El Zen

Good to have you back, dem.

Played to perfection by the grossly underappreciated Nick Offerman.

I’d like to think Jack stays if we stay up, but if he must go I hope he goes abroad. Watching Barca struggle massively away at Betis, he’d be a massive improvement on all of their attacking players bar Messi and de Jong. That’s his level. Not Man effing United.

Mookie and Price to LAD for prospects and salary relief.

With just about a week left before pitchers and catchers report, the 2020 baseball season is fast approaching. It’s been an eventful offseason, with the Astros (and Red Sox?) sign stealing scandal grabbing the biggest headlines. Big question marks hang over both clubs, and the Red Sox might also end up trading Mookie Betts with ownership looking to shed payroll. The Yankees look like early favourites, making a big, and necessary, splash on Gerrit Cole. Last season produced a WS champion few had predicted, the Nationals. Who are this year’s potential dark horses? Where will Mookie land? Who will be the NL MVP (no prizes for tipping Mike Trout for the AL equivalent, I’m afraid)? Who are the most exciting rookies to look for in 2020? Who will fail to meet expectations? How many games will the Orioles lose? Who will win it all? Baseball, coming up. @maqroll

Completely agree. Trez for Nakamba was the wrong move, but otherwise I have no major issues with the game management from Smith.

Today, specifically, they seemed to lack focus, and generally speaking every Villa team I’ve ever seen has always been too damn nice and polite.

True. Corners were like 1-7 in our favour. I’ve seen people say we deserved to lose, and maybe we did, but it’s not as if we were ever out of the game. We weren’t. It’s just that over and over again, we wasted good opportunities to create something through sheer lack of application. We gifted them possession and decent breaks. We’re capable of so much better. I’ve seen so much more pure effort from this team. I always feel it’s simplistic to blame a lack of effort, as I genuinely don’t think professional footballers want to play badly. They wanted to win, I’m sure, but too many seemed to lack focus at least. It was painful to watch, not because we were outplayed, but because we should have won, should have been better.

That one hurt, as it always felt like we would have beat them comfortably if we even played close to our best. The apllication just wasn’t there, and it looked sloppy and lacklustre, a few brief spells aside. Let’s just hope this won’t be the beginning of the end. Need to bounce back soon.

Absolutely farcical.

As poor as we’ve been, Anthony Taylor’s been worse. Completely one sided refereeing. Need to sort out the midfield area, but it’s still very possible to get something from this.

Yep, same for me. I was all for VAR but it has become a joke the way it’s used in the PL. Scrap it asap.

Fixed for you.

I don’t think the ref gave us a single foul inside the final 20 minutes. Trez was being pushed and kicked all over the place. You also can’t show advantage and then give a free kick when they balls it up. There was also no justification for five minutes injury time. The ref got what he wanted.

Ref got what he wanted.

Christ, this is exhausting stuff.

Yey!

‘Zackly. Defensive error from Mings and another VAR shocker killed it. Nothing to be ashamed of. Learn from it, move on.

We didn’t really protest. Nakamba should have been screaming at the ref, maybe it would have forced VAR to have a look. And then decide against us anyway, obviously.

I noticed it too, but we were never getting that decision.

How?! That was a definite offside. VAR screwing us again.

Depends what your goal is, but intervals and gym leg work to build speed and 02 capacity, with the occassional longer run to build endurance?

We actually call it biff tartar. We’re not barbarians.

It’s performance art, really. Satire, surely. It’s just a shame about the very real consequences.

We did a lot of things right today. Our pressing game was excellent, which forced a lot of errors from their players. Then, we took advantage of those errors, attacking with conviction and sending a lot of bodies forward. Going forward, we looked excellent. Defensively, we were a little open, and I still feel we can be too sloppy with the ball, but the way we defended our box, blocking shots, was great. Shame about the silly consolation goal we gave them, but hey. So many had good games, it’s hard to pick a MOTM. Wesley’s brace is hard to overlook, Grealish is always brilliant, but Marvelous really stood out for me as key to our entire shape and plan .