villaglint

This, my biggest disappointment of the whole evening is that he (and many others) clearly went missing after giving the ball away a few times in a row. They clearly didn’t want it and that lack of effort to demand the ball and want to get on it just narrows the space for everyone else. As I say he wasn’t alone in that but it was the first real sign of our mental fragility. We’ve not been good for different reasons for a while but I felt like last night was the first time we didn’t believe we were the better team. Lots for Unai to work on.

You beat me by a whisker!

You’ve opened a can of worms here @OutByEaster? We drive and the traffic is horrendous and only seems to get worse year on year. Driving in from M6 we tend to park in area around Upper Sutton street. There is always a huge queue stretching back to M6 all along A38 and around the round about. This is nearly all caused by cars turning right at the traffic lights where Upper Sutton Street crosses Victoria Road. It means only 1 or 2 cars move in each set of lights and it clogs everything up for miles back. If you stopped people turning right for an hour or two on match days this huge queue of traffic would be magically resolved. And for people who need to turn right there are plenty of streets they can take further down the road. Simple change - huge result exactly the kind of win Andrew has been brought in for. Been wondering why club doesn’t do something about this for years it’s so obvious.

double post

Not to worry, Unai will play McGinn right back and he’ll be surprisingly brilliant at it.

Jokes aside what is your working on the maths here? If Utd beat us next week they are 5 points behind with 14 games to go. Seems like plenty left to play for to me.

We are Aston Villa - however unlikely you think it is we’ll give it a damn good go.

Even though Butler will have a heavy influence it’s Bailey ultimately making the decision. He has seemed very happy here ever since Unai came in, even when he wasn’t starting every game. Boy knows a good thing when he sees it. No better place and no better manager to help him fulfil his potential.

Thought he was outstanding yesterday. After the Newcastle game I felt the one saving grace was Ollie scoring so he would go on another run. So it shall be.

De Bruyne will be watching that tonight thinking I wish I could do that.

19 G/A in 31 games - not all of them starts. Drink it in.

A lot has been made of our form since Arsenal game but this is first time that side of City/Arsenal games has played since then. Interesting. Most of the side have played and set up has only been slightly different but seemed to click a bit more. That said thought Sheffield were toilet. For sure thought Tielemans looks better as a ten.

Bournemouth?

That is a hell of a cameo. Shame it was wasted.

Yeah my thought too, feel like he must be carrying something because he’s been our best attacking player in recent times and it was more than a little odd that he didn’t come on until 89th min or something against Chelsea. Can’t be too bad otherwise he wouldn’t be on the bench but must need some rest.

Welcome Morgan - here's to you firing the mighty Aston Villa to CL glory.

A lot of money for someone who has such a short track record but Monchi and Unai will have seen more than us and are paid lots of money for good reason to make these calls. Fwiw the looks flipping brilliant in the video below got a bit of Ramsey, Buendia and Watkins in him which could be a great mix if he can make the step up.

No Emery is staying he’s got no affinity to Barcelona and they’ve had plenty of chances to hire him in the past.

In most of our away games against decent sides we get pressed relentlessly in the first half and struggle to cope. Usually sides can’t keep it up and we come into the game like we did today. You are correct though that we’ve not played well since Arsenal. Arguably we weren’t great that game after first ten mins, although it was a great defensive performance. Hopefully it starts to click for us again soon. We aren’t the only ones struggling, feel like the second half of the season will be a bit attritional but someone will hit a run of form for sure.

One of those players who takes a good long time to get up to speed when they’ve been out for a while. Could barely control the ball first half. Improved a bit second half when he had more time on the ball.

Chelsea really targeted him first half and he got found out. Second half they ran out of steam in the press a bit and he improved as did the rest of the team.

Yeah another one of those runs. Good news is within 1-10 games more he’ll kick into action and look like a world beater again. In fairness to him in most of those 9 games I’d guess we’ve created very few chances don’t remember him missing that many sitters.

I’m inclined to go with this. He’s been really pants now getting anway from that but he can obviously play. We’ve seen it. Only thing I’ll say is we could really do with him coming good sooner rather than later.

I think judging either players ceiling is virtually impossible right now.

Trying to think rationally about Duran I’ve seen him do four things in a year that have made me think he could be very very good. The volley against City and Palace he had a very sharp spin and shot against Warsaw I think and a good run and finish against O think Hibs. Beyond that there has been a lot of huff and bluster and not much else to get excited about. In terms of physical attributes it’s all there. He looks genuinely quick, strong and arguably has better technique than Watkins. He doesn’t know yet how to hold off a man properly but he can absolutely learn that in time given his frame. His attitude is clearly a concern. He looks horrible to play with, constantly snarking at those around him which is mad coming from someone so clearly worse than everyone he’s playing with. It’s OK to be a bit mad but you have to be able to back it up. There are PLENTY of young players who come to the PL with an attitude to learn and prove themselves not thinking that they should be getting everything straight away. If he leaves I genuinely have no idea if we are losing nothing at all and saving ourselves from a big mistake OR if we are giving away the next big thing. He is probably good enough to play regularly in PL in 1/2 years but impossible to tell what his ceiling is and whether that PL team would be a top middle or bottom one.