I'm perhaps a bit biased as I've liked him since before and appreciate his type of player, but I think he brings an aura of calmness and intelligence to the team. He is a bit slow in transition and in tracking back, but he is very good at positioning and has good awareness. And when it comes to the attacking play he very good in the build up and has a killer pass in him, also as we have seen at Leicester a great strike in him. I'd like to see Kamara or Luiz rotated a bit and let him have a sustained run in the side also staring games. And when he tires big Donk can come on.

I'm so sad for him that his goal didn't stand, and actually a bit irritated over VAR and the rules. I of course get it that offside is offside and It's hard to argue against a goal being is disallowed when it is.

But, the point with the offside rule is that a player should not get an extra advantage by being closer to the goal than the defender (and perhaps a lot of other things too). In this case where we are talking about millimeters there is no advantage what so ever. The only result is that a perfectly executed beautiful goal is disallowed.

A sublime pass from Pau, good movement from different players, a super sprint, first touch and perfect shot - all ruled out because of this forensic approach to the game where we are striving for some kind of absolute justice by having computers calculate millimeters. It's just wrong, most didn't notice it when it happened and should better fall whithin some kind of clear and obvious-rule and with thicker lines being drawn by VAR or something. 

1 hour ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

And made eye contact with Johnstone while doing it.

Actually not, and no need for it, he did the right thing to focus on controlling the ball and hitting the net when Johnstone was overplayed. It was fast executed as well with the two touches, which was good as two defenders came flying in to block it.

I thought he looked very lively and had an extra spark in his step, good actions from him throughout his cameo. The goal was well taken, it's not always easy to get that right at that speed although it could seem easy, good first little touch to control and then a controlled finish.

He blows hot and cold, yesterday was hot and that's encouraging.

I think he looked more solid defensively yesterday, it was of course the action that led up to the gaol where Mateta raced through, but that can happen. Otherwise he looked good defensively and helped out to cover behind Konsa a couple of times, usually it's the other way around. Bot Edouard and Mateta are quite physical players so it was a good test for him.

Attacking wise and regarding his passing it's not much to say, simply top class, and the pass for the Diaby goal that was disallowed was sublime.

I love having a CB who dictates play and controls the passing, it's like having a good old sweeper. 

Like said before, he sure is entertaining!

I'm very curious to see how good he can be. Would like to see him on daily basis in training to get a better grasp of his technique and decision making and how high his ceiling can be.

They way he hustles and gives seasoned PL-defenders the Grant Holt-treatment is unbelievable considering his age. Also the power in his shots are hugely impressive. The strike that smacked the bar against City and the goal yesterday gives him the right to go for the shots against Liverpool last week end although it looked a bit silly.

We know Emery wants players with different profiles, I wonder if he sees Duran as a target player type. If so I more understand the decision to let Archer go as Duran gives us something different.

19 hours ago, Zatman said:

very low, I doubt its near the top 50 leagues in the world. League 2 is probably the right level as we saw from Qatar at the World Cup and the quality of the foreign players/managers arent up to scratch

None except Veratti if he signs and maybe Brahimi would get signed by a Premier League club

Thanks, I don't think I had even heard of it. I read that it started in the 1950's so it has a longer tradition than I thought. I guess they invested a lot in it to the WC, but still it doesn't seem to have so many well known players and at least this summer it has been completely overshadowed by the Saudi Pro League. If Coutinho turned down other better league for it I guess that it at least has some kind of quality or status, still a bit of a surprise for me that choosed Qatar if he thinks that he still has a couple of years left on top level. 

Anyone know anything about the standard of the league in Qatar?

6 minutes ago, Marka Ragnos said:

When did you pretty much abjectly fail in your take on a Villa player? Perhaps you arrogantly heaped criticism upon a Villa player after some match or few matches who turned out, in the long run, to be superb. Or you ran from thread to thread, waving a flag of support for a player who eventually ended up a dire flop. Maybe you even held on to a view stubbornly, past all rationality but your own, and you got yourself some shiny new VT Warning Points for calling someone a **** --- and later realised, upon cooling off, that in fact, you were the ****. Perhaps it wasn't so extreme or melodramatic, but in any case, you still got it so, so, so wrong, and your Villa Talk cred was (for a time) torn to shreds.

I had Riccardo Scimeca as my favourite player, was sure he would become better than Southgate. Did he end up working at his families pizza place or something instead?

edit: now I read that he actually went on and played quite well for Forest afterwards, didn't remember that.

8 minutes ago, Aston_Villan4 said:

Question is how long does it take for him to reach that speed because that’s as fast as Mings, lol.

If we play with an even higher line he will catch up! 

This has perhaps been posted earlier in this thread, but an interesting and amusing read - Cutler heaping praise over MacPhee, Gerrard not so much  I know who I trust of the two of them!

https://www.footballscotland.co.uk/scots-abroad/english-football/steven-gerrards-astonishing-x-rated-25482571

7 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

I'm confused.

