Ratings & Reactions: Man City v Villa

[avfc1982am]

Just now, Leeroy said:

Not embarrassed myself at all, freedom of speech, you chill out.

Proclaiming Arsenal fans are correct calling Emery a coward.... lol. It's about as embarrassing as it gets. 

[NurembergVillan]

3 minutes ago, Leeroy said:

We are much better than them so really should, as long as Emery plays the strongest team. I’m starting to worry he doesn’t know what that is though.

I bet Emery's strongest team includes a fully fit (and not suspended) Martinez, Pau Torres, Tielemans, McGinn, Bailey and Watkins. And Kamara. Possibly Mings and Buendia. Almost certainly Jacob Ramsey.

So far from not knowing what it is, it's more that he has to protect it for the games we have a strong chance of winning with our strongest team.

I could get on board if your statement was "he doesn't know his strongest team when 7 of his regular starting 11 aren't fully fit", because the drop off from first team to squad players is massive.

But your statement wasn't that, so I wholeheartedly disagree.

[Leeroy]

2 minutes ago, avfc1982am said:

Proclaiming Arsenal fans are correct calling Emery a coward.... lol. It's about as embarrassing as it gets. 

No it isn’t. It was a cowardly selection IMO and I’m a Villa fan. He essentially picked a team that didn’t have a hope in hell of getting a result at City, of course Arsenal fans will be pissed off. Maybe you’ve had a few too many sherbets so can’t see it.

Edited April 3 by Leeroy

[NurembergVillan]

Just now, Leeroy said:

No it isn’t. It was a cowardly selection IMO and I’m a Villa fan. He essentially picked a team that didn’t have a hope in hell of getting a result at City, of course Arsenal fans will be pissed off. Maybe you’ve had a few too many sherbets so can’t see it.

Who would you have picked that he didn't - bearing in mind City left out Haaland and KDB who have both suffered niggling injuries and played international games lately?

[fruitvilla]

Could have been worse.

Olsen was not the problem

[GingerCollins29]

5 minutes ago, Leeroy said:

No it isn’t. It was a cowardly selection IMO and I’m a Villa fan. He essentially picked a team that didn’t have a hope in hell of getting a result at City, of course Arsenal fans will be pissed off. Maybe you’ve had a few too many sherbets so can’t see it.

Sorry, but I couldnt give two **** what arsenal fans thinkb about us or emery

[DJBOB]

I find the omg we didn’t start our best XI a hilarious overreaction given that City declined to start Haaland/KDB/Stones and Arsenal declined to start Rice, Jesus and Martinelli.

Meanwhile Spurs fielded a best XI and hardly looked better than West Ham. 
 
Unai made a business decision to rotate and go light against City. So did Pep. So did Arteta! The difference is they have hundreds of millions of pounds sitting on the bench and we don’t. 
 
To ignore the gulf in resources is to ignore reality. The best thing we can do is win our verifiably more winnable matches and keep advancing in Europe. 
 
We don’t have anything else to prove this season. 

[tinker]

34 minutes ago, jackbauer24 said:

Sorry, whilst I understand the rationale, I will NEVER accept giving up before a ball is kicked. Emery's lineup may have been impacted by injuries and suspensions but it doesn't explain all the decisions on TOP of that.

No Pau, Bailey, Tielemans when available. Bringing on Chambers and kids to replace seniors players. We may as well have just played all the kids such was the approach and set up to that game.

I'm genuinely fuming that we are all so ready to accept this approach. Not taking risks with likes of Watkins and Ramsey might be fine, but to simply rest players in the Premier League (unless against WORSE) opposition is, frankly, pathetic.

I get it, I really do. But I do not like it and will never like it. They rested players against us to some degree because they have bigger games coming up and put out a team they still (correctly!) thought could win. We simply gave up. Based on how that went, a draw wouldn't have been out the realms of possibility if we'd approached it with integrity.

I imagine Martinez's illness got a lot worse when he saw the team sheet.

The team did well enough in the main, but they could play that match 100 times and never get a point such was the difference in quality. We were set up to fail and obviously lost.

I never want to see a Villa side throw a game and that's what thar effectively was. You rest players against worst teams and perhaps mess it up, but you don't surrender like that.

So for all the good he has done, that has to be a VERY POOR for Emery and I never want to see that approach again.

Drivel, sound like an Arsenal/ Liverpool fan

[Leeroy]

Just now, NurembergVillan said:

Who would you have picked that he didn't - bearing in mind City left out Haaland and KDB who have both suffered niggling injuries and played international games lately?

