Villa away (Post match) 2-1 loss

[FoxFossil]

Remember in these dark days  we only need to be better than three teams, two probably. Next two at home vital.

[Bert]

1 minute ago, FoxFossil said:

Remember in these dark days  we only need to be better than three teams, two probably. Next two at home vital.

Thats all well and good, but after 20 games we are only better than one. 

[Guy]

2 hours ago, sylofox said:

The gap is so vast now. No team  that gets promoted is strong enough to compete.  PSR means you can't spend enough to compete. But no established club will vote against it.

 

PSR is the safety net for established clubs. Busting our spending ment we had to sell so automatically weaker on return. Any club promoted will fall straight back down.

 

PSR is a restraint on business practices and sooner or later a club will take it to the courts and win. Football is no longer competitive with these rules in place.

The first real victims of this were arguably Sheffield United last season I think. If these ludicrous rules stick then I think many more will follow the Isaac Newton rule of thumb suit! 

[J. James]

1 hour ago, filbertway said:

The only difference between the 2 is that under Cooper we would be on 10 points.

Lol. That makes no difference whatsoever to my point.

You employ a driver with the single condition "dont crash the car" and he doesn't but drives poorly so you sack him thinking sooner or later he will.

 

You employ a new guy, same condition he drives ok but eventually crashes the car.

 

Does that make him better or worse than the first guy?

 

He can't be better because although he drove ok, he crashed and the first guy didn't, the fact he drove for longer is irrelevant!

 

Those who like the second guy now blame the car saying "well what do you expect its a crap car".

 

Same car as the first guy had but they didn't like him and anyway the roads were less bendy for him!

 

The fact is neither driver is any good and the cars owner inherited the car from his dad, doesn't understand it, employs idiots to service it and anyway he'd rather be off playing with his horse!

[J. James]

1 hour ago, sylofox said:

Yes add us to that and we won the league second season. Do you see that happening again. My point is clubs coming up but need to spend way more than the limits will allow to compete with 14th to 17th from the previous season.

 

Of your named clubs only forest came up when psr ffp was being enforced. They gambled and it paid off but got a small deduction. The longer this goes on the bigger the deductions will become. But the spend allowance will never allow you to bridge the gap and it's set to become lower.

Spot on, another reason why football is becoming less a sport and more "entertainment" ala F1.

 

When the primary goal is to make money then just like any money making enterprise, control is vital and eliminating unexpected events crucial to the business plan.

 

It's as close to fixing matches as requiring the players of promoted clubs to wear lead weights in their boots!

[Super_horns]

Talk about shooting yourselves in the foot!

 

So many teams get caught like ti though. 

 

 

[old koppite]

I thought Vesty had a good game, but just watched their 1st goal again and under no pressure he headed straight to Barclay,  and with our midfielders being caught by surprise there was the space and time for the shot. Arrghhh . 

[Chrysalis]

Going to post it here as I dont want it in its own thread.

 

But I am curious why so many LCFC fans, only care about what happens in the box.

 

Whenever we concede a goal these fans will start analysing "which individual" is to blame.  If its a "fans favourite" then the analysis ends.  If not they will then call out the player as to blame for the goal.

 

What happens before then, in the midfield etc, seems to get completely ignored. 

 

Is it because everyone relies on highlights?

Or is it that people watching the game live only start paying attention when the ball is near a goal?

 

Just am curious.

Its been going on for a while when we lose, people look for individuals to blame.

[accessory]

No surprise to see the lynch mob out in force again for JJ, while Vestergaard gets largely a free pass for setting up Villa's opener.

 

But it was such an annoying defeat, when even a point would have taken us nearer to Everton or West Ham, neither of whom (on the evidence of the MOTD highlights) are in any better form than us right now.

 

Hammers have lost their two main strikers and have a defence even weaker than ours (!), while Everton are so dire in attack their top scorer over the last 10 games is Wolves defender Craig Dawson.

 

We're not completely adrift as we were in 1995 and 2002.  Survival is still possible for us in a league as lacklustre as this one (Liverpool apart).

 

But it needs far better recruitment than we've had in the last two transfer windows.  And the club's management need to step up and take some big decisions.

 

Not convinced that either Rudkin or RVN are capable of delivering.

[Dan]

A game that encapsulates our season. A not disgraceful loss, but ultimately still a loss, to a side who are pretty out of form themselves and had players missing. So there'll be enough to dress it up as an 'OK' outcome but in reality it's just standard fare of a team getting relegated, which we probably are.

