briny_ear

2 minutes ago, Tayls said:

…what if Newcastle win their last 6 in a row?! 

We just have to match them. 

23 minutes ago, Talldarkandransome said:

Just got back, that could have gone either way, Emi motm by a country mile.

Deffo need to start practicing defending corners cos we are awful at it.

Refs in Europe make prem refs look like that Pierluigi bloke, they are dreadful.

Need an early goal next week cos if Lille score first I think we're done

Um, unless I was hallucinating, we scored twice from corners so we are twice as good at defending corners as Lille?

1 hour ago, PaulC said:

It's a lead but disappointing to concede from a corner. Carlos shouid hsve done better there 

I know. Totally ridiculous for a side to concede from a corner. 

You wouldn’t see Villa scoring two goals from corners, it just doesn’t happen to anyone else but us… 

3 hours ago, mjmooney said:

Very pessimistic. I think this is where our season unravels. 

Just had a Quick Look at the league table and relegation is still a possibility 

7 minutes ago, VillaJ100 said:

Bench looks so thin

Let’s hope the players don’t fall off it.

1 hour ago, Sulberto21 said:

I love it when people compare us with the top 3 in fact any of the top 6 or Newcastle. The top 6 who have locked away any new competition and are able to spend vastly more than us. Newcastle who have a bottomless pit of money and dodgy deals to fall back upon. 

Defenders that cost 50m plus (Man City) , CDM’s costing £100m + and yet we’re only 10 points off top and still in with a shout of top 4 / CL qualification. 

These clubs have monopolised the top 6 positions for the last decade or so but for a few exceptions (Leicester failed and got relegated). Newcastle broke their monopoly on CL qualification but how much did they spend? 

Our Upper mid table squad is on the brink of CL qualification and they are wobbling slightly due to mental fatigue and the fact a lot of them haven’t been this high in the league ever. We need a win or two to get the confidence back and see us over the line. 

Saturday showed the effect of not being able to compete financially with these clubs. A decent CDM would have helped. Which means Dougie gets rested and McGinn in the middle or Tielemens alongside. 

Another good RB and Konsa plays in the centre. And Pau or Carlos get rotated when needed. Under Slippy winning mentality G we lose that game. 

Not having a settled line up is hurting us. When we did we were hardly conceding any chances. 

But we came back to draw. So maybe these guys have got a bit more character than the reams and reams of the same posts people are giving them credit for. 

In the summer regardless if we get CL the same 6 clubs will spend and offer more wages than us. 

Thank you. This is very much the post I have been trying to compose for the past couple of days.

When you think that our key midfield general was recruited to play for us in the Championship, and at least four of our regular squad were brought in before our first season back in the Premier League, it is verging on a miracle that we have been pressing for CL football all season and, despite the handwringing here, are still in with a shout. 

And yet I am reading criticism that we don’t have a player like Rodri or Rice in the side. Well, no… can anyone think why not?

BTW, while I am in full rant, I would like to challenge the line much used here that we keep giving away 2-0 leads. We have only lost one match this season from a 2-0 lead (Man U). We have been involved in four games where we have been pulled back from 2-0 to 2-2 and our record in those is pl4 w2 d1 l1.

So whatever our problems this season, throwing away 2-0 leads is not exactly at the forefront.

4 hours ago, TomC said:

Sounds familiar. I'm a Detroiter. We live in the suburbs, but the city proper went through bankruptcy proceedings (what you would call administration) about seven years ago because the city government could no longer pay its debts. It was a mess. The city owned the art museum and some creditors wanted to liquidate the entire art collection, Van Goghs, Rembrandts, and all, to collect their money. Fortunately, that part didn't happen and the museum has now been spun off as independent so it doesn't happen again.

 

 

City of Birmingham’s “solution” has been to cut services drastically, virtually wipe out all arts funding and increase its local tax rate (Council Tax) by 21%. Not the greatest of times for brummies!

6 hours ago, TomC said:

Just got back to London after our Villa Park pilgrimage. (Unfortunately, we have to catch a flight back to the States tomorrow morning). A few impressions from the pilgrimage and today's match...

It was disappointing and frustrating to watch Villa throw away a lead like that in our first match at VP. That said, if it had to be a draw, I'm glad we saw a barnburner (pardon the Americanism; it means an intense, closely contested game where the result is in doubt until the end) rather than a dull 0-0 draw.

The Holte End in full voice was a sound to behold. Too bad there wasn't more of it.

You can blame my football-neophyte wife for the loss. She confessed on the way back to the hotel that she didn't know that Brentford were the Bees and wore socks with bees on them to the match. I doubt that anybody noticed, but if they did, they had to wonder why someone was wearing a Villa shirt with bee socks.

I gave MOTM to Rogers. He was on my short list at halftime and his goal sealed it. Even before the goal he was showing skill with the ball and put in some defensive work. This is the first time I've seen what the club sees in him.

McGinn and Watkins were also good today. Doug had a good first half, not so much the second.

Konsa is not a RB. Priority in the summer has to be finding either proper cover for, or an upgrade to, Cash.

Right before Brentford's first goal, I asked my son what Digne was doing on the right side. A few seconds later, the ball was at the opposite post where he should have been, and then in the net. I will be curious to watch the playback to see if Digne had an excuse for being there, and if so, to see who should have been covering for him on the left.

