MadridVilla

It is absolutely staggering that the most in-form English midfielder in October doesn't get an England call-up, especially as it seems it's not injury related.

Of course competition is tough, and if he is to play out wide there's little chance he would get past the likes of Sterling, Sancho or Maddison. But I would still expect Southgate to find room in the squad given his unbelievable recent form. The man's in the WhoScored European team of the month, and doesn't get a call up for a European qualifier.

I am beginning to wonder if Southgate is trying to play to the crowd by not picking him. He will know that Grealish is almost universally hated by fans of other teams and doesn't want the backlash by picking him. Perhaps he feels he cannot yet trust Grealish to win the rest of the country's support. It's wild speculation, but possible.

On a side note, it's not just Grealish's non-inclusion that is ridiculous - Jack O'Connell has kept 5 clean sheets and only conceded 8 goals for Sheffield United, the lowest in the league - and he's nowhere near the squad. Meanwhile Joe Gomez gets a call up having played 96 minutes of league football this season. Unbelievable just doesn't cut it.

5 hours ago, terrytini said:

The most common time to conceed goals is the 90th minute ‘plus’.

As to why, there’s a few reasons including more likelihood of fatigue ( especially against better opponents), and more likelihood of pressure ( if you are winning against better opponents).

And also because stoppage time is longer than 1 minute. Of course you're more likely to score in stoppage time if it lasts 5 minutes compared to, say, the 55th minute which is only a minute long. The other factors you mentioned are just as valid, but it's a statistic you can't read too much into imo.

The issue still remains with late goals in games - whether it is fatigue, loss of concentration, poor substitutions or poor tactics it's a mistake we've made several times already this season and lost a lot of points because of it. I wonder now whether it is becoming a mental block for the players too because it is happening so often to us.

9 minutes ago, flashingqwerty said:

It pains me to say it, but its for this reason that i think DS needs to be moved on.

He has taken us as far as he can, and i respect his achievements, but his in game management is terrible and it happens nearly every game.

Wesley was a complete passenger all game, hourihane is not the man you bring on when youre under pressure and bringing on kodjia? I mean WTF? Talk about the least hard working player in the squad!  May have well not put anyone 9n, would have had the se effect.

For all the good DS has done to get us here and assemble this squad, his weaknesses are costing us nearly every game and its not getting better.

Dean Smith isn't responsible if someone doesn't track their man - the equaliser was because El Ghazi didn't follow Robertson, and the winner because Kodjia (I think) didn't follow Mane. There's only so much a manager can do.

No shame in losing, but to lose like that is beyond gut-wrenching.

Brilliant half of football, both teams right in the game.

Refereeing has been absolutely awful, and VAR is shite. Yes decisions have gone in our favour, but they're still wrong. VAR should not be intervening if the lines are touching imo - the system is nowhere near precise enough to make those decisions and regardless it gives players a negligible advantage anyway. The Trez goal and the Firmino non-goal was literally drawn onside and offside within a tiny move of the mouse they're using before they decided on it - it's ridiculous. Mane non-penalty was the right call, although there was contact he definitely simulated the extent of it.

Patiently awaiting the real Liverpool to please stand up - they've been all over the place considering their normal self, but still look dangerous when Villa get out of shape.

Villa have been fantastic, buzzing around the pitch and making tackles everywhere. They're incredibly prone to losing their shape however.

Game plan is clearly 11 men behind the ball, strangle the game. Have to just wait and see how long before Liverpool break through, if at all.

I was optimistic until I remembered VAR exists solely for Liverpool, and shafts Villa at any given chance. 0-3

I would go for a strong team tonight - it really doesn’t matter who we play on the weekend against Liverpool because we won’t be winning that one in reality. 
 

Doesn’t matter who is in their team or how strong they decide to go - the stronger our team the more likely we are to win. Then we would only be a couple of games away from a cup final and a shot at our first prestigious silverware since the Cup of Traditions. 
 

6 hours ago, mikeyjavfc said:

Connor needs to start for me. City are a dirty side and we will get set pieces in range of their goal. Set pieces will be an important element of our attack if we are going to get anything from this game.

