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Definitely aimed at Dendoncker, and great captaincy too to namecheck him without namechecking him and to hopefully help give him a boost. Definitely played his part on Saturday, that cross-field pass showed his lack of game time I think but that double tackle he put in on the halfway line got the crowd up.

And we shouldn’t have lost two of those really, we were the better team against Leicester but gifted them the win and at 2-2 against arsenal Bailey hits the bar and a few mins later arsenal get lucky with a shot hitting the bar and then Martinez before going in.

I do love the pundits…it’s not all of course and we are getting more respect from many but a few that were saying “Why not” when Spurs were flying high 6 games ago but for us “no chance” yet we are six games further on and almost half of the season in.  It’s also hard to argue history because we finished above Spurs last season, they’ve lost their star striker, have a new manager whereas we have a manager whose a serial winner and all he is doing is keeping up his points average that he’s had for a full twelve months, not just this season.

If we are going to be compared to Leicester, then we need to win the title first. 

And now they both play for a weak Premier Division side.  They are both very good players but really need to leave Palace if they want success. 

Fair play to him, came in and put in some decent tackles and helped us get over the line. The attempted 40 yard cross field balls in the 90th minute can get in the bin though!

I find these Leicester comparisons a bit bizarre.  Where did they finish the season before they won the league? I don’t think it was 7th. Were they already in Europe when they did their title charge? I don’t think so. Did they spend £30m+ on a central defender and £40m+ on a wide forward in the summer window beforehand? I don’t think they did. Had Leicester won the league ever, or had a history of ever seriously competing for it? No I don’t think they had. Is the idea that Gerrard is Nigel Pearson and Emery is Ranieri? The timings of the respective manager changes don’t really mirror each other either. To an extent, Emery is a bit like Ranieri in that both were perhaps not massively appreciated by the English game until they went to Villa and Leicester respectively. But that’s about it. What Leicester did was amazing, etc etc. Obviously their rivals kinda all had an off season which didn’t hurt. I don’t think Liverpool, Arsenal or City are really having an off season this year. So in THAT sense, if we somehow won the league I would say that the competition was stronger than when Leicester won it - but the starting positions for both Villa and Leicester are wildly different, Leicester starting from much further behind. We may as well be compared to Blackburn in ‘95. There’s about as much similarity.

It will be interesting to see who, if anyone, we sign in January, our squad is still quite small, just twenty-one players, and a third of those are attackers, of whom we can only play three at any given time, another two Georgia Mullett and Sophia Poor are inexperienced at WSL level academy players; in all competitions on only three occasions have we been able to fill our subs bench, and one of those occasions it was because we named Lydia Sallaway who is only sixteen, and it's not just been one player short, a lot of the time two or three players short. I think we probably need to strengthen midfield, but then who would we drop, Blindkilde is one of the best young players in the country, Dali is probably our most important player other than Daly, Staniforth has been excellent since signing, Nobbs has shown her qualities, Parker has looked good playing there too, not sure what's going on with McLoughlin that's a strange one, she's in the last year of her contract and getting hardly any WSL game time at all, I hope we're not letting her go, I know it's only against Championship clubs, but in the League Cup she looks one of our best players, and has looked competent in the WSL when given a chance, bearing in mind she's only just turned nineteen she's worth keeping around based on promise alone. Ruby Mace is someone I've wondered we might go for, was very impressed with her at Leicester last season and watching her for England U21s recenlty, she's a DM but very composed on the ball and a good passer, can also play central defense, Ward had her at small heath on loan from Arsenal, and she already knows some of our younger players from international duty, but whether Man City would be prepared to let her go I don't know, she's only made two appearances for them this season, so might be worth a try. We need right-back, Charli Grant is the one we've been linked with and apparently has a WSL move lined up for January which I thought might be us, but recently she's being linked with Arsenal and West Ham more  

Kinda ironic that a club owned by a Petrostate hasn't considered the need for sustainable energy! 😂