Up at 6am for work in Birmingham. Only got home to Wycombe at 6pm. Back out the door for tonight and only just home again now after tonight. Yet I’m absolutely delighted. What a fantastic performance. Superb tactics. Amazing structure out of possession. We just made some outstanding players look very ordinary. What an incredible performance. I’m so proud.
Insert ‘League’ after ‘Premier’ and change ‘deservedly’ to ‘controversially’ and you’re broadly correct. ‘3rd string’ sounds debatable and I can only defer to your superior knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of Aston Villa’s substantial squad.
In reality if we'd picked the full first team and they'd played like that, and lost to that goal we'd still be proud and annoyed and out of the cup but we'd be knackered for the weekend and some of the fringe players and those returning from injury would be further back in their development. It was a good night and performance well handled by the manager. Playing down the strength of the Villa team helps nobody, the combined purchase price of those who played would have been huge.
Everyone associated with the club should hold their heads up high tonight. Full house under the lights, and the team played absolutely superbly. We brought along some casuals who will absolutely be back after that one - a far cry from many previous experiences of bringing others along to watch our games. A real end to end game today against a Champions League side.
Yes, maybe they rotated their team, but Duran has 4 Premier League goals so far this season, Ross Barkley has played for England, Ian Maatsen started the Champions League final last year, Onana played for Belgium at the last Euros...
Extremely proud of the whole team and staff tonight. Let's go and get promoted.
If you posted this just to be different, congratulations but how sad that you take pleasure from being so negative. If you meant it, that’s even worse.
Quite often you hear cliches like 'they've given a good account of themselves' thrown around. But the performance was far better than that. I think we were the better side in many respects and will feel very unfortunate not to have at least drawn.
The fact that most people stayed on till the end to give the team a decent reception spoke volumes.
Not sure why anyone would moan about the selection. Matt has made it pretty clear he sees the squad as a rotating unit rather than first team/reserves. I think all those players except Wheeler (who offered a difficult night to the starting full back in last season's Champions League final) have started league games so it was felt like a perfectly reasonable line up to me.
Really good performance from our 'second string' team...and the fact the crowd was with them to the end was brilliant. We were still in it at 1-0 once the subs were on. Take a couple of the chances we missed, and it's a different game. What a decent squad MB has assembled. Hartridge, Bakinson, Skura, Jasper and Butcher were all strong additions and did not let us down. Not sure Villa are going to progress in this particular cup given they needed a spawny pen though. I have great hopes for this season.
Shows how much quality within the squad we really have.
really good to see Bakinson have a good game after his rocky start. Hopefully give him some confidence. Was winning pretty much every header against villa.
Villa really didn’t know how to play after their first goal. Pretty much froze when they had the ball at the back.
Very good performance, proof that we have strength in the squad. Any neutral league 1 fan watching that would expect us to be in the mix this season. Was one of the fans calling for Bloomfield to go but hands up he has done very well since the dodgy start and if he keeps this up would be a manager that other clubs would be looking at .
On and off the field I thought we gave a great account of ourselves. Villa demonstrated within 30 seconds what a good team they are when given any space and we tactically did a really good job of limiting that. Skura given a huge roll of being the last defender and having to take on one of the hottest talents in the Premier League was a massive decision from the management and shows how much faith they have in him.
The penalty dive was disappointing. Up until then the game was played in a really good spirit. Often the lowly club ends up kicking players in a desperate attempt to level up, we never once resorted to that and played our game rather than trying to spoil theirs.
A comedy ending where we seemed desperate not to score before Kone FINALLY got the ball in.
Lots of individual performances to be proud of last night. Pattendon and Skura were excellent considering their inexperience and the opposition.
Villa were very timid, they were clearly frustrated by our discipline and resolution in keeping our shape which was excellent to watch. There was a good variety in our play, a fair amount of passing through the midfield as well as a measured longer pass or two. The killer instinct wasn't quite there, otherwise it could well have been our night.