I would start Luiz over Hourihane myself. I'm a big fan of Conor but Luiz is a better passer of the ball - he has the highest pass completion percentage of the Villa midfield this season at 87.3% according to WhoScored. He also shares Conor's ability of being able to create goals out of nothing. Not only that but there's the intangibles of playing against his old club, he will certainly have a point to prove to Border Force for not giving him a work permit to play there!

In all seriousness, debating whether to start Conor or Luiz is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic - we still don't stand much of a chance of winning regardless of who starts. But it's nice to pretend these decisions will win or lose the game, I suppose...

6 hours ago, roonst83 said:

Such an important win today. And, despite being thousands of miles away, I got to experience a dramatic ending, too. I’m currently travelling around Argentina for a couple of weeks with my girlfriend and today had to catch two flights to get from Salta to Mendoza via Córdoba. My transit time in between flights was perfectly timed so I could tune in (via a stream) on the airport WiFi for the first half whilst simultaneously holding my phone adapter into the socket in the airport to try get some much needed battery charge. The coverage kept breaking which added to my frustration at seeing us a goal down and being outplayed, as well as my tiredness from a very early start. I was nervous about this game due to the “must win” importance I’d labelled it given our bet. V.tough run of games. Was jubilant to see we were back in it at half time and to see they’d had Mooy sent off. Boarding was delayed so I was constantly refreshing the poor stream for the game and would constantly have to put up with the game freezing randomly in the most inconvenient places (ie, either us or them attacking). They still looked a real threat despite having ten men and I was fighting like mad trying to contain my frustration. As we boarded the plane I had to use my girlfriend’s phone as I haven’t got any coverage or data out here. Again, there was multiple stop start internet connection whilst on the tarmac and every time we missed a chance or gave the ball away in a dangerous position I would make my frustrations known to those around me. So much so my girlfriend was looking at me with great concern and said “are you really this nervous about the game?” to which she got a shaking of the head and dismissive response. As we were in the process of taking off it was now ‘86 mins on the clock and Brighton were breaking on the attack into our half when the phone froze again. I quickly googled “Aston villa” which brought up the live score so I could Ollie he score more easily if needed. I felt panicked and nervous at the risk of (once again) potentially throwing away such a crucial game and handed my girlfriend her phone. Cue an hour’s flight of me biting my nails (literally, cue more astonishment and look of bewilderment from my girlfriend) and fidgeting and counting down the minutes until we landed. It felt worse knowing that the result was already done and dusted and me not having a clue. I suspected it’s be a draw but was fearful of us throwing it away and couldn’t bring myself to believe we’d snatch it as we looked like we couldn’t break them down atall. As we landed I felt hot and anxious and waited as Kate turned her phone back on, she tried to cover her phone from me seeing it (as she “wanted it to be a surprise” in case we won”) but google still showed 1-1. She said it hadn’t refreshed yet so after I frustratingly  told her off for keeping it from me I refreshed the page whilst she was holding the phone to reveal 2-1 to Villa was the final result. Cue absolute scenes from seat 19C on the airplane with me shouting “GET IN THERE BOYS!” and stomping my feet on the ground and throwing fist pumps in the air from my seat. Pretty sure everyone around me thought I was merely relieved to have survived the turbulence as we disembarked. Little did they know. 

That is a hell of a story. Sadly the opposite happened to me during the Arsenal game - took off with 10 minutes to go leading 2-1, landed 2 hours later having lost 3-2!

20 minutes ago, sharkyvilla said:

**** hell, my stream was cutting in and out and came back just as Jack passed it to Targett.  Can't believe we actually won that, we were all over the shop against the 10 men but hopefully we've got that monkey off our back.

My stream cut out right up until just before Targett took the shot - I thought Keinan was going to tap in the winner... 

Wow! What a fantastic game that was, I don't think many would have predicted that one...

I don't care how awful Norwich were, the performance from Villa was superb and they executed the game plan perfectly. The confidence they can take from that is absolutely massive.

The best thing was that even at 5-0 the players were still chasing down looking for another goal. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the Dean Smith way. Finally we got to see it today.

Huge, huge chance for 3 points here, but I just can't see us outscoring them. We don't have the goals in the team to outscore many teams, unless we manage to keep a clean sheet. If we do win, it will have to be a classic smash and grab 1-0 I think. A draw is more likely, I would say 1-1. I would imagine that Norwich would score at least once at home, even with their injury problems.

