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The mid-week gamble has backfired, the repercussions are obvious. Three goals conceded at set pieces, or second phase set piece, missed chances at the other end, including a sitter or two for Darren Bent and an Ashley Young penalty saved.
Bent should have opened the scoring inside the first five minutes after being sent through brilliantly by Young, but he wasn’t able to dig the ball out from under his own feet and Jaaskelainen snuffed out the chance before he could unleash any kind of shot.
Although Bolton had their chances, it was Villa that took the lead in the 15th minute after Kyle Walker’s superb burst into the box on the right resulted in a wicked cross behind Bolton’s back line to the waiting Bent who couldn’t miss.
True to form though, during the two added minutes at the end of the half, Gary Cahill simply outfought Nathan Baker to the ball and nodded home to take the sides into the break even.
No changes at the break, the game ebbed and flowed, several gilt-edged chances went begging before Marc Albrighton showed how it was done, meeting Downing’s right sided cross perfectly to side foot his volley calmly past the helpless Jaaskelainen.
And then, six minutes later, with 20 minutes left, the game changing moment. Ashley Young was brought down in the box by David Wheater and was rightly awarded a penalty. After some entirely unjustified protests from the Bolton players, Ash was finally able to take his spot kick and it was well saved by Jaaskelainen, the chance to take the game to 3-1 spurned.
Five minutes later, guess who, Gary Cahill at a corner again. His powerful header was well saved by Brad Friedel, but the rebound fell straight to Cahill again who volleyed in through a crowd. 2-2.
Houllier brought on Petrov in place of Fabian Delph and gave Gabby just seven minutes to make an impact, but with four minutes of normal time left, Bolton twisted the knife when Ivan Klasnic picked up on a loose ball from a free kick delivery and powered his effort low to the bottom corner.
It wasn’t a game we deserved to lose, although I wouldn’t claim that we dominated any particular portion, I would say that we crafted the better quality openings and should have put Bolton to the sword with plenty of time to spare.
I don’t know what’s going wrong with the defending of set pieces, but it’s simply atrocious. You can’t win games conceding two or three goals a game.
At the other end, well everyone has an off day, we’re not employing robots, but we might have a right to expect a little more from key players such as Darren Bent when given the chance. He could have grabbed himself a hat-trick today.
Our own potency at set pieces the other end is practically zero now. Time and again a poor delivery from a dead ball gave Bolton absolutely nothing to defend. Nothing. It either failed to beat the first man or sailed harmlessly over everyone’s heads.
Sub-standard defensively and wasteful offensively. Not a recipe to win many games.
That’s all I have for now. I’m getting off the internet, it’s clear that players win games, managers lose them. Not a “debate” I’m going to waste any time on.
Nine games left, but nothing for another fortnight again. The sensibility of only playing the key players for one of the two games since the last lull in the fixture calendar really looks like madness right now.
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11 Comments to “Bolton 3 Aston Villa 2: Chances squandered, set piece achilles exploited”
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Perhaps at the start of next season Houllier could give us a list of the teams he’s not going to try against if we’re drawn against them in a cup competition. Or even in the league, whichever one that is. The thing is, if we get to a cup final without playing one of the teams Houlliier is frightened of it’s very likely we’ll be playing one of them in the final. Wondering what it’s like for the players to look towards the bench and see an old man slumped down inside his coat with his hands in his pockets trying to keep warm. And what exactly is it that that Scotish sidekick of his does?
“And what exactly is it that that Scotish sidekick of his does?”
He gets you relegated, doesn’t he?
Very frustrated about today.
But not because we were poor overall and gave the game away (unlike Wednesday, that still sticks in my throat).
We took it to them and it was a great game of footy.
We lost because we couldn’t defend, although we created plenty of chances to win the game, but didn’t take them.
That’s not the manager’s fault (for once).
I was very minded to keep GH out of it, as I thought he picked the right team on the whole, but having read around, it seems many are blaming him for us not being able to defend set pieces at all.
I have to say I have some sympathy with that view.
Zonal marking didn’t work at Pool under GH and doesn’t for us either.
Cahill had 2 free headers, simple.
we used zonal marking under MON, ask martin laursen:
“He [Houllier] is not zone marking, but he is man marking. With Martin O’Neill we always had our zone and that worked well. I enjoyed that.”
http://www.sundaymercury.net/midlands-sport/aston-villa-fc/aston-villa-fc-news/2011/02/20/martin-laursen-believes-switch-to-man-marking-could-be-responsible-for-aston-villa-s-setpiece-woes-66331-28198917/2/
that’s a little misleading though. like most everyone, we use a combo at set-pieces. nathan baker was man-marking cahill at both corners he scored from. he was just muscled off the ball on the first, cahill started from a deeper position and he didn’t get close enough on the second.
Hes has taken one of the best defences in the league and made them totally useless.
On the other hand, I thought we looked deadly going forward today. Ash puts that away (and I thought he had a great game, by the way) and we batter them.
I’d put this one down to tough luck on GH to be fair, but suggest it may give fuel to the defenders complaints about his shit plans on Monday at training. Expect to see a happy Dunne running a new system when we finally play again and all our very tired young footballers are fully recharged.
Footbal, eh? It’s a crappy old game to support.
“Hes has taken one of the best defences in the league and made them totally useless.”
this -> http://astonvillacentral.tumblr.com/post/3664004148/revealed-why-aston-villa-are-leaking-so-many
Terrible defending but it wasn’t our regular back four. It wouldnt be an issue Except that we’ve conceded from set pieces and at the end of half/ full time regardless of personnel. It is definitely a system issue.
On a side note, am I the only one sick of hearing the announcer repeatedly say “poor set piece”, “wasted opportunity” or some version of this after an Ashley Young kick? He has been terrible from corners, free kicks and crosses for two years now. Let Downing or Albrighton do the kicking – their crosses have been great.
So….
Who is to blame?
Forwards who wasted their chances
Midfielders who failed to boss the game
Defenders who cant seem to get a grip with set pieces
The Manager whose tactics and substitution choices are not working.
Some, all or none of the above?
When MON resigned/was sacked, (still not sure which), i conceded that we were screwed. when GH was appointed i was convinced we were screwed. But, all those whom i consider more knowledgeable than i, claimed Houlier was our saviour, so i wrote off this season and thought if we can stay up that would be good enough.
The problem came when we spent big in January, suddenly the expectation rose it’s ugly head.
So in answer to the original question, i blame us, expectant fans who given the slightest opportunity think that our team are world beaters.
Also i blame Birmingham City for winning the Carling Cup and intensifying our desire to succeed.
So please for once give em a chance and don’t destroy any chance we have in the future.
succinctly put, i couldn’t argue with very much.
from the tendency fans have to blame every little thing on one man, the manager, i fully expect to see a cut shot of him on the sidelines with an xbox controller in his hands.
the players are mere pixels under his every control. except when they do something good. then it’s all them.
I have no qualifications to evaluate Houiller as a manager. But if Cuellar, Dunne and Collins are playing, they win the game easily. If any two of them are playing, they should still win. If any one is playing, they should at least draw. But none of them played, and I am not sure why the result makes Houiller a bad manager.
Dan, what’s the ratio of goals conceded through set pieces (and 2nd phase) to those from open play for Villa this season?
good question. i don’t have the info to hand to answer, but i’d imagine it would be high. as would you, or you wouldn’t have asked.
however, just knowing that doesn’t necessarily answer the full question… what if we’re facing far more set pieces and as a proportion of the number faced in the past, we’re actually conceding less?
again, i don’t know the answer, but it’s just a thought.