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GeordieVillan

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Everything posted by GeordieVillan

  1. Sloppy at the back and just too slow in build up. Pretty clear messages to correct things. Give it another 10-15 mins and then we make the subs that everyone on here seems to be asking for! Not confident we are getting anything from this, a point would be amazing right now.
  2. The last time I felt we had a team this attacking was in Sherwood’s last game (I think) against Swansea at VP….lets hope it doesn’t go the same way!
  3. I’m thinking he’s picked that team based on height to an extent. Adding Duran and Rogers, and also having Lenglet, gives us an extra 3 players that can defend set pieces….
  4. No one saw that coming! The opposite of what we did last week!
  5. I don’t think it was a red, I think it was a bad yellow. But expected VAR to ask the ref to have a look and overturn it. My opinion though, I could be wrong. Amazing how split the opinion is on this one, even amongst Villa fans. Can’t be easy being a referee at times.
  6. Cash is in there to prevent the overload on the Spurs left when Maddison drifts out there. Bailey will still be mainly on the right as well I think. I wonder if Cash will follow Maddison as he moves around the pitch.
  7. With all this smoke, there is probably a little bit of fire, even if it’s a small campfire and not a blazing inferno. For a long time I thought we would sell at least one of our “key players” this summer, at the end of the day - every club has to sell to buy - and over the years the old Big Six have all sold players to reinvest, it’s inevitable. I think the difference is now we can have a bit more confidence that at least some of the funds will be reinvest wisely. Even if you think when Grealish was sold, Bailey / Buendia / Ings doesn’t look like a terrible reinvestment now? I don’t think we will see McGinn or Martinez, purely because of age, and Mings won’t be sold because of his currrnt injury. I do think we will sell one of Luiz - Konsa - Ramsey - Bailey - Watkins, in addition to Digne, and we will use a decent portion of what we receive to buy 2-3 other players that have the potential to develop in the next couple of years, as we already have done in January with the full back positions. And whatever we don’t spend will balance the books. I actually think it might have been Kamara that would have been sold to a big European team, but his injury has probably prevented that. As long as we can keep the bulk of the current team together, and we only lose 1 of those listed above, we should be fine, we have shown we can cope with injuries this season, other than Torres! But if we had a fit Mings then we would have been fine with Torres even. In summary - no need to panic - if we have to sell someone then we will, and we will be fine.
  8. Amazing how well we managed to do without him in the first half of the season. He brings an energy and running power with the ball that no one else in our team does quite the same way. Maybe Bailey does similar, but Ramsey get us up the pitch and runs ahead of the ball in a way which is quite unique in our squad.
  9. Assuming Mings comes back strong and is able to play at the same level again - or our new level (champions league?) - and there is no reason to think he won’t be able to as he has recovered from this injury before, I think he will play and still be pretty much first choice. In the US tour we saw Mings at LCB and Torres at LB. I think more than anything that was a recognition from Emery that Konsa and Mings as a partnership had been so good, that he could not split them up, and he wanted to find a way to get Torres into the team. Fast forward 6 months and we have seen quite a lot of changes to the back 4 on an almost weekly basis. Torres has to play LCB when fit as he brings so much to the team from there, and Emery has shown he sees some benefit in playing Konsa at RB in some games, especially the ones where we need to be more solid. I think we will see Konsa at RB, Mings at RCB, Torres at LCB and Moreno at LB. That leaves Cash, Carlos and Digne as established back ups. If we assume Digne moves on, and so does Lenglet and Chambers, I could see us signing a young centre half to just give extra cover, but otherwise I don’t think we will need to do too much. We have already signed a couple of young defenders in January who will most likely get some minutes next season, in the same way that Morgan Rogers is being introduced now. I’m sure Mings will be able to adapt to play RCB, he’s able to use his right foot more than Lenglet!
  10. He’s done very well in the last 2 games, other than the very early stages at Fulham where he got caught a couple of times. Have to remember he’s covering for Kamara and hasn’t played the position in a couple of years. Interesting that Luiz still got forward and scored a couple of goals today, is McGinn playing the Kamara role and playing deeper? I had assumed Luis would play the Kamara role and McGinn would play the Luiz role. Either way, let’s hope they keep it up!
  11. He’s gone from being scapegoated a few weeks ago to now being a very solid part of the team (again), and actually he’s starting to form a partnership with Bailey that previously didn’t look possible because Bailey apparently was “occupying the space Cash likes to move in to”. I think Cash is having a very good season. He’s going to be part of this squad over the next few years, I think Unai likes him and he’s able to offer more going forward than Konsa, which is useful in some games and situations.
  12. His role is now limited to short cameos when we are winning and we need to see the game out. I think he needs to improve his ball retention if he’s going contribute effectively in doing that! Don’t think he will stay beyond his loan, but by no means has he been a disaster, he is still getting minutes.
