El Segundo

9 minutes ago, Kiwivillan said:

Get token rubbish January signings? No thanks

And who is suggesting that is what we should do?  Precisely no-one that I can see.  If the players we want aren't gettable now, then the risk could have been reduced by keeping hold of the likes of Ings, Archer, and Sanson until we were sure we had replacements.  

23 minutes ago, Made In Aston said:

On a positive, MON finished 6th using about 13 players in a whole season. We don't have any cups games, so it's still doable. Most of the players shifted were not contributing and doesn't make any difference whether they are here or not. 

MON did that at a time when top three or four was very achievable - in other words he fell short. This season top 6 is very achievable when you look at recent form and the fact we're only 3 points off it. It looks very much to me like a massive opportunity that we really should be going all out for.  The higher we finish, the more prize money we get, the more we are able to attract better players, the more income we generate next season if in Europe.   

The players shifted were not contributing much, correct, but who's to say they won't be missed if injuries and suspensions mount up?  Letting players go without replacing them now is a risk.  People can "trust in Emery" all they want, but he has no control over injuries and suspensions.     

It's not about "keep buying players and hope they click" though is it.  It's about making sure we have enough depth on the bench,  and for when we inevitably get injuries and suspensions.  Currently I'd say we're short of cover.

40 minutes ago, WallisFrizz said:

IF no more signing are to happen, it’s a lesson learned about getting replacements in before letting the likes of Archer and Ings go.

Any Cheif Exec, DoF or Manager that needs to learn that as a lesson shouldn't be in their job. It's basic bloody common sense and an absolute fundamental of any transfer window. And why don't you think we'll get Europe? We're three points off 6th and in better form than all but about three other teams.  It's very achievable, there is an opportunity there and it would be a shame to waste it by not strengthening now.

Everton are a club crying out for an experienced competent Chief Exec and/or Director of Football.  Their shortlist of managers is about as unimaginative and short sighted as it gets, and they keep making the same mistakes with managers and players.  Bielsa, who was on the way to taking Leeds down with his kamikaze approach, Hasenhuttl, who was on the way to taking Southamption down this season, and Dyche who was on the way to taking Burnley down when he was sacked.  Talk about uninspiring, and all with different approaches too.  Similar to us a few years ago, there's no sign of an overall plan, project or philosophy.  They need a bit of what the likes of Brighton are doing,  identifying  players and managers that will work for them in the longer term or have a lot of upside if they move on.   I suppose trying to get someone like De Zerbi would be too much of a gamble for them given the shit they are in, and maybe Dyche would be a good stop-gap to keep them up. But they really need to sort themselves out at Board level before they can get any better.    

Why are some saying we got away with one?  Absolute nonsense.  Clear foul on Ramsey preventing him clearing the ball, how is that soft or getting away with anything?  Their other goal was clearly offside, ours wasn't, correct decisions in both cases.  How is that getting away with anything?     If anything we could argue we didn't get the benefit of the doubt on the penalty claim.   

Some of these comments are baffling.  We didn't get the best out of him?  We couldn't find a way to fit him into our system?  Signing him was a mistake?   A goal every 136 minutes this season from mostly bit parts and cameos is one of the best records in the PL.  Only 5 or 6 players have done better and they are mostly regular starters.  I don't see getting £15m for him as good business if we can't replace the goals per game he provides.  He could have provided those goals for us for another two years, that would have given us more than enough  value for money on what he cost us.    

20 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

All true but it also shows up a massive flaw in Danny Ings in that he’s not seemingly capable of doing a full 90 mins.

I don't agree, but even if he only managed 70 minutes every game he'd get you a goal every two games or less.  

I think this is a massive risk by Emery.  Selling our top scorer  without an obvious replacement in place is risky enough,  but bear in mind that although he's got 18 appearances, a lot have been as sub or he's been subbed off, and he's still  scored a goal every 136 minutes this season.  That's a goal every game and a half - who's going to replace that kind of scoring ratio?    Most team's wouldn't sell a one-in-two PL striker, let alone a one-in-1.5 because they can be as rare as rocking horse shit.     

17 hours ago, The_Rev said:

January transfer window happened.  Arsenal buy a bang in form Andrei Arshavin, we turn down the opportunity to sign a 22 year old Radamel Falcao in order to buy a 31 year old Emile Heskey.     Falcao scored 34, 38, 34 & 36 goals in his first four seasons in European football (he signed for Porto who sold him to Atleti for an enormous profit) whereas Heskey scored 2, 5, 6 & 1* goals in his four seasons at Villa Park. 

 

*yes, I'm aware you can't pluralise 1, but it's not my fault Emile Heskey couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo.   

I was living abroad back then and while somewhat underwhelmed by the Heskey signing (though not as much as Harewood before him) I had no idea we were in for Cavani til now.  I was going to say that the article failed to recognise that O'Neill was actually a dinosaur with a strange aversion to signing players from abroad and a penchant for British and Irish journeymen instead.  This incident typifies him his blinkered approach and is why he was never able to get us above 6th and why Lerner's investment was largely wasted.  We have a proper manager now and sensible owners.   

13 hours ago, est1874 said:

In this instance it's Aston Villa, the club.

You wouldn't say "The club are delighted", that's just shocking English.

When referring specifically to the team on the pitch, "Aston Villa are" is more appropriate.

Nah - it's referring to representatives of the club so it's "are".  A club cannot make a bid  or an announcement itself, only people representing it can.  Plus "the team is" tends to be standard American usage, whereas "the team are" is standard British usage.        

I noticed Ludwig was getting forward a lot down the left but Cash wouldn't get forward, and kept turning back to play the safe ball.  I think I read somewhere that Emery likes his LB to get forward but not the RB so maybe it's instructions - seems somewhat bizarre however, but then we did have Bailey supposedly providing the width on the right. 

