Ratings & Reactions: Villa v Man City

[Villaphan04]

Can we have John Brooks ref all our matches from now on???

[maqroll]

29 minutes ago, Villaphan04 said:

Can we have John Brooks ref all our matches from now on???

Yes please!

[GlobalVillan]

Have that you cheating ******.

That is all. 

[TomC]

1 hour ago, maqroll said:

I worry that we might have emptied the tank. They rested a few regulars vs Luton and will be fresher than us. But I still back us to win because Emery has captured lightning in a bottle.

We can bring Cash, JJ, Moreno, Diaby, even Lenglet off our bench. No worries.

 

[BigJim]

On around 64 mins the Mexican commentator on Paramount said "I don't want this game to end!" 

It was wonderful to be able to watch on TV but how I envy those of you that were there, and did you ever play your part! Non-Stop Noise!

[srsmithusa]

what's not to love.  A few odds and ends I notice.  Emery doesn't play the same way more than a few matches in a row.  He switched things up for ths.  Based on general principle and past setups.  when anyone saw mcginn, tielemans, bailey in the line-up, you would have thought mcginn right mid, tielemanns left, bailey withdrawn striker.  NOPE, NOPE, NOPE.     With a back 4 of Konsa, Carlos, Torres, Digne, one would think mostly a back three with Digne pushing up.  NOPE, played a pretty straightforward back 4 with Ezri often pushing up just as high as Digne.

Bailey MOTM easily for me.   But feel guilty not giving it to McGinn, Kamara, or Torres.  I thought they all put in MOTM worthy  performances on another night, but Bailey was simply the destroyer of Man City.   But I was struck by how and why.  Yes, he and Tielemanns showed a good understanding of each other.  Tielemanns fed him the ball quite often, but importantly, Tielemanns was almost an advance midfielder, not an attacking forward.  His dropping deeper than others have in that role.  This created all sorts of room for Bailey to create and cut in to the middle (and his fearsome left foot )  all that room, let Bailey do all that footwork flair that fires him up and builds confidence.  Then when he went inside, Ezri or youri would swing out wide for an option (and often a cross) the other of the two would drop into space behind Bailey to give hime a safe outlet or even a back up if a defender poked it away.  The motion and the space Youri, Leon, and Ezri created for each other was a thing of beauty, and I think Unai deserves the credit.   (can the manager be MOTM?)

The other thing we changed was that we were much more compact.  RArely were there more than 30 yards between Pau and Ollie.  It gave MC no room for passing about and create an astonishing number of turnovers.  We just had too many bodies pressing the play.  TBH, I expected MC to start trying more balls over the top, but there was too much pressure on the ball for them to see the runs and time the pass to beat the offside trap, which we continue to run with excellence.

SJM was a study in possession.

Everyone played with immense confidence and aggression.  

Happy, ecstatic, over the moon, what a performance

[TomC]

So, how did we do it?

To me, this was the match of the dribble. The obvious part was Bailey running at them at will in their end. McGinn too.

The less obvious part was how we beat their press with the dribble. City tend to press with more ferocity than anyone, even more than Liverpool now that Klopp has backed off from his "heavy metal" days. Often, when they run at someone at full speed, the ball carrier panics and plays a poor pass. What Unai seems to have realized is that it's very hard for the presser to react when he's running at you at full speed. How many times did we see someone in our back line calmly dribble around whoever was pressing him. They eventually backed off after getting burned so many times.

Once we got past the press, they had nothing to stop us until Ederson. Gundogan and Rodri were the heart of their engine room; the former is gone for good, the latter was out tonight, and Stones and Lewis were no match for Kamara, McGinn, and Doug.

Meanwhile, I've never seen a team win the ball off City so effortlessly. We could afford to take risks, we could afford to pepper the net with shots from half-chances, because we weren't worried whether we could get the ball back.

We seemed to have all their angles figured out. They would play their usual triangles to beat our press but we cut off the escape routes and boxed them into corners. We also seemed to keep them off guard by varying our pressing shape. We started out in our usual 4-4-2, though with Tielemans up top and Bailey in midfield, then went to 4-3-3 with Bailey joining the front line, then we seemed to switch to a flexible front where players would join Watkins from the right or left depending on where the ball was.