I would love to be wrong and see a Villa side, furious from a string of poor decisions and performances warranting more points, tear into an unsuspecting Norwich side and win comfortably, proving to everyone just what they're capable of - but I won't be holding my breath.

I think the realisation is dawning for a lot of people, myself included, that this team just somehow is not good enough to be winning football matches. It's frustrating because the football is easy on the eye and we do look good in spells, so it's obvious that they do have the ability to do it, but they just cannot keep it going for 90 minutes. Coupled with a string of bad refereeing calls over the season, becoming tired and sloppy towards the end of games and a striker who is a serious downgrade from Abraham and you have a team who look set for relegation. I think it will hurt less if I assume that's the case now, and if we stay up then it's a bonus.

Not even going to the Madrid derby cheered me up, as it was another frustrating draw. Can't seem to catch a break today...

29 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Forgot to ask earlier.  Have we installed more floodlights at Villa Park? Against West Ham it struck me how much brighter everything looked then I noticed a second row of floodlights further back into the stands that I don't recall seeing before. 

I believe the second row of floodlights on the Holte and North stand were added at the start of the 15/16 season because of new PL rules for a minimum brightness level for TV viewers, but it's possible that they have upgraded the lights since then as well.

It's a good chance for Smith to try something different, a free hit and hopefully we give some other players a game.

It would be nice to win it but in reality the cup will not be the priority of the club at the moment as we're sat in the bottom 3. Perhaps if our fortunes turn in the next couple of months we can give the FA Cup a proper go, but the League Cup is a little bit of a distraction at this stage of the season.

I'm normally very keen to do well in cup competitions, but I feel so deflated from the last few weeks of disappointment that I just want 3 points in the league, I don't really mind what happens in the cup. Having said that, it is a good chance to right some wrongs immediately and a win would be very good for morale at a time where we can't seem to buy one for love or money. 

Bitterly disappointing to lose in the manner we did, given the man advantage and having the lead into the last 10 minutes. I'm still positive about Smith and the players, there were just a number of mistakes out there that were punished and that is the reality of this division - you cannot afford to do what Villa did today if you want to stay up.

It's so frustrating because it seems like every week we keep shooting ourselves in the foot - we should have picked up points against Arsenal, Bournemouth, Palace and Spurs and yet we didn't manage any. My worry is that at some point if this trend of dropping easy points carries on, the rot will set in and there will be a belief that this team is destined to fail despite the performances justifying points. We will start to believe there is some fatal curse preventing us from seeing games out and causing referees to consistently make inexplicable decisions and VAR not intervening. 

Fans calling to DS to go need to take a long hard look at themselves. May I remind everyone with a short memory that the man was a hero in everyone's eyes only 6 games ago and he has not even been at the club for 12 months. This is a club that nearly ran out of cash only last year and the turnaround to be promoted the following season showed an unbelievable amount of progress alone. We entered the league by replacing half the squad and in many cases the performances have warranted more points than we have. I've thought right from the first game of the season that Villa are 80% of the way there - against Everton it all came together and they showed what they can do. Come the second half of the season, I believe that Villa will be firing all cylinders and with a couple of new faces in January (particularly a striker) we will start to pick up those lost points from these early games. I would give Deano the whole season, and if he takes us down it is not necessarily the case that other managers would have kept us up anyway. I'm not saying Smith is perfect or blameless because he has made mistakes, but I do still believe he is fundamentally a good manager. I don't disagree with his starting 11, his formation or his style of play - there are just issues with substitutions and game management that need to be addressed. He is learning the hard way not to make those mistakes again in this league.

Still staying positive despite today's result. 5 or 6 points from the next 3 games and everything starts to look rosy again, and that is very doable imo. Keep the faith.

1 minute ago, hippo said:

thing is he wasn't prolific in the belguim league - where presumably he was settled ?

Agreed. But as I said, he's 22. He's not much older than Green who most people would agree is not ready for the PL. 

I won't defend his past record, because you make a good point - it's not particularly impressive. But he still has a lot of potential for improvement if given the chance.