Laughable Chimp

Agreed. But its kind of hard to square that with our current midfield set up who some already argue is already pretty attacking oriented. I feel like if Nakamba was actually good, having him, Mcginn and Barkley together would be a very well-rounded midfield. Instead, I feel like we're kind of shoehorning Luiz in this holding role.

He's 5th in tackles and 3rd in interceptions according to whoscored, but you shouldn't be comparing his total stats to the rest of the team. You should be looking at his tackles and interceptions per 90 stats with the rest of the league for his position. He's made 0.9 successful tackles per 90 and 1.3 interceptions per 90 this season and its remarkably similar to his stats last season. I think the fact that he averages literally less than a tackle per 90 minutes speaks for itself. Interceptions are better but still nothing that impressive. And yes, I get that stats don't tell you the whole picture before someone ineivitably responds with that. Its just in this case, the stats support my own perception of his play. I am not too worried about Man City activating the buy back. I don't see it being completely out of the question since he's still young and despite my criticisms of him, I do think he's a decent player with quite some potential. Furthermore, City will likely get fleeced if they go after any player so there's a chance they might just go for Luiz as a cheaper option(as well as being a player Pep likes and is familliar with the Man City system) and hope that he can be molded into a world class DM instead of spending big money for that

i think he's tackling and interception stats are bad because he's just bad at defending. I don't see how you can be in the right place and body players off the ball yet not have it reflect in your tackling and interception statistics. I've certainly rarely noticed him bodying players off the ball as you've said. I really don't see him as a DM at all. He's just not that kind of player.

I'd put Conor first choice on penalties. Another name I haven't seen brought up much is Mcginn. I think he can do a job there.

Grealish didn't take them because he missed the last one for us and its not like he's had a prolific record at penalties prior.

Probably because its not the same people saying those things

Smarterscout has this feature where we can check for players who have similar playstyles. There's this player called Jesper Lindstrom who plays in the Danish league who the database has highlighted to be very similar to Mcginn's playstyle. I'm not gonna pretend that I watch the Danish league, but he's only 20 and is already capped for the Danish senior national team. Might be worth looking at.

78% isn't bad at all. Barry's ratio is 84%. Actually, one of those missed Benteke penalties he ended up scoring from the rebound. So if you count that as well, 8 out of 9 is really good.

Currently underperforming his xG by 2.53. Second worst in the PL currently.(First place is Oliver Mcburnie with 2.54) In other words, yeah he's missing a lot although that's not hard to figure out yourself.

Just pipped Harry Kane with this performance. Currently the most highly rated player in the PL according to whoscored

I have quite mixed feelings about him this game. On one hand, I thought overall he played rather poorly and the penalty miss really capped off a poor game. On the other hand, he also should've had a goal and an assist.

We've converted about 4.2% of all our corners this and last season combined. Considering the average is apparently 2.2% in the Premier League(based on a calculation this guy did for the 2010/11 Premier League season. The average could've changed since then https://sports.stackexchange.com/questions/977/what-percent-of-corner-kicks-turn-into-goals#:~:text=On average%2C the data show,of corners and goal scoring.), I don't think we're doing too bad in corners. From that same link, it says that the average PL team scores a corner every 10 games. We've already had 3 corner goals this season and we haven't even played 10 games.

Where did you get this data?

3 shots? Mate understat has him at 7 shots the entire game.

Do you really think what the Brighton player did was at all comparable to these situations? No one's saying that getting the ball doesn't mean it can't be a foul(or if they are, they're dumb). The problem is whether its considered careless or reckless enough. Can you look me straight in the eye and tell me what the Brighton player did was anywhere near as careless or reckless like the two footed, studs up, out of control lunges and american football tackle you've given above?

How has he went from one of the only people we had who could finish last season to this

Considering he bagged an assist, I don't think he did too bad compared to our other attacking players, so weird to see him getting this much flack.

Btw Grealish has moved into the Barkley position for us. Traore is playing in the right wing instead.

3 actually

Game is bypassing Luiz for some reason. Has the least touches of any Villa player aside from Watkins and half the touches of Mcginn, his midfield partner.

Mcginn seems really off.

Doesn't always work like that. You can't just assume a high performing player from a weaker team will perform much better if he instead played for a stronger team. How many times have we seen a player like that get a big move to a top club and proceed to flop?

Son has had 8 goals and 2 assists so 1 more than Jack.

He is playing CM. If anything, some sites have him listed as playing as a DM than a CM recently.