Kamara was so impressive to me tonight not only because he won the ball so much but, going back to the topic of dribbling, how well he dribbled out of the inevitable counter-press and firmed up possession.

Few people have mentioned Diego...I thought the way he physically harassed Haaland was very impressive. He's not quite as big as Mings but he still kept Haaland on edge like Mings did.

I could go on because everyone played well tonight, but to me, those were the big difference makers.

 

 

[fruitvilla]

I just re-watched the game without the jitters; here are a few observations:

I agree with all the positives.
Man City could do with a 100 million pound striker ... oh wait.
I thought our press, when we turned it on was a joy to behold.
Man City, their press was by and large a pretend press, especially Haaland jogging up to the defender.
Too many of our passes went astray, not that every pass has to hit its mark, but many that did were not 'incisive'.

[sne]

Had a migraine last night so missed the game. Feel fantastic this morning thou after seeing the result. I know what I'm gonna watch when I get home from work this afternoon  

[El Zen]

1 hour ago, sne said:

I know what I'm gonna watch when I get home from work this afternoon  

Porn, right? 

[villa4europe]

Another statto nugget

Villa won the ball back in city's half 13 times last night, the most against Peps city 

[Follyfoot]

8 hours ago, rjw63 said:

Almost in tears of joy, what a complete team performance, I can’t remember better in fifty years

The only one that springs to mind if is when we beat Liverpool 5-1 at VP in 1977 and scored 5 in the first half

That’ll do pig, that’ll do

[Eligius]

Didn't sleep much last night, I still have adrenaline flowing through my veins after that magnificent performance.

[villa4europe]

5 minutes ago, Follyfoot said:

The only one that springs to mind if is when we beat Liverpool 5-1 at VP in 1977 and scored 5 in the first half

That’ll do pig, that’ll do

The 7-2 for me but that game was washed with utter bizareness whereas last night was a controlled tactical masterclass

[a-k]

4 hours ago, ejs1111 said:

I'm just speechless.  And I'm watching a replay of the game to relive it all again.  I'm 49yrs old and given the opponent- that's the best I've ever seen a Villa team play.  They couldn't lay a glove on us, we were in complete control and dominant for the vast majority of the match.  Could have easily been 2-0 or 3-0.  Should have been frankly.

I saw on twitter from one of the xG stat posters- from the 11th minute until the end of the match- Citeh had 0.00 xG.  Thats how dominant Villa were today.  Remarkable.  Bring on the Arse this weekend. 

UTV

 

[romavillan]

6 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

Another statto nugget

Villa won the ball back in city's half 13 times last night, the most against Peps city 

That's an amazing stat, we compressed the game extremely well with the high line. Haaland was coming deep to help out nearly all the time by the end so they less players trying to exploit the space behind. Tactical masterclass from Emery, it was ballsy to go for it but we absolutely dominated for long periods. Getting off them in their own half every 6/7 minutes before they could create anything and catching them out of their shape just underlines it.

[Genie]

City really did not know what him them. Seeing them rattled like that was crazy. 

[magnkarl]

I'm at work in Germany this week so I went to a local sports pub in Hamburg. Obviously there were loads of young kids and their dads supporting City as they are the new plastics, so I was terribly chuffed when we literally dominated them for 90 minutes. Their keeper kept the score down, it could easily have been 3 or 4-0.

UTV!

[lapal_fan]

16 minutes ago, Eligius said:

Didn't sleep much last night, I still have adrenaline flowing through my veins after that magnificent performance.

Same!

I'm usually a pretty slow starter, but I'm contemplating going to the gym later once my kids are off at school

Proper spring in my step.

Do you think it'll look weird at the gym that I still have a hard on?

[Demitri_C]

Good morning villatalk what a beautiful morning

I had a crazy dream last night that we absolutely battered citeh To restrict them to only 3 shots and completely out played them. Then we were sitting 3rd in the league.