tom_avfc

10 hours ago, Zatman said:

Jake Livermore really is a meh player and no idea how he is in the squad same with Delph

Ox, Stones, Hart, Smalling not much better either 

I largely agree with your assessment of the players. However, I can't think of many players you could really replace them with and that's why they're in the squad. 

It's all well and good saying players in the squad aren't very good but if we have no alternatives then I don't know what Southgate is really supposed to do.

Has been excellent since he came back. I think Saturday is a great chance for him to get off the mark for the season. If he can start banging in the goals like last year we'll be a real force to reckon with given the improvement of the squad around him.

10 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

Anyone see the end of the Madrid-Betis game?

Amazing stuff from Betis? 0-0, 93rd minute and they're popping the ball around in Madrid's half before scoring. They must have had about 20 passes before the goal.

I chuckle at a mid table club at 0-0 away to Chelsea, Man. City or Man. United. They'd be camped 8 yards from their own goalline.

Real Madrid still winless at home in the league this season.

 

I think this is a bit of a generous summing up of the goal. Real had pretty much 8 players up front for the last 20 minutes which left them open to a counter attacking goal. The goal came from a nice cross to an unmarked player at the far post due to this.

I’m sure there’d be examples of this happening in the premier league when a big team is so desperate for a win that they completely neglect defending as an idea.

Betis could have had a couple before their goal on the breakaway but on most days real would have scored 3 or 4 with the chances they had. 

12 hours ago, Nigel said:

Tbh I'm not sure green deserves to get straight back in simply because he is left footed.

It will do green good to take the pressure off him of being first choice too.

Agree with this but Green isn't left footed. 

I think Adomah is the better player at the moment and Green could do with the competition for his place when he's back as you said. 

44 minutes ago, Mjvilla said:

Liam Lindsay is **** woeful and Barnsley are just as bad.

If you're wrong about this, then it is highly possible you're wrong about Bacuna, Westwood, amongst others. If you keep trying to prove yourself right by dragging Bacuna and Westwood threads up from nowhere, then I can do the same. 

What is this assessment of Liam Lindsay based on? I had no idea who he was until today but maybe you've seen a lot of him to know he's woeful. Just interested as I also think Heckingbottom is doing a reasonable job given the circumstances. 

7 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

But its true stevo. I would be absolutely loving it if we were doing well. But we are just as shit as them. Thats the reity. We are 18th they are 21st. We are shocking 

Completely agree. It's a bit rich laughing at a team losing 2-0 away to the league leaders when we've failed to score a goal against a relegation candidate and a team with 10 men from the 4th minute, both at home. 

It was an almost identical red card to one I saw xhaka get for arsenal - might have been against Swansea.

At the time of that one I applauded the sentiment of the red card. They're both completely deliberate fouls made with absolutely no intent of getting the ball.

I'm completely in favour of these being red cards as I hate the games where teams will just take turns to completely wipe out a counter attacking player and this is a way to prevent that.

Having said all this, it's not a red card by the current rules and Lansbury knows he's 'taking the yellow for the team', another part of modern football which I can't stand.

Add this in with the diving seen yesterday (Kodjia, Lansbury, Snodgrass for us) and you can see why people are getting bored of the game really.

4 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

Anyone who puts coins in their wallet needs to have a word with themselves.

What/why? 

7 minutes ago, BOF said:

It seems their current number 1 is a 21 year old on loan from Brighton, Christian Walton.  So they're not blessed with established experience of their own in that position.

Last season they were relegated with a combination of Adam Bogdan (17apps),  Matt Gilks (13/1),  Jakob Haugaard (8) & Jussi Jaaskelainen (8,1) in goal.  So yeah, you could say they're all over the place there.

From a quick Google it looks like that Walton played close to 30 games for Luton last year so is more experienced than Sarkic.

Actually from a further Google it looks like he's picked up an ankle injury so Sarkic has probably been brought in to play until he's back fit. That's probably why he's only there for 6 months so hopefully he'll get some decent game time.

