briny_ear

BTW if I hear ANYBODY banging on about ”poor” performance or “shortcomings” this evening, I need your address…

1 minute ago, Jas10 said:

 

Mmm. Ahead of the curve LOL

1 minute ago, The_Steve said:

That level of saltiness requires a health check. I don’t like Pep, but at least he accepted we were the better team. Arteta is without a hint of class. 

As are his squad of cry-babies and injury-feigners, was my takeaway from today.

Well done Donks. Good job Emery is calling the shots and not the Villatalk faithful.

5 minutes ago, Lerner's Driver said:

Arteta is snippy little word removed. Really unlikeable.

Well, when you’ve just been outthought and outplayed by the man you replaced….

Got to go and cook the tea now so can’t write the long essay I feel is in my head. 

Just briefly, brilliant pocket-picking job on Arsenal there. To be fair they looked to have a couple of goals in them and we struggled a few times to contain them but we were never overwhelmed and were good for the 3 points in the end. The tiredness of some of our key players was obvious but Emery did a great job with his substitutions.The discipline of our defending was admirable.

Shame about the bookings which have done a bit of

damage for coming matches.

SJM man of the match for me but Martinez and Douglas Luiz were close behind.

Suddenly I feel more favourable to this referee.

Excellent pack of substitutions from the Don.

8 hours ago, turvontour said:

This I what I still don't think a lot if people in the media have picked up on. 

Danny Mills came on talksport this morning and said to Gabby, "how is it Villa are so good all of a sudden?"

We've been the 2nd or 3rd best team in the Premier league really consistently for about the last 14 months, the day that Emery managed his first game. People still think we are on a good run this season.

Wow, what was Gabby’s reply?

2 hours ago, The_Steve said:

Crying now 

 

Think this is from 2015 - we won 2-0.  

Sublime performance.

Hopefully this will quieten the muttering about how “poor” we are and the relentless focus on our “shortcomings” for a while.

Bring on the Arsenal!

Good to see we’ve started turning on the players and the manager before the match has even started. At least give them 5 mi utes of play before the pile in!

2 hours ago, TRO said:

I Suspect you are commenting on stuff, I have not been privvy too....However, I am seeing elements of our play, I am less convinced about than others, mainly the ability to defend our goal.....suffice to say, some of the goals we have scored have been top drawer, and easily elite in quality.

I am not going to comment on fitness, because I have no idea of the effect on Players....I can only comment on what I see.....if they fail to close down, or offer the opposition too much space, or struggle to compete, I will notice it and comment on it.

If we get overrun by a team with players, pound for pound are lesser than ours(imo) I will be aware of it.....The reasons why, are much more nebulous.

After all these years of watching football, I don't comment on what, I don't know first hand.....I have no idea, if a player is carrying a knock, or is fatigued, I can only hazard a guess....It could be many factors...I try to stick to what I am more sure about.

I can only comment on a players performance, mitigation, is for the manager to deal with.....having said that, I don't agree with slagging them off either, due in the main from lack of information, and probably more importantly, it's not a gentlemanly thing to do.

 

I don’t think you need to speculate about fitness, Emery himself has said. Some players  “are tired or with small pain” so he is waiting until tomorrow morning to finalise the team. This surely has to be a factor in judging team performance. It’s pretty clear that McGinn for example is off the pace since he took that knock in the Scotland game and has been playing in every match for us.

However, I suspect the issue here may be we are looking at the same facts and drawing different conclusions. You have every right to focus on individual negative elements of our play because obviously there are some but I would prefer to focus on overall team performances and achievement and I think there is quite  a lot of material on that front to be dwelling on.

It's a racing certainty on paper and on history that we will lose to Man City tomorrow and I suppose that will lead to lots of hand-wringing and predictions of “disaster” so I think I shall be staying away from this site for a while.

22 hours ago, DJBOB said:

Late kickoff should help the atmosphere. 
 
