tom_avfc

2 minutes ago, AV82 said:

Jude Bellingham is 19. We can expect more than what Duran has shown so far especially for that amount of money.

Jude Bellingham is worth £120m plus. I’m not sure you’re making a like for like comparison.

Just now, est1874 said:

Wolves bending over backwards for our rivals, as predicted.

Not a single one of the **** useless word removed clubs in this league are going to do us any favours at all.

Other than Forest beating Brighton three days ago you mean? Brighton were always likely to beat wolves. If you’re competing for European football you’re going to be competing against teams that win more often than not. Just have to keep getting results ourselves. 

1 minute ago, Talldarkandransome said:

£480 is just a little less than my last season ticket I had. 

Just for access to a bar, I assume you still have to pay £4 a pint too 

Stick at least an extra £1 onto a pint. Pretty sure £5 is the cheapest pint you can get in the lower Holte and assume that’s standard around the ground.

10 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I wonder what the single match price will be?

If it's £25 a game for season ticket holders, you'd imagine we're looking at £30 for non-season ticket holders.

It's actually more expensive than a season ticket in the Upper Holte in the year we came up.

Now we have the interesting question on what happens when existing Holte Enders don't take this offer up.

 

The info on the official site seems to suggest you get a pre match and half time drink and a programme. Assuming that you can get a pint pre and post match as part of this that’s potentially the best part of £15 of the £25 per match that a fair few people would be spending every week regardless.

Whether people would want to pay £10 - £12 a game for a slightly better concourse is then the question. Not really my sort of thing but it would be useful if people could see what they were actually getting each game for their £25 rather than a rushed out article on the website. 

11 hours ago, tomav84 said:

selected remaining opponents:

Home: Leicester, everton, west ham, bournemouth, forest

away: leeds, southampton, wolves

4 wins from that would keep them up, which they'll do comfortably...they've had a horrible run of games lately so these recent results were always expected (or should've been anyway)

They have had an awful run of games to be fair. Us in 11th are the lowest team in the league they’ve played since the turn of the year. Had some decent draws against Man United, Newcastle, Brentford, Brighton and Liverpool and then a load of losses to teams you’d expect them to lose to. Also had no Zaha or an unfit Zaha for a lot of that run.

Arsenal, Spurs and Fulham the only teams they have left to play who are above them in the table. I think they’ll be fine and would have been fine if Vieira had stayed to be honest.

1 minute ago, The_Steve said:

BBC jizzing over Isak and Ollie still has more goals 

Isak has only played 9 games though to be fair. Looks a good player albeit he does miss a few too.

26 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

You know this is objectively wrong right? He’s like a foot off Wesley was a cm off based on very zoomed in lines. 
 

zaha was clearly off, it’s not controversial in the slightest. 

The wide view of it I’ve seen has a line drawn from his shoulder down. Not sure how they can be massively accurate with where the line is drawn (ignoring whether I think a player leaning forwards should be offside anyway). If that line is marginally inaccurate then the decision is potentially wrong.

The ball also appears to be already in motion from the player passing the ball. At the speed the players are moving if the frame is marginally out then that offside call is completely different.

Basically, I have no trust in pausing a camera and drawing a few lines on it to get a decision right, particularly given those involved in the process. The semi-automated decisions seen in European competitions sit much better with me.

Everyone was in position for kick off as well so I’m assuming the linesman wouldn’t have given it. If he’s a foot offside I’m not sure it takes the time it took for VAR to overturn the goal either.

10 minutes ago, Zatman said:

On TV screens Konsa I think looked to play him slightly onside. Was close but would be fuming other way around

It’s one of those where if there was no VAR then everybody would have just said he was level and moved on. There was no more in it than that Wesley offside against Burnley.

Having to wait a couple of minutes while the officials micro-analyse a screen shot which isn’t particularly accurate in itself is boring.

As you say we’d be fuming with it the other way around so even when it’s in our favour I have no issue in saying that those sort of decisions are half of the problem with VAR. 

11 minutes ago, nick76 said:

To be fair I think that’s because we draw the team in and then players like Konsa especially yesterday aren’t taking advantage of the space they’ve made.  The team are learning this way of playing so will not get it right just yet but Konsa kept looking back to Mings when Cash, with a simple pass, was available….not a long ball just open, with space to run into.  They did the hard work but didn’t take the space they created.  It’s just fans getting use to us playing this way but also players taking advantage the space they are creating and fans seeing that space. 

