Exeter Fan Too

On 25/04/2024 at 17:21, lexicon said:

Great stuff, thanks for the write up dude. 

How is he with the ball at his feet?

It'll be interesting to see where he goes from here because he's got the small matter of one of, if not the best, keepers in the world ahead of him. Emi could be number one for the next 6/7 years too. 

Thanks. Apologies for being late in responding to your question about 'how good he is with the ball at his feet?' 

Answer - improving, but still a way to go. He is now competent/comfortable playing out to the back line. But not good enough when trying to find players on the touchline further up. The Exeter goalkeeping coach agrees, saying that there are two areas to improve still on this;  decision making and execution. Probably his costliest mistake of the season was trying to find someone on the wing  just inside our half. It was intercepted 5-10 yards short of target and ended up in the back of our net.

1 hour ago, villa4europe said:

He's in the PL fans team of the season, voted for by the fans 

It's a 4-4- **** 2 formation so it's him and haaland up top

Also worth noting Raya is the GK in that team so while it's obviously brilliant that Ollie is in there that's maybe an even bigger indication than Brexit that people shouldn't be allowed to vote for things 

That team contains 4 Arsenal players, 4 from Man City ...plus Ollie, Cole Palmer and TAA

BBC article says England are short at left back, but have too many forwards.

Just a reminder that Ollie did once get taken on a summer tour as a reserve left back ...(chapter and verse in this excellent Birmingham Mail article from November)

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/ollie-watkins-aston-villa-emery-26630304

Would you put it past Southgate to take Ollie as a reserve left back?

Gosh, how Villa could have done with

Martinez,

Cash, Mings, Torres,Moreno,

Kamara, Tielemans,Ramsay,

Buendia, Bailey. Rogers

Not a bad team of unavailable players. Stick Watkins up front of 10 of that 11 and its not that bad a line up

PS Blackburn forum comments include 'will be playing in the premiership in a year or so'  'impressive' and 'I'd like him back on loan next season'

This loan was mainly about getting back after the knee ligament injury that basically wiped out 2023 for Ben.

As always youngsters on loan should go to the highest level where they will play regularly. So that's almost certainly the Championship. No disgrace in *only* playing regular Championship football at the age of 20. 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/27680423/champions-league-giant-aston-villa-viljami-sinisalo-transfer/

7 hours ago, Pongo Waring said:

What the hell! 6 awards What the awards for?

Players Player of the Year.

Fans Player of the Year. 

The other four for ...erm... Player of the Year  - from 4 out of 5 Grecian Groups who award a POTY trophy.

rich praise for Chrisene from BBC commentator and pundit for his energy and for bombing up and. down the wing

(though the pundit was Danny Murphy....) 

11 hours ago, cheltenham_villa said:

One thing that is rarely commented on is how two footed he is. He seems to take similar amounts of chances with his left and right. 

He does have quite a record of scoring right foot, left foot, header. His last season at Brentford was 11 right foot, 8 headers and 7 left foot.

And of course the hat trick v Liverpool was the 'perfect hat trick' of right foot , left foot ,header. I'm not sure what the stats are this season.

Yesterday, as well as the goal and 3 assists (including for McGinn's)  there was also his  headed clearance off Villa's goal  line......!

the Blackburn manager and their club write up use the words 'back-up' and 'cover', so that's where Blackburn fans probably got that from

https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2024/january/07/boss-delighted-with-double-deal/ 

Add in the fact that the current first choice left back has played 27 times for them this season (and I think provided a pinpoint cross for a goal yesterday)

But this will probably suit a player returning from a lengthy injury - not having to play every minute and taking time to get back to his best (see eg Jacob Ramsey)

And Useless makes an excellent point. If Ben can't get a start at left back, he can do an excellent job elsewhere - and I too share the view that his best position, and long term future, is probably in centre midfield.

have to smile, hearing someone say this week that both Bailey and Zaniolo were better off the bench, so really difficult to say which one should start.

So Emery's solved that conundrum!

they did an analysis on MOTD2 (still available on iplayer).

Everyone thought it was a clear penalty for the push on Watkins.

Ollie's career hat trick tally - 5. This is the first in front of his own fans.

Away hat tricks in Wales, England and Scotland for his  3 clubs - at Newport for Exeter, at Barnsley for Brentford and at Hibs for Villa.

At home v Liverpool was in front of an empty Villa Park due to Covid. At last gets one in front of home fans. I think the Liverpool one is the only 'perfect' hat trick (right foot, left foot, header)

6 minutes ago, Tom13 said:

He had 1 in 12. The goal against Brighton being the one.

Indeed. But the post I quoted (not from you) contained a lecture about getting the facts right but said that Ollie had not scored a single goal in an 11 match run. That post stated that facts were facts and asked whether we had missed something when saying Ollie hadn't scored a solitary goal in an 11 match run.   

1 hour ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

Well it's the league that were focusing on.

If we want to go into other areas such as Europa conference league then his goal stats and contributions there make for very pleasant reading so far, whilst keeping one eye on who the quality of the opposition have been thus far too.

In the league. There is no exaggerated fact that Ollie had not scored a goal in the league that stretched back to last season which was a run of 11 games in total? Or have we missed seeing Ollie score somewhere in that time and someone's forgot to mention it?

Facts are facts no matter what way you try and dress it up.

If you want to number it differently in terms of goals this season so it looks a but more shiney then it's his first goal in 6 games.

My gripe with him is that he can be frustrating to watch - he probably frustrates himself too I would imagine. You can see the goal yesterday looked like a big weight of relief for him and I'm hoping that he can kick on from this now and find the net more to add to his goal tally and compliment his already glowing numbers in assists and work rate that he already has. It's frustrating his work rate leads to unfortunate situations at times..  like running in trouble, losing possession, not seeing a pass in time and missing scoring opportunities etc.

We know what he's capable of because we seen that last season when he went on a mad run of goalscoring form.

Everyone wants to see that Ollie back and scoring more without a doubt, but there's equally no harm in fans voicing constructive criticism from time to time either when a player isn't delivering as expected.

 

Didn't Ollie score in the final game of last season against Brighton? A goal that clinched European football for Villa?

On 16/09/2023 at 12:19, alexvilla4 said:

Whatever happened to Ben Chrisene? He was very highly rated then seemed to get an injury and hasn't been seen since 

I'm glad I'm not the only one wondering this. Injured in mid season (January?) It was serious but I expected to see him either loaned out again or playing for the U21s . Would appreciate an update if anyone finds out.