WBA Playoffs Thread

4evaabaggie · 14-05-2019, 23:58

(14-05-2019, 23:49)St Charles Owl Wrote: Feel for you guys, we went out the same way a couple of seasons ago and it's a bloody awful way to lose!!!! You were the better team in the 2nd half until the red card, then you lost your way and sat further and further back allowing Villa to control the game. New manager required now for you, get it done fast and start getting some players in.

Cheers Amelia, cheers SCO, did not feel we deserved to go up after a an indifferent season, don't think villa will win at Wembley .... they only won at villa park by a grealish dive to secure a penalty ....... sounds like sour grapes but it really isn't, we're poor villa aren't any better, Leeds, not my first choice but most deserving, we need a big clear out now and a new manager pronto otherwise it will be another wasted season. 2007 lost the playoffs to Derby, 2008 went up as champions ..... hoping for a repeat.

bomberbrown1968 · 14-05-2019, 23:58

I'm honestly ok with the losing but not with them *ankers going through at our expense - that's what fu**ing hurts.

Leeds or Derby have got my undivided support (sorry SCO)

4evaabaggie · 15-05-2019, 00:03

(14-05-2019, 23:58)bomberbrown1968 Wrote: I'm honestly ok with the losing but not with them *ankers going through at our expense - that's what fu**ing hurts.

Leeds or Derby have got my undivided support (sorry SCO)

Bomber agree 100% .....didn't want to go up after our poor season and mismanagement, feared an instant embarrassing return next season if we had ...... time to rebuild. The hurt is the vile will be gloating ..... Hope they get a kicking at Wembley and another by the EFL for ffp breaches soon after.

betterthanbaird · 15-05-2019, 00:07

(14-05-2019, 23:58)bomberbrown1968 Wrote: I'm honestly ok with the losing but not with them *ankers going through at our expense - that's what fu**ing hurts.

Leeds or Derby have got my undivided support (sorry SCO)

Couldn't agree more, just need to hope Leeds can pull through. We never had a chance on pens with who we had on the pitch.

**St Charles Owl** · (This post was last modified: 15-05-2019, 00:11 by St Charles Owl.)

(14-05-2019, 23:58)bomberbrown1968 Wrote: I'm honestly ok with the losing but not with them *ankers going through at our expense - that's what fu**ing hurts.

Leeds or Derby have got my undivided support (sorry SCO)

No need to apologize to me!! At this point I am torn as to who I want to go up, Derby and L**ds are teams we have struggled to get results against but we have a habit of beating Villa!! My pragmatic view is I want the team who would spend the most money if they stayed in the Championship to go up, and of those three that would likely be L**ds, followed by Villa, so lets get rid of one of them, they can go and lose each week until our teams are ready!!

4evaabaggie · 15-05-2019, 00:17

Betterthanbaird, your spot on .... no Gayle, no, Jay Rod, no Robson Kanu, No Brunt, going into a shoot out, who would take the kicks ..... I blame the board, bad management, bad decisions, better tactics against Derby and we would have avoided the vile by finishing above Leeds.

As Johnny Logan said " WHATS ANOTHER YEAR"

betterthanbaird · 15-05-2019, 00:25

(15-05-2019, 00:17)4evaabaggie Wrote: Betterthanbaird, your spot on .... no Gayle, no, Jay Rod, no Robson Kanu, No Brunt, going into a shoot out, who would take the kicks ..... I blame the board, bad management, bad decisions, better tactics against Derby and we would have avoided the vile by finishing above Leeds.

As Johnny Logan said " WHATS ANOTHER YEAR"

Think Phillips, Johansen and Barry would all be more or less guaranteed too if they were on, Livermore as well i suppose. Hopefully we can bring in a decent manager and sort the squad, to put us in a better position moving forward. Suspect the club will fail miserably on at least one of those counts though.

Slick_Footwork · (This post was last modified: 15-05-2019, 00:33 by Slick_Footwork.)

Overall we got what we deserved this season.

Nothing.

The club was completely mismanaged from the top and it was easy to see before a ball had even been kicked...

We employ 2 managers who have never managed before, the latter never even as an assistant.

Had we employed a good manager at the start of the season, with this playing squad, I think we would've been top 2 comfortably.

In fact, if Darren Moore just curbed his insistence on playing out from the back we probably would've made top 2 with him.

But it was impossible to predict his stubbornness, as he had no previous managerial experience.

Lai bought into the club as an investment, without any football knowledge and has employed the wrong people. Jenkins was a good Chief Financial Office for Peace, but he doesn't have any football knowledge to do the CEO role. No idea what Luke Dowling does, but if it was his idea to sack Moore and replace him with Shan, then he should be shown the door now.

That said... we didn't deserve to lose the tie.

Shan bought into all the hullabaloo about Villa's "talent" and played a negative game. I didn't agree with it, but had it not been for poor refereeing, the plan would've worked. When the referee gives the opposition a penalty for a dive and then fails to even things up when there's 2 chances - Abraham diving on Holgate in the first leg and El Ghazi handling tonight - it's always going to be tough. With all that against us, we still drew.

In fact, in most other cup completions, we would've won on away goals.

That said, I can't help thinking if we setup positively to go at Villa, we would've won.

I honestly don't know why people perceive Villa to be so good. Grealish is arguably the best player in the Championship but him aside, I think they are very average. The creative wingers like Green and Adomah will never play above Championship level and I wouldn't swap any of them for ours. In fact, I'd put Jefferson Montero above all of them and he hasn't even kicked a ball for us for months. I can see why the Villa fans like McGinn, as he's all action, but honestly they are deluded about his quality.

And that's why despite setting up completely wrong and sacrificing a central midfielder, we still deserved to win the tie.

The sad thing is, where do we go from here?

Brunt, Mozza and Barry are a chest hair away from the end of their time. Gayle, Johansen, Holgate and Murphy will return to their parent clubs. The likes of Rondon, Dawson, Gibbs, Phillips, Livermore, Rodriguez and others will all have potential suitors. And after giving us a season in this division, could we really stop them from going?

I've got no problem with selling and replacing, but with our recruitment track record this year - signing the likes of the terrible Conor Townsend - I have zero faith we would replace them.

Even squad players like Mears, Hoolahan, Montero and Adaraboiyo will be gone.

It's a downward spiral from here... I'm just glad I got to see us play at the top level in my lifetime.

But at least I'm not embarrassed tonight. That's the only positive I can think at the moment.

TheFunkyJoker · 15-05-2019, 00:34

Have to say I'm mostly proud of the performance our boys out in today. Other than Brunt's sending off and our inability to capitalise on the chances Villa gifted us, I could not fault us and it ultimately got us a clean sheet in the second leg and the resilience we showed to carry that on through extra time to penalties was just phenomenal.

Unfortunately I fear failing to gain promotion will see some of the better players leave, but first and foremost we need to settle the issues behind the scenes (hopefully Lai will sell to someone who gives a damn? Or is that wishful thinking?).

4evaabaggie · 15-05-2019, 00:37

When we lose the pensioners, the loanees, the journeymen, any decent player with a transfer value, we will be looking at needing about twenty players ..... bargain basement here we come.

Maybe a forced rebuild on that scale will give us a fresh impetuous ..... a bright future.

If vile go up hopefully they will get thumping every week ...