Ratings & Reactions: Villa v Arsenal

[Lochheads twin]

What days to be alive and a Villa fan!

A totally different style of performance but showing equally important characteristics from Wednesday night. This was all about tenacity & resolve to keep running when the tank was empty. The crowd played no small part in getting them over the line.

The brilliant goal was from the template of Emeryball. All about movement and control. A real peach.

This side has some some physically big & strong characters but none physically bigger or stronger than our captain. John McGinn is the heartbeat of this side. He seems to be able to play anywhere on the park but is revelling in the new freedom he has been given. Was always a good player but has blossomed under Unai and his coaches. It was fascinating to hear him talk about a similar chance missed in a previous game when the coaches advised him to spin the other way if the chance occurred. Last night it did and Bang!

I think he is very close to being my all-time Villa hero or at least up there with Brian Little, Andy Gray, Benteke & Paul McGrath plus the 82 team. Well deserves to be in that company. He epitomises everything about Aston Villa. Skilful, tenacious, gracious, humble,  hardworking, a true team player & all round great bloke. I will stop now before it ends in tears.

A shout out to the subs last night. They all came on and added fresh legs when we were out on our feet. DenDonker must have played his most important role in his short time at the Villa. Was surprised that Duran did not also get a run. Ollie got very little change out of the two Arsenal centre back who were able to outmuscle him.

Well done lads. Hopefully will get some rest this week before we go again.

Onwards & Upwards!

 

Edited December 10, 2023 by Lochheads twin
typo

[Tom13]

38 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

Every shot is still different. I still think our xG should be higher as we had McGinn's goal (best chance of the game once he'd got it onto his left foot), Watkins other effort (pass from Diaby), and Digne's effort also.

Edited December 10, 2023 by Tom13

[bobzy]

Another good performance after the Man City win in midweek. Arsenal certainly had chances, but so did we. It felt like they were the “better side” but not by such a margin that they deserved to win as per Arteta.

I have some sympathy with them over the last minute disallowed goal. Just not really sure why that should ever be handball. Same with Bournemouth’s “4th” against Man Utd. But, hey, thems the rules for whatever reason. 

[Brumstopdogs]

Sometimes teams need to win ugly:

Back to the Villa match there are obviously different ways to win a game and we dug in yesterday and rode our luck at times.

However, after the monumental performance against City and the less rest we gave it our all and can't ask much more than that. UTV!

[Stevo985]

19 minutes ago, Tom13 said:

Every shot is still different. I still think our xG should be higher as we had McGinn's goal (best chance of the game once he'd got it onto his left foot), Watkins other effort (pass from Diaby), and Digne's effort also.

McGinn’s was a difficult chance. He’s done very well with that given he wasn’t facing the goal when he got it. That is taken into account in xG. His chance was only an xG of 0.14 ish

Saka’s chance before that when he completely missed the ball was double that. That counts towards xG even though he didn’t get a shot off

Edited December 10, 2023 by Stevo985

[HongKongVillan]

10 hours ago, Jas10 said:

Surely the worst fanbase, or at least this group of morons

 

The first time I hear anyone blaming offsides because of the high wind 

[Talldarkandransome]

11 hours ago, Jas10 said:

Surely the worst fanbase, or at least this group of morons

 

If ya can't cope with wind then f off to the moon, you might win summat up there against the clangers

[Kingman]

13 hours ago, Jas10 said:

What a captain we have too…. Simply immense.

BraveArse 

[Robtaylor200]

So. After watching highlights,  motd , you tube etc.etc. IMO we are still not getting the respect we deserve.  Arsenal.were not performing blah blah. We were lucky again. We have been lucky for the last 30 odd games have we. Let them keep putting us down, we know how good we are. Can't wait to see if we spend in January.  Unai has told them, if th3y don't perform, then he will get some.one who can.  Tough boss, tough league

Loving it. The good times are back 

Edited December 10, 2023 by Robtaylor200

[oishiiniku_uk]

• Handball decision followed the letter of the law so VAR can't intervene (even if the rule is questionable).
• Penalty decision was negligible and not a clear and obvious error (maybe if Jesus didn't throw himself to the ground screaming at every opportunity he might have been believed). Again, VAR doesn't intervene because there's not enough evidence to the contrary.

And yet, Arsenal's deluded fanbase - whipped up by their cranky, ungracious manager - have somehow managed to equate these decisions with the ones at Newcastle (where most people would agree VAR screwed them over). It's funny, we've not been on the radar of these big, toxic fanbases like Arsenal and Spurs for a long time, if ever, but you only have to rattle them a little bit and they go fully nuclear!  Quite satisfying really.

[TRO]

14 hours ago, stewiek2 said:

I'm a straight white 52 year old man, and I would have Unai Emery's children in a heartbeat.

He's simply perfection.

I'll knit some booties.

[Shaun Teales Moustache]

I don't know where is the best place to put this, but I have to vent somewhere and I outright refuse to get drawn into an argument on twitter...

