TomC

2 minutes ago, est1874 said:

Villa are the new Spurs.

Fortunately we're in a race with the real Spurs.

I'd like to dream, but even NSWE were willing to pay what it will take to get Mbappé, I doubt that we could do it within FFP rules.

So instead, my dream is that we qualify for the CL, make it to the final against the club where he lands, and Emi denies him another major title.

I bet that television would not show any award presentation to Emi afterwards.

On 18/02/2024 at 01:43, DakotaVilla said:

As for Man Utd, momentum is everything and they have it with them at the moment. Luton (A), Fulham (H) Man city (A) Everton (H) sheff utd (H) . They could easily win 4 out of those 5 and if they did would probably be within 4 points of us with 8/9 games to go. 

I don't care what their momentum is now. They have 13 matches to go. That's a long time to keep up momentum. If they were good enough to maintain it that long, they'd be challenging City for the title instead.

Look at their goal difference. They really shouldn't be as high up the table as they are. They could easily go lose 3 in a row.

Don't be scared by the name on the shirt. Without Alex Ferguson, they're nothing special.

I'm going to try a tactical interpretation of the past few months...

About two months into the season, most of the league had wised up to the way we use the double pivot and play from the back. A common counter-tactic was to cut off the lanes from the back line to the double pivot by essentially man-marking Doug and Kamara, hoping to force us to advance wide and then trap us there. Pau helps us avoid this. Cut off the double pivot and he'll run up the middle with the ball himself. Either one of Doug's or Kamara's markers has to challenge Pau, freeing Doug or Kamara, or you have to commit another player to the press, freeing up space up the pitch which Pau can exploit with a pass.

When Pau got injured against Brentford, we lost this ability. What followed were arguably the matches that were the death blow to our title challenge, the draw with Sheffield United and the loss to Man Utd. I don't remember the Sheffield Utd match well enough to say exactly what they did against us tactically, but Man Utd exploited his absence brilliantly in the second half, albeit they handled the double pivot slightly differently than usual...with Kamara out, rather than blocking the lanes to both pivots, they allowed the pass into Donck, then cut off any switch of the field and pressed him, knowing that his skill with the ball was not up to escaping consistently. We all blamed the loss of Kamara at the time, but looking back, you wonder if we could have avoided trouble if Pau had been there to advance the ball. It's the absence of both of them that was fatal.

I would like to see Unai tweak the double pivot a bit so we are not so dependent on Pau. Maybe allow one of them to drift wide from time to time...I'll use our left side to demonstrate what I mean. If Doug drifts left, his marker has to follow to avoid allowing a wide overload. That would allow Pau more space if he's playing, but it would also instead allow the forward midfielder on that side, i.e. JJ or McGinn, to drop back and exploit the space. If a deeper marker follows him, then Doug or Moreno can cut in and exploit that space McGinn or JJ vacated. A little variety to keep the other team guessing.

3 minutes ago, Paul33 said:

Torres makes a huge difference ...... always looking to play the ball forward. Don't want Meatball in the #6 role as he is not very good there and is a liability on the ball ...... should have played Tim there with Meatball in the #10 slot. Huge win whatever the shape and good game management at the end for once !

 

I'd rather have him further forward, but I thought McGinn played well enough in the double pivot today.

Tim brought some energy when he came in and did some good things, but he also looked like he was making the young player's mistake of trying too hard. This sort of cameo is probably what he needs until he settles down a bit.

Ollie has hit his peak and is a wonderful player now.

Before this year, I was never quite sold on him...I liked his pressing, I liked the positions he got into, but he had a tendency to try to drive the ball too much, often shooting right at the keeper. His first goal today showed how much he has matured...he just calmly passed the ball into the net with perfect accuracy.

2 minutes ago, allani said:

I agree with your point about it not being a conspiracy against us - the stream I was watching said that they thought VAR didn't want to embarrass a young ref in his first PL game and so were keen to back his onfield decisions to give him some confidence.

That might be a good explanation, though the offside would have been the linesman's fault, not the ref's.

Had to give MOTM to Watkins, but Pau was a close runner up...without him, you have to wonder if we would have had all the scoring chances that we did.

3 minutes ago, Lord Willard said:

How’s.that not a penalty 

The same way the ref didn't give a couple pens against Pau in the first half.

Lenglet shouldn't have checked his run. Obviously no guarantee Emi was going to collect.

Tielemans through ball masterclass.

I don't get that one. Moreno looked even with the line in that screenshot.

It took only about 5 minutes for it to be obvious to me how much we've missed Pau.

31 minutes ago, Jas10 said:

We’ll probably see a McGinn and Luiz partnership that did well last season, better than it had done previously and John is so much better under Unai…

We have coped without Bouba before…

And… maybe we can look forward to seeing whether Tim can really step up and grasp this opportunity now… I doubt there are many of us who have seen enough of him to be able to make a proper judgement on that… but I was surprised and encouraged by Unai’s comments on him and how he and his coaching team have worked with and tested him…

Never give up… keep fighting…  

This...

