sparrow1988

Go to youtube and search for John Oliver conspiracy theories. There's a video which explains why people tend towards conspiracies when something big goes wrong. They use the example of the Kennedy assassination attempt (President dies - must be a conspiracy) and the Reagan assassination attempt (President survives - nobody thinks it was a conspiracy). Essentially Grealish being injured is a big deal for some people and therefore they think that the club are hiding something from them regarding the injury.

Hm fair enough. I really had a different memory of that goal.

Or for successful club managers who are getting on a bit but don't want the day to day rigmarole of having to be at the training ground and put in all the effort of club management.

Ah ok, now I undestand what your post meant. I didn't realise that it was specifically referring to Villa. I thought it was a general Grealish is a once in a generation player when there are clearly other players who are as good as if not better.

Look, I'm all for healthy, heavy debate but I draw the line at extremes on either side of the argument such as threatening to shoot any other humans regardless of their political beliefs. I would then as such have a problem signing a player who thinks it's ok to endorse such threats. As you say signing Pulisic is about as likely to happen as Harry and Meghan being welcomed back to Buckingham Palace with open arms (special reference just for you) so it probably won't be worrying us.

Welcome Mido and Bryan McBride

Not fascism, but close enough. EDIT: Just to clarify, this was meant as a joke and not meant to label you as a racist or fascist @paul514. Apologies.

As long as he stops liking posts of big American dickheads in their gun cave threatening to shoot Antifa then he's welcome. Otherwise he can piss off and stay at the club that welcomes that sort of behaviour.

I like this a lot. Great to see him back in action even if it is just training. Another step ticked off the list in returning from that horrible injury. Even getting this far is a massive achievement.

I know. He's a bad un' that one. He's got tattoos, bleaches his beard and I'm pretty sure I saw him smoking around the back of the bike shed one day.

At times, it's much worse.

Shock England call-up? Jesus they love a sensationalist headline. What exactly is shocking about the England manager wanting to have a closer look at an English CB whose team has the second most clean sheets in the league?

If you look anything like your avatar, I'll take one if you're offering.

I'm not sure about this mate. There's this guy in France who's meant to be pretty decent Mbappe or something. Keep an eye out for him.

I wouldn't hold your breath.

some of the stuff you read here. And also he was predominantly a left back to be fair. Played over 100 more games at LB than CB. And of his games at CB a good few of the came on the left of a 3 like with Italy around the early 2000‘s. Anyway back on topic. Guilbert relies on slide tackling a bit too much to get him out of trouble normally because he is too far out of position. In comparison to Targett, who always seems to have his tackles under control and actually very rarely “slides” and his positioning has been fantastic this season. I still wouldn’t write Guilbert off because of this. He was new to country, the league, the club, and if he and the coaches can work to improve his positioning and understanding of the game then he could become useful for us. If the coaches decide he’s not for them then so be it.

Is that the same man who said this? “If I have to make a tackle then I have already made a mistake.”

That would also be easier to do playing for Newcastle as when he gets the ball he's got a massive amount of space in front of him. It might be more difficult playing for a team that like to control things a bit more where space is a bit more compressed in the final third, not that we are camped in the opponent's half or anything but we do play a bit more in it than Brucie's boys. He's definitely got potential though.

We could tell him that the Serbians hate Villa. That'd get him going.

El Ghazi probably also has a significant amount of shots off target as well. He just loves shooting.

He ran half the length of the field against Leicester and buried in the bottom corner. That's just one instance. The Arsenal game at the Emirates. The Liverpool game. I would suggest that would be evidence of him not being totally shite. I'm not saying he is the best player we've got. I've even mentioned he probably shouldn't be starting at the moment. I just don't really get the he's totally shite comments. To say that is just nonsense. Similarly, the send him back to Chelsea comments.

Warning: I am going to use stats here More Martinez than the last ditch defending actually. He is outperforming his post-shot xG (the measure of how likely a keeper is to save the shot) by 7.7, which is fairly impressive and the best in the league. The midfield is a problem but as I mentioned in my other post I think it is more a ball winning issue further up the field. Re: Burnley, their defensive stats are also pretty dire. Pope is also outperforming the post-shot xG by 5.1. They have the 4th worst xG against but Pope is bailing them out. They have also conceded 6 goals from corners compared to our 2, which is surprising considering they are often cited as a model of how to defend set pieces and some would have you believe our defending of corners is about as strong as a digestive biscuit that has spent too long dipped in a cup of tea.

I don't see it as protection for the protector. I see it as a more proactive way of winning the ball. What's better? Having your 8's winning the ball higher up the pitch and initiate attacks from there or having your 6 win the ball in your own half and initiate attacks from there with more opponents in front of him? You then use your more creative 6 to build attacks from situations like goal kicks, free kicks in the defensive third etc. I would suggest that the majority of the top teams prefer the former of winning the ball high up the field and is one of the main reasons why they are the top teams.

It's going to be interesting to see what Laporta does now that he is back. Did he just get lucky last time with the crop of players that came through La Masia or was it his nous that laid the foundations for their successes up until 2013? I can't see anyone coming in for the likes of Coutinho, Griezemannn or Dembele. Very few clubs can afford them at the minute and those that can wouldn't touch them.