Well, two goals ahead, playing at home & 90 minutes away from another European semi-final, this time in the Europa League, which some label Unai Emery’s forte. I’ve seen a lot of differing posts, some exclaiming that we are already through and that this will be a walkover, and some making this out to be a very tense night. I can see both sides, personally. Should we be on our A game, I back us to completely dismantle Bologna, as we have seen the three times we have played them already. Have we been known to bottle it in the big games before? Yes, absolutely – we must be completely switched on and fully prepared for Bologna to pose a threat. We do not need to make this difficult, and that is thanks to Ollie Watkins’ late goal at the end of the first leg, but I honestly think in these types of fixtures home advantage does not mean too much.
The record speaks for itself, we have faced Bologna three times in Europe in the last two seasons, with one being last week, and put SIX goals past them whilst only conceding ONE, which was a great goal by, in my humble opinion, the best player across the two sides last Thursday – Jonathan Rowe. My opinion was shared by the majority of the forum, that we should definitely be looking at him in the summer because he looked extremely promising. I actually saw someone on X say we should sell Rogers and get Rowe, and he got laughed at upon making the call… but after Sunday’s showing I really beg to differ, his persistent ball-losing (if that’s a word) was the root of Forest’s equaliser that I saw two metres from me, in row C at the City Ground right behind the goal.
On a personal level, I do believe I am not going tonight unless I get an extreme wave of FOMO in the next few hours and book a ticket, but I simply do not think I can justify paying the extortionate prices they are charging to watch us currently 3-1 up against a team I’ve seen us play twice at Villa Park already in the last two seasons – not if I want a cat in hell’s chance of going to Porto away or Forest away, anyway.
Team news tonight; Martinez I believe is a doubt, but having Bizot in goal doesn’t particularly worry me, I think we have a good back up goalie in Bizot and most importantly I think he would be happy to spend the rest of his career here, he gets a decent amount of minutes for his age, to be fair, and he knows the fans are appreciative of him. I am also reading Mings has picked up a knock but I am not too sure. Sancho and Kamara out again, obviously. As for our Italian counterparts, they have around 3-4 injuries, but I am unsure as to how significant they are. I believe if we take care of their attacking threat then we will be OK.
On the whole, we have a superb chance to progress to the Semi-Finals of the Europa League tonight, and in turn a superb chance to win the competition that we are favourites to win. I would like to see Forest go out tonight, I just don’t think we would benefit from having the unconscious pressure of having another English side in the competition – I honestly don’t think we’d live it down if Forest win it and we don’t.
I am going to be positive and say 2-0 Villa, but this could easily end in us making it difficult for ourselves if we are not on our A game. Play it safe, Villa.
UTV!
Told you. We are weak. Not one Villa player would’ve buried that equaliser. We’re simply not cut out for it, don’t care where we are in the league.
We’ve gone
Do you lot think any side in this division fears playing us from a physical perspective?
No Alfie but European sides are not physical that’s why Forest in the SF is the worst draw for us.
It will be very very tough. They are bang in form.
Yup.
Third semi final in three years and we just failed to turn up for the last two and were summarily dismissed.
Can we keep our bottle for this one or will it be the same again?
Do you still want to sign Sancho?
🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If I lived alone, I’d have smashed the house up.
If Villa have a team for ‘learning difficulties’, sign Sancho.
No three mistakes – two goals and a possible third.
Has to go now
Sancho – goodbye; Abrahams brilliant
Kevin!!!!!!!
Reminds me of the mum in Home Alone. 😆
What a fucking game!!!!!!!
F*** that, Bum Bum. I’d have preferred dozing off at 3-1.
I bet Unai had a stiff whiskey afterwards!!!
At least.
OMG. My blood pressure’s through the fucking roof.
Pleased emi got that ball else he would have chinned the Sunderland player
Yeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaasssssssswoooooooooohoooooo
What the bloody hell has just occurred.
We all just lost 5 years of our lives because of Sancho. How are your tickers, lads? F***** ‘ell.
BFR, I don’t want too many of those games at my age.
Wasn’t my ticker BFR but the wine stocks went down rapidly at that point plus the iPad sprouted wings as it traversed the den 😂
😆
And Emi Martinez. Match winner. Every bit as much as Tammy. Are we ready to sell?
No Effing Way!!!!!!
90+11 Liverpool. SHIT!!!
Credit to Sunderland who didn’t give up. I would have been fuming for ages if they had scored when clean through. Good job Martinez didn’t slip for that one! Sancho having a mare when he came on. Thankfully Abraham saved us and showed we have resilience. It also showed how important having McGinn and Watkins on the pitch is, to give us the grit we lacked when they went off. Pity Pool scored a last minute goal. I literally turned over to see the corner for Van Dyke to head in. What’s most important is the 10 point gap from ourselves to 6th.
Gibbs-White hat-trick. I’ve been going on about him for 3 years on here. His price just went up. Perfect replacement captain. And our captain will need to prevail in the semi. Talismanic. Both of them.
Forest are away to Sunderland next week. Emery might have suggested kicking Gibbs-White to help us out.
‘Sancho’ needs to go in the urban dictionary as a synonym for ‘foul up’, ‘disaster’, ‘tit’s up’, ‘pear-shaped’…
He’s completely sanchod it up…
Things have gone a bit Sancho…
Sancho was looking good TBF before he got injured in that pointless friendly in the States. However, I think him and Bailey need to go and big improvements bought in the summer to get us to the next level.
If West Ham beat Palace tomorrow, Spurs will be 4 points adrift. 🫢
Ah – one can but dream 🤞😄
The Liverpool 11 minutes ET needs investigating. All the comms said 5 or 6 at the most! Fergie time on steroids!
Citeh one up.
Heart rate still high from earlier…
Mine too.
Sounds about right about Liverpool. Can’t have Villa in 4th ahead of then, can we?
An idea for the local paper. How many went into hospital on Sunday afternoon with heart palpitations (or worse) after watching the Villa? Not kidding.
4 th or 5th i don’t mind another champions league campaign is sooo close absolutely fuckin buzzing
This season has genuinely been a rollercoaster. We’re not there yet but we’re so damn close. Not just from a footballing perspective but a life perspective. I am genuinely hoping to do the whole Champions League campaign next season, time will tell, there’s hopefully going to be some great trips – and it may all be down to Emi and Kevin……..
Amazing to think last years CL place was robbed by a ref who was then sent on gardening leave…It would have been 3 in a row.
Will be cheering on Brighton tonight!!!!