from the first half.

 

They're an excellent side, with an excellent manager - it has to be said. Champions League is vital to both clubs though to sustain this breaking down of the "big 6". It really does demonstrate the sheer ineptitude of the likes of Spurs and Man United that they have had such a fall from grace this season with such squad depth at multiple levels and time at the 'financial top'.

 

Villa have rolled the dice on loans to get them to the CL. I feel they'll do similar next season with maybe an addition of one big summer signing. I think that works until they slip up one season and then they're pretty much out the frame.

 

We're not rolling the dice and running a similar risk - expecting the same players to achieve or in some instances over-achieve relentlessly.

 

Good old FFP eh...

Great post, however Aston Villa are not an excellent side.

[SUPERTOON]

3 hours ago, Kanj said:

Hopefully Mitchell can pad depth and we can sign a few ready made starters and really have the depth we sorely need! 

Quite a challenge considering the starting fee for any decent players is minimum 20 million. Don’t envy him this summer tbh.

[Ronaldo]

30 minutes ago, SUPERTOON said:

Quite a challenge considering the starting fee for any decent players is minimum 20 million. Don’t envy him this summer tbh.

On the other hand it will take very little to improve on the last 3 poor windows.

[STM]

43 minutes ago, Rod said:

Great post, however Aston Villa are not an excellent side.

 

Villa aren't an excellent side? They are, IMO, one of the top 5 sides in the best league in the world, are likely to reach the FA cup final and have just reached the quarter final of the most prestigious continental competition.

 

I mean... what are we doing here? 

[Skeletor]

Villa are an excellent side like.

[Palestoon]

We really saw 2 sides of the coin yesterday. Villa gave us a taste of our own medicine, but also showed us the recipe/what we're lacking to deal with it, that they have.

 

Best way generally to beat an effective press (unless your peak City) is to simply bypass it. 

 

Villa have 3 players in their front 6 who are excellent with their backs to goal (Rogers, McGinn and Watkins)

But rather than lump balls over the top for Burn to mop up all day, they played direct passes across the ground. Forced our unathletic back line to chase them around, and then held up the ball, and waited for the runners to come in. It worked all day. This is what teams like Bournemouth fulham and Brighton have done to us. 

 

It's why getting some mobile CBs is critical if we want to play this high pressing man to man style. We have no recovery pace in the defense. As soon as a ball goes forward and it sticks, it feels like all our defenders are struggling to get goal side.

 

And on the flip side, I think it exposed what our problems are offensively when teams press us high. They basically surround our midfielders and dare us to play directly into the attackers. 

 

Our front line is amazing on the front foot, but back to goal is a major issue. Isak struggles to hold up the ball against strong CBs, and Gordon and Murphy are not technical enough to receive the ball under pressure and turn it into a positive situation.

 

Hope it's something we look into addressing in the summer. We need to add another dimension to our attack

[joeyt]

Good post

[Kanj]

It’s very rare that people beat our press. If it was that easy we wouldn’t have the record we have. 
 

I do obv agree that we need fix that glaring weakness in our side, only will turn us into perennial challengers.  

[El Prontonise]

1 hour ago, STM said:

 

Villa aren't an excellent side? They are, IMO, one of the top 5 sides in the best league in the world, are likely to reach the FA cup final and have just reached the quarter final of the most prestigious continental competition.

 

I mean... what are we doing here? 

 

It's rod, he's fucking useless.  Ignore him.

[Rich]

Think Mbuemo solves that. Not sure Akliouche does. It’s a big part of why Big Joe at LW balanced us out so nicely at times.

[JUICE690]

And a keeper with good distribution. Honestly feel like I'm looking forward to seeing that over anything else.

 

 

Edited Sunday at 20:12 by JUICE690

[Rod]

4 hours ago, Skeletor said:

Villa are an excellent side like.

They are really not.

[Disco]

4 hours ago, Palestoon said:

We really saw 2 sides of the coin yesterday. Villa gave us a taste of our own medicine, but also showed us the recipe/what we're lacking to deal with it, that they have.

 

Best way generally to beat an effective press (unless your peak City) is to simply bypass it. 

