Stevo71

Wednesday night was a huge effort, will have taken a chunk out of us. But I can't help dwelling on what the performance and result has put into us.

And fair to say Unai has been waiting for tomorrow's game since the whistle blew on the last one.

It's going to be interesting. 

2 minutes ago, duke313 said:

I'm still waiting on that second season drop off that Arsenal fans warned us about.  Anybody any idea when it's due to happen?

If we just knew what season we were supposed to look out for!

They're scared in the main I reckon. Scared we have any major success under Unai as it will prove how shallow and entitled they are as a fanbase* and how petulantly they acted towards a genius and a gentleman. It'll be a bad look for them. I'm sure they have their excuses lined up already: right man, wrong time. Does well at second-tier clubs blah blah. In fact, we're already hearing these being trotted out.

*not all of them, obvs 

A lot of confirmation bias on the socials last night but I thought he played well and was blameless for their goal. BK's reaction was telling, knew he'd dropped a nut instantly and didn't look to apportion blame.

20 hours ago, stewiek2 said:

 

 

Love that picture. 

"To win against me, you must beat me three times: in the opening, the middlegame and the endgame." - Alekhine

I'm seriously starting to get those vibes from Unai. You'd think Spurs won the game 1-1 after 45 minutes, then due to some unforeseen technicality, had to play another 45 minutes.

Media heat getting too much, dropped a strategic loss. Expert moves

Very decent. I'm 1517 at rapid but I find it increasingly difficult to find time to play longer formats. 

Conversely I'm finding it progressively hard to play fast, age is setting in a bit! I go for 5-5 to squeeze a game in, but the quality suffers.

On 27/09/2023 at 14:36, Stevo985 said:

Beat someone rated 1405 this morning. My biggest ever win.

Up to around 1360 myself

That's a great rating - what time control is that for? Blitz?

7 minutes ago, KevinRichardsonsMoustache said:

Carragher's rant about Zaniolo was really odd and felt totally out of place. Fair enough if you think the practice is unacceptable, but his response was so visceral. I was wondering if he would have made a similar comment if the player on the floor was English. Then Bowen went down late in the game and, predictably, he said nothing.

One thing I will say in Carragher's favour, though: I love it when a co-commentator reacts loudly to a goal. His groan when Ollie lashed the ball into the top of the net gave the goal a bit of extra sparkle.

Double edged sword I suppose.

 

Carragher revealing he's neurologist wasn't something I was expecting tbh. And his ability to diagnose at distance is some talent. He's wasted as a football pundit.

I mean, 10-2 on aggregate against media darlings Brighton and “Champions of Europe” Spam. It’s giddy stuff.

I wonder how much of this is smoke, and how much fire:

https://www.football365.com/news/aston-villa-star-inner-circle-already-wants-quit-fall-out-unai-emery

Quote

Astom Villa star Youri Tielemans has reportedly ‘told his inner circle’ that he wants out of the club having only signed for the Villans in the summer.

Might explain his less than salubrious cameos, but equally I might be fitting the "evidence" to the theory.

Via http://clubelo.com, we are playing a team tonight whose rating is 1284. Ours is 1836. For context, Hibs was 1339.

We should be able to play Mings tonight and win!

But for further context Legia are 1506, so as with most stats, a pinch of salt needed.

But definitely reasons to be confident.

26 minutes ago, The Fun Factory said:

And then ignore it?

What have they ignored previously? Not having a pop, genuinely curious.

On 29/09/2023 at 10:55, markavfc40 said:

I am not really too sure there have been a few poor results unless we now think we have gone from relegation fodder less than 12 months ago to now thinking we should hardly be losing a game.

Our league return from 6 games has been as good as I'd have hoped for. In fact probably a little better as I'd have probably taken 2 points from away games at Newcastle, Liverpool and Chelsea. We'd have expected wins from Everton, Burnley and Palace and we deservedly won them all. 

In the cups we have blown Hibs away in two games, narrowly lost our toughest away game in the Europa group to Legia Warsaw and been beaten at home in the league cup against a fellow Prem side. 

All the above has happened whilst Emery has been trying to integrate 5 new players and having been without 4 of our best 11 starters for pretty much the whole of the season. I think given that then losing some games should hardly come as a surprise should it especially losses in two of the toughest away league games you can face. I also think that inconsistent performances and looking disjointed at times should be expected given the injuries we have and the handful of new players being integrated. 

I see this period as similar to when Emery first arrived and it took time for it all to click and for us to gain some consistency. In his first 12 league and cup games we won 5, drew 1 and lost 6 and then it really came together. 

Getting Ramsey and Moreno back down our left side will be a huge boost and  having Carlos to take some of the workload off Konsa with little drop in quality of player will give more in depth strength in that CB position. Then we have Torres, Diaby, Zaniolo and Tielemans all top quality players who have between them started 13 league games for us so are still to fully integrate and get in tune with what Emery wants and with their new team mates. 

I am in zero doubt that under Emery, just as happened last season, that given a little more time, it will again all click and come together. 

An excellent post, made better by yesterday’s result.

Hopefully that's out European Stevenage out the way. I was delighted when we "only" qualified for the Conference - figured we'd have a decent shot at this comp, be out of our depth in the Europa and absolutely ruined in the CL (I mean, imagine). Seems we're actually further behind in our rehab than I'd hoped. On the plus side, many lessons learned there.

Think this is bad, wait until we're sold to Arabs.

We had a reality check against Newcastle, didn’t expect another quite so soon. 

I know nothing about this guy other than he's the best centre back in the world.

Never once thought to look in here for fellow chess players. Glad there are some!

I'm JacobsLadder2112 over on chess.com if anyone fancies a game sometime.

Now to watch the grandmaster take on Burnley...

There's a lovely shot during the Emery Cam, where Unai is in the foreground and in the background, on one of the banners, is a picture of Ron Saunders. For me it stitches two eras together and I can almost hear Ron saying "This is nice but I assembled a team that won something you haven't...yet. Keep going young man, it'll come.". After all these years we finally have a manager (a couple came close, respect and affection to them) that might just build on the legacy left by Ron and Tony.

On a bleaker note I don't like SAF bigging us up when Ten Hag looks so clueless!!

Sickening parochial bulls***. We won't go anywhere as a club if we're turning on other fans and verbally abusing children trying to enjoy a day out. Disgusting.

The club wants and needs to grow in order to compete. If there's even a slight chance this causes trouble, there is significant and / or increasing push back on these initiatives, or they stop being used because people feel victimised, then I think we'll be out of Aston in no time; our big, new posh stadium will have all the facilities and transport you could hope for.

Hoping this settles down quickly. 

Everton will rely heavily on three teams being worse than them this season on this showing. 

I get Luc Nilis vibes. Not comparing style, just a feeling we’ve bagged a bona fide elite player. Hope this ends better!