El Segundo

I've got two issues with Carlos.

Twice now, Bournemouth and United, he's played a sloppy pass into centre midfield that have led to goals.  He needs to stop doing it.

Second, he makes stupid unnecessarily risky and overly physical challenges in our final third leading to dangerous free kicks.  Arguably the one he was carded for on Hojland wasn't even a foul but there have been plenty of others over a few games where he's been like a bull in a china shop trying to wrestle or to go through the player rather than jockeying and timing a challenge like Konsa and Pau do. Yes he's a big strong bloke but a bit of subtlety and finesse wouldn't go amiss.   

Same as it ever was. It’s written in the stars.  Villa **** up boxing day.  Villa throw it away against United from 2-0 up. Again.  Non-scoring team suddenly look like prime 1970 Brazil.  Non-scoring striker scores against Villa.  It was so obviously going to happen that I even put a bet on Hojland scoring, confident that my worse than dismal betting record would jinx the Bastard.  Looks like I need to buy a lottery ticket.  

That said we got what we deserved today - didn’t play well and probably did not deserve to be 2-0 up from a couple of set pieces. But given that we were why did we not just keep attacking them?  They can’t defend, and we could have buried them.  I said to a United supporting mate at 0-2 that next goal decides it – that if they got it, they would get minimum draw.  He scoffed at the idea.   

I’m guessing a Newcastle style fatigue played a part.  Dougie and McGinn looked sluggish, Ramsey looked half a yard and half a second off the pace, and Dendoncker and Bailey disappeared after half time.  Carlos was a runaway train on acid, a liability, who gifted them a way back into the game.

The Momentum was almost solely with united so I can’t understand why Unai didn’t change thing up sooner.   Ten Hag had obviously put a rocket up them at half time and they were pressing for dear life.  We couldn’t deal with it.  Fresh legs were obviously needed.  I think Unai got it wrong today until it was too late.

I just hope we put 7 past these words removed in the home game.

It's like watching the Macheda game again. 

The first team to make United look decent in months. 

Carlos has had a mare.

Ramsey is not match fit.

Emery should have changed things.

We should have carried on attacking them, they are shit in defence.

For **** sake get Carlos off.

We're totally bottling this

Diego is like a bull in a china shop sometimes.  Why does he make stupide challenges like that?

Gifted them one

5 hours ago, kidlewis said:

This is one of the worst decisions against us ever…. I can’t think of any apart from the Mings incident v Man City which was as bad as this 

Blimey I wasn't aware of that incident - absolutely blatant non-accidental hand to ball handball. How could VAR not call that?  Unbelievable.

1 hour ago, Sulberto21 said:

There’s approximately 11m more cars on the road today when compared to 1994/95. Also cars today are longer and wider. 

Fair enough it's quite a big increase.  But, even then,  what other possible locations within the Birmingham area would be immune to such challenges, and why hasn't it stopped Liverpool going to >60k?  If there have been major transport and access upgrades around Anfield fair enough but I'm not aware of any.

1 hour ago, limpid said:

Ah, the good old days when there was a not for profit bus service, football special trains and less than one car per adult parked outside all the houses.

Wasn't our capacity something like 48000 before the Holte End got replaced in the early to mid 90s? You know, after Thatcher had already destroyed public transport and when there were already plenty of two and three car families?  It's hardly days of yore.  Aren't there other, bigger stadiums with similar challenges? It's many years since I went there but I don't recall Anfield, for example, being surrounded by great road or rail access.  Yet that's already 55k+ and due to be 60k+.  What other locations in the West Midlands do you think would alleviate this issue, without major development work?   

31 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

What do you want Heck to say. The coats of this have gone up massively due to inflation. It looks unlikely that the transport infrastructure will be improved. With the need to have 80% of fans arriving on public transport and the stadium open for a year before the Euros we have too much risk there. 

Additionally when the plans were made they didn't factor in loss of European match day revenue (which we can expect now most seasons) and the impact of two seasons without the north stand on the teams home performance. 

There are limits to what amount of information he can give away. 

I'd prefer him to say what the real reasons and real plans are.  Did he even mention construction costs?  Even if he did,  how is that situation going to improve by delaying a rebuild? It isn't. 