 

Villa have 3 players in their front 6 who are excellent with their backs to goal (Rogers, McGinn and Watkins)

But rather than lump balls over the top for Burn to mop up all day, they played direct passes across the ground. Forced our unathletic back line to chase them around, and then held up the ball, and waited for the runners to come in. It worked all day. This is what teams like Bournemouth fulham and Brighton have done to us. 

 

It's why getting some mobile CBs is critical if we want to play this high pressing man to man style. We have no recovery pace in the defense. As soon as a ball goes forward and it sticks, it feels like all our defenders are struggling to get goal side.

 

And on the flip side, I think it exposed what our problems are offensively when teams press us high. They basically surround our midfielders and dare us to play directly into the attackers. 

 

Our front line is amazing on the front foot, but back to goal is a major issue. Isak struggles to hold up the ball against strong CBs, and Gordon and Murphy are not technical enough to receive the ball under pressure and turn it into a positive situation.

 

Hope it's something we look into addressing in the summer. We need to add another dimension to our attack

Spot on mush 

 

Going man to man in huge swathes of the game killed us further as it was easy as is piss for them to get the ball into said players one on one and with space around too. Watkins was class but Rodgers was superb. A bulky Willock whose ability to force the ball forward is amazing. He was really good at SJP too. 

 

[macphisto]

5 hours ago, Rod said:

They are really not.

Agree, good team but not excellent. Excellence belongs to teams like Man City in the past few years. 

 

You can't be excellent when you're in 7th with a +6 goal difference. 

 

I'd also say a team has to have a few world class players to be in that bracket too. 

[NEEJ]

Jusy reading the BBC "Your Views" bit on the match... Ozzy: "Our away form has been very disappointing this season and with two away games left at Brighton and Arsenal, we will have to improve a lot if we want a top five position."

 

Aye Ozzy, that'll be our very disappointing position of 3rd in the away league table. 

[Geogaddi]

12 minutes ago, NEEJ said:

Jusy reading the BBC "Your Views" bit on the match... Ozzy: "Our away form has been very disappointing this season and with two away games left at Brighton and Arsenal, we will have to improve a lot if we want a top five position."

 

Aye Ozzy, that'll be our very disappointing position of 3rd in the away league table. 

Whilst 8 away wins is an excellent return 6 of them have been against the bottom 6 and it was actually 7 wins against the bottom 7 before Wolves won yesterday.

 

 

Edited yesterday at 08:53 by Geogaddi

[NEEJ]

5 minutes ago, Geogaddi said:

Whilst 8 away wins is an excellent return 6 of them have been against the bottom 6 and it was actually 7 wins against the bottom 7 before Wolves won yesterday.

 

 

 

It's hardly very disappointing though, is it? Surely it's our home form that has been more disappointing this season. 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

On 20/04/2025 at 01:33, r0cafella said:

Was just thinking how villa have essential got this large temporary squad by selling someone akin to Gordon and replacing them with Malen (who's nothing special) and a bunch of very expensive loans. 

 

If they decide to make the loans permanent the wage balloons another 600k at least (this figure would require all of the loanees to take cuts btw) and require transfer fees which would cost more than they got for Duran. 

 

Obviously what they Have done is powerful in the short term and in that specific context but I prefer our approach personally. Although I would love for us to actually do a better job managing FFP. we gave away by trading Anderson and not some random academy kid. 

I don’t think they can make them all permanent. It’s a temporary gamble to get in the CL. 

[Heron]

7 hours ago, NEEJ said:

It's hardly very disappointing though, is it? Surely it's our home form that has been more disappointing this season. 

Winning 8 away games out of 17 in a season is canny decent, I'd have thought, to be honest. Unless you're league winners. Whilst writing I checked, and in the 'Away' league we are 3rd, compared with 5th at home whereas last season we were 11th based on away results and 4th at home. When we got CL last we were also 3rd and 5th away and at home respectively. Which is perhaps a good omen at present.

 

I mean for me if you aim to win all your home games and draw all your away games you're looking at a pretty hefty return. So I guess it's more turning the losses to draws than the draws to wins for us this year away from home but that is just the nature of our play. We're a fairly shit or bust team now compared to two years ago.

 

 

Edited 22 hours ago by Heron

[Ronaldo]

Very disappointing? What’s he on?