Did a Google to find Torres vs. Lenglet pace ratings and this article from 2020 came up

He's either got top end pace hidden in his locker, just takes long to pick up, of maybe it's just " explosive acceleration" he doesn't have, or use?

https://ronaldo.com/football-news/top-5-fastest-la-liga-players-this-season/2/#:~:text=Pau Torres – 34.93km%2Fh&text=Surprisingly%2C it's a centre-back,this list in Pau Torres.

" Top 5 fastest La Liga players this season

Surprisingly, it’s a centre-back who starts off this list in Pau Torres.

The 23-year-old has established himself in the Villarreal line-up after spending last season on loan at Malaga. He’s started in 23 of the club’s 27 games, adding a goal and assist to his tally.

Torres’ induction into the first-team coincides with Villarreal’s improved performances. The Yellow Submarine is up in ninth-place in La Liga, already just six points adrift from last season’s haul.

The 6 ft 3 in defender is also quick on his feet and has even caught the interest of Manchester City. "

Found this from 2021 as well

https://breakingthelines.com/player-analysis/player-analysis-pau-torres/

" Standing at 1.91 meters, Pau Torres has an athlete’s body. Tall players have the reputation to be slow, but this is not the case for him. Especially since Spain employ a high defensive line, having fast centre-backs is key to protect the spaces left behind, as seen below. "

 

That's really interesting! If I remember correctly regarding Engels I thought it looked like he lacked pace and was slow on the turn but if I recall correctly he also scored really high on one of those pace ratings. Perhaps it's the top end pace as you say. Nevertheless it's encouraging and hopefully what seems to be lack of pace is more about adapting to the game.

13 minutes ago, Zatman said:

First corner one of our players was either Cash/Digne completely misjudged the jump and the ball goes through to the Liverpool player who scores a dubious offside goal

How is that on MacPhee?

I agree, I think that when we concede goals it is probably most of the time a case of an individual mistake and not because of the coaching. If there is a lack of organisation and the players seem not to know what to do etc it could be, but I haven't noticed that in a long time. The many changes we have had to do in our back line must be a challange.

8 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

He can't PLAY for the players ffs, control personel, player mistakes, physical characteristics/attributes, or control opposition movement.

He never gets any credit when a complex set piece routine which could have lead to a goal for us suffers a bad touch, bad pass or scuffed shot by a player.

Nor does he get any when one actually comes off successfully. As we probably wouldn't even know it was a practiced routine from our armchairs.

He is obviously highly rated in the game for a reason.

Some of the expectations you lads have... Doesn't even work that precisely on FIFA.

But he does get credit on here.

"You lads" does not include me, I've never said a critical word about him and haevn't even posted in this thread before what I can remember, and I don't play FIFA.

I guess my point does not come across so I'll leave it there.

2 hours ago, IrishVilla10 said:

Is he still involved? If so he must be partly responsible for my stomach nearly falling out my arse every time we concede a set piece near our goal

I checked the official site but could find it, but I guess he is still set piece coach? Or does he have other responsibilities now under Emery, I'm not sure.

Would you say that the goals we conceded seemed to be a lack of organisation and instructions or were they more individual errors? Did't think of it myself during the game.

1 hour ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

" As bad as some here " ?

Half these people have no clue what they are talking about, or how to even evaluate a set piece coach.

It's just another one of those bizarre scapegoat type threads which only ever gets bumped after a loss.

I've never seen it bumped when a set piece routine has come off brilliantly etc.

Come on guys, he is a set piece coach (or is he still?) and we conceded a couple of soft set piece goals, surly his role may be interesting to discuss, especially in the context of how we will cope on set pieces without Mings.

Having quickly scanned the last three pages there are several positive posts about him so I don't get it. Isn't it more interesting to actually discuss the subject than ridiculing other posters and hampering discussion by directly accusing others of "scapegoating"?

I don't think I've posted in this thread before but I'm quite interested in hearing others views on him, his role, his impact on when we score or concede on set pieces, whether the set piece goals - scored or conceded - can be tracked back to his work or if it is because of an individual performance or mistake etc etc etc. Personally I'm not at all interested in discussions that only focus on whether others are "scapegoating" or not, and I think it's beginning to become as tiresome as the overly critical posts that it's meant to curb.

4 hours ago, VillaParkAvenue said:

I ’ll never understand the obsession with using players out of position. ”He’s tall, try him in central defence” or ”looks like he reads the game well, bet he could do a job as DM”. Players generally don’t like being shuffled around to fill gaps and it rarely works.

What, you mean Samba wasn't suited to be a CF??? 

29 minutes ago, TomC said:

 

I had other plans yesterday and just got around to watching the replay. Sometimes you see things differently watching on replay than you do watching live, and I saw things a bit differently than most people here.

Did we get outplayed? Yes. Was it as bad as most people are saying? No. They are a better team than we are, and Klopp said after the match that it was their best match in a while. Still, we had some decent stretches of possession and, despite their superior possession, much of it was sterile.

The two differences for me were Liverpool’s defending and our ineptness on set pieces. I think that the high line is being overly blamed.

As for Liverpool’s defending: They have better ball-winners. Their midfield often clogged up our attacks, and their backline came through when their midfield didn’t. Robertson was outstanding in the first half.