We've had some incredibly bad luck with long-term injuries this year, but midfield is one place we should be able to make do. McGinn is more valuable in attacking midfield than in the double pivot, but he can do the double pivot. Tim may get his chance. JJ and Tielemans, or Rogers and Tielemans, can hold down the attacking midfield slots.

None of them are as good of ball-winners as Kamara, but the situation is not hopeless. I remain more worried about our defence.

Having grown up with ice hockey, I'm open to the idea. I do agree with those who question how well it will work with a running clock. Maybe it should be clocked only for time the ball is in play.

Refs are very hesitant to pull out that red card, especially early in the match. They will be less hesitant to send someone off for 10 minutes.

24 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

As a goalkeeper for 30 years and a qualified goalkeeping coach, I can tell you it’s absolutely textbook

It may be the best free kick I've seen this season and he still got his fingertips to the ball. I can't criticize his positioning.

Before anyone accuses me of wearing rose-coloured glasses, let me say...Chelsea were the better team and deserved to win.

That said, I don't think that the match was as bad as the scoreline indicates. Gallagher's opener was a perfect finish with three defenders on him, and the free kick was also perfect (a few inches to the right and Emi makes a world-class save). You won't see two strikes of that quality in a match very often.

That said, the middle goal was atrocious defending from Diego. And they got two perfect strikes in part because we gave them so many chances. We do miss Konsa and Pau (and Mings).

Even if we had held them to one goal, the staleness in our attack may worry me even more. The first 10 minutes and last 10 minutes were OK, but the rest of the match, whenever we had the ball, we either gave it away with poor passes or couldn't find our way through. I think that our buildup has become too predictable.

So, in my view, it was like the 0-0 draw, a mediocre match between two currently mediocre teams, punctuated by two moments of magic for Chelsea, who were otherwise just slightly less mediocre than we were.

If I can take away one positive, maybe our goal will help Diaby get his confidence back.

To me, this may be the biggest match of the year so far...

Let's assume City, Liverpool, and Arsenal have three CL spaces wrapped up. If we beat Man U, we're 11 ahead of them and it's probably just a two team race between us and Spurs for the 4th spot. (Assuming England gets just 4.) Given that Spurs tend to be Spurs-y, I like our chances. On the other hand, if we lose to Man U, we're only 5 ahead of them and we're in a 3 team race.

20 hours ago, Spoony said:

Anyway on Emi, I’m going to go as far as to say he’s the best footballer ever to play for us. He’s won the World Cup, he’s won every best goalkeeper in the world award, he’s worth double digits of points every season, he hardly ever cocks up.

Even among semi-recent players, I can't put him ahead of McGrath. Yes, Emi won the WC, but he played for a country capable of winning the WC. McGrath led an Irish squad to the WC quarterfinals, which was pretty remarkable for a country of its size and football history, and like Emi was in the discussion for best in the world at his position. Not to mention he won two trophies at Villa.

Let's not leave Billy Walker, Pongo Waring, and other old-timers out of the conversation either.

Will Emi be top 10 or maybe even top 5 in the club's history when all is said and done? Yes. But let's avoid recency bias.

Normal (Unai) service has resumed. I hope that all the pessimists can take some heart from this. This is not "same old Villa."

After the first half, it was close between Ollie and Doug for MOTM, but Ollie stayed on second half, got another assist, and cleared a ball off the line, so I have to give it to him. Bailey could also have been in the conversation.

That said, as Doug goes, so goes the team. He made the first two goals and, after a mediocre stretch, was back to his best today. It was promising.

1 hour ago, punkiller1981 said:

He needs to decide what the priority is which for me is the league and completely deprioritise the fa cup and the conference league because neither for me are important and we can’t compete in all of them with this squad. Players like konsa mcginn Watkins have hardly had a rest and others like Lenglet, Carlos, cash and certainly zaniolo are not close to being good enough for the premier league 

 

Priorities are probably decided higher up...like by NSWE themselves.

2 minutes ago, Hank Scorpio said:

I think champions league is gone now.

The title is gone. CL? Look at the table. City, Liverpool, and Arsenal will all make it. Long gap from us and Spurs to West Ham. We have plenty of time to recover and qualify for the CL, especially when the competition is Spurs, who are know to be...Spurs-y.

I hope that people give him time. Playing for Unai seems to be a little like playing for Guardiola...it takes some players a while to learn the system and adjust.

6 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

I think the ‘no Pau’ is a bit of an excuse really. He’s a good player but he’s not the reason we’ve been this bad for ages. His return will help, no doubt, but our form has been poor and other players have been dreadful. 

He was missed more this match than in others. We needed his passing to help break the press.