Villa Seem To Be Chumps, not Champs!

The Villa know how to bring you down from the clouds, don't they?!

Never mind, we should be used to it. 

When fixtures against Leicester and Leeds come up, I'm always more apprehensive. The match earlier this week could have so easily gone the other way if Vardy had played, i.m.o., due to Villa's casualness first half.

Leicester also play in an aggressive way, and some of that was in the Leeds team, too, but they combined that with something else, and look more likely to be challenging the top-4 based on that performance.

For me, the Leeds manager, Bielsa, demonstrated everything a team manager should be.  Having had to make adjustments to his team owing to the absence of a couple of important players, he managed the tactics and on-going play to perfection, with emphasis on teamwork.

Early on he was quick to substitute a player once he had received a yellow card and looked likely to get another. His main capability, I think, lies in his commonsense. The question was put to him:

"In the first half, maybe the one criticism was there was maybe some loose passes - was that the thing that you changed most in the second half, was that the key to winning the game?" Answer from Bielsa:  "Not only what you mentioned, but in general it’s not good to lose the ball before you reach the attacking phase, in the opponent's half."

That answer highlights one of the Villa's major problems, and one that came up in the first half against Leicester earlier this week: casualness. This happened again and again in last night's match. It frequently happens when coming out of defence, but last night I saw it in Barkley's play, too, and his misplaced midfield pass triggered at least one goal. But it was compounded by the defence - and Mings in particular - by just standing off and looking.

But in my view, Leeds won because they played as a team. And they passed and passed quickly and accurately. Villa, on the other hand, look more like a team of individuals most of the time. And in these last two matches I have seen Grealish attempt to beat the entire opposition defence on his own three times. 

Grealish was well held a lot of the time last night, though his first-half shot on goal was magnificently cleared off the line by Leeds. In fact, both teams finished the first half on a par in terms of opportunities, but that goal-line clearance was superb. 

And then the second half, when first Grealish tried to beat the whole defence but couldn't thwart their keeper, and then the keeper's magnificent save from Konsa. At some point Bamford gave the impression that he had been nearly killed by Mings in his attempt to get a penalty, but that incident seemed to ruffle Mings as he looked on while Bamford then gained a hat-trick.

By the way Villa have played since that thrashing of Liverpool, they seem to have adopted a kind of swagger that seems to suggest that they just have to turn up to win, and after 8 league games undefeated, including that Liverpool result, they may have thought they had good reason to. At least they should now realise that they are not yet champs. More like chumps just at this minute!

Let's hope that Dean Smith will take stock and realise that it's no good having potential match-winners like Grealish and Barkley in the team if they are not functioning properly as part of a whole. And a whole that needs to be alert, not cocky.

This was not good enough, Villa. We were starting to get used to better than this.

UTV!