The Villa never fail to do it, do they?
Raise your hopes and then fail to produce on a consistent basis, that is.
I was thinking about this yesterday and it led to me wondering why we’ve never any consistent success in my 50+ years of supporting the Villa. I mean, think about it and you’ll see what I’m on about.
Man U, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City and Everton have all had good stints in the limelight, but the second city’s biggest club has never achieved on a similar level. Yes, we won the league and the European cup, along with a few league cups and they’re great achievements, but it just seems to me that we’ve never really had our fair share. After all, you could probably say that Leeds and Forest have had more success than us.
Of course, we’re not quite alone in this. Spurs, Newcastle and maybe others could be classed as similar, but I’d emphasise the second city part in our case. Mind you, I’ve never been convinced that Birmingham (the actual city) has had it’s fair share of much either. Certainly Manchester always seems to be pushed ahead of us, Liverpool has some sort of romanticism about it. Glasgow does too and as for London, well, I’m not even going there.
So what am I getting at?
I don’t know really, apart from hopes being raised and us nearly always failing to produce on the seeming promise.
And we did it again on Wednesday night against Brentford, in producing what I thought was a good first half performance after what I again think of us being poor for months and being on a bad run, in our league outings at least.
Have we turned the corner?
Squad news then and Ramsey is a couple of weeks away, but Onana is close and will be assessed this morning. Perhaps most concerning is the fact that Unai himself doesn’t know who will be available;
“Today I don’t know exactly which players are available for tomorrow – some are doubts, yesterday they were in some pain and as well some were really tired.
We are going to train now, this afternoon, but even training this afternoon, I think until tomorrow morning it’s not going to be clear for me which players will start the match”
Hence it would seem anybody might start.
As for Southampton, they have Taylor Harwood-Bellis, Flynn Downes and Tyler Dibling all back from injuries, but are still not in very good shape. Captain Jack Stephens starts a four match ban after a midweek sending off, Aaron Ramsdale is out with a finger injury, Paul Onuachu is a week away and a certain Jan Bednarek is touch and go. I believe they have other players out too so overall we’re probably doing fairly well injury-wise.
So there we have it. We’re at home to an injury ravaged team, that is struggling at the bottom end of the table. It should all be a very straightforward win to the Villa, shouldn’t it?
Except Southampton have the ability to break on you with very decent pace, something we all know we’ve been very susceptible too, with way we play such a high line. It’s looking pretty windy and that might affect things, so maybe a freaky sort of goal is very much a possibilty. That Dibling kid looks very useful and has a few very nice twists and turns in his box of tricks, combined with some decent pace that could see our right back posed with some very serious problems.
Prediction time then and I’m going to stick my neck out. If Mings plays (and yes, I thought he was great midweek) I’m feeling quite confident and will go for a 3-1 win to the Villa.
See, that’s what they do to you. One win and suddenly the world’s our lobster again!
Fingers crossed and Up the Villa!
Arsenal have scored 23 goals from corners since the start of last season.
Austin?
Mikel Arteta the new Tony Pulis?
A goal’s a goal!
No doubt it’s effective but can you see those Gooooners having enough in their arsenal to win the title? (see what I did there?😁)
Can’t see it myself.
They need a proper striker. Which is weird because, traditionally, they always had world class ones. If and when they decide to buy one, they will win the league comfortably. Until then,…
So, sixth in the Prem and fifth in the CL, I’d guess that we’re all feeling a little better now.
I’m normally quite optimistic but I’m not going to slate anyone here for being pessimistic as I was also beginning to wonder where our next three points were coming from. We definitely need a few new recruits in January but I think we’ll be okay until then.
We’ve got our confidence back now and our two best players, Kamara and Tielemans, are playing well and I guess that we might be seeing a lot more of young Jhon up top too.
I’d guess that no manager can avoid the occasional slump but Emery has pulled us out of ours while Pep is still floundering at Citeh. Slot too will have a wobble this season and I’m interested to see how he handles that.
Anyway, onwards and upwards.
City had 69% possession. Pep’s the new Paul Lambert.
The new Lambert & Butler more like.
Looks like fate has decreed Duran starts over Ollie on Saturday. Thigh strain. I think the more aerially able Mings may start too.
Mings must start. Task: Wood does not score.
Just reading that Woods has scored 4 times against us in 6 starts (not a bad record) and usually scores after the 79th minute.
Maybe worth a little flutter?
Just reading that Woods has scored 4 times against us in 6 starts (not a bad record) and usually scores after the 79th minute.
Maybe worth a little flutter?
Oh Alan , oops . How you still got yahoo.co.uk they stopped mine .
Me to Bill, was my email back in the day when Robbo run AVN&S.
Although now defunct it’s still tied to this site and to be honest mate I can’t be arsed to change it.
On this day in 1998, the 3-2 win at VP vs Arsenal. Bergkamp (one of those world class strikers) with their two. Two for Dion, one for Joachim. The falling parachuter game. Ah, to be back in the 90s…
https://www.facebook.com/avfcofficial/videos/1998-aston-villa-3-2-arsenal/1064770320755754/
Enjoy BFR (-:
Commenting on the Arsenal corner routine.
It is a modified version of Cloughie’s Derby County corner, which earned that team enough points to be champions. Both needed a corner taker who was so accurate he could send the ball anywhere off the same run-up. But there have been several Arsenal fouls on the defenders or keeper unpunished by referees – and I think now the spotlight is on, refs will pay closer attention.
In addition to Villa’s short corner routines, we could use something like Arsenal’s. The key feature of which is the number of players running as the corner is kicked. Running avoids being held or wrestled.
So. Any of you cheeky monkeys got any ideas on our 5.30 KO?
2-1 Villa. I’ve changed my mind from the other day.
I have a feeling we’ll carry the goodwill from Tuesday into today’s game, but without the mental mistakes!
We’ll concede more than one is my prediction, Bum Bum…
We’ll concede more than one is my prediction, Bum Bum…
OFFSIDE, ARSEHOLES!