Annoyman

That's a good read. I had not clocked how close his goal involvements were to 1 in 2 under Emery. I sure hope he stays!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-67612757 Once a Blue, always a Blue (Badge Abuser)

I think Grealish was onside, but he's also remarkably good at hitting the keeper when clean through on his own

Remember our first game back in the PL against them when Billing committed three fouls while on a yellow in the first half, two of which were probably yellows by themselves, and the ref let him get to half time so they could sub him

That's an assist for McGinn imo. What was he up to out there? Nobody will ever know. Pure chaos

Son seems like he's overcompensating for losing the half yard of acceleration that would allow him to time his runs from a bit deeper. Against an offside trap very closely coached to always be positioned and alert for the moment the passer is initiating a through ball, he ends up looking like a clown (with unnervingly good but ultimately meaningless finishing). Not saying he's exactly slow but he looked weirdly sluggish for a lot of the last Villa Park game. The diagonal lofted balls were a lot trickier to track and eg Udogie had the tools to power through from behind the line and get in on goal Cash's tackle was ugly and cynical and their fans are well within their rights to be a mad at him just like we would be if it was one of ours. It's still just a nailed-on yellow though regardless of the typical clamour for the laws of the game to be rewritten on the spot from aggrieved home fans and weird BBC Sport Get Involved daytrippers who don't watch many games The elbow, I'm sympathetic to the idea that Gil was stumbling forward, Carlos didn't know his face was there, and Gil had a bit of a think and was then like "oh no I've uh been shot". Could've been looked at if the comms were back up, buuuut whatever, they owed us a penalty from Harold Kane's final act at Villa Park anyway

Big fan of how he's this really chill presence off the pitch, on the pitch he kind of serenely glides round with the ball looking for clever passes to play, but if he scores a goal he turns into a wild-eyed, nostril-flaring madman for 30 seconds

Mindlessly aggrieved Everton is the most entertaining Everton

After how demoralising our away defeats have been it's really nice that Villa just ground out a good win against a team that's been above us all season, especially after having absorted some significant adversity. This was a game where they could have easily bounced back with a positive reaction after their bad couple of weeks and they looked nailed on to do it for half an hour Also really good to keep the gap over Newcastle at 5 points after Chelsea collapsed completely against them, December's a tough month

I hated every second of that first half. Cash just having one of his madman games didn't help and Bentancur didn't deserve to get crocked like that To be fair, we were always in it, and Spurs maybe didn't have the energy or the personnel to sustain that level of play into the second half, whereas our subs were fairly transformative. Tielemans and Bailey made things gel a lot better going forward, and even if the compusure on the break still came and went a bit, it felt like a game we were much more in control of after we went 2-1 up. Kamara also progressed the ball forward really well in tight areas at a few points. With him banned you've got to thing there'll be a starting place for Youri to figure out against Bournemouth Watkins was there with a good bit of decisiveness and composure when it counted; Martinez sealed the defeat in our last away game and kept us the 3 points in this one. He is so, so good in those heart in mouth moments when someone has a clear sight of goal that looks nailed on. Spare a thought for a such a dominant performance by Spurs, whose coaching and system is so airtight they can run teams like us ragged and dominate possession even with the horrific injuries they have, and also spare a second completely different thought for Spurs who were simply too tired and wracked with horrific injuries to give this game the grandstand finish of two late Spurs goals that every neutral was surely praying to the football gods for (Spurs are a good watch and not objectionable, TV people talking about Spurs, not so much)

A little harsh but Youri kind of knew what he was doing

Luca's done great but that moment of waiting round to see what the defender's going to do when they catch up to him when he gets it out wide does frustrate me in games like this IDK if absence has inflated Alex Moreno's abilities to supernatural levels in my head a bit but he's playing 4d chess in that position comparitively

Watkins booked for pointing out they've got a corner for us wrong the second time in the game, leading straight to a Spurs corner, awesome

Oooof we needed that reset

If the offside rule didn't exist and the ref inexplicably refused to restart the game with a kickoff whenever a goal went in, it could be 15-8