Villa were fortunate with their first, and outright cheats with their second. Definitely bitter to lose in those circumstances, though there are a lot of positives to take from our performance. In particular Pattenden, Hartridge and Bakinson should be praised for more than ably rising to the occasion, they will no doubt be banging on the gaffers door for more starts on the strength of that showing.
One ever so minor frustration with last night. A bunch of half wits in the terrace screaming at Kone and co for not instigating a press on the goalkeeper in his own box, despite our structure, desire on second balls and their goalkeeper’s poor kicking constantly giving us the ball in their third. Our structure was absolutely fantastic. Play like that out of possession and we will be right up there this season.
There will always be some goons, not only in their understanding but the way they express. HOWEVER, Kone was pressing too square and making it easy for the 'keeper to play around him. GMac then took the press on and pressed with an arced run causing the 'keeper to only have one option for playing out. Which yielded more pressure and led to chances at the end. A coaching thing and one that I am sure Kone will look at GMac and think 'ah ha'. That's why we have senior pros like GMac when we have less experienced players in the squad.
A few people were frustrated at 1-0 that we didn't force the keeper to play quicker.
Difficult one to judge really. We needed to force the game to some extent but our strategy had worked pretty effectively till then and staying central in front of the keeper meant Kone/Lubala could quickly get across to force either defender to play the next pass under some pressure.
I'd probably have favoured closing off the pass to 26 and forcing 50 to receive it from the keeper. The latter looked way less comfortable on the ball.
These halfwits were stood directly behind us last night. One highlight was them saying that Fred "cannot run at all" immediately before he glided past their full back, put in a cross and won a corner.
Have to laugh at some of that, we've always offered a bit of verbal encouragement when things have been bad but there does seem to be a rise in people who genuinely think they are coaching during matches and it ranges from a bit odd to quite annoying.
On Saturday closing the 'keeper down will be easier as players at 'our' level tend to be one-footed so strikers know to close down the strong foot and force them to kick on their weak foot. Premier League keepers tend to be very competent regardless of which foot so Kone etc didn't really know which way to close. A press is a really hard thing to do when you have very competent players and when the 'keeper is looking to pick out a short pass to Ross Barkley you are playing against VERY competent players.
I think Fred’s burst of pace to make room for that cross gave us a glimpse that he certainly hasn’t lost any of his pace.
Also, how many times have we started a game against class opposition with 8 changes to our team and still have them a real game. We have an amazing squad now and Blooms and Dan Rice have done wonders.
Must admit I was in the "few people were frustrated" category...I don't think I went full "halfwits" thankfully.
Personally I think there is a difference between closing down in the first half/at 0-0 vs when you are chasing the game. When you are needing to score in the last few minutes I'd have thought that getting them to get the ball back in play is pretty important, letting the keep have the ball for 10-20 seconds every time feels like it is just running the clock down. They might end up passing it around us if we pressed harder but at that point it at least gives us the opportunity to win the ball back and get it forward.
It was a tough call. The lone striker can't press on his own as they'll just pass around him with ease, so can't blame Kone. But, there was about 15 minutes where we weren't pressing at all which was a little frustrating to watch, but Villa had also pulled more players back to counter our high press. Three forwards pressing a keeper, back four and two mids is always going to be very hard work. When we did eventually start pressing again, our midfielders were joining in - which is the only way we could have done it I guess. So yeah, frustrating, but very hard to avoid.
Comments
Up at 6am for work in Birmingham. Only got home to Wycombe at 6pm. Back out the door for tonight and only just home again now after tonight. Yet I’m absolutely delighted. What a fantastic performance. Superb tactics. Amazing structure out of possession. We just made some outstanding players look very ordinary. What an incredible performance. I’m so proud.
Insert ‘League’ after ‘Premier’ and change ‘deservedly’ to ‘controversially’ and you’re broadly correct. ‘3rd string’ sounds debatable and I can only defer to your superior knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of Aston Villa’s substantial squad.
