villaglint

34 minutes ago, DeepDish said:

It's nice to see him back on the pitch. But he is struggling a bit, making wrong moves, holding on to the ball too long and seems generally a bit off. Think a goal will make wonders for his self esteem. 

Yeah there’s a bit of rust which is to be expected. That said he could have easily had a goal and assist in that first half. 
 

Like Diaby he struggles a bit in tight spaces with low block defence. 

I think a little bit of it is form and a little bit of it is teams have tweaked the way they set up against us. Most sides have figured out if they press us high we play through them and create chances/goals so a lot of sides give us our own half and sit in a mid block or low block like today. That narrowing of the space removes some of Diabys main weapons (good decision making when running at pace).  

1 minute ago, GeordieVillan said:

That won’t get overturned, VAR already looked at it at the time.

It’s probably not an awful set of games for him to miss, but you just don’t know what impact it might have. Hopefully we have Teilemans back.

He will get an extra rest at least.

Is it 3 games? 

9 minutes ago, avfc1982am said:

Brentford without Dougie especially won't be an easy game. It's these games when we generally slip into complacency mode so tomorrow is a big game.

Don’t think we’ll be complacent because everyone knows how good we have to be to keep in touch now. 
 

That said we’ve got a lot of injuries so it’ll be really tough test for us. 

I feel bad for him because I feel he's one of those players who needs regular game time to be in any kind of form. Very ill suited to the one game every 2 months role. 

Hoping our first buy in January will be a big stick from B+Q to keep poor Callum away from the first team. 

24 minutes ago, turvontour said:

Is it weighted towards champions league performance being more important, or is it how English teams perform across all 3 competitions equally?

Weighted to a certain extent - you get more points for CL but a good run in Conference League for us would help no end. 

On 10/12/2023 at 09:12, CVByrne said:

If two or more teams are equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria are applied in the order given to determine their rankings:

a. higher number of points obtained in the group matches played among the teams in question; (level at 3 apiece)

b. superior goal difference from the group matches played among the teams in question; (level at +0)

c. higher number of goals scored in the group matches played among the teams in question; (level at 4-4)

d. if, after having applied criteria a) to c), teams still have an equal ranking, criteria a) to c) are reapplied exclusively to the matches between the remaining teams to determine their final rankings. - (I've no idea what this means?)

If this procedure does not lead to a decision, criteria e) to k) apply in the order given to the two or more teams still equal;

e. superior goal difference in all group matches; (Villa would be +4 and Legia +3 if we both win by 1 goal, Villa would be +4 and Legia +4 if they win by 2 goals, etc..)

f. higher number of goals scored in all group matches; (they would be at least 10 to get this far, we are at 11 etc..)

g. higher number of away goals scored in all group matches; (our win at AZ and goals at Legia make us 7 gf)

h. higher number of wins in all group matches;

i. higher number of away wins in all group matches;

j. lower disciplinary points total based only on yellow and red cards received by players and team officials in all group matches (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points);

So in conclusion if we draw we are top. 

If we lose they need a 4 goal swing in their favour for goal difference. ie  we lose by 1 and they win by 3 (or something similar). 

Or a 3 goal swing and they score more than 3 goals. 

Is that correct?

5 minutes ago, villa89 said:

Got injured at the wrong time at Chelsea but it would have been interesting to see how he would have developed under Emery. 

Never struck me as a mentality monster but definitely got abiity. When he was with us I always struggled to see what his best position was but actually he'd fit into the McGinn/Tielemans role pretty much perfectly. I hope he gets a move or things improve for him. Will be a lot of promising young players ruined by Chelsea hope he isnt one of them. 

13 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Jesus has made the most of it 100%, but I don't think we could have had many complaints if that was given.

As you said, if it was Watkins at the other end we'd have been fuming if that wasn't given

All opinions but in real time its no where near a pen. Completely agree that if it had been the other end we'd have been fuming but we'd have been wrong too. Thats why we have (hopefully) impartial refs rather than fans shouting to decide what happens. 

