briny_ear

Good to get Duran off. He’s not up to it yet. Not so sure about Bailey, although that may always have been the plan’

Ah, I see we have entered our “revert to panicky defending” phase.

Hmm. So that was a penalty and a second booking for Jones.

Missing VAR already.

20 minutes ago, Joshie2000 said:

Looks like we sold the wrong brother, JJ played rubbish again and missed the easiest chance.

 

But I sad prematch I'd take a poor game for a win and we got it, UTV

Doesn’t sound like you happy now, even though we won

16 hours ago, Pinebro said:

City game is the only game in the last 6 that I can say we have played well.

Last 6 games is won 3 drawn 2 lost 1 so not playing well don’t seem too bad a thing.

18 hours ago, bose said:

The mood is very pessimistic after the last few performances, understandably. The recent performances are a blip if you look at all of Unai’s tenure here.

I’d like to see Tim start if Tielemans is still out, some tired legs in that midfield, if he’s good enough then this match is as good as any other.

Understandably? I think the pessimism is beyond comprehension.

On 27/12/2023 at 17:15, Paul33 said:

Must win in style or time for Emery to go ..... maybe get Gerrard back ! 

That’s a bit cautious. I would go for Bruce - never been better than under him!

4 minutes ago, Farlz said:

Really quite poor since the 2nd goal, the crowd had turned that was the moment to turn the screw. 

Thankfully they haven't punished us. Need to get back on it in the second half, actually control the football. 

Love this site. We are 2-0 up yet somehow we have been “poor”!!

That has been a fantastic 45 minutes of Emery ball played to near perfection.

6 more goals and we’re top!

Interesting article in the Guardian today, assessing the prospects of the “five top contenders” for the PL title.

Here’s what they say about the Villa, which seems quite fair

Quote

Aston Villa: P18 Pts 39 GD+16

The case for Villa are free of expectation but, make no mistake, Unai Emery, demanding at the best of times, is aware of how well placed they are. Villa Park has become a fortress, with Villa winning 15 of their past 16 home games. Emery has played down comments from peers billing his side title contenders but his starting XI has proven capable of toppling the best. Emiliano Martínez is an elite goalkeeper, their midfield axis of Boubacar Kamara, John McGinn and Douglas Luiz is one of the finest in the division and they have pace to burn in talisman Ollie Watkins and forwards Moussa Diaby and Leon Bailey. Unlike most of their rivals, Villa can focus almost solely on the league until March, when their Europa Conference League adventure restarts in the last 16. Aside from an FA Cup trip to Middlesbrough in January, they can go full steam ahead in pursuit of a first league title since 1981.

The case against Can Villa handle the noise? For most of this squad, a title race represents new territory. The obvious concern is whether Emery has enough strength in reserve. For example, when Leander Dendoncker entered against Arsenal, Villa’s grip loosened. Watkins has started every league game and although Jhon Durán has impressed in glimpses there is no like-for-like replacement. The same goes for Martínez. At the same time, Villa have shown this season that they can absorb the absence of key players such as Tyrone Mings and Emi Buendía. Perhaps Sheffield United’s dogged displaylast Friday, when Villa seemed to run out of ideas against a low block and almost ended up empty‑handed, will provide a blueprint for others in how to stifle Emery’s winning machine. BF

2 hours ago, Brumstopdogs said:

 

Eguberri On!!

2 hours ago, tinker said:

The whole weekend has been littered with horrendous decisions,  there's no agenda against us the officials are just crap, full stop. 

Indeed, where PGMOLand VAR are concerned, cock-up is always a more convincing explanation than conspiracy 

If they did have a conspiracy to do down the Villa they would balls it up.

Emery made an interesting point in post match interviews, about how we lost control of the game after the disallowed goal, effectively allowing heads to drop and Sheff U to mount some useful attacks for the first time in the game.

I think his view was if we had just kept calm and stuck to the game plan, another moment would have come - like the Zaniolo moment - that even PGMOL couldn’t rule out, and we would have won.

There is something in this and it is a counterview to the talk here about how we were set up wrong etc. 

13 minutes ago, PieFacE said:

Draw is a good result, no? 

Yes, best we could have hoped for IMHO. 

I suspect the earlier “Grrr”was because if we had beaten the Blades we would have been top this evening.

Probably time to stop dwelling on VAR decisions. What’s done is done. Another game like Brentford where we struggled to create too many chances against a packed and well organised defence. This is what needs addressing, not irreversible VAR decisions.

IT WASN’T A CLEAR FOUL ON THE GOALKEEPER, NEVILLE, YOU ****

For family-related reasons I watched a lot of this match with the sound off, including the disallowed goal. I watched the replays over and over but I couldn’t even understand what was being checked. I managed to get the sound on just in time to hear Jamie Carragher babbling some completely incoherent explanation of the decision but I remain completely in the dark about why what looked a completely legitimate goal was disallowed, I am sure this wasn’t why VAR was introduced. I also noted the obvious handball that was overlooked by VAR that should have led to a penalty.

I have mentioned this before for other games (e.g. Bournemouth away) but in the last three seasons we would have lost this game but the fact that we came back with an equaliser shows there is a new resilience in the squad that should make us not too disappointed at this result. There will always be games that are shit like this one but we got a point and we are still justifiably up there in 2nd place.

I love Zaniolo! Let’s see VAR knock this one out too!

I think our subs tonight have made us worse.

On 16/11/2023 at 14:58, MotoMkali said:

I like hause I think it's slightly unfortunate for him that his skillset is that of a player defending in a low block and not very skilled at passing. Aka good for bad teams in the prem but not so good for good teams in the championship and he's a fringe prem quality player. With his iniuriy6issues it simply makes signing him untenable for these teams. 

I think it’s more than “slightly” unfortunate!

That is an abysmal font. Hope we didn’t pay too much for this.

I can see a problem or two with the Brentford fans' attempts to paint Ollie as an evil monster...