srsmithusa

I love hearing holte enders in the sky at an away ground. Get's me fired up and smiling every time. Well done to our support.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your point, but if Lambert scores it won't count, even if his is the own goal.... oh, Rickie.... doubtful.

Somehow I thought this was the Alan Hutton Fan Club thread. I popped in just to see who and why anyone was on it. Now I see. It's really the "lets discuss keepers and anything that strikes us that isn't alan Hutton" thread. Funny name for it, though.

Both teams are fragile in the sense that if they go behind they could crumble. So, whoever scores first will win 3-1 Oh, and the first goal will be Weimann in less than 10 minutes.

This. If you didn't notice bannan watch the match again, but look especially at his positioning off the ball when swansea possessed and movement off the ball when we possessed. Really Brilliant match for wee barry

This

Bent, Weimann, Gabby were all really strong enough to make it difficult to see where Benteke will slot in. None of them deserve to be sat down.

I'm confused. Is "bell end" part of your comment, or is that your signature?

Clearly, bendtner is next.

strongly disagree. He had tons of the ball, but went back because nobody was showing for an option and he was under pressure. Under those circumstances a safe pass back is the best option. I thought he battled, tackled, even challenged in the air and covered a ton of ground. We looked better when he went out only because Everton sat back deeper and dropped the pressure tactic to prevent our possession. Not his fault that he had no options when in possession when nobody is showing or moving.

I saw player performances quite a bit differently than most. Everton, clearly prepared by watching West Ham, set out to stop us playing possession. The way they did it was to first, cut out the simple, easy pass by marking the target. Then put pressure on the possession. Then move to double team the player in possession. Villa players were clearly confused with no solution. Bannon showed well, worked hard. Even saw him challenge Fallaini for several head balls. Even won one. But when he got the ball, he had nowhere to go. Why? the rest of the team was stagnant, not moving or showing, and Everton was marking them out as easy options. I thought Zog looked the best he's looked in a villa shirt. Admittedly he got caught in possession and went into cul de sacs, but he was taking on players and working hard. But as above, when he beat the first defender, he had no outlets, so he got stuck and dispossessed by the second and third defender in. Taking on and beating the first defender is one strategy to beat the kind of pressure Everton was applying. But your teammates must move to create new angles. IMO the only reason we looked better with El Ahmadi moving into Bannan's role was that Everton had backed of and yielded more play. It preserved their lead and set up the possibilities on a break. All three goals against were due to horrible errors by Clark and or Given rather than a failure of the team or the system. Learning possession play is challenging enough. Learning plan b when the opponent specifically sets out to stop possession play is the next level. More time and a few experienced heads, will do us a world of good.

Actually, while i think it's too early to draw any conclusions, at West Ham, Holman was the place possession went to die.

Frustrating and promising If a factory has produced fertilize but needs to retool the machinery and the workers to create a sports car, it’s a long incremental process. You have to change a few things at a time. Given looked much better than I’ve seen him in years. The knock is he stays on his line and doesn’t own the penalty area. But in this match he came off his line at key times to eliminate problems before the big save was needed. Possession. Agreed it was not productive possession, but it was possession and that’s a big step forward. On the other hand: KEA, Delph, Ireland all seemed to be playing essentially the same role. “Show for the ball; Keep Possession; Take the safe pass first; Occasionally look for the incisive pass;” IMO KEA needs to try the incisive pass much more often. Delph as well. Ireland tried it more often, but rarely got it right. It could be they were told for Ireland to try it more often than the others. None of us can tell (from this match) if KEA and Delph don’t have the vision to see those passes or if they were instructed to take no risks. Either way, the factory production line showed some good changes, but not the final product. I assume the feed in Britain was much more clear than the feed in the US about the final touch on the offside goal. Not at all clear here who had that touch here. If it was as unclear on your feed, I think there would be much more complaining on here. Clearly we need to play to the whistle either way, but…. Very questionable call to overrule the flag based on the US feed. If so, we were just unlucky not to draw. Greatest need in the window is LB.

I found him !! He's the guy throwing the ball at the milk jugs to win a doll. Never really had a chance here.

Weimann Bent Ireland KEA Zog Bannan Lichaj Vlaar Clark Herd Given

2-2 Collins will head in a corner against us.

I just don't agree that you "have no idea why" and "it is not possible that" are identical phrases.

Agreed ! but is the sweater real ?

As an american, and clearly a traitor, I'm not a huge fan of Dempsey. But I do think he would be excellent in a tandem with Bent.

i was told he was at the match in chicago. I saw faulkner at the match.

I still think he was a good defender. But we needed to sell defenders and he's the only one any other team would make a decent offer for. In other words, best of the four. But agree it's for the best. All the best of luck JC, in every match except those against Villa. When we are the opponent, any help you can give will be appreciated.

I think we hired the right manager. I think he is making good deals. But I think we were in such a hole that I'll be happy if we're in the top 15. Not sure we'll see a whole lot more trading activity. I don't think there's a pile of cash waiting to be spent and not much to be gained from any sale we are likely to make. Several that need to be sold but will not get any offers could be gone on loan.

As I've said before. Collins is not at the top of my list of defenders that should be traded. I know I'm a minority, but I would prefer to keep him. IMO he's not the slow, clumsy, panicky, hoofer some pretend he is. All those who think Collins is so bad should, IMO, question why we received an offer for him, but not for hutton, warnock, or dunne. I watched live in Chicago and I thought Collins was the best center back we had. Apparenly at least some of our opposition feel he is good enough to make an offer while we apparently have no offer for Dunne, Warnock, or Hutton. But that said, I understand the need to sell and the wires don't appear to be burning with strong offers for others. So I see why the club would want to accept this deal.

I apologize if this is american ignorance, but what the blazes does that mean?!?

I think we need to sell some bodies, so no selling rumor would surprise me, but the list of people i would prefer to sell more than Collins is pretty long.