As Jhon Duran's dive was missed during normal play can we expect him to be hit with a retrospective ban?
I'll hold my breath.
In reality if we'd picked the full first team and they'd played like that, and lost to that goal we'd still be proud and annoyed and out of the cup but we'd be knackered for the weekend and some of the fringe players and those returning from injury would be further back in their development. It was a good night and performance well handled by the manager. Playing down the strength of the Villa team helps nobody, the combined purchase price of those who played would have been huge.
Everyone associated with the club should hold their heads up high tonight. Full house under the lights, and the team played absolutely superbly. We brought along some casuals who will absolutely be back after that one - a far cry from many previous experiences of bringing others along to watch our games. A real end to end game today against a Champions League side.
Yes, maybe they rotated their team, but Duran has 4 Premier League goals so far this season, Ross Barkley has played for England, Ian Maatsen started the Champions League final last year, Onana played for Belgium at the last Euros...
Extremely proud of the whole team and staff tonight. Let's go and get promoted.
If you posted this just to be different, congratulations but how sad that you take pleasure from being so negative. If you meant it, that’s even worse.
Great display.
Quite often you hear cliches like 'they've given a good account of themselves' thrown around. But the performance was far better than that. I think we were the better side in many respects and will feel very unfortunate not to have at least drawn.
The fact that most people stayed on till the end to give the team a decent reception spoke volumes.
Not sure why anyone would moan about the selection. Matt has made it pretty clear he sees the squad as a rotating unit rather than first team/reserves. I think all those players except Wheeler (who offered a difficult night to the starting full back in last season's Champions League final) have started league games so it was felt like a perfectly reasonable line up to me.
Really good performance from our 'second string' team...and the fact the crowd was with them to the end was brilliant. We were still in it at 1-0 once the subs were on. Take a couple of the chances we missed, and it's a different game. What a decent squad MB has assembled. Hartridge, Bakinson, Skura, Jasper and Butcher were all strong additions and did not let us down. Not sure Villa are going to progress in this particular cup given they needed a spawny pen though. I have great hopes for this season.
Shows how much quality within the squad we really have.
really good to see Bakinson have a good game after his rocky start. Hopefully give him some confidence. Was winning pretty much every header against villa.
Villa really didn’t know how to play after their first goal. Pretty much froze when they had the ball at the back.
i had the pleasure of listening to the game on Radio 5 where they were very positive regarding our performance.
More pleasing was that they had JJ on with the commentary team. Good to see him apparently unscathed from his recent experiences.
Very good performance, proof that we have strength in the squad. Any neutral league 1 fan watching that would expect us to be in the mix this season. Was one of the fans calling for Bloomfield to go but hands up he has done very well since the dodgy start and if he keeps this up would be a manager that other clubs would be looking at .
On and off the field I thought we gave a great account of ourselves. Villa demonstrated within 30 seconds what a good team they are when given any space and we tactically did a really good job of limiting that. Skura given a huge roll of being the last defender and having to take on one of the hottest talents in the Premier League was a massive decision from the management and shows how much faith they have in him.
The penalty dive was disappointing. Up until then the game was played in a really good spirit. Often the lowly club ends up kicking players in a desperate attempt to level up, we never once resorted to that and played our game rather than trying to spoil theirs.
A comedy ending where we seemed desperate not to score before Kone FINALLY got the ball in.
Lots of individual performances to be proud of last night. Pattendon and Skura were excellent considering their inexperience and the opposition.
With less than 600 tickets available, it's clear the the capacity is not around 9400, at least for this match.
Villa were very timid, they were clearly frustrated by our discipline and resolution in keeping our shape which was excellent to watch. There was a good variety in our play, a fair amount of passing through the midfield as well as a measured longer pass or two. The killer instinct wasn't quite there, otherwise it could well have been our night.