  13. What a guy, love him. Even McGinn said a couple of weeks ago that the manager doesn’t use injuries as an excuse, or words to that effect. Was amazing today in the first half - I think we were 2-0 up, and he was going mad telling Digne something on the bench. You could see Digne was looking at him and saying “what?!” but the look on his face said that Unai is a mad man!
  14. We were the better team, but at 3-2 they have a great chance and then who knows. Same last week at Fulham, we were clearly the better team but they have a good chance chance to equalise at the end etc. But there was jeopardy in both games, and we managed to get the job done. It wasn’t a criticism of the team - I’m quite happy if we continue to be the better team in games and get 3 points, even if it is closer than we would like.
  15. I think we did just enough today, and last week was the same - we are winning by fine margins, but winning nonetheless. Defending set pieces is becoming a real issue though, and it will cost us when we play the top 3 as they are all very good at attacking set pieces.
  16. Big win today, it was always going to be, regardless of the Man Utd score, but given that they lost, it feels huge. If we can win at Luton next week, and assuming Man Utd lose to City, I don’t see them making up 11 points and goal difference on us. It will then be us and Spurs….
  17. I took my wife and 8 year old daughter to the match today, and we sat in Fulham end near the dugouts. They have only been to a couple of games each and don’t really follow the Villa properly (yet), but they really enjoyed today, even though we couldn’t celebrate. Half way through the second half, they were chatting to eachother and they turned and asked me “who is the guy with the big bum again?” I said - “that’s my captain”.
  18. I don’t think we will be re-inventing the wheel. Until Konsa returns, Cash will be RB, Digne/Moreno at LB, and Carlos with Torres/Lenglet in the middle. In midfield, McGinn will play in the pivot with Luiz, and we will just rely on him being responsible in the role. Ramsey is returning to fitness at the perfect time to keep playing left side, with Bailey right side, and Teilemans will most likely start as the “second striker” with Watkins. That gives us Diaby as an option off the bench to go more attacking, along with Rogers and Zaniolo. I don’t think Emery will want to have too many players in unfamiliar positions, and in this scenario I think everyone is fine, and only McGinn is being compromised by having to play from deeper. Any more injuries and we are in the scenario of starting to have more people out of position or having an imbalance of attacking players over defensive players. I don’t think we are the stage where that is an issue yet. UTV
  19. I think we can still do it. I watched Spurs - Brighton and they were lucky to win that, likewise Man Utd were lucky to beat us. Between now and the end of the season, we will get lucky and win some games we don’t deserve to as well. Key for us is that we need to start winning away from home regularly to offset the dip in home form, starting at Fulham on Saturday. Ramsey is a game changer for us, him and Bailey have to start every game as they give us the pace and dynamism in a way that noone else in our squad does. They were both great yesterday, as it’s very difficult to stop both of them. If we can get Torres back this weekend as well, I think we will see a return to our early season form and results.
  20. Tempted to say he should start on Saturday, especially if Bailey isn’t fit to start. It might feel desperate, but we need something to ignite us.
  21. I don’t think he’s rubbish. I think he’s going to be a part of this squad for the foreseeable future and will improve under Emery in the next 12-24 months.
  22. Very disappointed yesterday at how many empty seats there were at full time and even from around the 85 minute mark, even though I acknowledge it was a late kick off (and late finish) and we didn’t play great. To be undefeated at home for almost a year, the team deserved a standing ovation and the fans singing their hearts out at the end. I think it’s a shame we didn’t mark the end of the unbeaten run by showing our appreciation a bit more. We had a chance to show the team that we still believe in them and support them no matter what, and I think a decent proportion of fans, not all, wasted that opportunity.
  23. Sadly I think he’s becoming a bit of a scapegoat. He was getting dogs abuse around me in the Holte End, I had to tell a couple of guys behind me to get off his back. Diaby is the only player last night who stood out as really off his game. All the rest of our team were much of a muchness, Cash included, Bailey was the only one who played to his potential, everyone else was off their game. Singling out Cash as the weak link is incorrect and unfair on the lad. We have been struggling for weeks and Cash hasn’t even been playing every game. It can’t be his fault when he isn’t on the pitch!
  24. We have 2 issues at the minute that has led to our downturn. The first issue is the absence of Pau Torres. The second is the form of Diaby. We can’t do anything about the first until Torres is fit, but we need to take Diaby out of the firing line at least. His confidence is totally shot and he’s a passenger at the moment. His drop in form is actually affecting Ollie Watkins. Im not giving up on him, but picking him and hoping he plays himself into some form is going to cost us games and points.
  25. Very expensive as corporate, too rich for me, now showing as “retricted” for general tickets. I would guess limited to members etc at the moment, and then any remaining tickets on general sale nearer the time perhaps. Has anyone ever sat in a restricted view seat in one of the stands with the pillars? Is it as bad as the name suggests?!
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