NeilS

Wow, that was a nightmare. Worse than normal getting tickets! I couldn’t get tickets in the Upper Trinity like previously. After 90 odd mins of trying I managed to get two tickets in the upper North Stand, which I haven’t been in since the Atletico Madrid game some 25 odd years ago.

This is my mindset on it as well, we can only control our own destiny and if we qualify this season we will have truely deserved and earned it. We cannot rely on others to help us out along the way we have to do our own job first and foremost. Unai is a winner and is breeding that mentality here with his no excuses culture, so I doubt he is focusing too much on the other English teams failing and making life harder.

What a result! I didn’t expect that, and a clean sheet to boot. UTV

I would think they are back for pre-season training, aren’t they?

Totally agree. Mings is a massive loss for us this season, like you say with the vocal organisation and also when defending set pieces. I remember one particular game at the end of last season against Forest who had some big physical players, when ever Morgan Gibbs-White fired over a corner Mings met it and cleared the danger. I am certain that Lille goal would not have happened with Mings playing, he would have attacked that ball and cleared it like he did against Forest last season. I managed to watch quite a few home games in the run inand Mings was faultless in that second half of the season, I have never been as confident about us seeing out a lead as I was at the tail end of last season. So it is a massive loss to lose him so early into this season. I hope he can recover fully from this injury and we get to see a few more seasons from Ty.

Diego hasn't been as good as I would have hoped for when we signed him. To be fair He was hit with a bad injury in his first season with us, which was obviously a major setback for him and that was not his fault. I was cutting him a little slack earlier on this season as he would have been rusty after such a long term injury, but he now has quite a number of matches under his belt racking up over 2000 minutes so far this season. He looks to have the physicality and builld for the PL, but he gets caught out too often for my liking. I do wonder if he is someone we may look to move on, and get a younger player (mid 20's) in during the summer window.

I am happy to come away with the victory, although disappointed that we conceded late on. To be fair to Lille they probably deserved a goal, and they were unlucky not to score sooner but for Emi Martinez in goal doing what he does and a close offside decision going our way. I would say that Lille are easily the best team we have played in Europe this season, and We will have to play a hell of a lot better defensively in the second leg to progress. Both teams looked weak at defending set pieces though, and for us I believe this is where we massively miss Mings, I am certain that Lille goal wouldn't have happened with Mings playing instead of Carlos. That ball would have been attacked by Mings and cleared. With Matty Cash missing with injury we have been favouring playing Konsa at RB and Carlos in the middle, I think that leaves us weaker defensively as Konsa and Pau worked well together, but I am not sure what alternative we have at the moment other than throwing Kesler-Hayden into the fire. Finally, I am not sure what happened with the referee last night. He didn't seem too bad in the first half and was very even, but something changed at half time and in the second half he was very one sided in my opinion. He was happy to book our players, but no action when the Lille players committed fouls that were equally as bad or sometimes worse. How the guy who ripped Konsa's shirt off his back got away without a yellow, yet Douglas gets booked for a minor shirt pull minutes later I will never know. Also, Watkins was wiped out from behind with a barge in the back in the penalty box. How is that not a penalty? It is a mystery to me. I guess all of the decent European referees are not selected for the Europa Conference League.

Yeah, that was a minor shirt pull, yet the Lille player almost ripped Konsa’s shirt off his back in the same part of the pitch only 3-4 mins earlier. The only consistency the ref showed last night was that our players were bookable and theirs weren’t.

My guess is that we will be in for Mikel Merino in the summer. According to www.transfermarkt.co.uk he is coming up to one year left on his deal this summer, so may be available at a reasonable price, we were linked a while back, he is at a good age, he is sponsored by Adidas and he is capable of playing CM or CDM so will fill a couple of roles in midfield and cover Kamara up until Christmas when he is due back.

When Duran comes on as a substitute late on in matches he does like to throw in a sliding tackle or two from distance, and that worries me a little with him. It is why he picks up Yellow cards regularly, but you just need a slightly mistimed one and an eager ref may pull out a red card. When he has started matches in the European ties, he has looked more subdued in that respect so maybe he is just over trying to impress in a short time at the end of a match. I think that will come with experience and time working with the first team. Here's hoping for a thunder strike of a goal tonight from Jhon if he gets on the pitch.

Wouldn’t have been a goal if Watkins hadn’t persisted with that. Probably won’t get mentioned though and it will all be about Bellingham.

It could be argued that German team was one of the weakest they have had in a big tournament, and even then if Thomas Muller had stuck that one on one chance away like you would expect him to 99 times out of 100 then it could well have ended a different way.

I reckon Ireland was a protest vote that year, as we were universally rubbish that season. It was the pain of drawing matches to crawl over the safety line from Relegation at at the end. I had forgotten Sinclair, yes you are right bar a handful of matches he didn't light things up. But I never expected much from him to be honest, which is probably why I had forgotten about him. You are right, We were rubbish and heading towards the Championship thanks to Randy and Co. So it probably harsh to say no to any City players, if we were buying someone of top quality from City with a good attitude it would be fine, unfortunately they won't be letting those type of players go to us easily. Dougie they had to let go because of work permit isues, so we were fortunate to get in early with him. With Grealish I fear he will not have the hunger if he were to return here, he has achieved what he wanted to at City and I fear he would be coming back to see out his career here. We need players looking to push on and improve and give their all for the team.

Haha, how did I forget about Dougie sorry about that. To be honest though, I don't count Doug as a Man City player because he never played for them in a competitive match and spent most of his short time there on loan. I was thinking more along the lines of Richards, Ireland and Lescott via Albion they were all hopeless and a monumental waste of money for us. Dunne and Given were just ok, but not the best.

My concern with us re-signing Grealish is that we have never had much luck signing players from Man City. Would the hunger to succeed and perform at the top level still be there now he has earned his fortune and won his medals, I am not so sure. He is coming to the twilight of his career now and injuries are more likely as he enters his 30's. With the cost of fee and wages I don't think it would be a wise use of our funds. I wasn't keen on selling him at the time, but in hindsight I can see the benefits to all parties involved and we re-built on the back of a handsome fee from Man City. We need to think without involving sentimentality to make sure Aston Villa thrives going forward, signing Jack would be a sentimental signing harking back to what he was and not what he will be. I think it would be best to avoid this one.