Given that in recent years under Emery Aston Villa are a good side, I'll take a point. Ironically, Evans & Maguire both played well, so I'll class todays decision to rotate de Ligt/Martinez out under ballsy. It was the forwards that were poor, Garnacho was poor, it seemed like he was responsible for all of our turnovers. Running at men when it's ill-advised, shooting from unlikely angles when you've a good pass on. It was the sort of decision making I'd criticise Rashford for if he did it, so it's only fair Garnacho gets the same criticism. The one thing he has as an excuse is he's only 20 so it's sort of more expected from someone his age.
Hojlund was alright, I mean he didn't do anything wrong worked hard & had it not been for the general poor quality of our final ball (or in our case, not played into him at all) he was in good areas to take shots had some of our creative players got their head up. I like that he screamed at I think it was Garnacho after one such instance, needs to do that more regularly to his teammates to let them know. Almost needs take a Cristiano Ronaldo or even Ruud van Nistelrooy himself like approach & nearly demand the ball be played to him. Zirkzee was poor when he came on for him, hardly had a kick & when he did it was to give Aston Villa the ball right back.
Rashford was average, his usual sort of performance, was unlucky with one of his shots as he caught it well & Martinez tipped it over. Should have been sent off or given a second yellow for that petulant trip of Bailly I think it was after he'd beaten him, can hardly blame EtH for bringing him off almost immediately given he was likely on the referees last nerve. Antony had little impact when he came on, pressed & defended slightly better, but with the ball didn't accomplish anything.
All in all, the point was good, the performance was alright I guess to an extent or from a defensive perspective, but our forward play was putrid & to be honest, I wouldn't even hold ten Hag completely responsible for the poor attacking play either as it largely comes down to poor individual decision making most of the time.
ten Hag's delayed judgement until post-international break, Brentford is a must win & there's no way he can lose to Jose at Fenerbache in the Europa League either, he needs to find a way to start churning out results.