[Dan]

8 hours ago, RonnieTodger said:

We just find ways to lose, whatever the situation. 

This is the long and short of it.

 

We'll rarely be hammered but we'll just always be bad enough to lose. Five losses in a row is terrible - I can't believe people are shrugging their shoulders at it.

[Tom12345]

We are in deep trouble.

 

Losing Maresca was worth more than a 10 mil compensation from Chelsea. Losing him at that juncture is now costing us a place in the PL next season. 

[Leicesterpool]

Only slight positive think i can say the last two games we have been up against teams in the champions league and haven't exactly played us off the park. Man City were fortunate last week, while today felt more like some poor defensive moments let us down. QPR next week in the cup is a must win to boost confidence and bring belief.

[Dan]

6 hours ago, Paninistickers said:

Partly agree. If ever a team was equipped to bridge that gap it was us. 

 

We went down with a PL squad. Came up with roughly a PL team. Then, we went and bought Eduardo, BdCr and paid X5 the amount of money for Ayew and Skipp

 

when what we wanted was another Bilal, Abdul, Stephy, mads and to an extent an Okoli. And future proof ourselves a bit. 

 

 

We've struck almost the worst balance - put a fair bit of money into ageing players but not even ones that'll be enough to keep us up. I could almost tolerate this if we'd gone for getting our house in order and getting a younger squad together. But we didn't.

[Bluearmyfox28]

So had some time to think about the performance as emotions usually clout judgement as seen by the majority of the initial reactions on here. First of all people need to realise Villa park is a very tough ground to come to and get anything from they’ve played 11 games at home, lost 1, drew 4 and won 6. To nullify them for the majority of the game was impressive.

 

I think a lot of the criticism on Ruud has been very unwarranted so far. He’s had 5 weeks in charge which is around the equivalent of a pre season but a lot less time on the training field, He’s also missing a lot of key players through injuries. For me, his identity is already showing, we’ve been so much better defensively despite individual errors (nothing a manager can do) and I’ve seen multiple sequences moving forward where we look impressive. 
 

Today, however, Ruud got his game management wrong, I don’t mind the idea of keeping it compact and tight on the basis the last 20/30 minutes you push for the win if it’s there for the taking. That opportunity arose when we scored the equaliser, at that moment we should have pushed for it. Instead we became more compact which Villa quickly realised and started throwing bodies forward and pinned us in as they realised we wasn’t threatening and happy with a draw. That’s on Ruud.

I’ve seen many commenting about “getting a result against a poor Villa side” I honestly believe we made them look poor, we didn’t allow them to build anything in the final third until the last 20 minutes. We closed down quickly and played on their first touch every-time in the final third often winning the ball back which Villa fans were clearly becoming frustrated with. That’s our aggressiveness off the ball which deserves credit. 
 

A replacement for JJ needs to be No.1 priority and needs to be done before our next premier league game. Give Hamza a start at right back against QPR and see if you like what he offers. JJ’s confidence is completely shot and he needs to be taken out of the firing line. With regards to today’s mistake I honestly think Ayew was expecting the ball to be hooked down the line and appeared surprised to be given the ball so late, that’s on JJ (Once again).

 

Mavididi also isn’t good enough to be starting. Everytime I’ve thought he’s been dangerous this season has consisted of him coming off the bench and impacting the game with tired legs. Nothing wrong in that but a starter on the left wing is needed.

 

People saying there is no improvement from Cooper are right based of results on paper, but basing that off performances is delusional as far as I’m concerned. We are showing improvements week after week, we’ve been solid defensively, our press off the ball is aggressive and successful on several occasions and we’ve seen tidy patterns of play several times per game. I do wonder if Ruud is struggling with trusting his squad in terms of in game management, we seen similar from Enzo last season yet this year his subs have been completely different. I truthfully believe we’ve seen huge strides forward in Ruud and despite results (individual errors) I’ve been impressed by Ruud other than the wolves game. 

 

It’s important to ask ourselves prior to the 5 game stretch how many points did we realistically believe we would get against Villa, Man City, Liverpool, Wolves and Newcastle? I would have expected 3 points at most. Does it feel awful? Yes. But this run of 5 games does not define our season and the league table was always going to look ugly for us after this stretch. Moving forward, we need a minimum of 4 points in the next two games with 6 points obviously being perfect which I think is realistic. 
 