Diego and Pau don't seem to communicate well.

Football is so much better to watch in person.

The whole family liked Brum. I'm sure it has its problems like any city, but as tourists, we really enjoyed our four days there. I'll write more about it later.

UTV

 

That was a great read. So sorry for you that you saw such a clueless performance on your pilgrimage.

Glad you liked Birmingham. You don’t by any chance have a spare $billion or two to help the city become solvent again? 
 

3 hours ago, allani said:

We have dropped 5 points from a leading position.  Arsenal have dropped 9.  Man City have dropped 10.  Spurs have dropped 20.  Man Utd have dropped 13.

I am frustrated with today's result.  But we're in danger of turning this into an issue that doesn't really exist.

What Ollie refers to has happened a few times since Christmas - Man U away, Burnley, Nottm Forest, Luton. And now Brentford. Earlier in the season we were very disciplined but recently we have risked some games running away from us.  However, we only actually dropped points against Man U and Brentford, 

More worrying perhaps are the games where we have been letting the opposition blow us away to a point where we simply can’t rescue things - Newcastle, Chelsea (cup) and Spurs come to mind.

All in all it’s been a bit more of a rollercoaster since Christmas and our results have been more patchy. But I don’t t think Ollie put his finger on the main problem.

Can’t work out what I am more miserable about - conceding 3 goals in 10 minutes to bloody Brentford or rendering our league position much more vulnerable (probably fatally so) to bloody Spurs.

Definitely a London shaped dark cloud overhead this evening.

Oh ****.

FFS, what is going on?

So frustrating for Jacob. Let’s hope he can get this sorted once and for all for next season. A chronic toe injury is not something you want to be living with.

Hmm. You can’t really give free kicks to Man C in that position. Poor from Olsen too.

OK, let’s try &  goad Grealish into a 2nd yellow!

2 hours ago, DJBOB said:

Bank holiday and too much time on my hands.

Konsa home vs Burnley yellow - protesting a decision that should have been a corner to us.

Konsa away at United yellow - yellow for taking down Garnacho on the counter

Konsa away at Brentford yellow - yellow for the goal fracas after Watkins scored

Konsa home vs Fulham yellow - booked for time wasting

Konsa home vs Brighton yellow - yellow for a late challenge

2 yellows for bad challenges and 3 yellows for dissent/time wasting - makes sense now.

Impressive forensic work there!

I haven’t done anything like that in relation to the booking stats so I may be completely wrong but I do get the impression that we have picked up a good number of yellow cards this season for silly incidents that could easily have been avoided, Digne got booked yesterday for an incident away from the action of play, presumably dissent. I don’t think many people even noticed. Pointless and potentially damaging for the side.

Good to see JPA at the match yesterday. Hopefully he can have a word with Jhon and help him stay on the right side of the tracks as he develops as a player.

42 minutes ago, TRO said:

That's the question.

Its a joke....How on earth could the coaches suggest, being less physical....less physical and we would emulate testimonial games....If we back off anymore, we'll be in the dressing room.

Those stats are really concerning, and attention needs to be brought to the  PGMOL.

Those Stats are not representative of the way Aston Villa play.....imo.

I don’t think I was suggesting being less physical. 

But there may be issues about poor decision making on behalf of the most booked players. Certainly that seems to be an issue with Duran and Zaniolo. Konsa remains a puzzle to be solved.

Wonder if the coaching staff look at these statistics and talk to the players about them?

Certainly someone should be having a word with Konsa - by no means a dirty player so how come he’s picked up 5 yellows from 11 fouls?

I went for 5-6 because that is the minimum I think we will achieve this season. But we are probably evens to hold onto 4th place so fingers firmly crossed. It’s going to be a great run-in whatever happens.

We were strangely hesitant for the first 20 minutes or so, in all aspects of our play. Odd because overall we defended pretty well but in defence and attack we were a bit sluggish and maybe lacking in confidence or overwhelmed by the significance of the match?

Once we had a goal, all of that seemed to disappear. We took control of the match and confined Wolves to counterattacking, which we generally dealt with comfortably.

What a goal it was from Diaby by the way, superb placing and a blistering shot. He seems to be running into a rich vein of form and is now giving us exactly the sort of performance we might have hoped for when we signed him. That and his excellent assist for the second goal, as well as his general play throughout gave him MOTM for me.

There were strong performances all over the pitch - special shouts out to Konsa, Torres, Tielemans, Bailey, and Douglas Luiz.Well done too to the two youngsters Rogers and Duran who are hailing to shoulder more responsibility than they might have expected at this stage in their time with Villa. Depending in the injury news with Watkins, Duran may have a much bigger role in the run in.

1 hour ago, AntrimBlack said:

Yeah, yeah. And if we had the half dozen players we have injured, we would have spanked you.

Actually, in the end, we did spank them even with all the absences and using two trainees.

Just now, Callum said:

Unai, I love you mate, but you don’t half mess around with subs. 
 

what are you doing? Moreno is costing us the **** game? 

Ah, another little step in the inevitable process of VillaTalk turning against Emery. He’s got us to fourth with a squad that really shouldn’t be there, and the quarters of the Conference, another competition we really shouldn’t be in, but, yeh, the guy has no idea what he’s doing…

DDDDIIIIAAABBBBYYYYY!!!!!!

Oh dear, that was `Watkins of 2 years ago.