I’m not going to dwell on the Palace game too much, as most of it has been said already here and elsewhere, save to say that their handball goal should have stood and Grealish, in all honesty should have been booked for trying to deceive the ref.
The performance was adequate and it seems many sites gave very decent player ratings for most of the team.
But being realistic, I think the truth is that it was more about Palace being very poor. Even Taylor was rated as very good, after all and we all know how he’s rated by the Villa fans. Good professional yes, but by no means a quality player.
Perhaps I’m being harsh.
You can only beat what’s put in front of you after all.
And anyway, it doesn’t matter what I think; all that mattered was us getting the points.
Which we did.
Grealish looked brighter, but seems to have lost a bit of attacking instinct and seems to hesitate at times. He certainly should have shot first time in the play that led up to the non-penalty, imo.
Elmo did well, as did Trezeguet, in the second half at least. I pointed out a couple of weeks back that he looks our best hope as a finisher lately and seems to have better positional sense when we do threaten. So much so that I wonder if there would be any mileage in putting him up top?
Nah, it’s a daft thought and it’s too late anyway.
Which leads me nicely into the Everton game.
I watched bits of their game against Wolves and they didn’t look very good. The classic “they’re already on the beach” definitely sprang to mind, with even some of their own players admitting that they lacked desire and need their backsides kicking.
Which is what I think the game will boil down to.
Who wants it the most?
There’s no doubt the Villa lads worked hard and played for each other yesterday and it was good to see, as it means we ain’t quite down just yet.
For me, our best hope is that Everton don’t fire themselves up. Our luck says they will, but it’s hard to see how. They have nothing to gain, after all, apart from maybe a few quid in position money and it’s hard to see that motivating the players much.
I’m too scared to predict the score, because I don’t want to jinx us, so I’ll just say I’ll be keeping everything crossed come kickoff.
And then, I can’t finish without commenting about Man City.
CAS mostly overturning UEFA’s decision is horrendous and scary.
This has now moved all the power away from UEFA and towards the clubs.
In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if FFP is dropped, because it seems it’s unenforceable.
A German paper, Der Spiegel, found evidence that Etihad sponsored the club for £67 Million, yet the airline itself only paid around £8 million or so, with the rest paid by the Abu Dhabi group.
How can they get away with this?
Every man and his dog knows this is bent.
The worrying part is a Football expert who helped write the FFP rules said on the Beeb that if we’re not careful, the European game will be controlled by just three middle Eastern entities, which are basically countries (Saudi, Abu Dhabi and the UAE).
How on earth have we let it come to this?
Actually, it’s probably quite easy to answer that.
Football has sold it’s soul to pure and unadulterated greed.
And Sky and the Premier league are the most guilty.
I strongly suspect that those of us who said the Premier league will kill the game are slowly being proved right.
Dead on for Plan Z. West Ham win, Manchester beat London, we beat London twice cause they dont care
This is gutting. If we’d have kept a clean sheet for another 180 seconds, we’d be feeling jubilant tonight.
As it is, more, more, more agony.
3 1 hammers probably a good result as their goal difference is superior to all the other bottom clubs. but still means we need to win both games to stand a chance. all our love, hate. blood, sweat and tears into the arsenal game. got to win that and then only then look to the hammers game. all season we promised so much during games, but never mustered 90 +5 mins of no mistakes football and good performance. lets break that mould and play it perfect for once. ‘
arsenal are hit and miss side, they are not great at all and they can be got at the back. rough them up i would. pay back for robbing us earlier in season. its our cup final and jacks last home game. no less than 3 points or back into the championship we go
Rough them up?
Aresenal are a bunch of pansies, imo and it’s why they haven’t done too well lately.
But I’d still expect them to be roughing us up, if anything.
We just don’t have that Hutton, Whelan or Jedinak type, who could put it about.
true badger, but have you not notice we are a bunch of pansies too. it is not in our game with these players. we can not rough a team up (legally) and we can not see out a game when that is called for. basics really we do the harder stuff better but can not do these simple things.
playing a team like arsenal who like to caress the ball around with one twos and pretty triangles patterns. its imperative you get in and amongst them. whether that is in our game or not. if we allow them to relax and play at will. would only increase the difficulty of the job in hand.
I think me suggesting that a load of pansies will more likely rough us up hints that I think we’re a bigger bunch of pansies!
I do get what you mean though.
We have to get amongst them and try and disrupt their play.
I think the effort is there to do it and we might even suceed.
But you just can’t trust us to not concede, can you?
i think we agree they are both pansies but my point is to get in amongst them, if we stand off them and allow them play we can forget about winning that game and we will be down more or less.
they basically play today and will have less time to prepare for villa than vice versa. we have to get stuck in and mean even if we cant do that we have to watch luiz. he gets stuck in no matter the opponent. he protects the back four and other two midfielders need to take a leaf out of his game.