Truth is we need 5 signings potentially 4 after Thomas’ performance today. Right back, centre back, winger and striker all in desperate need of reinforcements. Thomas’ performance today may have kept him In as a capable back up until the end of the season.

 

Apologise to anyone that got to the end of this, didn’t expect it to be so long!  

[ozleicester]

Cooper was getting us results with this substandard squad...

[fox_favourite]

2 hours ago, Tom12345 said:

We are in deep trouble.

 

Losing Maresca was worth more than a 10 mil compensation from Chelsea. Losing him at that juncture is now costing us a place in the PL next season. 

And inflated due to poor decisions after he went. 

[fox_favourite]

To stay up, or give yourself a chance of staying up, you need to get the odd unexpected result. This was a great opportunity to. Villa weakened by injuries. Yet we came away with nothing...again. 

 

The squad just isn't good enough and after each loss the players look less confident in getting a result and very nervous. 

[LCFCJohn]

8 hours ago, sylofox said:

Yes add us to that and we won the league second season. Do you see that happening again. My point is clubs coming up but need to spend way more than the limits will allow to compete with 14th to 17th from the previous season.

 

Of your named clubs only forest came up when psr ffp was being enforced. They gambled and it paid off but got a small deduction. The longer this goes on the bigger the deductions will become. But the spend allowance will never allow you to bridge the gap and it's set to become lower.

Hopefully if this becomes a pattern year on year, it will quickly damage the PL brand and enforce some change.

[nathan lavery]

At no stage during the game did i have an ounce of belief we would get anything out of the game.

 

Even after we equalised out of nowhere, I was absolutely certain we would find a way to spunk our lines and lose.

 

Relegation fodder.

[The Doctor]

9 hours ago, phoneticerror said:

Still being charming as always. You seem to be avoiding the point I’m making and constantly going back to the “he’s his number 2” argument. So Ward goes in after Mads at HT, after 2 mins he concedes an embarrassing goal. He does it again 2 minutes later, and then a third.

 

You think it’s logical to stick with him the following game? Or is it beyond the realms of possibility for a manager to think “****, that didn’t work…. Maybe considering his previous track record we should give the other guy a try?”

 

Just because he’s been your number 2, it doesn’t mean he has to always be after such a catastrophic performance.

so again, the point of conversation was on Cooper: Cooper had seen ward play, RVN had not. Cooper made it clear Ward was above Iversen in the pecking order, he was obviously going to continue to pick Ward. That is not saying Ward should be playing that game, he should have had his contract torn up 2 years ago, it's saying the expectation that Cooper would have done any different is wrong, the only thing he'd have done different is not being Stolarcyk back the moment he was fit.

[LCFCJohn]

30 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

so again, the point of conversation was on Cooper: Cooper had seen ward play, RVN had not. Cooper made it clear Ward was above Iversen in the pecking order, he was obviously going to continue to pick Ward. That is not saying Ward should be playing that game, he should have had his contract torn up 2 years ago, it's saying the expectation that Cooper would have done any different is wrong, the only thing he'd have done different is not being Stolarcyk back the moment he was fit.

Let’s be honest, Stolarcryk didn’t seem to be fit for Wolves so you’d expect Cooper and RVN to have gone Ward for the reasons you have said further up. Actually the only evidence for the Wolves game we have is that RVN did pick Ward. Cooper doing so is speculation (albeit educated speculation).

 

After Wolves seemed to be the debate. With Stolarcryk back who’d been out all season, there is zero actual evidence to say Cooper wouldn’t then have made the change RVN did, forget Iverson completely. Your initial argument was Ward would still be in nets now. You can’t know that. It is speculation without foundation, based dare I say it on your feelings towards Cooper.

 

Cooper is gone. We don’t need to try and further bash him on things that there is no evidence about.

[Saxondale]

We deserve to lose and be relegated given that this was spotted at Villa. Absolute retards.

[Nick]

9 minutes ago, Saxondale said:

We deserve to lose and be relegated given that this was spotted at Villa. Absolute retards.

I nearly put this in the funny photos thread yesterday arvo. Embarrassing frankly and torrid use of the Club badge.

[fox_favourite]

21 minutes ago, Nick said:

I nearly put this in the funny photos thread yesterday arvo. Embarrassing frankly and torrid use of the Club badge.

Agreed.