32 minutes ago, MaVilla said:

if they lose to Everton (1-0 down currently), they will be 11th on 19 points after 16 games, and only above the teams in 12th, 13th and 14th on goal difference.

Heck, if Everton didnt have the points deduction, they would also be above them.

Honestly, genuinely, how can you spend a literal billion pounds on a squad in 2 years, and be this bad?

 

its quite literally mind boggling.

On a slightly different level but I’m sure there were clubs saying similar about us in Championship at times as we tried to buy the league and just looked awful. 
 

Football is FULL of people who will gladly rinse you for money if you don’t know what you are doing. 

20 hours ago, Tommo_b said:

16 points above the trillion pound team after just 16 games, beautiful 

After every game Unai says there are 7 teams better placed than us to get top 4. He is including Chelsea in that but every game that goes by it’s starting to look like he’s taking the piss. 

22 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

The full interview of McGinn was really really good.

Nice bit of insight on Emery with John saying he's good for days off letting the squad have time away, but when you're in at the training ground you're there to work.

"Intense" he replied when asked to describe working with Emery. Also said something like "You match his intensity or he's made it clear he'll bring in people who will"

Great stuff. Especially the days off. He's not a nutter who expects 24/7/365 focus, but when it is time, you listen, learn and work.

I’ve seen McGinn mention this a few times, in terms of Unai making clear his standards will be met or he’ll bring in new players. Unai also mentioned it in an interview recently. Seems very iron fist but I guess this is what he means by being demanding. He is pushing them to their limits to see who has what it takes to take us where we need to be. 
 

Very odd feeling to have this kind of mentality at the heart of our club. 

3 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

My guess would be that Odegaard’s two chances plus the one on one Martinelli had would be their three big chances. But I haven’t looked into it. 
 

Watkins’ chance got rules as offside I think so that wouldn’t count towards the stats. 
 

It’s calculated using thousands and thousands  of historical examples of similar shots. It’s not a guess

Also a good example why these stats need to be taken with a pinch of salt. Interesting but nothing else.

Had Watkins scored very good chance his would have been onside and Martinelli’s was definitely offside. So that skews figures a bit. 

9 hours ago, Don_Simon said:

Nah, God is God. 

Unai is incredible, but he's not God.

They are both God and so are you.

https://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html

Got a feeling he will get a start on Thursday as we’ll need to give first team as much rest as possible. 
 

Hopefully he’s closer to the Newcastle performance than the Stevenage or any of the more recent games. 

That moment when he’s asked in the Sky interview how he feels after the game.

HAPPY ! 

I got a photo but file size is too big to upload.

Will work on it and come back to you. Might turn it into a poster it’s that good. 

3 hours ago, Xela said:

They'll still win the league

I think you are probably right. Was thinking to myself after the game if we can finish the season above them we’ll have done alright. 

Does anyone else think it’s a pen when he had his big chance in the second half. He beats Dias who puts his arm straight across his chest and clearly stops him getting a shot off cleanly. Looked incredibly blatant to me but not seen a single person mention it during or after the game. 

Hope he got to watch last night. Real legend, sad loss. 

They set up their press to give him the ball and block off Torres. That did not work. His range of passing is excellent. 

9 minutes ago, Zatman said:

That would have been an incredible pass to pick out Cancelo in Barcelona  

I know. It was a joke. 

7 minutes ago, Chine said:

The free kick fiasco going on with him when through on goal yesterday .. In my view the defender would have caught him anyway . Nothing to see here .

Agreed it’s an odd decision by ref by also odd way pundits make out it was a nailed on goal. Most likely scenario is he cuts back and recycles the ball to Cancelo. 

Just now, jim said:

I must have missed the promising start to his Villa career. He’s looked bang average since he arrived. Runs around a lot and loses the ball.

I think that’s fair. 
 

It’s all your own viewpoint. 
 

For me he did everything you said but also really nearly scored for about 6/7 games running which “felt” promising. Not sure if that was a false dawn or not. Seen plenty of players like Bailey and even Watkins in last years who flit between world beaters and not knowing how to kick a football so tough to judge a player too early.