The honest truth is I haven’t had much time for the site lately. Replenishing our totally drained ISAs doesn’t come easily to me and I have to work long hours to earn the required income to be able to put money back in. Still, in times where young people struggle to even be able to get on the ladder, I’m very much appreciative that I could lay down cash to buy a property abroad. Basically, making the most of the last, high earning years of my career means other things have to be lessened.
You contributors seem to have been doing a good job of keeping things going and I’m appreciative of that. Ta very much 🙂
So while the Wycombe game was a game of two halves, it struck me that it was a team that really didn’t know each other and that’s exactly what it was. We won the game, gave some of the second eleven minutes and played some kids. Not much to moan about, I guess and I’ll leave it there.
Ipswich away then and as much as I see they’ll be fighting and it’s a possible banana skin game, given the long held general Villa fan thinking, where things going as you think just doesn’t happen, I now find myself moving on from that.
Hence if I think Ipswich are going to struggle this season (and I do) this game has to go down as a shoe-in. It’s quite simple, to my mind.
If we’ve truly stepped up a level and given we are in the Champion’s league, you have to assume we have, you have to approach games with the opinion that we are going to win.
Of course, there’s always the possibility of a Liverpool-Forest type result, but these should now become very rare.
Is that the correct way to think? I’m not sure and would appreciate you telling me your thoughts.
Whatever, it’s the way events have taken me. I expect to win the vast majority of games and am going to get the right hump if we lose games, simple. You’ve been warned, as much as you might think I’m out of order at times.
Expectations eh? Personally, I find them quite scary. It’s always been my motto to aim low and anything better is great when it comes to the Villa. Now it’s more a case of aim high and anything worse is very poor. Someone is doing a superb job if they have been able to change my mindset after 50 odd years as a Villa fan.
I digress. Squad news then and the big news is that John McGinn is out after tweaking his hammy in the Wolves game. He’s always a loss to me, but it’s been pointed out that he’s not quite indispensible anymore and as much as it saddens me to say it, I’m tempted to agree. He’s surely a future club ambassador, but we haven’t got there yet.
Hopefully, he’s back soon and played as that attacking mid we all think he really is.
That said, look at what Unai said;
“But, analysing his performances before his injury, he needed to improve and needed to increase his performance.
“And we were working with him in his focus to increase it.”
Im shocked. and stunned. Very stunned. (Did anyone else think the Rutles were great?) but it shows the current mindset. Look at what’s being said. He’s been crap lately. Now combine that with Emery’s comment about our first half against Wycombe which I couldn’t possibly print on such a respectable site as this (Ha)
It would seem the manager’s thoughts are very much aligned with the fans.
Skysports seem to be suggesting that Tyrone Mings and Boubacar Kamara are close to returning, which is surely an admission that our current defence is total rubbish. The stats don’t lie. We’ve been conceding far too many goals and I suspect Unai has the CL more in mind , rather than this piddling little inconvenience of a game (! my sarcastic reference to how the thinking has changed).
Ipswich news and they’re in pretty good shape. Kalvin Philips will be a last minute assessment job and how the over-hyped have fallen. What’s he doing playing at Ipswich? He obviously hasn’t performed and we dodged one there for sure, given that he was the next best thing and we were supposedly all over him.
Prediction then and it has to be a convincing 2-1 win to the Villa and they’ll only get the one because our defence is currently so poor.
The reality is more that we’ll scrape a win in a pretty ugly game. The same result applies in my prediction, but I’ve been lying to you when it comes down to it. Ultimately, I don’t ever see me losing that “the Villa way” doubt.
UTV!
I told ya. It’s the Villa way.
2 points dropped, although they well deserved their point.
9 corners we lack guts , they played football we played tip tap and not sending the ball up pitch but pass back and side again . Can you release in moderation on other post Badger .
I already have Bill. Read back and it’s there.
Ipswich had more fire in the belly than we did and we were lucky to get a point. A really poor performance and it is difficult to name anyone who stood out as playing well.
We won’t win anything with our current defence. If you score 2 goals away from home then you should be winning.
2 points dropped. The Tractor Boys were fit, incisive and committed. We hit a brick wall, and they should have been down to 10 men so we were up against a twat of a ref today.
Bit pissed off, but we were a 65% team today. See u Wednesday!!!!
At least Cash is in position when we need a right back – whether it is just over the half way line or on the edge of our area. Konsa only shows for the 2nd case. Several balls over the top to Delap and Konsa out of shot. Ipswich under orders to kick Philogene out of the game?
Play like that on Wednesday and it will be a thrashing.
Did we miss Big John today? We certainly lacked aggression.
Without McGinn we definitely looked a soft touch. Wouldn’t it have been better playing Nedeljkovic at RB to offer pace while playing Konsa in his best position? When Watkins scored the 2nd, we should have gone for the jugular when they looked vulnerable.
Against Bayern we need to up our levels massively all over the pitch or we will be in for a rough evening.
We have to realise that to win we have to give it our all. If we think we can turn up and collect all the points, we are sadly mistaken.
It is crucial that Cash, McGinn, Mings and Kamara return quickly and can get back up to speed. It seems like we now have a first 15 players to choose from at the moment. The 11 who started plus:
Duran
Barkley
Maatsen
Buendia
None of the others are Premier proven.
In total, I reckon we have 19 proven premier quality players. The others need time to develop or replaced by better players. Trouble is we will always have injuries, which means we lack depth to our squad. In turn this means an over reliance on core players. Today we played like minds were on Wednesday evening.
In fact this is a bad result. The best team was picked and expected to dispatch this lesser premier team. Then in turn substitutions could have been made earlier. But it failed to do so. The same players will be called upon to play Bayern and Munich in the next 6 days. Fatigue will set in.
Just hate it when we don’t win!
Badger I really appreciate the time and effort you put into this site.
I’m sick of saying that a RB should have been No 1 priority before anything else.
It’s obvious Emery thinks Ned isn’t up to it yet.
Hence our best defender, an England international, no less, is being played out of position that just doesn’t suit him imo.
I’m not afraid to say that as well as we’re doing atm, that was a terribly poor decision from whoever is in charge of players in/out.
And we’re paying for it with a pisspoor defence.
The annoying thing is every man and his dog knew it.
I find myself wondering how that 2 points dropped might affect us come the end of the season?
Ye shit that today I worry for Wednesday our defence isn’t good enough
Hey, lads, have I given the impression I’m moving away from the site?
I’m not. It’s just that sometimes earning money is more important and the site has to take a temporary back seat.
I’ll always be a Villa fan, hence I’ll always have an opinion, where I love to hear other opinions 🙂
Can’t keep clean sheets = going nowhere. Without wishing to be negative. Has to change. And quickly…
Man Ure were shocking again today and Fernandez will miss the game against us next Sunday. The other positive is we play at home on Wednesday and Man Ure play away at Porto on Thursday so that should be in our favour.
We’ll lose, then.