Aston Villa v Tottenham Hotspur - Sunday 10th March

[manmountainbutters]

There are plenty moaning but if you don’t think this season is better than anything under conte and mourinho then I can’t agree with you. We had so many exciting ends to games which would not have happened often under conte and mourinho.

And for the record we don’t look shit. We just don’t have the right players yet for this system to fully function but are seeing how it’s coming together. It wasn’t going to click within the first season. If it’s still the same as it is now and not up a level then by all means have a pop. We are well in front of where we thought we’d be.

The final 10 games or so in Conte's first season was way better - from a winning games perspective - than the last 10 games. But that aside, the spirit in the club, the style of football, the building of a young team etc., is all much better now. We have more potential than we've had since early Poch.

 

[manmountainbutters]

I don't really rate anything Mourinho did bar the 1-6 at Old Trafford. But his team was awful.
Were not at all boring in the 2nd half of Conte's 1st season, we were absolutely blowing teams apart and doing it from the first whistle. Nobody was bored in the stadium for that run into the champions league and the majority of fans were singing his name all match every match.
3-0 at home to Arse is one of the most complete performances I've seen in a long time and the atmosphere was utterly electric.

Given all the drama with people dying around him, he did an OK job until melting.
The most boring thing for me about his 2nd season was his utter lack of change. He just didn't want to try anyone different, but by all accounts that is what he is and it's well known.

I think much like our injury ravaged squad this year, we should cut him some slack for last season based on his and his close friends problems during that season.

Agree with this. Some on here forget the last 3 months of Conte's first season. We were one of the best 2 or 3 teams in the league. No question. Problem is that Conte then had his tragedies and obviously decided he wasn't in it for the long haul and fell out with everyone.

 

[FOK]

Last season in the CL we barely beat Marseille away, lost to Milan away, lost to sporting away and drew with Frankfurt.
We didn't win an away game in Europe last season apart from the late late show against Marseille. We didn't even score in those other games.

In the season before we didn't even win an away game in the ropey Johnston paint trophy. We lost to feckin Pacos and Mura.

So not sure citing our experience in big games proves anything other than we don't win them away

Jesus…. There’s some memories flooding back.

 

[Starks]

View: https://twitter.com/TheEthiopiaLad/status/1765643539172483423?t=wtdXKjKATKpBrFhgWdO5rA&s=19

This at the weekend now we have almost everyone fit please thanks.

 

[Shadydan]

View: https://twitter.com/TheEthiopiaLad/status/1765643539172483423?t=wtdXKjKATKpBrFhgWdO5rA&s=19

This at the weekend now we have almost everyone fit please thanks.

That pass from Romero

 

[Maureen]

Hopefully Porro back and we have our full strength defence. Then its a question of Sarr or Bents to start in the middle, with either Johnson or Kulu on the left. Personally hope its Sarr and Johnson, think there will be a bit more room for Johnson in this game, with Villa at home and pressing us.

Sarr didn’t deserve to be benched in the first place. He makes the team tick and provides the energy the rest feed off. Only a few weeks ago a lot of people were saying he should be one of the first names on the team sheet. I don’t think anything has changed in that respect. Also bent / boss is healthy competition for each other. That is the point of the squad. Whoever is benched needs to come back strong and whoever is picked needs to know there is a quality replacement sitting on the bench waiting to pounce.

 

[Maureen]

Until we hear press conferences, this is the lineup I'm hoping for:

1

Vicario

2

Porro

3

Romero

4

VDV

5

Udogie

6

Bissouma

7

Bentancur

8

Maddison

9

Deki

10

Son

11

Werner

lineup code

[lineup]
Vicario
Porro Romero VDV Udogie
Bissouma
Bentancur Maddison
Deki Son Werner
[/lineup]

I love Sarr but he's carrying a back injury and he's young. No need to force it. I'm also expecting Bentancur to cause them as many problems as he did last time, especially with Maddison there this time that they need to focus on.

Johnson deserves a start but the super sub role suits him and us. Everyone else picks themselves.

This is the problem we keep picking players cos they had a good 20 mins relatively. We need more than that! Blimey if we go by these types of criteria then fairclough at dippers would have been a perm starter.