Probably quite obvious but Torres, Bailey and Tielemans for Lenglet, Rogers and Iroegbunam. Lenglet out because he can’t defend even against average teams, Rogers got an assist but is just too raw and against a team like City losing the ball constantly just put us under constant pressure, and Iroegbunam had a good game but Tielemans would have created more chances (that’s maybe the one I got wrong, Tim was good tonight).

 

We probably would have still lost but I think we’d have had a better chance. As I said all is forgotten if we beat Brentford.

[Leeroy]

3 minutes ago, GingerCollins29 said:

Sorry, but I couldnt give two **** what arsenal fans thinkb about us or emery

Cool, you do you mate.

[avfc1982am]

4 minutes ago, Leeroy said:

No it isn’t. It was a cowardly selection IMO and I’m a Villa fan. He essentially picked a team that didn’t have a hope in hell of getting a result at City, of course Arsenal fans will be pissed off. Maybe you’ve had a few too many sherbets so can’t see it.

I don't drink, too busy looking after myself . You crack on though calling the manager a coward.

[GingerCollins29]

1 minute ago, Leeroy said:

Cool, you do you mate.

You're on a mad one tonight mate

[Mantis]

2 minutes ago, Leeroy said:

Probably quite obvious but Torres, Bailey and Tielemans for Lenglet, Rogers and Iroegbunam. Lenglet out because he can’t defend even against average teams, Rogers got an assist but is just too raw and against a team like City losing the ball constantly just put us under constant pressure, and Iroegbunam had a good game but Tielemans would have created more chances (that’s maybe the one I got wrong, Tim was good tonight).

 

We probably would have still lost but I think we’d have had a better chance. As I said all is forgotten if we beat Brentford.

It's probable that Torres is carrying an injury of some kind. At the end of the day, Bailey over Rogers and Tielemans over Iroegbunam, while better, wouldn't have improved our chances significantly.

[Leeroy]

1 minute ago, GingerCollins29 said:

You're on a mad one tonight mate

Not really mate. I literally just said that’s fine if you don’t care what other fans think. If others do though then let them be.

[TomC]

48 minutes ago, Leeroy said:

I will forgive him tonight if we beat Brentford. If we don’t I’ll be fuming. We’ve effectively thrown tonight’s game to focus on Saturday, which is fine if we win that match but absolutely not fine if we don’t win it.

I hope that this won't turn into O'Neill and CSKA Moscow. But I doubt that it will.

 

Edited April 3 by TomC
Accidentially put "will turn" instead of "won't turn"

[TomC]

26 minutes ago, il_serpente said:

And we then had to listen to Peter Drury suck Foden's c*ck over a poor free kick that by all rights should have been straight into the wall at chest level.

Knowing Guardiola's attention to detail, you have to wonder if he saw some old video of Zaniolo turning on a free kick and told Foden to aim it right at him.

 

[foreveryoung]

58 minutes ago, sheepyvillian said:

Shame he doesn't do it at international level. 

Bellingham don't do it at international level under Safegate. 

[foreveryoung]

33 minutes ago, Leeroy said:

No it isn’t. It was a cowardly selection IMO and I’m a Villa fan. He essentially picked a team that didn’t have a hope in hell of getting a result at City, of course Arsenal fans will be pissed off. Maybe you’ve had a few too many sherbets so can’t see it.

We wouldn't have won that, they don't lose at home. An we would have grafted pur knackers off trying. Wasn't worth going for it, it really wasn't.

An any decent manager and fan knows Tottenham are gonna have a few more loses before the end of the season, so no worries from me.

[TomC]

Three things made the difference...

1. The City possession machine was in full bloom and we couldn't win the ball.

2. As everyone already said, we had a team full of second choice players. (Related to #1...City would not have had quite so much of the ball if McGinn and Kamara were playing.)

3. Foden was outstanding.

So, what do I take from our two matches against City this season? Villa at our best are good enough to dominate an off-day City (which would not have been the case even two years ago) but our second choice players are not good enough to hang with peak City (which is no surprise). Put another way, we've progressed, but we need a Foden or two and more depth before we can contend for the title.

Looking forward to Brentford at Villa Park on Saturday.

 

[HanoiVillan]

Slightly surprised by the number of comments along the lines of 'for the team we put out we didn't play too badly' or whatever. Simply, we were very poor, far too passive and gave the ball away too easily. Of course I understand all the reasons *why* we were rubbish, everyone who wasn't available etc. But Emery is famous for - I think rightly - trying to have a 'no excuses culture' at the club so better to be honest I think. 

The Etihad is a dead, dead place to watch football. That they only started singing - briefly - at 3-1 up feels like a perfect metaphor for the club.