As for their goals and other good chances: Can you really blame the high line?

The first goal had nothing to do with the high line. Pau made a mistake to give up the corner. The goal itself was a tactical mistake off the corner. All our players were deep in our box; Unai (or MacPhee) failed to station somebody near the top of the box to deal with the “second phase ball,” to use the jargon. That’s where the second phase ball went and Szoboszlai had time to pick his target. Good finish too.

I agree that the Nunez goal was a high line problem. I don’t know if Liverpool got lucky or timed their run to perfection, but it worked. Pau let Nunez drift initially offside figuring he was out of the play. The pass, however, went to Salah, whose run was perfectly timed to stay onside. Digne stayed with Salah and put Nunez onside. Nunez then had a free run with no marker. However, that was the only high line problem of the match. It’s going to happen at least once per match.

Their chance at about the 38th minute happened while we played a high line, but would have certainly been ruled offside if we had not recovered the ball; the high line worked in that case.

Their chance in the 49th minute, where Nunez headed just wide of the post, was not really a high line problem. We were already retreating off the goal kick, not trying to hold the line. Salah was just too fast for Digne, then put in a great cross for Nunez, who escaped Cash thanks to Cash’s ongoing flaw, ball-watching.

The third goal was poor marking on the set piece. Digne was with Salah but let him go when the ball went into the middle, not anticipating a possible flick-on, which, of course, is exactly what happened. Really poor.

Notice how many of these chances Salah was involved with. He’s still one of the five or so best players in the world. We don’t have anyone that level (except maybe Emi in goal).

So: One blown high line, two awful pieces of defending on set pieces. I know which would be the priority to fix. Some better set piece defending and a better Cash header and we could have snatched a draw there.

 

Thanks for that, that's a very good post and a great rational analysis. Agree that it is often easier to analyse the game watching the replay, during the game you often get caught by your emotions.

Quite interesting that as you say only one goal had a high line problem to it, but even so also was because that Nunez managed to trick Pau by first being offside and then making the run. Not sure he did it intentionally but it got the better of Pau.

It sure has been a lot of focus on the high line but it's true that most of the goals was a set piece problem.

Also correct to point out Cash's flaws, I wanted us to start Konsa at RB as I think Cash is a liability at RB against the better teams. I got quite worried when Carlos went off and Cash moved to RB and Bailey RW, Bailey is not good defensively either, so that made our right hand side vulnerable. I guess switching McGinn to the right hand side was an attempt to tighten up that flank, but it doesn't halp against Cash's defensive flaws.

20 hours ago, GeordieVillan said:

I have my concerns about the high line, and as has been discussed to death - sometimes we will get caught out. However, what I don’t understand is how we can play the high line, and not press at the same time. That is suicide. The Liverpool fans around me all commented that they didn’t realise Villa played such a high line, “they play as high as us” etc. But they also very quickly observed the difference was that when we were high in the first half, sometimes as high as the half way line, we weren’t applying any pressure on the ball. We got caught out with a simple ball over the top and quick one-two every time Liverpool went forward.

This is really interesting. I hadn't thought of that before, a friend who is a Liverpool supporter texted me after the game and said the same thing. He also said that Liverpool did the same at the beginning of last season and that it was a catastrophe for them, he was very surprised that we played with such a high line without the pressing away to Liverpool.

I may be slow thinking, but is the obvious problem here that if you don't press, you give the opponents time to play the passes behind our high line? Or is there something more to it?

There is quite much to be said about his performance today but one thing is sure, he's really entertaining to watch!

There were some mitigating circumstances today, conceding early away to a top team always makes it difficult, losing a CB early and needing to reshape not ideal either. But still it was a bit of a reality check, I was too optimistic before the game, they are on another level and we are still some years away from being able to fully compete. Martinez, Konsa, Luiz, Kamara, Diaby and Zaniolo at least showed they can compete with the best, the rest to a lesser extent. 

48 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

Yeah but he says that nonsense constantly.

He'll turn on Douglas Luiz and Torres and Zaniolo if we don't beat Palace. "Soft"

With all due respect a bit of unnecessary tone in that imo, I try to focus on the posts and also not so much what might have been said earlier, and it was spot on today.

Next week we focus on turning and rushing back!

He made a couple of mistakes today, but I don't care much about that, everyone does and he will learn. What was a bit more concerning is what seems to be lack of pace and slow on the turn, really hope it's a matter of adapting to the PL. Even if that will remain his other attributes probably still means he should be a starter, but we need to adapt how we defend if so. It was not good to see how vulnerable we were to the balls played in behind our defence.

[Disclaimer: This is not part of a negative campaign against him, I support him 100% and have every hope that he will come good]

16 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

Where do you play him?

Could we see him start as the 10 with Diaby replacing Watkins as the striker? 

Must see more of him, but up front together with Watkins (yes even after today's game) Diaby RW and Ramsey LW I recon would be our strongest front 4.

One of the positives today, looks like he has the highest level in him. I get the feeling he will do something good every time he has the ball, and has the physique to compete.