***Villa v Champions Official Match Thread***

[branny]

Shit show. Two points dropped. Newcastle had a go, Villa did fuck all. Lack of energy and too many not on it today.

[City64]

Too slow in midfield again for an away game . Rodri KDB and Gundo way off it . Cancelo and Walker not doing their job and I will say it yet again John Stones can’t pass a fucking ball forward . Newcastle revisited that all over again we have learnt nothing .

[nottsblue]

Very poor day at the office. Just poor all round compounded by poor use of substitutes yet again. The only bonus was Haaland scoring again and not losing

Plenty of work to be done. At least the dippers are terribly out of sorts as well

[branny]

I’m sorry but Cancelo cannot defend

Worst thing is he doesn’t even fucking try. Would be better off putting Gomez in there now and find out if he can do a job cause this prick has proved he either can’t or doesn’t want to. Once again standing nearest and watching the man who scores, no effort to block or even effect the strike. We have enough players who can do the stuff going forward without carrying a full back who doesn’t defend.

It was the same after Ed bailed Rodri out. Ball went out wide and he just stood there. No effort to block the cross.

[Outcast]

That bellend Stones is getting on my tits. We can't win the league with shit defence. We can debate fullbacks and Ed, if our central defenders not on it we won't win the league. We desperately need Laporte back to stabilise the ship. We can't score 5 goals every game, we need to start grinding ugly results out. No idea why everyone thought we'll smash them to bits, they nearly got a result against Arsenal. I'm not sure if we had one eye on Tuesday or we were arrogant! Yes on paper we should smash them but it doesn't always work that way.

I hate villa and Gerrard, hope they get relegated and that square headed mouse sacked

[zuricity]

Too slow in midfield again for an away game . Rodri KDB and Gundo way off it . Cancelo and Walker not doing their job and I will say it yet again John Stones can’t pass a fucking ball forward . Newcastle revisited that all over again we have learnt nothing .

Stones can and does pass forward , he headed forward instead of back to Ed - this lead to their goal .
They weren't way off it , it's fine margins at this level .

Three hard games coming up . We didn't lose today , so far so good . Big six pointer next weekend .

[Outcast]

Bernie should have been in the middle and Alvarez on right. We missed his pressing.

[john@staustell]

1 sub made and he changed to a back 3 - we were more potent beforehand .

Alvarez not coming on is fucking disgraceful.

Bladie 6 out of 10 for your performance today .

I thought it was crying out for Alvarez. He will rest Haaland in Seville for sure

[City64]

Too slow in midfield again for an away game . Rodri KDB and Gundo way off it . Cancelo and Walker not doing their job and I will say it yet again John Stones can’t pass a fucking ball forward . Newcastle revisited that all over again we have learnt nothing .

Stones can and does pass forward , he headed forward instead of back to Ed - this lead to their goal .
They weren't way off it , it's fine margins at this level .

Three hard games coming up . We didn't lose today , so far so good . Big six pointer next weekend .

Stones gets closed down away from home every time he gets the ball because the opposition know he can’t or won’t pass it forward, it’s a huge problem for us playing out from the back . Laporte is exceptional at passing out from the back and on occasions has the confidence to push forward with the ball . It’s no wonder we have signed Akanji for extra cover .

[City64]

Bernie should have been in the middle and Alvarez on right. We missed his pressing.

Alvarez should have come on for Foden , Bernardo probably our best player .

[Nigels Tackle]

rodri was shocking today. blaming him for their goal as well

[Mase]

Rodri - playing probably the most important position in Pep’s system and he’s been terrible every game.

We’ve just let Lavia go and he’s smashing it and Phillips can’t get out of his wheelchair!

We’ve fucked up

[Indianablue]

Missed opprtunities and the repeated lonv diagonal pass to Foden( when has that been a tactic?) Not at our best but alvarez should have come on for at least 20 minutes.

[johnny crossan]

"Walker just stops the flow every time the ball reaches him and is not servicing Bernie"

I was about to post this when we scored - then became overwhelmed by subsequent events

[sheblue]

Agree Alvarez should have came on. He would have been a much better option than Mahrez who didn't do much.

[Beefymcfc]

Thought it was going to fizzle out to a boring 1-0 but for a superb strike from Villa. We should’ve done better to stop it getting to that point but you can’t stop everything.

Still a chance of the ‘Invincibles’ while Arsenal have a chance of going 5 ahead. Is it too late to catch them?

[johnny crossan]

Since the odium is descending totally undeservedly on Stones & Cancelo can I offer a clue as to real problem

[City64]

Thought it was going to fizzle out to a boring 1-0 but for a superb strike from Villa. We should’ve done better to stop it getting to that point but you can’t stop everything.

Still a chance of the ‘Invincibles’ while Arsenal have a chance of going 5 ahead. Is it too late to catch them?

We have been terrible in 2 of our 3 away games and terrible in the first half of the home game v Palace . So we have in general been terrible for quite a lot of this new season to be fair .
Work to do !

[Outcast]

Thought it was going to fizzle out to a boring 1-0 but for a superb strike from Villa. We should’ve done better to stop it getting to that point but you can’t stop everything.

Still a chance of the ‘Invincibles’ while Arsenal have a chance of going 5 ahead. Is it too late to catch them?

The rags will beat them

[Beefymcfc]

Thought it was going to fizzle out to a boring 1-0 but for a superb strike from Villa. We should’ve done better to stop it getting to that point but you can’t stop everything.

Still a chance of the ‘Invincibles’ while Arsenal have a chance of going 5 ahead. Is it too late to catch them?

We have been terrible in 2 of our 3 away games and terrible in the first half of the home game v Palace . So we have in general been terrible for quite a lot of this new season to be fair .
Work to do !

I agree. The goals have masked some of our play.

I’ve said earlier in the season that this could be one of those wired seasons where you just don’t know what’s going to happen. The likes of Villa and Newcastle played really well in their defensive shape and notably got their chances from the their left hand side, up against Walker while he was, again, in the inverted or withdrawn position. Note how there was no real overlapping or forward play from him again, a tactic that I don’t like.

Seems Pep wants to go down this line as it allows our forward players to swamp the defence but it does have its set backs, as we’ve seen.