 

[Maureen]

Aston Villa play on Thursday and will have less than 72 hours to recover.

It's in our hands. They are decent but they're not brilliant .

We need to go for them,t to be resilient, to take our chances and to defend well.

No excuses can be given and none can be accepted.

We need that Man City performance under Harry. We had modders and hudds in midfield. Totally bonkers but it worked.

 

[Maureen]

They got battered second half and Luton missed a great chance that was exactly the same as the second goal just before Villa scored. I thought Villa looked vulnerable every time Luton attacked.
Very confident again this week that we will win.

Yes but key was Luton buzzing around and being quick on the ball. Getting the ball into the box. We need to do that and also put lenglet under pressure by running at him. He’ll just give Sonny the ball and tell him to run lenglet.

 

[Maureen]

Yeah they're really good, timing of the run is key.

Actually our full backs are better off running into those position, teams find it hard to stop deep runners as opposed to players playing on the last line.

We need runners from deep so basically tell the FBs to not go to high up or early. Timing and positional play is needed and hopefully we arnt scared to play a pass which is longer than 2 feet

 

[Maureen]

That really isn't what happened. We had PLENTY of opportunities to speed up the play and get at them, but we flat out refused to do it.
Palace didn't even have to defend well to stop us. We let them get into their shape and we didn't bother trying to do anything about it.

100% we did nothing to make them worried. No change in tactics ie crossing the ball, some longer balls from
the back, moving players round, etc.

 

[Richard Arlison]

This is the problem we keep picking players cos they had a good 20 mins relatively. We need more than that! Blimey if we go by these types of criteria then fairclough at dippers would have been a perm starter.

We keep picking players cos they had a good 20mins?

When did we do that before?

Bentancur isn't just 20mins, it's more that he looked like his usual self in that period.

 

[nicoclaesen]

Jesus…. There’s some memories flooding back.

That is how you destroy a team that presses you and has a high line. That’s why our inverted full backs and midfielders will win us or lose us the game on Sunday.

 

[Matt1882]

I hated watching us under Jose and Conte though.

Yes you can control games without the ball but it makes for a terrible watch even when we win.

Every match we go into now I'm excited for. Of course some games are frustrating and of course not everything goes to plan.

We're still a work in progress. There's growth to come. We can improve so the frustrating times grow smaller in number.

And that's why most fans are not up in arms - they can see that we're not where we wanna be yet but are much improved from where we were.

It had its ups and downs. Those games against Woolwich and City were great. But there were other games I was almost jumping out of my seat screaming at the players to do something. I recall Mourinho Vs Lampard in one of those games where we absolutely stood off them and just let them play it around at will. It was shocking that we didn't step into anyone, much less put a tackle in. IIRC, it was the one where Son got himself sent off. I was angry at him at the time for kicking out, but he probably just wanted to get off the pitch tbh.

I can't say that watching us stand off though, is any worse than watching us pass around the defense and midfield without ever actively trying to make things happen.

 

[Matt1882]

Jesus…. There’s some memories flooding back.

 

[Maureen]

Are we including the bentancor effort which was going down the high rd? Said in the match thread hope that is not seen as an attempt. Stats can be very misleading.

 

[FOK]

Dont worry tbf to you, you didn’t bring up our defeat to Vitesse….

 

[Brian Fantana]

We should use this game as a chance to put Watkins out with an injury for the rest of the season. Do that and they are fucked. They’ve no replacement for him. Get someone to put him out and the result in this game doesn’t matter, we’ll catch them easily if they don’t have him.

 

[Airfixx]

We should use this game as a chance to put Watkins out with an injury for the rest of the season. Do that and they are fucked. They’ve no replacement for him. Get someone to put him out and the result in this game doesn’t matter, we’ll catch them easily if they don’t have him.

If we were filth that is exactly what we should do....... Leave them in the same mess that the Chav game left us in........ 'Lose the battle but win the war'.

100m in CL money at the cost of a couple of late red cards to a couple of back-up players is completely economically sound........

 

[Mick Cooper]

If we were filth that is exactly what we should do....... Leave them in the same mess that the Chav game left us in........ 'Lose the battle but win the war'.

100m in CL money at the cost of a couple of late red cards to a couple of back-up players is completely economically sound........

that's a "joke" - right?