And I kind of wish Jack didn’t pick up the yellow card. It could go either way but VP would have really been up for it if Jack started. I don’t think he has yet at VP? 

Grealish out, Doku a fitness doubt, keep it rolling I say!

11 hours ago, TRO said:

There lies the issue, I think Brin.

I think we need to differentiate between Criticism and Observation.....and scoring goals and Conceding goals.

4 points from 2 tough away games is bang on the money.....our overall league position is tremendous....but as the thread says its a match reaction, where we talk about the game, not about how well we have done since previous managers.

I take it, we all want to win something.....and our form since Unai arrived is the conduit to possibly get there.....but whatever the mitigating circumstances, some of our on field actions i.e defending, is making it a tad more difficult at present.

Scoring 2 goals away from home, is as good as it gets, Imo, but to get results, you have to deny your opponents in getting any.....I think there was elements of the game, that we could have done better, with that.....thats is not to say, that equates to being ungrateful for past games of enthralling excitement.....its merely commenting on what we see.

I will be amazed, if Unai comes away from that game, and says to the players, nothing to work on, that was great, you have served me well, in my time here, so we will go in to the next 2 games, with our heads held high...."onward and upward"

No Brin.....You know, and I know, he will be working on things, he was not happy with........If its ok for him, its ok for us, to have a grown up conversation, of how we can improve, without Peeing on someone chips, because that is not the objective.

No one is ungrateful....its a different beast now, with different objectives and different standards....Hopefully that means we can have discussions of how we can improve, without being negative, or booing, when we are losing or struggling.

We as fans are learning too, to support a team with the above ideals and objectives...no one wants negative moaning, but constructive dialogue as to how we can improve, and identifying shortfalls should be a positive move.

Well I have watched the match now and wouldn’t change any of my comments in that post. 

I accept it was silly of me to expect to get a sensible view of how the match was going from the match thread because it is increasingly bonkers these days. It is very frustrating though if it is your only source of information. The speed and ease with which people start turning on the players and then the manager is a bit alarming to me at least. Particular highlights were the call for Bailey to be taken off after 20 minutes, just before he scored his excellent goal; and the increasing talk of “disaster” as time went on. It’s a bit surprising that people hadn’t twigged that the Bournemouth game would be a tough one. Disaster is not where we are at, in fact I think we showed a lot of resilience in that match and could easily have won it with just a little more luck. 

The reactions thread is slightly different in that you expect people to reflect a bit more on the game and nobody is going to convince me that the overwhelming judgement of “poor” is a balanced appraisal. If, as I expect and hope, we make further progress in the Conference, the season will be increasingly tough for our players who will be playing a lot more football than many other teams, particularly the likes of Bournemouth. So, yes, other teams  are going to look sharper at times and Emery’s attempts to shuffle the squad to share the burden is going to lead to less than perfect team play on our part at times. But I think under Emery we have a good chance things will get better because he works so hard with the players and seems to have a clear plan about how to achieve improvement. 

Let me finish with that idea of improvement, which is what I think we have seen in spades.

3 hours ago, est1874 said:

The best season in living memory? What are you, 10 years old?

We've finished top 2 in my lifetime. Top 4 more recently. We've won cups. Mounted (albeit abortive and unlikely) title challenges until January time under Gregory and O'Neill.

Unai is undoubtedly a fantastic manager that we're lucky to have, and there is plenty to be positive about. But telling people who are disappointed with today's performance that it's the best season in living memory, on the 3rd of December after 14 matches, the day of a 2-2 draw with Bournemouth, is pathetic.

Looking at the highlighted comment, I’m wondering if you are 6 years old?

3 hours ago, rjw63 said:

It’s a forum; if we all thought and posted the same it’d be **** boring, and people are going to get wound up losing to a team near the bottom of the league.Its a natural reaction.

Also in the quote above I’d say recent memory. It’s a superb season so far but not the best in (my and some other oldpharts) living memory.

