Ratings v Villa

[Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man 3,808]

McGovern 6.0: Thrust into the thick of things and conceded five, but none were as a result of his errors: his only real error went unpunished when he let a tame header bounce off his chest. Excellent stop from Wesley's penalty and the follow up.

Aarons 4.5: Nothing really came off for him today. Chasing shadows too often in defence and lacked composure when going forward. It's the first sticky spell of his career- let's see how he copes.

Godfrey 5.0: Didn't look his usual self. Maybe it was his injury, the poor performances of the others or just an off day. Could've done better for the first goal and didn't really recover.

Amadou 3.5: Absolute disaster and hopefully we won't see him at centre back again. Should've been tighter to Wesley for the first goal, probably should've cut out the cross for the second, lost possession for the fifth and compounded everything by putting the ball over from under the crossbar in the last minute. Nightmare.

Lewis 5.0: Suffered a lot in the first half defensively but at least possessed attacking threat. Villa looked particularly dangerous down his flank and a lot of their play was down our left.

Leitner 5.0: Gave the ball away poorly for Villa's second goal and allowed them to play through too often. His creative side was nowhere to be seen either.

McLean 4.5: Didn't do anywhere enough to stop wave after wave of Villa attack, didn't contribute with the ball and was lucky that Wesley failed to score from the penalty that he very clumsily conceded.

Buendia 4.5: Nothing came off for him today. Appeared to throw his toys out of the pram on more than one occssion when attacks broke down and gave the ball away for Villa's fourth.

Stiepermann 5.0: Had several openings on the first half but didn't make the most of them. He hasn't had his shooting boots on recently but at least he's always putting himself about and getting involved.

Cantwell 5.0: He looked the most likely to create something with some nice quick passes but ultimately wasn't able to find the breakthrough.

Pukki 5.5: Worked hard as usual but didn't have the service. Took a couple passes down well but was well marshalled and didn't get any clear cut chances.

 

Roberts 5.5: Didn't have the time to do anything but didn't look like he was going to do. Not his fault though because the other 21 players on the pitch had already stopped playing. 

Drmic 6.5: Well, he scored.

Srbeny N/A.

[HertsCanary93 222]

McGovern - 6.0: Not really at fault for the goals, but his distribution was pretty poor. Did a decent job all things considered. Saved a penalty so gets a boost.

Aarons - 5.0: Hasn't really got going this season. Would play Byram next week if he is fit.

Godfrey - 5.0: Did better than Amadou but was bullied by Wesley. Hoped for a bit more leadership in getting us organised.

Amadou - 3.5: Terrible today, Wesley is a total donkey and tore him to shreds.

Lewis - 6.0: Easily the best performance of a poor back four, looked decent going forward. Very athletic and cut out a few dangerous breaks.

Leitner - 4.5: Was very sloppy in possession and easily bullied off the ball.

McLean - 5.5: Poor performance and a sloppy penalty conceded. Given him a bit of a boost here as he at least seemed to try to fire the team up when we were starting to get rattled.

Steipermann - 5.5: Started off lively but seemed to lack composure to really make anything happen in the final third.

Buendia - 6.0: Worked hard and made some stuff happen.

Cantwell - 6.5: My MoM, looked skillfull, worked very hard and always made himself available.

Pukki - 5.0: Pretty anonymous, but hard to say whether that was really his fault.

[K Lo 224]

I thought that Cantwell had a good game today. He looked quite composed on and off the ball.

Seemed to me as though the players weren't playing well as a team. Too many stray passes or players not knowing where the other player was going to play the ball.

 

[Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man 3,808]

I was tempted to give Cantwell a 5.5 because he was clearly the brightest of our attacking midfield three. Maybe I was a little harsh...

[All the Germans 1,075]

I genuinely can't think of anything positive to say about anyone. Whilst he was probably our best player, Cantwell's brightness and skill was more than countered by a woeful composure / final touch where he should have done more on a few occasions.

[sgncfc 1,227]

I thought Godfrey was appalling - and if he was playing in pain that is probably why. The first goal was his fault and he got worse from then. Amadou made more obvious errors though.

Leitner, Maclean, Stiepermann were all very poor. Lewis was OK but the first goal came from an unchallenged cross from his side. Aarons was frequently caught up the pitch and didn't seem to try too hard to get back.

Buendia last season was a nightmare to play against - never gave up, tenacious, skillful. This season he hasn't played the same way at all - don't know why.

Pukki tracked back a couple of times but there was no pressure on Villa's DM for the whole game - looked knackered. It was Villa's DM who created the base from which Grealish dominated us and no one got anywhere near him all game. I think that is a coaching failure as much as anything, as is playing our own DM as a CB. I'd rather see a specialist CB from the under 21s in there.

Cantwell's final ball was awful, even when the approach was promising. He is a luxury, lightweight player we can't afford at the moment and apart from the first 5 minutes he didn't cover Lewis.

Roberts didn't touch the ball in almost 20 minutes.

Probably the worst we have played over 90 minutes since that Millwall game just over 2 years ago. No one seemed to have a clue what was going on.

Every other team is bigger, faster and tougher than we are and we're trying to play like fancy Dans. When up against it injury wise, our tactics should be to block out a 0-0 not go toe to toe. We had Byram on the bench who we know can defend - I'd rather see him at CB than Amadou, or at RB with Aarons as RWB.

The players didn't give enough - but neither did the management yesterday. However, I'm sure they all know that and we have to give them all time, like we said we would.

[Mason 47 1,376]

IMO we actually aren't putting enough effort into our own much-vaunted style- M City are amongst the biggest, fastest and strongest teams in the world and we matched them and more with our own brand of football.

The worry is that, since then, we seem to have lost our way. We aren't as committed and precise with our passing, or relentless with our movement; players appear much more as a set of individuals than as a team at present.

Why has this happened? Could be any number of things. A lingering overhang of self-congratulation from beating City? Buying too much into the media hype of poor little sicknote Norwich? Personally, I think a lot of it simply has to do with rotation and competition for places- the 5 midfielders that started against Villa, for example, look a bit too comfortable in the knowledge that if we had a game tomorrow, they would be the 5 starting that one too.

That isn't really a dig at Farke, because honestly at the moment there really isn't an embarrassment of riches to replace any of them with. But I don't think Leitner plays a nonchalant pass across our backline for their second, or Emi tries a half-assed blind flick before their fourth, if they knew that a game-killing mistake might cost them their starting place. Byram had one fantastic league start, one poor league start, and instantly a half-fit Aarons was back in his place; Drmic looks a bit underwhelming, but there's no way to say that isn't partially because we know he isn't displacing Pukki or Marco any time soon.

The most valuable thing we could do over the break is mentally reset and remember that we're under pressure, but more than capable when we really focus on our own game.