Aston Villa v Tottenham Hotspur - Sunday 10th March

[Shadydan]

I think most of that 1.2 was from offside plays. Because we won the ball back, advantage was paid, offside not blown, and the xG algorithm was none the wiser.

I thought so, same thing happened against Man Utd at the start of the season.

 

[Deuterz]

Just really clinical more like

Really clinical and decisive. Son especially just picking the correct pass or finish every single time. His decision making is so underrated, he’s the reason Jose/Conteball functioned to any sort of level even for a bit.

Meanwhile Villa had a break in the first half where picking a pass a second earlier sends Watkins clean through .. and even then when through Watkins decided to pass sideways stupidly.

 

[Ionman34]

Absolutely no problem with opinions been questioned. Theres not enough that in the real world imo. I agree with you.
But you know as well as i do that people get called melts for it. I noticed it sat when some people werent happy with first half because of lack of threat upfront. Then we win people come on asking where are all the melts gone etc. etc.
Im not saying theres not melts here. Far from it but a lot of it is people looking to vent or let off steam etc.

As I posted to Deuterz yesterday, there's a few that use the forum as a vehicle to have a pop at other posters. They're only a small minority though.

I understand that the forum is used as a place to vent frustrations, but is it really that much to ask that these people keep their powder dry until the game is done? Plenty of time to sound off then, rather than losing the plot after 45 minutes. We don't get extra points for winning 2 halves, so why get so frustrated before the end game?

To be honest, it's not even the melting that irks, it's the fact that it becomes an attack on others that does my head in, whether it be the 'melters' doing the attacking, or those attacking the 'melts.'

 

[Ionman34]

Dead on. Pretty much the entire post.

I dare anyone to watch the Villa-Luton game a week before (they then had a tough mid-week game!) and tell me Emery wasn’t fully justified in altering his setup for a fully fresh, fully fit Spurs side.

Villa aren’t the side they were when they beat City. They’re crawling to the finish line.

Carragher’s analysis isn’t bad but I think it ignores context. It ignores that Emery knows more about the state of his team than anyone. He didn’t change it for a laugh, he did it because he knew where they were at.

Fair comment, and I can see his reasoning following the debate.

I still feel it was a mistake on his part but, conversely, it may have been an even bigger cock up had he not changed it.

Easy to pick a manager apart after the fact, when you have no idea what would have happened had he done it another way.

 

[Ionman34]

I just feel that having had decent showings against apparently better teams than us by trying to go toe to toe he shoulkd have stayed that way. The team have obviously been pretty well drilled in that style of play this year and apparently not much else. I think the learned behaviour would have stood them in better stead.

But like you say, impossible to know as there's only one chance at it. I'm just glad he chose the soak up and punt long option. Because turns out it was a shit o[ption.

Whilst I agree, I've taken on board the counterargument and really can't find too much fault in it.

We see it as a mistake because they got gubbed, but I can also see that going toe to toe with us could well have been a lot worse for them.

 

[dudu]

Or maybe he's finding that the PL is far more demanding than La Liga and you can't take any weekend domestic game, even against the bottom of the table team for granted.

This is why, IMO, more often than not, the ropey league winners are from Spain. They can play a strong team on a Thursday night, and stroll to a win against some shite at the weekend.
You pull that against almost anyone in the PL and you'll regret it. Now his squad is looking dead on its feet. The absolute state of them towards the end of the game where they looked punch dunk. That 3rd goal, where the Villa player loses he ball and, instead of going after it, looked fed up, waved his arms and stood still. That was worse than anything Ndombele ever did.

Yeah agree with this - also - cup competitions and the tactics employed to be successful in them, especially over two legs, are different from the week in week out games of league competition.

Never finished higher than 5th with Sevilla, never higher than 7th with Valencia in his most recent spell there.