JPJCB

In all seriousness, is he actually still cup tied?

I found his finish for the offside goal even more impressive than the touch. The composure to wait a second rather than snatching, then calmly place it with his weaker foot. He’s a natural finisher

Bloody hell. He must be good if he gets your approval

I get the arguments that he works hard and offers more than just goals. The problem with Ollie is that, unlike a player like firmino for example, he clearly judges his own performance by how many goals he scores and the longer he goes without scoring the more it gets in his head and he starts being more and more selfish to try and get that goal, hurting his broader game. Given we have diaby who works just as hard with an excellent all round game plus end product in the form of goals and assists, I do think that Watkins’ importance is far lower than it has been previously

People keep saying that we should be targeting the owners not the breeds. Why not just do both? Ban these breeds who are far more likely to kill people than any other dogs. But massively toughen up the sanctions on the idiots who can’t keep their dogs under control

I’ve seen a ton of people journalists in recent days defending Maguire and saying the abuse is too much. I don’t really see what Southgate is pointing too specifically when he has a go at them for riling things up? He also implied in his interview that the media circus around Maguire is why the Scots mocked him, as if no Scotland fan has ever watched a PL game or knows anything about what’s going on in the league and how wank Maguire is As others have said, if Southgate wants to blame someone for this he should look in a mirror

The problem is, this bit just isn’t true for both Phillips and Maguire. Maguire has had a couple of horrendous games for England- one in which he was sent off for two stupid tackles early on, another where he looked miles off the pace against Germany, and you can add last night to the list where he gives away an own goal under absolutely no pressure. If Mings, Guehi, tomori etc did the same then they’d be out of the squad but Maguire is repeatedly given more chances by Southgate without any mitigation from his club form. And ditto with Phillips, he had an absolutely atrocious game against Hungary last year which England lost 3-0 and was worse than any performance JWP has given for England but who repeatedly gets in the squad? Albeit, I will grant that Phillips was decent last night. The more this goes on the more I think that Southgate is playing out a kind of personal campaign to remake history and his own victimisation after the 1996 euros penalty miss. He maybe even believes that he was one of englands best two centre backs and was badly treated. So he’s seeing himself in these players and trying to make things right. No other manager would be persisting with Maguire at this point and it’s entirely on Southgate that Maguire’s under so much scrutiny

I feel like this international break will have marked a turning point in terms of both the media and the more “neutral” England fan’s views of him. Hes made questionable selection decisions before- neglecting players for so long and holding onto favourites. But he could always argue that these players hadn’t let him down. In a way continuing to pick some of these players who’d played out of form helped protect them from the media storm more than dropping them would have. But this time was different. Picking Maguire and Henderson despite their respective situations heightened the media attention and created even more of a storm than if they’d have simply been dropped. You then get pundits like Jill Scott eloquently putting Henderson in his place and Maguire being jeered by the entirety of the hampden crowd. Its just astonishingly bad judgment from Southgate and helped fan flames rather than calm things down which he was normally pretty good at

Other sources close to the player say that he’s hot then he’s cold; he’s yes then he’s no; he’s in then he’s out; he’s up then he’s down

The left footed pass at 1.15 is just delicious

If you drop Watkins then he might cry in the dressing room about it. Mental weakling

For me it’s his decision making which is the most annoying thing. He often tries to beat the man when he should be passing or vice versa, and that limits his effectiveness in counterattacks as well. It’s another big difference between him and diaby who is a much more savvy player

£45m for palmer is absolutely bonkers. The guy has had barely a handful of appearances for city most of which have been average

In yet more blatant media bias, a villa player wins the PFA women’s player of the year award and yet the lead interview and BBC main page link is with the Chelsea player winning the young player award: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/66650727

Luiz could play in that West Ham team and do a decent job. But there’s no way ward prowse would be anywhere near luiz’s level in an emery team. He doesn’t have the technical ability to play the type of passing game emery wants to play. That’s the difference

I was just thinking this. When’s the last time we had as good a CM pairing as these two? Petrov and Barry came to mind? But I think even those two didn’t have the same degree of control and composure as Doug and Boubs

They’ve had a tough start in terms of fixtures but this is really the stage of the season where they need to be outperforming since once the CL fixtures kick off their squad is gonna be stretched to the max. They’ve still go the likes of Jacob Murphy, target and Willock on the bench who aren’t good enough for the biggest games

Their game against Brighton will be interesting next week. They’re arguably the best pressing team in the league while Brighton are the best at beating the press

Actually read what I said. I don’t think Watkins is a selfish striker in general (although, I wouldn’t describe his link up play as “off the charts” either). My point is that he didn’t work as hard as ings to make the partnership work.He showed less evidence of wanting to link up with him. And his comments in the article show why- he was insecure and didn’t want ings to outperform him. Look back in this thread from around that time and you’ll see plenty of posters noticing this about Watkins’ performances at that time For all that you say about ings before he joined us he showed clear evidence of being able to play effectively in a 2 while at Southampton alongside che Adams

There seems to be a trend of refs wanting to go public talking about theur career after retiring (see clattenburg as another example) but they don’t seem to realise that “confessions” such as these are a completely different nature to any other ex pro talking about controversies. They genuinely bring the game and it’s officiating into disrepute

Perhaps I should be happy about this as a villa fan but if he’s insecure about the likes of Danny ings challenging his place than he can wave goodbye any chance of playing for any established CL club where the pressure and competition for places is on another level

Yeah tbh that’s disappointing. Beyond the insecurity point, I always got the sense that when ings and Watkins played as a two, Watkins wasn’t interested in making it work as a partnership (unlike ings who could be quite selfless) which also chimes with what he’s saying. Not great form and a bit unprofessional tbh

I will gladly admit to having been completely proved wrong about him. In the latter stages of the Smith reign I doubted his long term future here as I didn’t think he functioned well in a midfield alongside McGinn- I still don’t think he has got quite enough energy to play single pivot. But in emery’s system he’s been truly spectacular so fair play to him

Despite having been a critique of Watkins in the past I think this is basically right. He’s not quite elite in terms of goal scoring and he can be v frustrating at times with finishing and hold up play but his other attributes (stamina, off ball work, athleticism) are basically world class. He also has the helpful habit of never being injured!