turvontour

I agree. It is similar to the Grealish role, and people are critical of that saying theres little end product. Buendia was dictating the play tonight, particularly first half.

His composure to play that ball up to Carney for the goal late on was class.

Agreed, he very rarely picks out a villa player with a cross or pull back which is frustrating.

Brilliant result, so dominant, and some of the football was superb. Nice to get a clean sheet too.

Salah wasnt in possession. If you push the ball 5 yards the other side of a defender and run parallel to then then you're not in possession. Mings was in the process of hooking the ball out for a corner or throw in, and Salah voluntarily steps into Mings clearing the ball. He hasn't come through Salah in any shape or form. Grealish was guilty of it sure, Kane is, Salah is, Pogba is etc. I'd rather we get to a position where collectively they're not given as we have players that fall for it. I think Douglas Luiz fell for it twice last season with Pogba in two different games, and tight games too annoyingly. Like this Salah one. That fake challenge/contact was the match, the three points to them, none to us. It shouldn't be like that.

You combat it by not giving them a goal for every slight infringement in the area.

It's a great point about the naivety. Luiz, Cash, Targett, Mings etc have made these challenges in the box and given away penalties.

How do you win possession back then? Mings hasn't mistimed the tackle. Salah has took himself towards Mings. It is exactly like the Kane and Cash one. I do get where you're coming from, Mings should just not challenge to be on the safe side. Because these top strikers are 'clever'. But var should be overturning these decisions where players are engineering challenges.

This Salah dive is all the more embarrassing as he has a low centre of gravity. It looks like Mings is just about to clear the ball with his left foot when Salah deliberately lunged across his path causing Mings to trip. The problem for Salah is he was hoping that Mings would wipe him out, but he doesnt, so Salah has to do that awful dive. It really does look pathetic in slow motion given how good we know his balance is. It's one of his main talents.

Hanley, Normann, Gibson and Zimmerman sound really old to me for some reason.

Salah is in complete control of his forward movement, he can carry on running. And then suddenly he pirrouettes, throws his hands in the air and ends up upside down on the back of his neck. Sadly, if there is close/slight contact, that is all that matters nowadays and it's a pen.

I agree, and by the sounds of it that premier league thread shouldn't have been moved to 'other football'. There can be two premier league threads, one about Villas position in it, and one in 'other football' about the league in general. It isnt always about being relegated or finishing in europe.

Today is the clearest day for as long as I can remember that the awarding of a goal for a foul/infringement in the area is completely wrong and unjust. Man U, Man City, Liverpool and Chelsea all won today because of penalty goals despite the fact that likely none of those attacks would have lead to goals. Why are you awarded a goal and the match for the ball possibly hitting someone's arm pit or shoulder at the side of the penalty box? For me it must be indirect free kicks for most fouls in the box, maybe a penalty for all fouls in the 6 yard box, and then discretion over the really bad, goal preventing fouls in rest of 18 yard box. Problem is, the bigger teams wouldnt agree to this because they have the bulk of penalties, and so for example would likely have had one point today rather than three.

Do we have to have this thread commented in every time we lose a game? We are 9 points above the relegation zone! And 2 points off 8th ffs.

There needs to be a change away from every foul in the box resulting in a penalty. Which is 9 times out of 10, resulting in a goal. I'd say for atleast half of the penalties we see, they should be indirect free kicks. The leeds one today was ludicrous. A soft foul right in the corner of the box 18 yards from goal, with the Chelsea player moving further away from goal when the challenge is made. Why is that a goal awarded to Chelsea? If the outcome of pens were 50 50 I'd get it slightly, but their not.

The eyes closed cross field smash volley? One of his signature moves that.

What I would change would be the unnecessary noise blasted pre kick off, and equally the songs played after a win. Just silence please, and the crowd. They're the two best occasions for song interactions with the players. Used to love that early 2000s when the holte end would go through the repertoire of player songs before the game. With Alpay charging towards the Holte End like the nutter he was.

I'm not sure what you're comparing it to. For a standard premier league game, so not for a proper local derby or important match, has there ever been consistent singing throughout the 90 minutes? Like I mean historically, was there a period of years where we used to sing consistently throughout the match, irrespective of occasion and opposition. Because I dont remember it.

Exactly the same for me.

Haha, that was great! The poor s*** ref.

Its mad we're entering the third year of this soon.

Hows 10th our best position all season? We were 7th after the Man U win. And then just lost all discipline, and stopped competing for the next 5 games. 7th to 10th is a fairer reflection of where we should be, as we're seeing again now. I meant from an expectation perspective. If you're the owners, and Gerrard has very quickly steadied the ship and we're in tenth. You wouldnt expect them to say to him to aim to finish as a minimum of 13th. Youd want a top half finish. I'm not saying we cant finish lower than where we are now.

Gosh I'd forgotten about that. Its interesting though, do we get more points against top half teams than lower half teams? Other than against man city, we must have a fairly even points spread this season and last season.

In the last 16 months we have beaten Liverpool, Chelsea, Man U, Tottenham, Leicester twice and Arsenal twice. As you say, it's not really a free hit as this is where we are getting a lot of our points from. It's one of those though where after the event you cant be too disappointed if we dont come away with anything.

This will be on tv for sure.