‘Awful again’, ‘Horrendous’ – some Aston Villa fans weren’t happy with defender’s performance

Aston Villa suffered a 3-0 defeat at Wigan Athletic on Saturday afternoon and some supporters weren’t too pleased with the contributions of James Chester at the DW Stadium. The centre-back has struggled for consistency this season and many are questioning how he still gets into the team after another below-par display.

Chester awful again Taylor is not good enough like Hutton gets targeted and wingers get change out of him as per usual. #AVFC

— Drew Walsh (@drewwalsh32) January 12, 2019

Chester is no captain…#avfc

— Z (@Petar_Zjacic) January 12, 2019

The state of our team at the minute

Front 3 are all on loan
Hourihane & BB not good enough
Chester not been good enough
Bree offers nothing
Taylor dreadful
Whelan WAY past it
Hutton past it
Adomah offers nothing

And I could go on and on #avfc

— AvfcReact (@TheReaction11) January 12, 2019

So many players not fit to wear the shirt – Chester, Taylor, Bjarnason, Hourihane, Bolasie from the starting XI and that’s being nice #AVFC #UTV

— Alex (@Alex09473828) January 12, 2019

Bad subs but smith wants teams on the ball chester is horrendous with ball at his feet not having this injury thats no excuse been dreadful all season #avfc

— tonksy (@dicktonksy) January 12, 2019

Difficult to think of any player, other than McGinn perhaps, who deserves any credit. Chester, Taylor and Bree were shocking. Anwar ran up blind allies and then divedlookibg for free kicks. Bolasie just couldn’t play it simple and Hourihane was just slow and ponderous.#AVFC

— Kevin Hughes (@kevinhughes348) January 12, 2019

Ah, I see it's another week of the Is James Chester Actually Awful Or Just Incredibly Error-Prone? internal debate. #AVFC

— Tom Nightingale (@tdnightingale) January 12, 2019

James Chester is terrible. Consistently poor

— vízzy9 (@vizzy9) January 12, 2019

Against Wigan, Chester failed to make a successful tackle or interception over 90 minutes. The 29-year-old won two aerial duels and made six clearances, but he was suspect throughout the match and was arguably the worst-performing defender in the Villa side.

Dean Smith’s men have kept just one clean sheet in their last seven Championship games this season, shipping 13 goals in the process, and their hopes of attaining promotion look grim unless they can start shutting sides out again.

With Tommy Elphick being recalled from his season-long loan spell at Hull City and Kortney Hause being signed from Wolverhampton Wanderers, Villa have strengthened the defence in January. The changes haven’t led to a turnaround in results, however, which is a worry.

Only Rotherham United (25), Ipswich Town (22) and Bolton Wanderers (18) have scored fewer goals than Wigan (28) this season, so the Latics hitting three past Villa is a real disappointment.