Yes, living memory was OTT obviously  - I meant recent memory. My complaint about the reactions thread is that virtually everyone was saying the same thing, about how “poor” we were.. I was trying to put a different perspective. 

15 minutes ago, est1874 said:

And also beat us 5-1.

Of course they're not going to win every game, but look at their current trajectory. They also might be out of the UCL soon if luck doesn't go their way which means their best players will be fitter to play harder in the league and they'll be a lot less likely to drop points to a Bournemouth again.

We're still going to drop a lot of points away from home, and I'd wager a lot more than them.

I’m not sure what is meant by “current trajectory” but if you go back to, say, the beginning of October, they have won 6, drawn 3 and lost 3, while we have won 8, drawn 2 and lost 1. So it looks like our “current trajectory” is maybe a little bit better.

2 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

It's shite, but a " disaster " ?

We’re all doomed!!

16 hours ago, Frodo said:

Just thought I'd pass this on ...... customer of mine was at the Priory hospital yesterday & walked out the toilet to see Ollie Watkins, not sure what it means, just thought I'd pass it on

Your customer has a weak bladder?

On 01/12/2023 at 11:54, NeilS said:

I was hoping for us to secure a two goal cushion to secure top spot and we were so close to achieving that. I can understand the team not going gung ho for it though in the second half, as we will take the win and control of the group. 

 

I wondered if they were concerned that every time they beat Legia for pace and skill, they would get scythed down by career-threatening tackles with little protection from the ref, so, having secured the lead, thought it best just to pass the ball amongst themselves and keep control in that way. They must be reasonably confident they can get a point against Zrinjski.

15 minutes ago, allani said:

Article 16 Equality of points – group stage

16.01

If two or more teams are equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria are applied in the order given to determine their rankings:

1. higher number of points obtained in the group matches played among the teams in question;

2. superior goal difference from the group matches played among the teams in question;

3. higher number of goals scored in the group matches played among the teams in question;

4. if, after having applied criteria a) to c), teams still have an equal ranking, criteria a) to c) are reapplied exclusively to the matches between the remaining teams to determine their final rankings. If this procedure does not lead to a decision, criteria e) to k) apply in the order given to the two or more teams still equal;

5. superior goal difference in all group matches;

6. higher number of goals scored in all group matches;

7. higher number of away goals scored in all group matches;

8. higher number of wins in all group matches;

9. higher number of away wins in all group matches;

10. lower disciplinary points total based only on yellow and red cards received by players and team officials in all group matches (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points);

11. higher club coefficient (see Annex D)

So 1 - 3 are now irrelevant. 

If we lose our last match and Legia win then 4a becomes equal (some point from the other 4 fixtures). 

So it then comes down to goal difference in the other 4 matches (ours is currently +5 and Legia are +2).  We have scored 7 in the 3 games so far and Legia have scored 4 in their 3 matches.  So if we lose 1-0 we'd be +4 (7 goals) so if Legia win 2-0 they would be +4 (6 goals) so we would still go through by having scored 1 more goal according to 4c.  If Legia won 3-0 then they'd win on goal difference (4b) and if they win by 2 but score at least 4 goals then they win on goals scored (4c).

If Legia win 3-1 (and we lose 1-0) then I think we get to rule 7 - we've scored 6 away goals so far from 2 matches and Legia have scored 3 from 3 - so we would then qualify top. 

I don't think that 8 or 9 can happen (we'd have won the same number of matches and both won 1 game away from home). 

And I have no idea what the current position is on disciplinary points but it is irrelevant anyway because the teams cannot get past Criteria 7 under any circumstance and we're ahead on that measure and Legia have already played 3 away matches and so can't change that.

Oh blimey! This is complicated and legalistic.
 

Do you think the final decision is made by the European Court of Justice??? 

14 minutes ago, rjw63 said:

Sounds like the maniac plumbers had all disappeared when the Villa fans came out of the ground

Good news. I was worrying about people getting home safely.