tom_avfc

They haven’t hit the target half the time. On another day they’d have scored 6. That day may well be at villa park!

Shots from distance? They’ve had 12 shots from inside the box.

They should pay for your ticket!

Don’t go again then!!

Pretty shite? We’re not finishing below 6th. I imagine we’ll probably finish 5th. This could be enough for champions league. How could anyone describe this season as pretty shite, particularly with the injuries we’ve had all season?

You’ve also got 8 syllables in your second line. 1 out of 3 lines of a haiku correct is better than nothing I guess! Fully agree with the sentiment, just being a pedant!

Chelsea get ECL with a win. Rest of your placings are right I think.

I mean it’s within the realms of possibility but I don’t think they’ve won more than two in a row in the league this season. I also don’t think we have gone on a winless run of more than 2 this season. This would suggest that it’s possible but unlikely.

In the last couple of months city have lost away to us, drawn at home to palace, Liverpool and Tottenham and drawn away to Chelsea. We’re not going to win every game. We had 1 defeat in 17 games in all competitions prior to tonight. Have some patience and look at how far we’ve come.

But what does this game management phase consist of. They were all over us from the half hour mark and with more clinical attacking would have scored 8 or 9. We literally couldn’t keep the ball. You can waste a bit of time but if you then just give the ball back to them it’s not really achieving much. It was crying out for midfield reinforcements but the only option we had was Iroegbunam who is completely untested and not long back from an injury. When we brought players on we didn’t improve.

We played McGinn there the other day and it didn’t really work either. We’re one injury/suspension away from losing our shape in far too many positions. Given Diaby’s recent performances it’s hardly a surprise not to see him starting matches at the moment.

But what’s the alternative to playing dendoncker there? We don’t have any other options. Hopefully by the end of January we’ll have a more able backup and won’t need to play dendoncker there.

Our bad form consists of 10 points out of a possible 15 including games against Man City and Arsenal. We’ve had a couple of games where we haven’t been at our best. Probably deserved more against Sheffield United and got what we deserved tonight. Ona separate point the late subs is one of my favourite criticisms of managers at Villa. We’re overachieving and have a load of players nowhere near the level required on the bench. If he brought players on earlier we’d still have lost and then he’d be getting criticism for making the subs. We desperately need some reinforcements in January but we’re miles ahead of where we thought we’d be. If we want to stay in a champions league hunt then we’re going to need to have far more on the bench and to allow us to refresh things from time to time.

You can add Coventry and Cardiff to that list too.

This is at wolves.

At half time he was described as clever. He should be coming away from that with a yellow card and instead he’s got his team a goal and is getting plaudits for his cheating. Meanwhile players are getting booked for kicking the ball away in the slightest fashion and we’re getting 20 minutes of injury time a game. Those in charge have their priorities all wrong.

I’m not really sure how that’s been given. What on earth are they watching?

Agreed. I thought they were two pretty standard yellow cards. Absolute madness to commit those two fouls within a minute or 2 of each other. Got what he deserved.

Jota needs to have some common sense. Just been booked and he goes in for a challenge like that. Not much contact but mainly because the spurs player has jumped over his leg.

He’s bang upright going into the tackle and it’s direct head on head contact. It’s always going to be a red. The Argentina one is more stupid but I’m not convinced it’s direct to the head which probably saves him.

How many red cards does it take for England to improve their tackle technique? We’re a red card waiting to happen every match at the moment.

Brilliant catch to get rid of Marsh there. Finish these off quickly now and we’ll have put ourselves into a strong position.

He scored 98 runs at a run a ball in the first match of the series. If he’s dropped we’re going to need a batsman to replace him and to drop a bowler as with Foakes that tail is looking longer and longer. It’s worth mentioning that Foakes’ test average is about 9 runs higher than Bairstow’s is for this series. With Stokes unable to bowl I’m not sure how you balance the side at that point.

In his last 7 test matches he has four centuries. His real run of form was this time last year and he hasn’t played a test match since until this series.

He scored 1,000 test runs at an average of 66 last year. He scored centuries against Australia, New Zealand and India, the three top ranked test sides at the time. He played vital innings in incredible wins. He’s had a bad series recovering from a bad injury but this 18 months ago nonsense is ridiculous. I don’t really get why he gets so much criticism while others get off lightly.