Maybe they found Udogie's betting slip lumping on himself to get a red card in the dressing room straight after kickoff

When we were beating Spurs 1-0 in Emery's first away game against them, they were starting to target Ashley Young who'd started the game and was tiring down our right side. Instead of doing a straight swap with Cash coming on for Young, Cash went on for Bailey in RM and did 90 minutes of running in the 25 minutes he was on the pitch, rampaging up and down the flank and giving Spurs too much of a problem to gain any further advantage on that side. The offside trap's going to be important in this one so may having Konsa RB will help with the excecution and allow Cash to try and do some damage instead, idk Our bench looks fairly strong if everyone's fit enough to play a role if required

Ngl I don't have a problem with a draw where neither team can defend for shit here

Not that dissimilar a dynamic to West Ham, except that West Ham's spell of 2nd half dominance was off the back of a complete fluke deflection, and Villa's outrageously clinical finishing to kill the game off was replaced by a funny bad header from Watkins. Fulham were actually good in the 2nd half in all fairness, and played in a way that they probably wouldn't have risked in the first half because we've typically blown so many teams away by half time. As usual with our high line recently, the amount of dangerous looking attacks Fulham had that were obviously offside changed the perception a bit and ramped up the tension artificially, and they also had a lot of yellows for shutting down Villa counterattacks that could have been dangerous. In the end 4-1 would probably have been harsh on them, but Villa's MO at home this season has pretty much been "very harsh on the opposition" I thought after the ref pissed everyone off with some pedantic stuff in the first ten minutes, he was actually alright and managed the game in a fairly balanced way and got the totting up of the yellows right - Watkins was a little unlucky to skid on the surface and go in harder on Bassey's ankle than he probably meant to but it's one of them. Maybe Palhinha could have been booked sooner given how extremely inevitably he was racking up those fouls. We were also maaaaybe a little lucky that Konsa's high footed clearance that cleared out their player didn't happen two yards closer to goal. as there's no way they wouldn't have done a five minute VAR check on that for the hell of it. Konsa has also somewhat cynically learned to take timewasting yellow's off Emi's hands by feigning confusion over which of them is planning to take a free kick Lot of good performances noted but shout out Martinez, after chucking one in last week he was calm, stopped everything he needed to and played out from the back very calmly. I like how he can sometimes judge that their press is too effective and that passing it to Torres or Digne's going to crank up the nerves too much, and just go long as a judgment call instead. Poor bloke might get to keep a clean sheet and be able to sleep at night sometime soon (who am I kidding, he'd just be shirtless screaming YAAAAS in the mirror all night instead of watching replays of their goals fuming) It's easy to say if we'd done XYZ we'd be top, but that's true of a lot of teams around us, and honestly after where we finished last season and given the injuries we've had and the opening day disappointment, I think we're about where we deserve to be and I'd definitely have taken it. I just hope with some players hopefully coming back (and maybe Diaby and even Zaniolo following Tielemans example and staking a bit more of a claim) we can squeeze some points out of the really tough games we have coming up to keep it alive.

most nailed-on yellow of the day

Diaby might get more space in the second half when they have to attack us a bit more. Also that's the 2nd home game in a row where the opposition has scored an OG because of Diaby, so he's taking up good positions. Pretty perfect performance so far, exactly the right blend of urgency and patience. Please keep a clean sheet

Unfortunate for Clermont Lovelength

All the outcomes here are either good or funny

Frustrating one. They got caught offside a dozen times and if Zaniolo gets a free kick for the first goal and Martinez doesn't uncharacteristically chuck one in for the second, it might be a stodgy 0-0, but we just didn't have enough enterprise going forward for the situation we'd put ourselves in Digne was our best attacking threat, but that cross Pau slid him in for at the end looked like it'd be harder to miss one of our players than not, and he somehow basically made a decent clearance for them Ref was crap but they deserved to win. Hopefully it's one of those where a detailed angry inquest from Emery puts things right and we're back to at least continuing some home form

Dunno if it's just flashbacks to the Stoke dark ages but I wish the Premier League would tell people throw-ins aren't ceremonial and they have to take them reasonably quickly