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 

Come on Jhon you know it makes sense 

On 02/04/2024 at 12:27, Villa_Vids said:

Pop at Grealish.

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. 

12 minutes ago, peterwithethewinner said:

If we start Duran and Zaniolo..we’ll be down to 9 men after 20 mins due to 2 red cards!!

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. 

2 hours ago, AVTuco said:

This will be a nice match to watch, as you can just enjoy the game without any nerves.

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. 

2 minutes ago, UpTheVilla26 said:

That's not a red. 

I've seen tackles like that in the Prem plenty of times that only warrant a yellow. 

The reaction from the Spurs bench and Udogie fully swayed the ref. 

 

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. 

3 minutes ago, AshVilla said:

Finishing 6th and missing out on CL would be a disaster for this football club.

Were then not talking about selling one key player in the summer to keep in line with FFP it will be 2 or 3.

 

 

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

13 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

Said in the match thread it's a lower Sunday league tackle you'd expect from a hungover fat guy 

It's a dirty put one on him tackle 

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. 

4 minutes ago, jimmygreaves said:

It should have been a yellow. It was a tactical foul. Even the match commentator was surprised when the red card came out.

The player wasn't hurt, there was no intent to cause harm. Watch it back....

A harsh call from the ref.

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. 

11 minutes ago, Amed said:

Seen way worse challenges where only yellow given - wasn’t even off his feet. Stupid but 3 game ban for that is harsh. 
 

 

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

6 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

If that’s red there should be one most games.

Behave

2 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

I think we'll be 8th-9th in the league this time next season so this forum will be an interesting place if that happens especially if we have to sell a key player in the summer.

I don't think playing one season in CL will be this transformational moment everyone thinks it will be. You need to be making it four seasons out of five and that's a very big ask.

 

1. Thinking we'll be 8th in the league next season when there are 19 other teams who will have their squads changed and there's still months to go in the current season is a weird take. Almost like a coping mechanism after a heavy defeat to a top 4 rival. 

2. If you want to finish in the top 4 for 4 of 5 seasons, you need to start by finishing in the top 4 once in 30 years. Let's do that first and celebrate it as the amazing achievement it is and see if we can kick on or maintain after. 

2 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

Tbh Emery did lose his bottle today. 5atb at home against Spurs is cowardly and pathetic tbh 

Careful with your hyperbole there you're not leaving much room to get more angry. 

6 minutes ago, Leeroy said:

Pathetic team, pathetic mentality. Wrong approach from the start and once again we’ve lost at home to a top half team. And not just lost but totally embarrassed.

 

We’re just a small provincial club these days with the odd good season. We have financial issues and our ambition in January was to sign a mid table championship player. We’ve been in this position many times before and bottled it. Back to mid table next season I reckon.

Hi I'm a fish, you caught me well done

3 minutes ago, BleedClaretAndBlue said:

 

Oh Jonathan you really should have double checked with your teammates before saying this because some of them had no idea it was a competitive fixture, let alone an important one. 

Thank god that's over. 

We move on. Must win midweek 

Wouldn't trust Diaby to pass the salt without either just knocking it over or violently lodging it in grandmas eye. 

Jesus I said half an hour ago I thought we were shutting up shop to avoid screwing the goal difference in case it ends up 5-0 and now I wouldn't put it past Torres just getting the ball and hammering it into our net. 

1 minute ago, Tommo_b said:

Or that it’s highly subjective. 

Subjective is doing a lot of heavy lifting and highly shouldn't be there at all. 

6 minutes ago, paul514 said:

Jogging tackles only lads 

Game's gone, can't even fly into someone aggressively nowhere near the ball without getting sent off these days