Which manager was it that used to say that? I’ve honestly forgotten. No matter.
Regardless, we’re back to the proper stuff after the tosh that is the World cup qualification. It has to be tosh because we were the first country to qualify and given that I don’t think England are any great shakes, I think that says it all about the levels our oppostion were at. I’m really not keen on a competition that just keeps expanding, hence meaning more and more games, all while my interest wains more by the year.
And then, it poses a risk to our internationals of injuries. This time, Ezri Konsa, Matty Cash, Amadou Onana and Lamare Bogarde all suffered injuries of some sort.
Fortunately, it looks like while Onana is 50/50, the other three should be fit and available to play.
The only downside then is that Mings is still definitely out.
So things could definitely have been worse.
As for Leeds, well, that’s easy. They have the whole squad available. Lucky them.
League wise, while we could go forth today, Leeds are languishing in eighteenth and are second lowest scorers (10 goals) after Wolves. Mind you, that’s not saying a lot because we’ve only scored thirteen.
Which all in all leaves me to conclude that this is a game we should win.
I could harp on about how we’re just the sort of club that loves to give struggling clubs a boost, but it just seems a recurring theme these days in my head, which is perhaps unfair of me given that after our very poor start, we’re actually not doing too badly. But with Pool getting spanked by Forest yesterday, this point keeps coming to the fore. The fact that we’ve got a desperately poor Wolves next week won’t allay that thought either.
So, what to think?
Well, I’m always trying to keep my positive head on, as much as it might sometimes seem different, but I can’t get away from thinking that we should definitely win this.
Quite simply, I’m going for a 2-1 victory.
UTV!
5.45 KO lads. Bloody stupid for a UK KO time…
Nearly missed it Bumbum, didn’t realize it would be that time in our country. Family wanted me to go out but I pulled the plug and sent the wife. After 65 years of marriage it becomes easy to do .😇🤪 Utv
Ah the benefits of a long marriage and understanding wife.
Mine, similarly understanding when it comes to the Villa. Years ago we went to matches together but she’s become disillusioned with football – can’t say I blame her.
Bought the kids up well though – all Villa, through and through, as are their kids.
Lot of rotation – hope Unai’s got this one covered – bit worried about the back four – Bogarde, Lindelof, Torres and Maatson.
MartÃnez, Onana, Tielemans, Guessand, Rogers, Sancho and Malen.
All the first team squad on the bench plus an appearance for Elliott.
Thats some second eleven. Looking forward to seeing Malen and Sancho starting.
Tielemans captain
I haven’t been impressed with Sancho. I’d like to see something from him tonight.
This ought to be a convincing win against the whipping boys, but we’ll see.
Very lethargic from Villa; lack of real intensity – no atmosphere in the stadium.
Need to wake up.
Can’t even hear the Villa fans!
There was but not from the villa end. All the noise came from the away end until we went 2-0 up 😆😆😆
The only noise in the first half came from the away fans until we went 2-0 up, they went quiet then..
Even so, we’re all over them.
Tielemans good, Guessand meh and Malen, looks sharp, but hmm. Rogers good, Bogarde his usual.
I’m pretty confident we’ll win.
Malen about time and nice one.
I hope YB get sanctioned for their fans lobbing stuff at our players. Malen has been cut.
Should be Badger – idiotic behaviour
At last – idiot Swiss supporters throwing missiles.
Good goal.
Are you there Hitch?
No Badger – at home.
Swiss fans trying to get the game abandoned? Would the game be awarded to Villa?
He’s at the ground fighting the idiotic Swiss fans…
Ho, ho – I’d be running in the opposite direction 🙂
More than happy with this display. We are winning and in control. As long as we avoid a stupid mistake we will win. I expect the second half when we attack the Holte we will score more.
One of the grandsons told me they were poor defensively and he was right.
2-0 Malen and I’d like to see him get a hat trick. Fans fighting the police now, wtf?
And they were worried about Maccabi fans – Swiss lunatics. Their club’s going to get hammered.
If only the police were like the 1980s when I first went down the Villa. They would be in there smashing heads. This type of scum scanner be aloud to exist.
We need to borrow the French police…
Just shows how stupid the Maccabi ban was.
Chairs being ripped out!!! Weird… I like to stuff them 10-0.
Fine the club – not enough.
Their fans should be banned from away games and the club forced to play home games behind closed doors. We don’t want these people at football grounds – maybe EUFA should ban Young Boys from European competitions for a couple of years?
The police need to show restraint, we don’t want to be tagged with Marseilles.
Why are Guessand and Sancho even playing for Villa? both offer nothing
Unreal. They have one chance and net. We create a hundred and net twice.
We need to step it up, big time.
I don’t rate Sancho in the slightest. The best I can say is he’s miles off it, as is Guessand.
So have we given a goal away from nothing?
We’ve had every chance to put this game to bed but typical Villa we try and drop the ball.
Lucky to get a VAR decision but Villa seem unable to put these poor teams away. It’s a real problem; no killer instinct.
So we give them encouragement – really poor!
Comms have it right – Villa far too casual.
Should be putting their foot on Young Boys neck!
Thats why are league goal difference is always low , we have no killer instinct under Emery
We can’t afford to play like this Sunday or we’ll hand Wolves their first win of the season.
We win but it’s a very disappointing performance.
Need to be far more ruthless, more clinical and show more intensity.
So we give away another goal – this is absolute crap.
Money on YB getting an equaliser!
2-1 and this has been nothing like good enough. After all the subs, we actually look worse.
Maatsen, Guessand and Sancho are rubbish.
I think it was 17 chances and 7 shots.
It’s probably 2 chances and 2 shots for them.
Terrible defence and no cutting edge up front.
A decent striker would have got a boatload tonight.
About the only good thing to say is we won.
We had a great chance to improve our GD and bottled it.
YB and GAE probably two of the weaker teams and we did our usual Villa thing of thinking that we just have to turn up.
There’s a difference between controlling a game and dictating a game – again we should have been out of sight by half time.
Malen has to start Sunday – at present Ollie’s shot.
We might have won but that was a terrible performance against a very poor side.
And it was boring!
If we play like that on Sunday we’ll lose.
Unreal! Emery takes off Rogers and Malen who are up for it, and leaves on Guessand and Sancho who failed with every final ball, shooting into legs or poor weight and direction of the ‘assist’. Could he make it worse? Yes, bring on Wasteful! The 3 Stooges all clowning together.