Villa were fortunate with their first, and outright cheats with their second. Definitely bitter to lose in those circumstances, though there are a lot of positives to take from our performance. In particular Pattenden, Hartridge and Bakinson should be praised for more than ably rising to the occasion, they will no doubt be banging on the gaffers door for more starts on the strength of that showing.
One ever so minor frustration with last night. A bunch of half wits in the terrace screaming at Kone and co for not instigating a press on the goalkeeper in his own box, despite our structure, desire on second balls and their goalkeeper’s poor kicking constantly giving us the ball in their third. Our structure was absolutely fantastic. Play like that out of possession and we will be right up there this season.
I've just been messaged by a Villa fan at work to say the better team lost last night.
Capacity is always reduced for TV games as they have to cover seats for cameras in the FA stand and away stand.
A bunch of half wits in the terrace?! I'm shocked, shocked I tells ya.
There will always be some goons, not only in their understanding but the way they express. HOWEVER, Kone was pressing too square and making it easy for the 'keeper to play around him. GMac then took the press on and pressed with an arced run causing the 'keeper to only have one option for playing out. Which yielded more pressure and led to chances at the end. A coaching thing and one that I am sure Kone will look at GMac and think 'ah ha'. That's why we have senior pros like GMac when we have less experienced players in the squad.
A few people were frustrated at 1-0 that we didn't force the keeper to play quicker.
Difficult one to judge really. We needed to force the game to some extent but our strategy had worked pretty effectively till then and staying central in front of the keeper meant Kone/Lubala could quickly get across to force either defender to play the next pass under some pressure.
I'd probably have favoured closing off the pass to 26 and forcing 50 to receive it from the keeper. The latter looked way less comfortable on the ball.
These halfwits were stood directly behind us last night. One highlight was them saying that Fred "cannot run at all" immediately before he glided past their full back, put in a cross and won a corner.
Have to laugh at some of that, we've always offered a bit of verbal encouragement when things have been bad but there does seem to be a rise in people who genuinely think they are coaching during matches and it ranges from a bit odd to quite annoying.
On Saturday closing the 'keeper down will be easier as players at 'our' level tend to be one-footed so strikers know to close down the strong foot and force them to kick on their weak foot. Premier League keepers tend to be very competent regardless of which foot so Kone etc didn't really know which way to close. A press is a really hard thing to do when you have very competent players and when the 'keeper is looking to pick out a short pass to Ross Barkley you are playing against VERY competent players.
Quality one that! If Fred can't run, I hate to think what they think about most of the rest of our players then!
I think Fred’s burst of pace to make room for that cross gave us a glimpse that he certainly hasn’t lost any of his pace.
Also, how many times have we started a game against class opposition with 8 changes to our team and still have them a real game. We have an amazing squad now and Blooms and Dan Rice have done wonders.
Must admit I was in the "few people were frustrated" category...I don't think I went full "halfwits" thankfully.
Personally I think there is a difference between closing down in the first half/at 0-0 vs when you are chasing the game. When you are needing to score in the last few minutes I'd have thought that getting them to get the ball back in play is pretty important, letting the keep have the ball for 10-20 seconds every time feels like it is just running the clock down. They might end up passing it around us if we pressed harder but at that point it at least gives us the opportunity to win the ball back and get it forward.
It was a tough call. The lone striker can't press on his own as they'll just pass around him with ease, so can't blame Kone. But, there was about 15 minutes where we weren't pressing at all which was a little frustrating to watch, but Villa had also pulled more players back to counter our high press. Three forwards pressing a keeper, back four and two mids is always going to be very hard work. When we did eventually start pressing again, our midfielders were joining in - which is the only way we could have done it I guess. So yeah, frustrating, but very hard to avoid.
I was watching from the terrace and didn't get a clear view of the penalty decision.
AV news state it was clearly a dive
https://www.astonvilla.news/match-coverage/wycombe-boss-shares-frustrating-verdict-on-controversial-aston-villa-decision-in-carabao-cup-clash/
We would have been at home to Man Utd had we progressed. Would have been a decent draw.
er no, home to Palace.