Gompedyret

I liked it too. It's good that no one runs away, a close league is exciting and might even have us dreaming about going top even longer. Only one thing that suck is that now manure is in real danger of going top. If there's one thing more insufferable than plop fans, it's manure fans. Man utd being relegated, that is my ultimate non-Villa wet dream.

To me, this is a win-win. We might as well go for it, for reasons One for the Road et al already laid out. If we beat the scousers, we're in a great position to go all the way given that we're a damn fine team, and if we lose, well, it's quite ok and we have the luxury of being able to focus exclusively on the league. At least Bertie got his chance to play forward.

I like the idea of VAR, exactly because it gives situations like the horrendous penalty decision in this game a chance to be rectified. Then, stuff like this happens. **** you, Premier League.

Were anyone in doubt that we'd get a penalty against us? I hate those Fernandes penalties.

Defensively we're rather solid, but going forward we've been gash so far.

In what way?

I just think it's damn annoying how manu was five points behind us and then somehow leapfrogged us to be four points ahead. Also, am I the only one being irrationally and intensely annoyed by the way that Fernandes fella takes penalty kicks?

No fear on my part. It's simply a question of what benefits him more the coming half year in terms of development. I'll enjoy following young Ramsey's career as I think he will be very good whatever route he goes from now on, and hopefully for us. Furthermore, I have complete confidence in our team making good decisions for him.

Of course he'd benefit going out on loan, obviously with a team meeting qualified opposition and preferably playing in a way comparable to us. The key is getting as much competitive playing time as possible, as nothing can quite match that. Jacob being talented is just a plus, as it would mean bigger chance that he gets playing time even in a rather good team. Some progressive team in the upper half of the championship would be ideal, half a year there after we strengthen in the January window sounds good to me. He will come back in the summer, stronger, hungrier and more mature, ready to make some serious impact.

I was looking for highlights online and came across the site linked beneath. It has extended highlights as well as pre and post match...and the match itself. Please delete or let me know if this is breaking any rules, just thought someone might be interested.

Will be excellent not having to pay huge amounts for practically nothing.

Taking this report as a nice, fat reminder of our progress.

The bright side: We actually dominated, and created a lot of chances against a team we need to dominate. The dark side: ****! That was annoying.

Well, that wasn't half annoying.

Quite annoying really, there are far too many claret and blue teams in the PL. It's important to at least be the highest ranked of them!

Argh.

Bert....I like that.

It has probably been pointed out many times already, but his name sounds like something an 11 year old writing his first novel has come up with to try and sound "mature". Promising reports though!

I think we'll bag this, 3-1. Not any particular magic going to happen, we simply take our chances a little bit better than Brighton. It will be one of those workmanlike, relatively dull victories which, in hindsight, prove to be the foundation for our spectacular points tally come end of season.

Defensive player? Jason The Denier....I'm sure there's a rather good song in there somewhere.

I just utterly love the English language.

Interesting! So, 1400 % improvement on last season. Not bad. If we keep it up, that would mean at the season end we get 35 times 14.....490 points this season! That will surely secure at least a top four!!

It's a really nice change, though. Right now watching Villa is such a highlight of the week that it feels really empty when having to wait an extra week for the next game.

200 pages! Well on his way to catch up with the Rashica thread.