As has been said the proposals were already accepted regardless of the upgrade to Witton Station. So why is that suddenly an issue?  The transport situation throughout the West Midlands is a disaster, both public transport and on the roads.  Moving to a more central site may move us nearer to three stations, but will there be enough trains to serve a 60000 capacity stadium.  Will there be enough parking even assuming you can get anywhere near the stadium by road?  If park and ride is the plan why can't that operate in the current location?

It was said that NSWE had a 5 year plan to get us into CL/Europe. If so, it means they would or should have been expecting/planning for European football revenue round about, er, now. And next season.  And the one after.  So why plan a new stand at all if loss of Euro revenue was a consideration?

And I still don't see why it would take two years to build. 

Like I said the reasons given don't stack up for me, so why come out with them?  Plus his previous comments and actions don't exactly scream "Honest Chris" as a potential nickname, except with the greatest of irony intended.  

59 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

Reading this thread, you have to laugh at the cynicism and reactionary posts. Assume the worst and run with that narrative. 

I think a lot of the negative reactions - certainly mine -  are not because of what's been said and done but because the message comes across as disingenuous. The reasons given do not stack up and it smacks of hiding some other agenda. Like the messages about refurbishment of the Holte Suite were hiding a different agenda. 

I could understand this approach if the real agenda were a veiled threat to the WMCA/BCC to get their fingers out upgrading the infrastructure in Aston or they may lose the economic boost to the region of the Euros.  But hosting the Euros seems secure even without redevelopment and expansion, so that seems unlikely.   

Heck has already shown that any decisions he makes will be based purely on commercial factors.  He's obviously been given the mandate to increase and maximise revenue and any sense of tradition, history, or feel for the club and the fans appears to be irrelevant.  See plonking a couple of shitty corporate hospitality features in the middle of the end where the more passionate and voiciferous "old school" fans congregate.  Personally I wish we'd kept Purslow.

I don't buy the transport and infrastructure argument, I reckon it's a smokescreen/excuse.   All that should and would have been covered in the project scoping and proposals which were accepted.  And as others have said VP has dealt with much bigger crowds than 50,000 in the past, and other stadia in similar urban settings manage ok too.  Frankly it reeks of bullshit. I also don't buy that  doubts over whether the waiting list is sustainable is a reason.  I don't recall West Ham having a massive ticket waiting list when their capacity was about 32000, but since their capacity increased to 50,000 + they've pretty much filled it every game.  Similar happened in jawdeeland in the 90s.  If you build it they will come.   

My guess is Heck is taking a punt on raising ticket costs as much as he can to increase revenue in the short term, and test just how strong demand really is.  If it holds up, maybe we'll expand, or more likely he'll push for a new stadium. If the former, we'll lose revenue for a season or two at a later date and it's just kicking the can down the road.  Which is why I think he'll push for the latter.  Part of me wishes he'd just **** off, but part of me thinks maybe this is the only way we'll get to compete at the top table in the longer term. 

6 hours ago, Marka Ragnos said:

Your assessment screams a need for targeted and high-quality sport psychology for our squad, if we don't already have that? What after all would be the difference between home and away forms if not something in one of the "four Cs" of sport psychology?: Control, Confidence, Concentration, or Commitment? It's got to be something in one of those areas, surely. One helpful way to look at the fracases in London on Sunday is that all that perhaps represented a misguided, undisciplined effort of players trying to reduce stress levels. We've got to to find a way to play away and win without beating the **** out of people like Maupay. But I admire our players so much. They have sick levels of concentration. I can't imagine how mental that must be, but it must lead to some mental exhaustion, too. How do players recover from that? What can be done to assist them in emotional and mental recovery and recuperation before draining away games? 

Sports psychology could help deal with factors like unfamiliar surroundings and hostile environments. Also with our tendency to start each half sluggishly and ship goals in the first 6 or 7 minutes.  Even at Burnley we conceded 2 minutes into the second half.

But there's also the different mentality and approach of the opposition when they are at home compared to at VP.  Mostly they are more confident, more front foot, more aggressive.  We maybe need to find a way to prevent that knocking us out of our stride so much and then control games more like we do at VP.  Maybe the aggro at Brentford was one way of trying to do that.    

