If I was to say “I don’t know what to think about this one”, you’d probably think “crikey Badger, you’ve said that a few times this season”. And you’d be right, because I have.
The trouble is, my immediate thoughts are to say I think we’ll win this game.
But for pretty much all of the season, Villa have failed to do what the average fan has expected. It’s worked both ways, mind and just as we put up an excellent fighting display against Liverpool when I think many expected a sound beating, so we’ve failed to win games that we would have assumed to be a shoe-in, such as Ipswich at home. That one particularly sticks in my mind and it’s that sort of result that really rankles me.
Squad news is that Konsa and Bailey both face late fitness tests. I’d say that Bailey won’t get a chance now we have the newcomers, but Unai seems to love him, hence I’d guess that if the player is fit, he will start. Konsa, of course would be a welcome return, albeit I don’t think he’s been at his best this season. Pau, Kamara and Onana are all a couple of weeks away at best and Disasi is ineligible against his parent club.
As for Chelsea, Noni Madueke is out for a few weeks with a Hamsting issue and Nicolas Jackson, Marc Guiu, Benoit Badiashile, Romeo Lavia and Wesley Fofana (the only one I’ve heard of) are all long term injuries. Not that it matters much, as they have stupid amounts of players to call on. Which is something else that rankles, because I’ve literally just read that we face a big fine by Uefa for a financial breach.
Anyway, as I said, I fancy us to win this one, but I just get a sneaky feeling that we won’t and a draw seems most likely. I don’t see it being a high scoring game either and it’s most likely to be a tight affair.
Hence a 1-1 seems most likely to me and in a game where it would good to pull some points back against another Europe contender, I would be disappointed with just one at home.
Then again, watch Villa do the unthinkable again and either win easily or get soundly beaten.
It’s what we do.
UTV!
SHOOOOOOT FFS!!!!! 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
Victory!
God I nearly filled me kecks watching that.
😆
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeessssss! F*** U CHELSEA! AND BENT REFS!
Great win – after two games in a week and Chelsea having not played for 8 days that’s a hell of a gutsy performance. This side never give up.
Well done to every single player on the pitch.
Is this the launch pad for a run at the top 5?
Correct. If only they’d got over the line against the bumpkins.
We’d be joint 4th had we taken the points last Saturday.
What a result and many many thanks to the Dingles for doing us a massive if favour now go Dippers go 😁
😆
Also hat’s off to McPhee for his corner routine 👏
The foul on Bogarde was nailed on pen. I was exchanging messages with my Chelsea fan mate who agreed it was nailed on and VAR bottled it. I’m not a conspiracy theorist but you have to question why something as blatant can be ignored
Woooooooo hoooo great win pure dug that one out yeaaaasss
We actually won a game despite Michael Oliver and the inept VAR.
Not a great performance but good to see the substitutes making an impact.
The downside was Mings going off injured although Bogarde is proving a quality stand in. Rogers too looked in discomfort after a dirty foul.
Duran sent off for a slap on the back of the head for an opposition player. Not particularly aggressive but stupid. I think we made the right decision despite the opinions of some. Talented but volatile.
Asensio surprised me today. He ran the most of any player on the pitch. He took up really good positions when we got possession. Apart from the goals he was really positive and maybe I underestimated him.
Big result that keeps us close to the top 5
Yes, strange, his performance.
I thought he was pretty anonymous apart from the obvious, of course.
Great win there we showed proper character. Much better (double) than the 2 points out of 18 someone predicted 😉
Hey, expect the worst and anything else is a bonus, remember!
True, it’s just funny lol.
Who was that Alfie – can you remind me 🙂 not that I was much more positive 🙂
Why is it that whenever there’s a ” 50/50″ decision (fouls, corners, etc) it always seems to go against us?
Other than that a well-deserved, great result.
