Courtesy of Avillafan.com
This one has to be a whupping doesn’t it?
Yet you never know when it comes to football and anything can happen. Who would have put money on Bournemouth beating Man Utd last night, for instance?
Today we have the bonus that Arsenal have quite a few injuries and while they had a very good win against Olympiacos on Wednesday, perhaps this might have jaded them somewhat?
Unfortunately, I don’t think so.
This is a side that have qualified for the Champions League knockouts for 16 consecutive years remember and they’re never really going to be weakened enough for us.
In squad news, Arsenal have Alexis Sanchez, Santi Cazorla, Mikel Arteta, Francis Coquelin, Danny Welbeck, Jack Wilshere and Tomas Rosicky all out, which is the best part of a very good side.
As for Villa, we have Bacuna and Gestede available after taking knocks against Southampton, but Micah Richards is still doubtful. Otherwise, we’re in a pretty good state.
The big story of course, is that young Jack Grealish is back in the squad.
Will he get a game?
I reckon he’ll probably start, as Arsenal are a pretty cultured side and the sort of team that he might be suited to playing against. I’d rather see Gil as the flair player over Grealish, as I believe he’s performed better this season, but what do I know?
I’ve just heard Sam Allardyce complaining how Sunderland created loads of chances against Arsenal, but got nothing, so it maybe proves that Arsenal aren’t unbeatable, but our problem is we don’t create that many chances do we?
Aaron Ramsey has re-assumed his central midfield role and has apparently been playing very well. He’s always going to cause us trouble and who can forget how Arsenal have often targeted our left back? Given our troubles in that department, you’d expect to see the same again.
As I said above, you just never know in football and perhaps we might get something from this one.
But unless our defence have a blinder, I really can’t see it happening.
I think Arsenal will tear us to shreds.
Mind you, I predicted Southampton would beat us comfortably last week, but they didn’t.
Unfortunately, while teams around us are pulling off unexpected wins, a draw, as much as it would normally be a decent result against one of the top clubs, just isn’t good enough and we need wins.
Will we get one today? No chance.
A draw at best, but I’m going to go for a 3-1 loss.
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They have not had a shot and 2 up………remember Kevin (I am friend of London clubs) Friend against Chelski.Never gave us a thing.Defo foul on our bloke and he lets them go and score……He lets them play on for 10 mins and brings play back for a 1/2 foul….
2-0
Normal service has been resumed.
lerner
your work is nearly done relegation only thing left you knob, hope you lose millions
remi is only here for the money this is worse than under Sherwood and even lambert Sherwood matches this season was only defeats by odd goal this is shameful,
collymore and co commentator ripping arse out guzan hutton rudi and rightly so
if remi thinks named players are good enough is bigger knob than last 3 managers
Next 9 games are Newcastle, West Ham, Norwich, Sunderland, Palace, Leicester, West Bromich, West Ham and Norwich. If we don’t win at least 4 of those, we are dead in the water.
We ain’t a cat in hells chance there all better teams & want to fight & win games we don’t we’re just utter SHITE.
Your right there is no fight at all the players are resigned to losing. The other struggling teams are at least making it hard to beat them and having a good go. Look at bournemouth
Very true. Only two players that care are Lescott (shown by the 2nd goal being the only one getting back) and Ayew, who’s done all the running and movement up front.
I disagree with that Lescott was last line of defence so had to be bk anyway. Sanchez is the teams biggest liability imo virtually every goal we’ve conceded in most games are directly or indirectly down to him. He has to be dropped he costs us every game
Not even close to being directly or indirectly the result of the goals we concede. Hutton tends to be exactly that. He was indirectly the result today, but so was Veretout. Lescott and Guzan are the only two that can come out of that 2nd goal looking good. Because they actually tried.
dont know what the worst thing is.
sanchez keeps getting picked or fans believing he played ok.
Both
badger
most trueful comment on here we are garbage what will fox say after this false narrative
Nice shot Sanchez, good cross from Hutton. This is the start Villa need.
If we could learn to keep our shots down… A much better start.
We’re a different side now.
What the hell was said at half time?
And why didn’t we start like that?
Great effort from Bacuna then.
Something was clearly said to the midfield. Sanchez is tracking back faster, Gana’s running the midfield and Veretout’s getting forward better.
We’ve been a team that performs in 1 half for a while but there is the odd occasion we seem not to perform in either.