This isn’t the plan though. It was infuriating me how many times people wanted the ball playing to our full backs deep in their own half with nowhere to go. Just because a player is in a bit of space doesn’t mean that the pass should be played.

We were far more effective (and our goal came from) getting the full backs high up the pitch and playing the ball in behind the defence. A few extra passes in the middle of the pitch to allow for an overlap and then an incisive pass is perfectly understandable.

There was one point when the groans were particularly loud after a period of about 7 or 8 passes in our half where Douglas Luiz literally had his hands above his head clapping to encourage the players. I just hope that eventually more fans get used to this style of football because the constant calling for long balls is tiresome.

I hope anyone posting seriously about us going down recently feels suitably stupid today.

Three losses in a row when two of them are the top two teams in the country and people overreact. At least this thread can be locked soon enough. 

2 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Tried that Tap and Go in The Holte today. 

It's absolutely brilliant. I had curry sauce and Chips, my lad had a Steak Pie and I've been charged £1.

Best thing EVER but I'm not at all sure it's going to increase commercial revenue. 

You’ll get charged eventually. Used it a couple of times and it can be slow for the full charge to go through. I assume it just puts £1 on initially.

Really good system though as it seems to be bringing down queue times massively in the lower holte.

This thread is ridiculous. We’ve just lost to the two best teams in the league and people are using that to suggest that we’re going down.

Results since Emery came in have been more than I expected and had we not wasted the first third of the season without an actual manager we’d be up there with Brighton and Fulham in my opinion. 

1 hour ago, Spoony said:

I’m not sure how he has become undroppable. He hasn’t really done much recently

He was dropped for the game today! 

Just now, TheAuthority said:

They have spent over 2 BILLION pounds on their squad. (Obviously all within the rules.......)

And that’s just what they’ve actually declared. You can probably double that if their alleged rule breaking is confirmed.

It’s never a penalty. If the ref/VAR are going to make that decision then players are going to continually dive. If pundits like Gary Neville are going to call that clever play then players are going to continually dive. 

Gets the ball with 3 defenders  in front of him. Full back makes no attempt to overlap. Runs at defender and gives the ball away. Fans hurl abuse at him.

Next time he gets the ball with 3 defenders in front of him. Full back makes no attempt to overlap. Bailey passes sideways/backwards to keep the ball. Fans hurl abuse at him.

He genuinely must love the freedom of playing anywhere but Villa Park.

Hes not very good but I’m not really sure how many players would look good being asked to do what he is 99% of the time.

1 hour ago, Condimentalist said:

I haven't seen many moaning tbf

We’ve been booed off under him already. Pretty shocking “support” if you ask me.

2 minutes ago, allani said:

I really don't think this is even remotely true.  Most of Ollie's critics on here appreciate his strengths.  The question mark has always been whether he scores enough goals - especially as we don't have wide players like Son or Salah who are scoring 15+ goals a season.

Of the 10 teams above us in the league only Chelsea have struggled as much as us in terms of goals scored (22 for them v 23 for us).  Man Utd are the next worse on 30 (which is still 30% more goals than us), the other 8 have all scored at least 9 goals more than us in the first half of the season.  And it's not like this is a new issue or something that has only been a problem this season.

I think Ollie now has 4 PL goals this season.  So it isn't unreasonable to question his goal scoring record.  Can we really afford to have a CF who has only scored 4 times?  Especially when he is our joint top scorer and we don't have a midfield packed with goal scorers?  Maybe it would be less critical if we had two or three other players on 7 or 8 goals but we don't.

Yes he does an awful lot of good stuff (I don't think anyone has ever said differently) but is the value of that stuff worth the fact that we are scoring almost 50% fewer goals as a team as our immediate rivals?  That is the key question.

Yes the stats are impacted by the fact that we were awful under our previous manager and yes they are much improved under Emery.  However, the fundamental question remains - do we score more goals by getting wide players who will score 15 goals a season or another CF who will score that number?  Ideally obviously we'd do both!!!

Personally I think under Emery we will (either this season or next) be playing with Ollie and another CF.  I can see Ollie possibly playing slightly deeper and I actually think he will start scoring more goals under Emery - especially if we have a couple of other players scoring around him.  I think he's already looking a little sharper and I really hope that with another goal threat in the side, Ollie will get a bit more space to exploit and up his goal contributions.