Results wise we're doing pretty well away, but the performances don't really justify the returns in my view. 

I'd say the only away performance where we were convincing winners was at Burnley. 

The other performances have all featured a fair bit of sloppiness at both ends with our defence being carved open way too easily (I'm not counting the offside ones), and individual errors. I'm not convinced our opponents will continue to fail to take advantage of that as much as they have so far.  It would be nice if they do though. 

I've only seen the highlights but not giving a second yellow to Semenyo was a disgrace.    

It looked like we were somewhat fortunate to dig out a draw, despite hitting the post and having another marginally offside goal disallowed.  Martinez did brilliantly to keep out those two Solanke chances, but what were the bloody centre backs doing apart from ball watching? 

Shame we couldn't have played Bournemouth a few weeks ago when they were pants - they've looked a very decent side the last 4-5 games. 

Sadly I think our away form isn't good enough for us to finish in the top 4 this season, we're too flaky defensively and too many players seem to go into their shells away from home. Mind you if we can continue to dig out 4 points from every 6 when not at our best, who knows?  And there is plenty of room for improvement.   

Think Emery needs to dispense with the Konsa at right back experiment unless no other choice - didn't work against Spurs and again this week.

I mentioned in the Fulham post match thread that I though Diaby had been poor for a while.  He got a few goals and assists early in the season but even then I can't say I thought he was playing that well overall.  I know people will shout that opinion down, but I stick by it, to me he's not looked anything like a £40-50 million player since September at least.  

3 minutes ago, srsmithusa said:

just want to check i understand.  Unai got it wrong playing Konsa at RB becuase "Konsa's not a right back" and he put it right the second half when Konsa was still playing RB.  ?  Do I understand you correctly?

The changes he made worked but I think he might also have pushed Cash back to RB if he hadn't been on a yellow and skating on thin ice with some of his challenges.  The fact Konsa stayed at RB still doesn't make Konsa a right back, he still looked pretty limited there.    

Unai got it wrong first half, Konsa's not a right back and Catty Mash is not a midfielder.  Fortunately he put it right second half and we looked much better with Bailey and Tielemans down our right.  Glad Diaby went off too, for me he's been mostly mediocre since September.

They were faster and stronger first half and we were very lucky to be anywhere near level at half time, but I think the intensity of their first half cost them as they looked tired after about 70 minutes and didn't have much in the way of fresh legs on the bench.  We really should have killed them off in the 70th-80th minutes but didn't make the most of some good breaks, and almost let them back into it.

Three offside goals for them - it's a heart stopper but it works.

I'd say a bit lucky to win it, but we hung in there first half and were probably the better side second half.

Won't be too surprised if Spurs score within 5 minutes of the restart given our tendency to come out the blocks like a stoned tortoise after half time.

I was going to come on and mention some players I'd completely forgotten about.  But I can't remember any of them.

4 hours ago, tomav84 said:

it didn't conclude that the fear must have come true, it was just further speculation/worry/concern to the fear that some of us already had. and that did not warrent the childish insults that were thrown around on here IMO, any more than they're not warranted when people express concern when a top player is rumoured to be leaving, or we go 1-0 down in a match.

the point being that people who are, shall we say, thicker skinned do have a tendancy to act a bit high and mighty (not including you personally) that they weren't as phased about negative rumours around villa and belittle those that are. we're all passionate about the club/manager/certain players and some react to rumours/speculation differently to others, irrespective of where said rumours originated from

Some posters were wishing him well in retirement and speculating on how the club should keep him on in some capacity.  Like it was done and dusted.  No childish insults from me, just said I'd be concerned about my outlook if I had come to such negative conclusions from so little.  And I genuinely would. Pedant alert, it's fazed, not phased.      

2 hours ago, tomav84 said:

quite an assumption that people that fear the worst about a player having one of the most serious injuries that's possible for a sportsperson to have will automatically have a glass half empty approach to all outlooks on life

It's not so much about having that fear, which is natural. It's about how you get from a simple photo with a promise of an update to somehow concluding that your fearing the worst must have come true.  That's quite the assumption.