I absolutely detest the international breaks.
So much so that I just totally lose interest in football temporarily. I haven’t even looked at the site for a while and have just realised that there were comments waiting to be approved.
Apologies to those who were affected.
But it’s like the season just loses all it’s impetus and there’s only so many clickbait, utter rubbish supposed transfer stories that I can stomach.
Hence I just tend to turn off.
Which for me has a tendency to make me a bit slow getting back into it.
Never mind, it’s Brighton at home today. I know we played Arsenal away last, but for some reason it feels like we’ve had loads of games at home lately.
Oh and blimey, it’s actually at 3pm. On a Saturday.
I honestly can’t remember the last time we kicked off a game at it’s traditional time, so I’ve just had to check. It transpires we haven’t played one this season. I think we were supposed to play Man City on a Saturday, but of course it was postponed.
Not one Saturday kickoff in seven games then. That’s just so, so poor to my mind.
Still, here we are and I’m thinking we should be pretty comfortable in this one.
Except that Brighton’s play doesn’t suit us and they always make it difficult to say the least.
That said, for all their good build up play, they have struggled to find any end product this season and sit 16th having won just one game of their eight.
Villa, conversely, have been doing very well thank you and I’m struggling to see past us winning this one, the usual caveats applying (oh no, don’t let me jinx things!).
Squad news and Tom Heaton played in the midweek friendly with seemingly no ill effects.
Kortney Hause is training , but Bjorn Engels and Freddie Guilbert are both out.
None of those would have started anyway and otherwise I believe everyone is fit, so it’s all good.
Do we need to ask what the team will be? Probably not and there’s a lot to be said of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. It does make it a bit boring when you’re trying to write stuff, but then we all know the usual first eleven is pretty much all we’ve got to go with.
You have to wonder how long it will be before injuries start to kick in though and I wonder if Dean Smith should be looking to swap players out earlier, especially if we’re in a good position?
It’s his choice and quite simply, the table doesn’t lie, so he can choose to do what he likes.
As for Brighton, Lewis Dunk’s three match ban is up and you’d expect him to go straight back in to the team. Aaron Connolly and Solly March are back in contention, but it’s probably too soon for Leandro Trossard. Davy Propper has recovered from an achilles problem, but has been ill, so today might be too soon for him too.
If the stupid international break hasn’t killed our momentum, I think we’ll win this.
Will Brighton score?
Well they have got too many up to now, so I’m saying we’ll do our usual and help them in that area.
Let’s say they get one.
It has to be 2-1 to us then, doesn’t it?
Which would keep us rolling along very nicely.
UTV!
I hate when I start to become confident. I just know I’m riding for a fall.
As suspected, no changes;
Emiliano Martínez, Matty Cash, Ezri Konsa, Tyrone Mings, Matt Targett, Douglas Luiz, John McGinn, Trézéguet, Ross Barkley, Jack Grealish, Ollie Watkins.
Substitutes: Neil Taylor, Jed Steer, Conor Hourihane, Marvelous Nakamba, Anwar El Ghazi, Ahmed El Mohamady, Bertrand Traore.
Brighton are not a bad side and I think they’re better than their position suggests.
We will need to be on our game – I’m actually going for a draw without predicting a score line.
UTV
http://liveonscore.tv/soccer-streams-embed/7934
Barkley – hamstring 2 minutes
Yep, looks like it 🙁
Traore coming on
Traore coming on.
What does that say about how Conors rated?
Where the f**k was the defence – absolute crap
Jeez, where did that come from?
Wellbeck 1-0
Shite. Well against the run of play… Bit of over confidence there.
Just what we didn’t want to do – hand Brighton a big slug of confidence and then miss an open goal
Trez!!!
Jeez.
Good job Martinez is alert. We’re awful at the back.
Ooh Watkins should have scored then.
McGinn’s passing has been poor up to now.
Big difference today and that is I don’t feel we’re beaten already.
end to end first half ends with us one nil down.but it could have been worse and could have been better. martinez saved well preventing us going two down. we have been close to equalising several times. trez had few chances watkins also should have done better with one cleared off the line.
caution second half if they get the second before we hit back this game will become a bridge too far. we have played well and unlucky to be behind, just got to take our chances
I feel if we don’t score early on second half it will be a repeat of Leeds game. Defensively we are all over the place. Targett back to his usual defensive display. Lamptey having the run of VP. We need to be more clinical up front. Our build up play is very good. We still have 45 minutes so patience is key.
Konsa!
Get in!
1-1
Yesssss!!!!!
That defending was as bad as ours!