Chicken Field

Emery has done incredible work with this squad, sadly there is a limit to how much he can affect their mentality, too many of our players seem to crumble in big occasions, ecpecially at home when the fans are excited and loud - Chelsea, Brentford and Sheffield United pop to mind.

I find him to be incredibly similar to Alan Hutton (altough better) - you can never blame his effort or attitude but he is very one dimensional and can only run in one direction, lacks football inteligence (especially when defending, he is awful at holding the defensice line), and just limited in technique. His work rate hides his limiations

It is aaaaaallways Cash who fails to hold the offside line. He is always a step behind the rest of the defenders. 

Hahaha, leeets gooooo

Thank god

United win today and their game in hand, then they'll only be 5 points behind us with 7 games to go, with us still having to play arsenal and liverpool (and chelsea).. it's closer than people on the previous page made it out to be

50 minutes ago, RichW said:

You'd think we'd only won one of our last 6 instead of 4 wins 1 draw 1 loss if we are in questionable form. I wouldn't call our fixture list brutal - Brentford, Bournemouth and Chelsea are all winnable home games. Palace and Brighton are winnable away games. None of our tough games are back to back either so if we do lose there's always the chance for a reaction. 

I'm confident we will get the wins required for top 5 ourselves (and top 4) but I think Man Utd will make themselves irrelevant on their own anyway. Chelsea (A), Liverpool (H) and Bournemouth (A) - they need 7 points from those games really to even give themselves a chance and I don't see them winning any of them. They barely have any defenders fit!  

I think my inner pessimist led me to write my previous reply. Did not realise we were in such good form, I think us not playing that well but still getting results, fooled me into thinking we were struggling more than we are

By brutal fixture list, I was mostly thinking about the amount of games we have left and small'ish squad, especially if we go further in the conference league. 

1 minute ago, VillaChris said:

They've still got a shot. Probably at this point last season Bournemouth only had 22-23 points but they had a really good run in and survived comfortably.

Luton got four homes left with Bournemouth, Brentford, Everton and Fulham. Goes without saying they need to win three of those to have any chance but I don't think it looks improbable when you see what Fulham are doing on the road currently. They were also 3-0 up at Bournemouth so they'll be up for that match to put it right.

Turning point in Luton's season was Adebayo injuring his hamstring in the warm up v Man. United two months ago as he was in excellent form at the time. Not sure if he's back anytime soon.

Would love it if they stay up, especially if it means everton get relegated. 

Luton have played some really impressive football throughout the season, although they seem to concede so many late goals. They do remind me a lot of Blackpool. 

Can't remember a team conceding so many late goals and losing so many leads before in the premier league, vut their ability to score (and determination) means they are capable of picking up some points. 

1 minute ago, useless said:

The criticism Luton get for not being more competitive is ridiculous, as recently as 2018 they were playing in League Two, just a couple of seasons ago they were still finishing in the bottom half of the Championship, season before last they reached play-offs having spent no money, last season they reached and won the play-offs having only spent a couple of million, they massively overachived in doing so, in the summer they spent just £25m on a squad that was nowhere near ready for the Premier League, that is they didn't spend very much at all, and nowhere near enough to make them competitive at PL level in any right thinking person's eyes

They've very done well to have as many points as they have, and even if the games where they've lost they've been competitive in those games, in our first season after promotion we only had four more points than Luton have now after the same amount of games, having spend £100m plus and already having Grealish and McGinn in the squad

Everton's recent form is atrocious but their form overall this season in a normal season see them survive, take away their points deduction and they would be on thirty-two points, so most years would need just one more win to gurantee survival, one more win and a couple of draws would make sure

I think most people would agree that what Luton have done the past many seasons (and this) has been incredibly impressive, that though does not change the fact that they are nowhere near premier league standard this season 

5 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

You say "only" 8 points as if that's a small gap. It's an absolutely huge gape at this end of the table with only 8 games left.

It's not going to happen.

it's mathematically possible, but there is absolutely nothing to suggest that they are capable of the huge uptick in form they require, and that we are capable of the incredible collapse that is required for them to overtake us. And it's been that way for several weeks.

They are far more likely to finish 7th than they are to finish 5th.

 

We are not in questionable form. We are 4th in the form table. Man Utd are 8th.

This season they are now irrelevant for the top 4/5 race

I have become a pessimist as a result of years of football torture and disappointments, just can't find myself saying it's over till it is over. 

Also I truly believe in football curses and statements coming back to haunt (we will probably get an 8 points reduction because of FFP and to help Utd get champions league next season). Therefore I will not say irrelevant, untill they mathematically are irrelevant  

14 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

THANK YOU!

