LondonLax Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 1 minute ago, Mantis said: Diaby and Rogers have been just as good as Bailey lately so the decision to rest the latter made sense even without considering the rotation. At the end of the day, we didn't "throw in the towel". We just didn't. Resting two players who would otherwise play is something teams do all the time. When you're playing as many games as we are and juggling that many injuries it's essential to rotate. I agree it’s essential to rotate. Usually when you rotate though you try to keep as strong as possible throughout the season. This match seems to have been a case of ‘well some key players are out so bugger it, let’s just take out some more and make this match a rest match’. Again, I don’t necessarily disagree, we were likely to lose anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delphouneso Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 14 hours ago, villa89 said: Probably 75% likely we finish fifth and probably 75% likely fifth place will be a CL place. Getting CL is all that matters, out final position of fourth or fifth isn't really important. So you’re saying it’s 50/50? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 10 minutes ago, Delphouneso said: So you’re saying it’s 50/50? 75% chance he's saying Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 13 minutes ago, LondonLax said: I agree it’s essential to rotate. Usually when you rotate though you try to keep as strong as possible throughout the season. This match seems to have been a case of ‘well some key players are out so bugger it, let’s just take out some more and make this match a rest match’. Again, I don’t necessarily disagree, we were likely to lose anyway. If that were the case we would've started KKH and Kellyman. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Keyblade Posted April 7 Popular Post Share Posted April 7 This thread is insane. It's been almost 15 years since we finished 6th, let alone 5th or 4th. We haven't bottled anything, it's been a tremendous effort for us to even be in this position where we are still in with a good shout for 4th with 6 games to go. Also in a European quarter final to boot. This is the best season of my lifetime so far, even if it ends today. You would think we were Liverpool or something the way our fans go on. 27 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I Make Pies Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 Hopefully we can get over the line, but if we miss out then the injury to Kamara with have done for us imo. I saw a video earlier in the season (cannot remember what it was called) illustrating a tactical change Emery made after the loss to Liverpool where he moved Kamara into a back three when we were attacking, giving us additional cover on the counter attack. I cannot help but think if he had been in that right sided defensive role yesterday Brentford would not have scored. The situation reminds me of Watkins/Ings/Duran last season. People on this forum were nervous about selling Ings and having a youngster as backup but thankfully Watkins never got injured. This year we let Dendoncker go in January leaving Iroegbunam as backup, but Kamara got injured 10 days after the end of the transfer window. Emery will need to have a think about his approach in the final six games as we are conceding far too many. When Arsenal were 2-0 up yesterday they had ten men behind the ball and were throwing themselves in front of everything. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DakotaVilla Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 It’s a very realistic outcome that we could have champions league qualification all but confirmed by a week on Thursday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
omariqy Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 19 minutes ago, DakotaVilla said: It’s a very realistic outcome that we could have champions league qualification all but confirmed by a week on Thursday. Only if we beat Bournemouth imo and United lose against Liverpool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
omariqy Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 Well said Leon. Watch out for those bums. 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sulberto21 Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 6 minutes ago, omariqy said: Well said Leon. Watch out for those bums. I wonder if McGinn was standing in front of him when he posted that. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVTuco Posted April 7 VT Supporter Share Posted April 7 I just like to think now that no matter what, we'll be in Europe next season. Not bad. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duke313 Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 A chance the Spurs game today might be postponed, a stabbing outside their stadium apparently. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YLN Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 46 minutes ago, Keyblade said: This thread is insane. It's been almost 15 years since we finished 6th, let alone 5th or 4th. We haven't bottled anything, it's been a tremendous effort for us to even be in this position where we are still in with a good shout for 4th with 6 games to go. Also in a European quarter final to boot. This is the best season of my lifetime so far, even if it ends today. You would think we were Liverpool or something the way our fans go on. I agree with all of this but I don't think we think we're Liverpool. We were just 2-0 up against Brentford who haven't won in 9 and they nearly beat us. It's a great season. Yesterday didn't feel great. If you remember that season we were competing against Arsenal for 4th and we were well ahead of them before a bad run and then we went 2-0 up against Stoke and it looked like the slide was over. After our second goal went in, the commentator announced that we were going to finish top 4 or that we had one foot in or something. And then Stoke scored two in the last two minutes. That was the last time we finished 6th. It didn't feel like we had had a great season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wishywashy Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 45 minutes ago, Keyblade said: This thread is insane. It's been almost 15 years since we finished 6th, let alone 5th or 4th. We haven't bottled anything, it's been a tremendous effort for us to even be in this position where we are still in with a good shout for 4th with 6 games to go. Also in a European quarter final to boot. This is the best season of my lifetime so far, even if it ends today. You would think we were Liverpool or something the way our fans go on. Six years ago Villa could have quite easily gone down a path where they ceased to exist. Now some (mostly on other platforms tbf) are treating the (still unlikely!) prospect of only qualifying for the Europa League as some sort of doomsday scenario. It's hilarious. We're 12 points (effectively 13) ahead of 6th place (who have worse form than us) and we'll probably know in 1/2 weeks whether 5th gets a CL spot. It's pretty chill. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain_Townsend Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 We also finished 6th the following season after the Stoke game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DakotaVilla Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 29 minutes ago, omariqy said: Only if we beat Bournemouth imo and United lose against Liverpool. To a certain degree it’s irrelevant what united do as long as they don’t win 6 or 7 on the bounce, (which they won’t) which is what they will need to do as a minimum to catch us. And we are extremely likely to win at least 2 of our remaining 6 games. As long as the English teams do what’s needed in Europe we’ll be taking at least that fifth spot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 53 minutes ago, Captain_Townsend said: We also finished 6th the following season after the Stoke game. So? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 Just now, Mantis said: So? He's responding to the previous post that said 'That was the last time we finished sixth'. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said: He's responding to the previous post that said 'That was the last time we finished sixth'. Oh fair enough. Was going to say, at this point in that season we were 5th and only a point ahead of 6th! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Villaphan04 Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 5 hours ago, Callum said: The manner of how we dropped points should be an anomaly if we’re to progress as a club that's the 2nd game we've dropped points from a winning position all season. It is an anomaly based on how the season has gone so far. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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