5 minutes ago, BOF said:

Excellent for him.  That's a big step up.  Looking forward to seeing the fans' reactions to him if he does indeed get a game.  They're a front-runner in that league and will be one of the favourites for promotion.  That's good too in a way. It means he won't be bombarded and he'll have the chance to marshall a normal defence rather than one under siege.

I think this is the key part of this move. I can't claim to be an expert on the goalkeeping situation at Wigan but I hope we haven't loaned Sarkic out to a team where he won't play games. If we have done, then he'd have been better off playing for our under 23s than going out.

If he does get games then this is an excellent move for him IMO. A title chasing season in League 1 would appear to be a good opportunity for him to develop.

2 hours ago, hogso said:

I know the concept of a triple threat football match is controversial, but personally I'm looking forward to this and think it will provide the boost of excitement the international game needs. I will be cheering on England Slovakia, although I expect England will win, with Malta lagging behind in third.

I thought Brexit would put a stop to these England Slovakia combined nonsense matches!! 

6 minutes ago, andykeenan said:

4Goalkeepers: Joe Hart, Jack Butland, Jordan Pickford,Tom Heaton

Defenders: Ryan Bertrand, Aaron Cresswell, Gary Cahill, Phil Jones, Harry Maguire, John Stones, Michael Keane, Chris Smalling, Kyle Walker, Kieran Trippier

Midfielders: Eric Dier, Nathaniel Chalobah, Jake Livermore, Jordan Henderson, Raheem Sterling, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Dele Alli, Jesse Lingard

 

Posted at14:11

No strikers? Has McLeish taken over the England job?  

4 minutes ago, AshVilla said:

We are playing Bristol and not Barcelona though would be nice for the manager to be a bit positive for a change.

If we want to get promoted we should be beating teams like this comfortably.

 

What do you want him to say? "We feel like we are comfortably better than Bristol and will win this game easily?" Talk about firing up the opposition.

He's answered a question with the fact that Bristol have had a decent start to the season (they've won 3 out of 6 competitive games) and that it won't be an easy game.

I'm sure he's targeting games like this one as ones we should be winning but what manager is ever going to come out and say that in the build up to a match?

3 minutes ago, hogso said:

Considering the suspicion of a fix (to presumably secure some lucrative TV fixtures), that is an incredibly boring draw.

This is true although I suppose the big teams having kinder draws will make big games later on in the competition more likely.

At this stage there's enough United/Liverpool fans to mean that a game against anybody will be well watched on TV. I'd expect the United and Liverpool games to be chosen due to the lack of any particularly exciting matches.

26 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Norwich won the toss on Saturday and chose to switch ends.

Have the rules around the toss been changed then as I'm pretty sure Norwich took kick off? It always used to be that you either chose ends or took kick off but I'll admit that this may have changed.

I was under the impression that we had chosen to shoot towards the Holte against Norwich but against Wigan they had switched ends hence we had the kick off. I may be completely wrong but I'm sure that's how it used to work anyway.

I thought Hourihane was decent yesterday but he looks like the player that is being restricted the most by Bruce's tactics to me. Seems to have something about him that we haven't seen much more than Lansbury for me.

Also liked the fact that he (and Johnstone) made the effort to come right over to applaud and acknowledge the fans at the end of the game as opposed to others who half heartedly clapped and disappeared. 

13 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

Thought he was by far our best player last night, and the only one who looked likely to create anything.

He's inconsistent, but I'm not sure why he's getting so much criticism.

There's a real oddity about our academy graduates. Some seem to get overly criticised while others are immune from it.

Green, imo, falls into the former category.

He's 19 with only a handful of appearances and people seem to be expecting him to be the complete package.
He's showing more than Albrighton, Grealish and others did at his age.

This just isn't true for me. He had a decent game but still missed an absolute sitter and again had no end product. Rather than being inconsistent at the moment his end product is consistently not good enough. 