It's driving me crazy that people are still mentioning them. They're irrelevant

Disagree, if they win their game in hand, they'll be "only" 8 points behind us with 8 games to go. With us being in questionable form and having a brutal fixture list and United historically having the ability to go on runs, even when they are at their worst, I think we'd be naive to call them irrelevant just yet - Although it should be unlikely that they catch us and this season would be a complete bottlejob if they do.  2-3 more wins this season and then I'll start calling Utd irrelevant

Reminds me of Darwin Nunez, a chaotic machine. He really has the potenital of going far but requires a lot of improvements before he can start challenging Watkins

1 hour ago, Zatman said:

He is definitely on the Saudi and Chelsea payroll

He is on the payroll of whoever is willing to pay, his job is literally to "leak" the information given to him. Which he does

In this case, Wilsons agent is looking either for Villa to offer more money or to create other interested parties, hence why the compensation fee is included. Its very simple

Gareth Southgate to Man Utd: Why there are concerns around the England boss' links to Old Trafford | Football News | Sky Sports

Found this to be a hilariously biased piece of journalism. Going on and on about how Southgate has been able to change the culture, creating a relaxed environment with players smiling when they arrive at camp. There is one paragraph, at the end of the piece, about one of his minor faults and the piece is literally called "why there are concerns". Extraordinary.

Would absolutely love it if he became Man utd manager. 

Never before known of a coach that got this much attention before. Truth is, non of us have any idea what he is doing or how he is doing - only thing we know is that Emery trusts him, which is good enough for me.

2 hours ago, gwi1890 said:

He can only become familiar by playing.

Or by being coached daily by our world class manager

Van Dijk got a similar injury at a similar'ish age. He was pretty poor the entire first season back but has bounced back to his close to best now. It'll take time for Mings to fully recover. 

12 hours ago, Davkaus said:

He was injured, yeah, but he came back in October.

Thing is, if we're not willing to give him more than a few minutes in a cup game that's gone, and he's not even been on the bench for plenty of games when he's fit, are we really going to give him time in PL games when we get to the business end? He's had 4 minutes against Man United, 19 minutes in Sheffield United when it was a training session, 6 or 7 minutes tonight, and that's it, since rejoining the first team squad 4 months ago.

We should have loaned him out in January if we don't have serious intentions of giving him minutes, and I just don't see it happening if he can't even get a good run out tonight when it was clear after 20 minutes that Kamara was absolutely ****.

Our fans often wonder why players like Philogene and Chuk don't want to stay and fight for their place.

You say he came back in October but seems to have hardly featured for our u21 since then. Also coming back in October does not mean fit, especially given he most likely missed pre season and has been injured for months. 

Our manager probably did not want to play him more against chelsea, as he saw no value in doing so, what good does it do throwing a youngster on when a game is lost and all the other players are playing poorly? 

Also the fact he has come on the last two games, is probably an indicator that the manager wants him to play more, but Emery probably wants to do it correctly, given his injury and lack of fitness, inexperience at our level and our poor form. 

Why would we loan out our only other option in midfield? The manager probably wants to integrate him in to his philiosphy, teach him the Villa way. Or maybe he simply does not htink he is good enough, but is smart enough to see we must have one back up to luiz and kamara, loaning him out would be crazy.

Certainly harsh to single him out today, he has been one of multiple poor players

Thst said, Cahs is absolutely not good enough, he is really poor on the ball and is poor defensively, he cant hold the high line and reads the game poorly. Credit where credit is due though, he does put in a shift, id aay he is very similar to Hutton  

I like the idea of buying plenty of low risk, cheaper players. Some may work out, some wont, basically no risk attached. 

I always liked the idea of our signings under Lambert, the cheaper, young, unproven players from the lower or foreign leagues, the problem back then was they came in to be first teamers. Now we can actually develop them and not rely on them before just throwing them in the deep on. 

Feel a bit for him, would like to see him moved out to the wing, did Bailey the world of good. Both of them struggle in that forward role

Ehat makes it more annoying is that I thought Tielemans looked great in that forward role, but is struggling at left mid

1 hour ago, lexicon said:

Why not Sinisalo? Both have featured for their respective national teams, with Finland a higher-ranked country than Iceland. Plus The Swedish league isn't up to much tbh. 

Probably because our incredibly experienced manager, director of football and scouts rate the Icelandic goalkeeper higher than Sinisalo? 

4 minutes ago, HalfTimePost said:

Part think Dybala would be a class signing.

Part think Ollie's uptick in form really coincided with Ings leaving and him becoming *The Guy* again..and I'd be nervous of rocking the boat.

Dybala would be an upgrade on Duran as it stands too. I think Duran could be better fit for the Premier League in a couple of years though, I wouldn't want us to sell him. 

 

Dybala is not a striker, he would be callenging for the place next to watkins and on the wings, rather that directly with Watkins

Sky reporting he's on his way back, but Emery has no interest in him, they go on to say that he could be on his way to either intet miami or LA Galaxy