And that’s why we are going down you can’t just turn out for one half
Does Guzan actually even make saves any more?
Sanchez clattered in the face again 🙁
Taking off Gana? Really? He’s been running that midfield. Should’ve been Veretout if anyone.
Agreed.
Veretout looks a quality player going forward, and even if he had to defend, but if he had the calmness of Gana, he’d be twice the player he is.
Get Sinclair off. He’s been woeful today. And every day.
remi
no different to last 3 knobs
all arsenal have to do is knock ball into our right back area massive big hole there to attack
subs where do you start ,rudi we started to cross it takes off target man, gana was doing ok takes him off
Can’t blame Remi the quality isn’t there. Look at mourinho he has quality to work with and they are down the bottom even he couldn’t do anything with team we’ve got.
Look where sinclair was when he gave it away then.
No wonder he’s anonymous in some games.
Sinclair our best player for first 20 mins then died a death
Subs have looked odd to me but we still have been the better side in the 2nd half. Now if we can play like this the next 9 games, we could still have a shot of getting wins. Final ball has to be better, about the only thing that really has been missing this 2nd half.
I honestly think Arsenal were there for the taking today I reckon Bournemouth would have took something. The defeat was yet another self inflicted defeat.
Traore oh oh oh
taore looked best villa player only on for 3 mins
again massive hole where hutton supposed to be
thing is hutton our only attacking threat when arsenal can double up on hutton you know we are in the shit
That’s because Hutton can’t defend worth shit. He’s absolutely awful. So of course he’s an outlet to counter because he doesn’t drop back, doesn’t recover. As we all saw Sanchez, Gana and Veretout were constantly covering him in the 2nd half as Hutton was nowhere to be seen.
Sanchez was terrible yet again he is a liability
He was actually quite good today. Then again I’m going off the 2nd half as the first half isn’t worth talking about. He was defensively solid, although for some reason he slips a lot. Seems a bit clumsy that way but other than that, he and Gana ran that midfield.
gestede may be an excellent header of the ball but from the off Andy Gray would of made that box his after ten minutes, put the keeper in the back of the net yes its a foul but every ball that comes in after that the keeper was looking for him there is no speed or threat up front.
Woeful. I would like to see Traore given a central role like Vardy, he is hampered by the touchline when travelling at that pace and surely would be better playing of the shoulder of a CB. Other than that, too shit-scared of the opposition to make incisive passes. And finally clueless: perfectly demonstrated when Gil on right side of Arsenal’s area shapes to chip the ball over the covering defender – but the chip will land around the far 18 yard line – 3 Villa players make the same run into the 6 yard box and the chip sails over them.
That squad will go right through the Championship like a dodgy kebab.
He’s also got element of surprise. I doubt he is a 90 min player though
The barcodes,mackems & the carrot crunchers 9 points & FUCKall less.
We won’t win any of them games maybe a couple of draws that’s it
the fact is were going down and in style.
fans can try and pick out minor performances from some players but as a team we are simply a disaster.
there arent any winnable games for us. yes we may get some points but every game is a major struggle. i dont see anywhere we we can pick ourselves up even the manager who has no experience with dealing with a club in relegation battle in the prem.
for me its how the club deal with preparing for a long hard season playing twice most weeks in the championship with oppositions treating villa park as their cup final.
Agreed – relegation is booked. We can change the players for next season, that is the easier part of rectifying the errors.
The difficult task is to change the mind set in the boardroom. There was a faint possibility that being a divisional CEO of Arsenal might qualify Fox to select players. Or make a strategic decision about where and what type of players were to be scouted. Fox and the scouts he appointed must now admit failure. Two different managers have tried to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. The first manager warned them they were shopping at the piggery. The second manager has proved it. The strategy of trawling Ligue 1 had not worked for Newcastle. Even Wenger has stopped doing it, he should know how to pick the best players, so he must think there are none left. The problem for Fox now is to admit his error, and revert to giving a manager 100 per cent control of recruitment, including appointing the scouts and telling them what he wants.
Leadership and Character are lacking on the pitch – right now it looks like they are absent in the boardroom also.
personally i dont see the board adopting any new fresh ideas. at best lerner might try to throw some cash at the problem.
when lerners family made their feelings clear all plans went out the window and we was left with an old fashioned gentlemens club in charge.
unless some rich sugar daddy falls in love with us i have visions of villa park being the next hilsborough or elland road.