MessiWillSignForVilla

Fine. Gareth, you're alright...

Hahahaha, Rodri brought on only to miss the pen

Just looked at twitter and seeing loads of people saying Traore should've been brought on, why is it that when Spain play a team that just sits deep and gives no space in behind, loads of people go on about Traore being able to make the difference, what's he gonna do other than spaff crosses behind the goal?

1. I didn't really give my opinion on where he should play (although I can see why it might appear I was advocating for him in the middle). Personally, I don't care where he plays, as long as it's for Villa, so I wasn't dismissing stats just because they disagreed with my point of view. 2. I was pointing out that top level stats like Goals and Assists are not particularly useful as they are not indicitive of performance and are far too reliant on how other players perform. The underlying metrics of stats like xG/90 and xA/90 as well as Key Passes and xGbuildup90/xGchain90 are much indicitive of performance as it focusses much more on the player as an individual without needing to really consider the players receiving passes or passing to them as much as pure G/A do. It's not perfect and still has it's problems (such as, does Grealish's xG drop in the middle because he's worse at scoring there, or is it because the chance creators that play when he's on the left are better than those that play when he's in the middle?) but it's a much better way of judging performance than just looking at goals and assists, hence why professional clubs focus on stuff like xG and xA more. I think there was even an interview with Grealish recently discussing his performance this year where he mentioned he was doing better in terms of xA and chances created, and that had been a big focus with the coaching staff. 3. I see the FIFA/FM line a lot on here, much more than anyone criticising that point, and the fact you ignored most of my post to pick up on that one line feels to me like it backs up my point. I wasn't doing it to just dismiss your post and take a swipe, hence why it was a final tacked on point at the end of the post, but just because I think it's a dumb argument that allows people to dismiss points without engaging with them.

Just looking at goals and assists isn't a great way of looking at it, as it tells you nothing of how players around him played. I still remember the Burnley game at home when he played through the middle and should've had about 10 assists. Anyway, actually breaking it down in to his per game chance creation (below is 2020/21 - on the wing in green v centre in blue), he's more of a goal threat on the wing, but creates way more chances and is more involved in our build up through the middle, so it would make sense that playing through the middle with an upgrade on El Ghazi and Traore would lead to better output. 2019/20 you could make more of a case that he was better on the left, but he was much more heavily relied on by us that season and he still created better chances when through the middle. Also, I really hate this trend on VT that anytime someone disagrees about a which position players would be better in or which players should start over others, it gets dismissed as "ahh, it's just cause he's better there on FIFA/FM", it just smacks of not being able to properly back up an argument, so it's easier to dismiss someone elses opinion as less valid. Edit - just to keep this on topic, I think someone like Smith-Rowe would be the perfect type of player to allow us to move Grealish inside and then reap the rewards of his increased chance creation, whilst also retaining some chance creation from the wing.

Not really, Premier club want Gana could have been about 20 different clubs, even more if you take Premier to also mean elite, so could include the likes of PSG, Juve, Madrid etc. Also there had been talk that he wanted to leave and had a release clause for weeks before Everton came in. Given he had a release clause of about £8m, of course Premier League teams were interested, so it wasn't exactly a risky prediction, just like bid for a position that is half our outfield players isn't exactly telling us much, especially when we know we have bid multiple times for ESR.

It's not that bad. Also, it's a grainy photo being modelled by some random guy, it'll probably look a lot better when in a decent photo and being worn by actual athletes.

There's not a more overrated player in the league than Winks, hope we stay well clear.

I highly recommend going on their forum and reading the match thread from about page 12, some of the responses are beyond pathetic, I absolutely love it

Kimmich absolutely shat himself when Jack got the ball in the build up to the first.

How the hell does Sterling actually play for a team that obsesses over possession and passing?

And completely **** us as Grealish slides up City's priority list...

Just get Kane off now, would prefer Ramsdale to whatever the **** he's offering

At least try to compete for the header Kane you useless prick

Rice and Phillips are not a good enough midfield duo at this level, especially to just sit back and soak up pressure.

It's echoing this tweet from Friday, but he is at Wembley (presumably working the game) so could have just been showing Percy some love when the crowd were singing Sweet Caroline.

Grealish, ESR and Alvarez triple announcement? Anything less and I'll riot.

Not really, there's a wiki page on it You've got Gary Neville, Jamie Carragher, Tony Adams, Jack Charlton, Ledley King, Lev Yashin, Rogerio Ceni. And then still active players there's Messi, Muniain, Koke, Akinfeev, Busquets, Muller.

Johnson can't be setting the precedent that you can get sacked for having an affair.

I highly recommend to people that don't understand why some are so pissed off with this to read Joey D'Urso's reporting on this issue over the past 6 months in the Athletic. Here's the first special report he did, with the main headlines below; So it's actually quite likely the club didn't dig very deeply into this new sponsor, because they don't care to know more. They have a white label licence, that's enough for them, it doesn't matter that all it takes is a service fee to a middle man to get one. It also mentions in the article that some clubs don't allow their best players to appear in advertising for these companies, only the older, less valuable ones, so clearly the clubs recognise it's a bit dodgy. I think gambling in football on it's own is a big issue that needs to be taken seriously, I'm tired of every match having 10 minutes before, after and at half time shouting at me "BET, BET, BET! Please gamble responsibly. When the FUN stops, stop.". But these Asian companies using white label middlemen really take the cake, and for me it's disappointing that Villa got rid of one to go straight to another. At least we don't have one as our main sponsor anymore.

I don't think it was so much that it was unprofessional (even though that's what he claims), more that his editor probably got pissed off that he tweeted it out without an article linking back to the Brum Mail for clicks, which I suppose is unprofessional for a journalist.

Pretty sure Romeu can play CB as well, so possibly being looked at to cover both positions?

I don't care how good he is for Spurs, I absoultely hate Kane playing for England. Maybe if we had a manager that knew what they were doing they'd tell him actually play up front

There will definitely be some players that leak in exchange for more favourable stories being ran about them in the papers, but also I reckon there's an element of the England staff leaking to gauge public opinion of certain decisions. It may be a bit conspiritorial, but for me I don't believe the story for a second that Alexander-Arnold was told months ago that he was included, and I personally think Southgate was uncertain on it right up until the final selection, and wanted to gauge how pissed off people would be if he was left out.