But I've never been convinced by Cash anyway, he always seems to struggles against good wingers or wide midfielders like Harvey Barnes, he loses a lot of heading duels at the back post, and when he did get forward he rarely has the confidence to take a man on, and his crossing and shooting has generally been poor.  I think we need better.  

At firs I though Olsen's pass played him into trouble but if you look at the second photo, if he'd been awake and had any awareness, he'd have know that there were two players to his left he could have played a first time pass to instead of stumbling over the ball.  I now reckon this one's on Dendoncker alone, he was asleep on the job.

I said during the Wolves game he's easy to defend against because most time defenders just show him onto his right foot and can mostly safely predict he will try to cut back inside to use his left.  I also noticed his only decent ball in against Wolves, and his only two decent crosses yesterday were of his right foot when he went down the line.  So he can use it, he either doesn''t trust it or has orders to cut inside all the time.  The frequent air shots betray a man who is lacking composure and confidence. 

3 hours ago, Johnnyp said:

Watch the cretins here who because of how annoyed they are ( safe to say we all are ) will roll out the casual racism with “ good ebening “ We see you. Not acceptable. Will be called out. 

Speak for yourself.  The comment may be tiresome, puerile, juvenile, unnecessary, and arguably xenophobic, but racist?  Where is anyone's race mentioned?  

Very annoyed because with a good manager, a decent squad (or so I thought), plus Chelsea out, and one of either Arsenal or City going out , and Stoke up next, we should have had a good run at this competition this year. 

Made the mistake of relying on second string players who were both not up to it and not up for it, and not taking the opposition seriously enough.  If Emery wanted them to prove their worth to him, then they pretty much failed except maybe Sanson.  That said the first choice players weren't any better. 

We seemed to think we had the job done at 85 mins and got casual. 

Olsen was poor on both goals - played Dendoncker into trouble for the first and then let in at his near post for the second. We need a better backup keeper.

Bailey has lost it completely and is the master of the mistimed air-shot.  

Dendoncker was poor on their first goal but was played into trouble by Olsen and normally the first offence, outside the box, is given.  I guess rules change cos it's Villa.

Cash,  Coutinho, Buendia were all dreadful and ineffective.

Ings and Watkins got very little service.  The rest were no better than ok, no-one really stood out as having a good game.

Collectively to blame for the second goal, didn't get themselves organised in time and no-one went out to deal with the short corner.  Amateurish.

I think emery deserves a portion of the blame - should have started with a stronger team, aimed to be 2 or 3 up at half time and then brought on the fringe players. Perhaps he didn't realise just how shit some of our backups are and how shit the attitude would be.

Allowing the Salah goal is a complete misapplication of the "defender deliberately played it" rule.  As others have said that's not intended for when a defender only tries to play the ball because of the presence of the offside player.   As soon as the ball is played in Salah should be called offside, and whatever happens after should be irrelevant.  He's clearly gained an advantage from being offside.  Mike Dean probably knows this but hey, it's Liverpool, so it doesn't apply.  

Andy Madley - the arsehole who disallowed West Ham's equaliser at Chelsea for a non-existent foul on Mendy - is the ref.  At least he's consistent.

And another barge in the back not given and somehow Liverpool get the foul instead.  Incredible.

The ref and VAR in this game are blatantly favouring Liverpool.  Two clear barge sin the back of Wolves players not given, then that offside decision.  Suppose no surprise when Mike Dean is involved.   

I'd have taken a draw at half time as we were outplayed first half - they pressed well, outnumbered us in midfield and when we did get the ball we were so slow to get forward that they had every player back behind the ball by the time we got into their half. 

But fair play to Emery he changed shape and tactics to try to  exploit their back three, pinging the ball out wide, playing the ball forward quicker, and then also over the top to exploit their higher line.   

However in the end it felt almost like a defeat after Bailey's dreadful miss (even Ronnie Rosenthal hit the ball in the general direction of the goal) - two points chucked away thanks to his lack of composure and apparent complete inability to use his right foot.  Not sure why he was still on the pitch as he'd been pretty awful like last home game.  So predictable, any defender knows just show him onto his right foot and he'll try to cut back onto his left.   Easy to defend against.  Would rather Watkins had gone wide and Bailey came off.   He can cry all he wants but he'd be better off getting out on the training ground learning to use his weaker foot a bit better.

And Digne is not only not an improvement on Targett he often looks much worse.

It was a fairly dull first half because we just nullified Spurs and were content to do so for that period. That was good tactics, to frustrate them.  They lacked the creativity to break down a deeper sitting defence - If we'd played the highline like we did against Liverpool, Kane and Son would have murdered us like they have before.  It's a shame we didn't do the same against Liverpool as they were very beatable. 

Emery very impressive so far, looks like he knows what he's doing and has got buy-in from the players. 

Watkins' miss early doors was awful and typical Ollie, but he redeemed himself with his overall performance.  If he could just find a bit of composure in front of goal more often he'd be a top striker.   

For Watkins to not even hit the target from there is appalling

2 hours ago, Zatman said:

But they only had this for the Swiss game, a country who took in 200000 refugees from the conflict. They knew what they were doing

So what? Aren't they entitled to protest something that means a lot to them, like other teams have been trying to do?

Anyway not really the place to discuss it.  If interested in a different perspective have a look at the Balkans thread in off-topic.  

2 hours ago, Zatman said:

well the players following suit and leaving that flag in the dressing room is as scummy as can get

Don't the players (and fans) have a right to an opinion? Kosovo is Serbian as far they are concerned,  it was taken off them under an unlawful declaration of independence and I reckon they have a right to be pissed off about it.