We were having similar debates about our midfield not that long ago - now that we have Kamara most of those debates ended and we've seen what can happen when quality is added.  I think the same could happen with Ollie - get a top class "goal scorer" in and everything about Ollie will improve.  I've been told many times that 4-4-2 died in the 90s but Emery seems to have done pretty well in recent seasons with his version of it.

How many chances do Chelsea and United create compared to us? I’d imagine it’s vastly superior.

Get a top class goal scorer is easier said than done. Watkins has his limitations but is vastly underrated by a large proportion of our fan base.

2 minutes ago, Woody1000 said:

I don’t know what is worse, the silence from those that are usually very vocal about him, or the s*** takes even when he has won us the match. Well done today Ollie!

Couldn’t agree more. Never gets the credit but always takes the blame. 

5 minutes ago, Tom13 said:

But the point is - when he does realise it's a free man - the effort to get out there is poor.

To be fair he blocks it if the guy shoots for the far post. How a professional keeper gets beaten at his near post there is beyond me. 

6 minutes ago, jim said:

Ah, So the plan was to go one up then hold on for 84 mins against semi pro 4th division players

We were hardly holding on. They hadn’t had a real shot until we gave them a goal from the penalty. We didn’t play very well but we were coasting to a pretty easy win until dendoncker’s moment of madness.

Just now, Delphinho123 said:

Im aware it did sound contradictory. My point is that you run the risk. 9/10 we win that game because they’re levels below us, but every now and again you will come unstuck. Today we risked it and we got punished. If Martinez, Mings, Konsa and Digne start that game today, we win. Not because they’re all brilliant, but because they play together regularly. 

They scored because one of our central midfielders gave the ball away and then got himself sent away giving the penalty away.

Their second we switched off at a corner and Olsen let the ball straight through him.
I don’t think they had a shot on target other than the two goals.

I find it hard to blame the back 4. Olsen isn’t very good but his is an individual mistake rather than an issue of unfamiliarity in the back 5.

I’d be questioning why we couldn’t create much against a league 2 team more than resting the back 5.

7 minutes ago, maqroll said:

Emery has to shoulder a portion of the blame today. No sense putting in almost your entire second team when you're trying to advance in the most prestigious domestic cup competition in the world. We aren't Manchester City. We don't have that kind of depth and we don't have any trophies at all in decades. Take it more seriously, Goddamit.

We also showed the opposition little respect in the team selection, but also by coasting in the second half. Tapping the ball around in their half with no  impetus or desire to put the game to bed.

We got exactly what we deserved from this game today.

Shocking display. Unforgivable for the time being.

 

 

 

We were playing Stevenage.

Arguably our worst player on the pitch was a player who has started every game since Emery came in (Bailey).

The vast majority of the players on the pitch cost us substantial amounts of money and have played a number of premier league games in recent seasons.

One of our players almost single handedly gave away the game when we were 1-0 up and Stevenage hadn’t had a single shot on target.

20 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

TAA is in the squad because he's a Liverpool player

Southgate doesn't rate him or want him because he can't take the risk of his defending

Whilst I kind of understand that reasoning against some of the top teams I don’t think the risk of his defending is massive against USA when we’re struggling to create any chances. He’s a brilliant passer and crosser of the ball.

By all means start with another right back but when the issue is a lack of creativity and you have players like TAA and Foden on the bench then use them.

1 minute ago, JPJCB said:

He liked foden at the euros but doesn’t like him now; he didn’t like grealish at the euros but does like him now. He’s changed his mind there for some reason and in any case I’d be nervous about viewing foden as a saviour at this stage: he probably won’t set the world alight him this team.

What has been consistent though is southgates love in for mason mount who gets picked for literally 90 mins of every game and does nothing. That annoys me more than anything else.

btw, anyone else think that trippier has been (surprisingly) shite so far. I’d drop him for TAA next game 

I’d have thought TAA would be another obvious sub to make in a game like last nights. We were crying out for some creativity and we have Foden and TAA sat on the bench.

I do find some of Southgate’s tactical decisions almost as baffling as Gerrard’s. If the initial setup doesn’t work then I don’t think he has a clue how to change it up to get a performance out of them.