He's being asked to do way too much but if we continue to play a winger who doesn't score and doesn't get any assists it's not going to help us get up this year. I'd much rather he was getting game time from the bench and we had a left winger playing who was a more well rounded player. For me he's just not ready yet to be a guaranteed starter and therefore we need a left winger. 

1 hour ago, Kiwivillan said:

Why did Bacuna barely kick a ball pre season and start against Hull then get sold a few weeks later. It's beyond stupid. I can't comprehend some of his decisions and him thinking to himself this will get results

To be fair Bacuna was on international duty for the majority of pre season. I do agree though that having him in the starting line up for the first match of the season and then selling him a week later is absolutely bizarre.

4 minutes ago, terrytini said:

That's fine, as long as - in my view -you take the longer term view that winning those 3 gives us the best chance of promotion.

For example it'd be a bit mad if , given a choice of winning those 3 and finishing 7th, or losing them and finishing top, you chose to win the 3 !!

That DOESNT mean I'm saying that's would happen. Of course we could win the three and finish top, of whatever.

But IF - IF - it's your view that the fewer matches Bruce is here for the better, then there is a logic in preferring a defeat.

 

To be honest I just go to the games and hope we win each one. Its part of being a supporter surely. When I get to Reading I'll be hoping for a Villa win.

If Bruce continues to produce crap football and crap results then he'll rightly go and given the Cardiff game I hope he's being made to feel the pressure. However I hope he manages to turn it around and we play well and win matches.

All this the fewer matches Bruce is here for the better is beyond me to be honest. Who's to say we'll be better or worse without him. Whoever is in charge I'll be hoping for us to win each match as winning is the only way we're getting back to the Premier League.

5 minutes ago, Ingram85 said:

It would go a long way to restoring some belief I guess but nothing I've seen in Bruce's reign signals to me that this has any remote chance of happening at all.

I completely agree with this. However, the fact that I don't consider it particularly likely to happen doesn't mean I'm not hoping for us to win the next three on the bounce.

I'd rather hope for this than to hope for us to lose matches just to see  Bruce sacked.

What if we beat Reading, Norwich and Bristol? Doesn't winning games give us the best chance of promotion?

21 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

I guess the significance of this reveal though, was that if Danaerys thinks she is the rightful queen due to her bloodline, she'll have to concede that John is actually the rightful King on the back of this info.

Yes I'd agree with that so it's a decent reveal for that reason although there's a character in the books (not seen on show so far) who would potentially render this completely irrelevant anyway. I've put it in spoiler although the character may or may not turn up in the show anyway so who knows!

47 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

Gilly.

Come on guys - probably the biggest reveal in GoT history and it was missed.

I'm paraphrasing here so be kind.

  Reveal hidden contents

Gilly: What's annulment mean? 

Sam: It's when you end a marriage.

Gilly: The maester (can't remember his name) says he that Ragger [sic] had an anullment so he could marry another.

That 3 line exchange legitimizes Jon as rightful owner of the iron throne

 

Oh I was fully aware of the reveal. It was more the geeky side of me coming out to pick up on the Ginny/Gilly slip!

As pointed out above it's more nuanced than legitamizing Jon as rightful owner of the Iron Throne. There's plenty of other characters who will all claim one way or another that they are the rightful owner.

I hope it isn't as simple as a Daenerys/Jon alliance winning through at the end. Its been predicted for a long time by book readers and I'd like to think George RR Martin has something genuinely surprising up his sleeves for the end game.

I suppose part of the problem with him taking so long to write the books is that it gives people longer to come up with theories regarding the end game.

50 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

The significance of Ginny's line of dialogue has only just been pointed out to me.

I thought it was just Sam almost finding out about John and Danaerys being related.

Have I missed a Harry Potter crossover epsiode? 

Sorry to be pedantic and to be fair there are a lot of names to potentially get wrong!

14 minutes ago, AshVilla said:

Where in my post did i say i want us to lose.

Well he's not going to get sacked on the back of an away win at Reading is he?