skarroki

I don't think I've been this nervous for a league game in my lifetime, going to be like this every week now. Might be the first time that I've spent more focus and worry on the bench than the starting XI.

Getting on the bench twice in row, must have got the attention of the staff. Especially surprising seeing as our bench was already 90% defenders

I haven't been posting on here as much recently but I just wanted to say that the win at Arsenal was the kind of season-defining performance that you look back on when you've achieved something amazing at the end of the season. The players celebrating, the look of happiness and the belief they exuded convinced me completely that top 4 is ours now. The most recent thing for me was the Rotherham win during our win streak in the championship, and then that save from the first pen Steer made. They just stay with you those moments. Both the goals we scored Sunday live in my head rent free on repeat this week. I am enjoying this season so much and I have complete trust and faith that even if there's unforseen setbacks down the line, we're built to recover from them now. I love this current squad and manager, even the higher ups too. What a time to be alive as a Villa fan. I'm pumped for tonight and I can't wait for Sunday too, I'm looking forward to the transfer window. I'll be borderline emotional watching Mings back out on the grass next season. So much to look forward to. Everything is good.

Come on Jhon you know it makes sense

I don't think its that and it's also a very easy thing to say when we're heading towards the top 5 with Emery. If Gerrard was still here and we were hoping for Coutinho and Henderson to be fit enough to play 45 minutes in our fight to finish 15th, I don't think Emi would be saying that because I don't think he'd even be here. It's a nice thing to read and to think if a big team come in with an offer his head wouldn't turn now, but I think every footballer would agree it means more to play Champions League with a less favoured team, just a lot of the people who agree with Emi will do that whilst sat on the bench earning the same as him for a Milan club or Munich or someone.

Duran only has one red card, in Chicago two years ago. Zaniolo has four over 150 competitive games. Do they have no discipline in your opinion or will City pay the ref to send off players coming into the starting XI? Not sure what the suggestion is from your post.

This for me only applies if they score twice in the first ten minutes and then the rest of the game is close. If there's even a sniff of getting something out of this I'll be a wreck, if we get walked all over I'll find it painful and watch something else

Think he'll end up being the reverse of Barkley, storming the last section of the season, couple of small injuries and patchy form at the start of the season. I'm in two minds, putting aside his comments and personal life and just treating him based on him being a footballer. I don't think he's done enough to warrant a transfer at the moment, and if he does continue to improve up to the end of the season then he will still maybe not have done enough over the full season. However, if he does continue to improve then there will be signs that he's going the right way and worth whatever price Monchi can negotiate. Then it becomes a case of seeing if there's any room for him once Buendia is back.

You haven't unless you're going back pre-VAR and even then those tackles wouldn't go in the modern game.

He's starting to show the form of Mings for me now, one of the things I hated most about Mings. Solid and unspectacular for 80% of his minutes, noticeably good for 15% playing good passes, great tackles and generally showing quality, then 5% of the time, almost every game, he just completely loses his marbles and does something to put us in massive danger. The only reason it's not costing us as much as Mings used to is because everyone else in the squad has stepped up now so others can bail him out, Mings was usually the one trying to bail others out when he did something calamitous. Edit: I should add by solid and unspectacular I mean relatively speaking for a top half Prem CB, I do think both players are very good and don't really want to replace either in our squad. Ideally I'd want them both as backups with Torres having a new CB partnership next season and Carlos, Chambers, House et al out of the club.

Tell me what's wrong with the modern game without telling me what's wrong with the modern game.

I agree, although if someone tried that on me on a Sunday morning I'd have reacted a lot worse than Udogie did. I'd like to think I'm leaving the Sunday league pitch capable of walking into the office on Monday.

Players don't react to "no intent to cause harm" challenges and you had players running from all over the pitch to tell McGinn what they thought of that. 100 times out of 100 that tackle causes harm because there's no way it wouldn't.

Don't think he got the game plan wrong we just got undone by a great goal with their first shot on target, then Konsa and Tielemans just pointing and passing at the worst place on the pitch to misplace a pass minutes later. Game gone before Emery could react and then soon as Emery does start project salvage, McGinn "Leroy Jenkins" his way straight through a player in front of the ref, 4th official and staff and we've got half an hour to go knowing we've got close to 0 chance of sorting anything. Players look knackered, injuries has meant no rotation all season and it's starting to show. We've played more games already than Spurs will all season and we've still got 12 to go if we can get through midweek in Europe.

Do that to the average bloke in the street and you'd be calling an ambulance. He's t-boned him both going full speed in different directions. Lucky he didn't do damage otherwise we'd be waiting to see if it was only 3 games