If you hear an Arsenal fan moan about the Havertz goal, point them to this:

https://www.sportingnews.com/ca/soccer/news/handball-football-rules-changes-fifa-uefa-hand-ball-soccer/tdnqkct6nzocrbfvscrxvtzl

It quotes the full handball rule. The important part being:

Quote

It is an offence if a player:

... scores in the opponents’ goal:

... immediately after the ball has touched their hand/arm, even if accidental

There were at least 3 handballs leading up to the ball ending up in the net. It hit Cash's shoulder/upper arm first, but it didn't meet any of the criteria that made it a handball. It clearly wasn't intentional and he wasn't in an unnatural position trying to block the ball. He was just in a physical sandwich between Havertz and Martinez.

The ball then hit Havertz on the arm shown here which changed the direction of the ball. Still clearly accidental, so not an offence to that point. 

It then hit his hand again, which was the one VAR focused in on, and showed definitively that it did hit his hand. Again it was totally unintentional, but it was immediately before he scored (the first handball was probably also immediate enough also fwiw), so it met the criteria quoted above.

It's so frustrating that there doesn't seem to be any interest in the media in clarifying what decisions are right and wrong. Some can be ambiguous, but this was not even slightly. 

[Wainy316]

That was a lot more nervy than Wednesday.  Man City are **** shit .

That said, the first 10 minutes were incredible, it was like a direct continuation of Wednesday and the place was absolutely bouncing!

[TRO]

The game is about putting the ball in the net....Arsenal didn't do it, within the rules, so how could they be the better team.The game is measured by the team who scores the most goals, not the most chances, or the most passes.....They are bitter in defeat, crikey, they are bad losers....They need to learn how to lose with dignity, before claiming a Title.....absolutely shocking display of entitlement from them.

The XG's and other stats are just for the media, to get off on analytics....In the cold light of day, they only have a cosmetic effect on things.....to me they are just comfort, for a team who has lost, and feels they shouldn't have.

The league table is clear in the criteria it needs for its formulation.....Thats all that matters.

PS In some quarters they are still trying to talk us out of the Euro Cup Final, where the solitary goal, was all that mattered too.

[luckyeddie]

Just seen the Havertz goal. He looked like someone taking a hot potato out of the microwave . No handball my arse. 

[TRO]

7 hours ago, VillaJ100 said:

I do think xG can be a load of bollocks sometimes. Like Mcginn's goal was something like 0.18xG. 

Also I lost faith in it when it doesn't account for who has the chance. Salah one on one or Danny Graham and you'd 'expect a goal' way more often from one than another 

I take it with a pinch of salt...Its not a metric, I pay much attention to.

I'll stick to getting excited about actual goals, not predicted/ likely goals.

just another extension of the world of make believe.

Edited December 10, 2023 by TRO

[Brumstopdogs]

32 minutes ago, oishiiniku_uk said:

• Handball decision followed the letter of the law so VAR can't intervene (even if the rule is questionable).
• Penalty decision was negligible and not a clear and obvious error (maybe if Jesus didn't throw himself to the ground screaming at every opportunity he might have been believed). Again, VAR doesn't intervene because there's not enough evidence to the contrary.

And yet, Arsenal's deluded fanbase - whipped up by their cranky, ungracious manager - have somehow managed to equate these decisions with the ones at Newcastle (where most people would agree VAR screwed them over). It's funny, we've not been on the radar of these big, toxic fanbases like Arsenal and Spurs for a long time, if ever, but you only have to rattle them a little bit and they go fully nuclear!  Quite satisfying really.

I agree with most of that.

Ultimately the player who put the ball in the net for Arsenal did handball it so, as you say, followed the letter of the law.

For the penalty decision I've seen them given and I've seen them not given. There is a lot of inconsistency. However, the way Jesus threw himself down to the ground there may have swayed the referee's decision. Personally, I don't like seeing penalties for incidents like that so think it was the right decision.

Agree we have rattled a few fanbases - they've had it their own way for too long!

[tinker]

1 hour ago, HongKongVillan said:

The first time I hear anyone blaming offsides because of the high wind 

Just hot air

[TRO]

I just love 1-0's, and Maximum points.

There is something about a 1-0 that makes the opposition think they had a chance, like catching a large fish and seeing it escape from the hook or seeing a golfer spew a putt at the 18th to lose a match....The reality is, the rules of the competition say, you lost.

1-0's are a bit of a tease and make teams think they are in a game......but the reality is, until you score, to equalise, you are just kidding yourself.

Its not easy to win 1-0 for the victor.....more credit must be given to the team that manages it, as it takes a lot of resillient play, concentration, and hard work,  to achieve it.

Edited December 10, 2023 by TRO

[stewiek2]

13 hours ago, Giro said:

Hopefully Birmingham council have enough money for the title parade in may 

Surely you mean Lichfield council? We can't have all these DVB's drinking in town...

 

 

 

 

Mate.

Edited December 10, 2023 by stewiek2