Simple Ardent Villa , we are disliked for some reason, take that twat Oliver today again , definitely a pen not given by showing wrong position from VAR . As I’ve said many times Oliver is crooked and don’t know why he’s the FA favourite piece of shit given to us in games. I wish some sports writers would find out more about his work life as it would open a can of worms I bet . I remember many years ago Dirty Doug upsetting the FA when he was part of the panel and getting voted off . (Supposedly ) I bet they getting their own back on Villa .
Spot on Bill
We’ve won a game reffed by Oliver! That is one for the history books, could be 2 in a week.. But VAR had to give us a goal the bent officials tried to chalk off. Oliver has been sussed by EUFA, he isn’t given any top drawer internationals now. The tackle on Rogers should have been a 2nd yellow. Great battling performance by the team, transformed by the subs.
Another ‘never been known’ follows: winning a night match against Palace at Selhurst. I can’t remember one.
OLL – correct and VAR didn’t earn any plaudits either.
I thought the tackle on Rogers was worthy of a re and has left us with a key player possibly injured. Chelsea are a dirty side and we got no protection from Oliver who is a disgrace.
Add to that the blatant penalty foul on Bogarde and it’s no wonder fans question the integrity of the EPL and its vassal VAR!
*red
If we’d have conceded 3 goals in the first twenty mins and the game had played out exactly as it did and we got 1 or 2 goals back and still lost, I’d say we deserved it, that start was unusual from us at VP under the lights!
I never slate refs no matter what to be honest, never have done as I believe it doesn’t go anywhere, the only time where I’ve lost it this season is Arsenal away 2-2, I was at the game (once of the 5 away games I have done this season) and I was absolutely furious. Today’s ref performance is winnable if we’re at home, which we showed today, so I’m just relieved we got around it. Arsenal away I was very shocked we came away with a draw in the end after that.
There certainly seems to be some sort of bias towards so called big teams.
Everton today being a good example, Young did admittedly do his customery Tom Daley but that was no doubt a pen.
The other way?
It’d have been given.
A problem now we have is that, Rogers plays much better in the centre than on the right, Asensio plays in the centre too, but can’t perform as well on the right.
So… do we continue to play Rogers right and Asensio centre and allow Marco to thrive, but at the cost of Morgz’s performances, or do we try Asensio on the right and let Rogers back into the centre?
The joys of having squad depth in attack nowadays 🤣👍
Looks like the wheels have come off for forest and Bournemouth and at the business end of the season?
All good for us 😁
Too early to call, RSS. Bournemouth were due a defeat do I wouldn’t count them out just yet.
I agree BFR.
Watched the Forest game – Barcodes battered them first half but Forest were all over them in the second half and the Barcodes were hanging on at the end.
IF we could put a run of wins together then it’s still all to play for.
Fair enough lads, I might gotten a little carried away but at the time of posting Forest were trailing 4-1.
3 defeats in 5 for Forest. It’s wide open if we can string a few wins together. We haven’t been able to so far.
A win on Tuesday at Palace would be huge. But it looks unlikely. We only have Brentford away in March. With Cardiff and Brugge. This is where it gets interesting. The away form has got to change in the next two games if we’re to have any chance at all for CL qualification. It really is now or never.
Then in April we have Fulham, Brighton, Bournemouth, and Newcastle. All huge huge games.
Squeaky bum time, to quote Mr Ferguson.
Palace’s home form looks very patchy. It’s their away form that’s seen them recover well from their slow start. Our away for is dire. Conclusion: all out attack!
https://youtube.com/shorts/O_mEF6X4LGs?si=Mx51H1-KAvk9g8aQ
Onana in the tunnel after the match. Scratching my head tbh
I’m sure he’s bang on trend. I’m happy to not be…..
😆
It shows good team spirit to be at the match when you’re injured, cheering the lads on like that!
I hope he’ll be back soon.
(And they used to laugh at footballers clothes in the 1980’s but today’s are on another level!)!!!!
The midweek fixtures suggest plenty of potential for dropped points for the teams challenging for CL qualification.
Must win at Palace! Pull out all the stops and bury them.
Yup. We need to explode on them on Tuesday. We’ve needed a 90 minute statement game all season. Let’s make it at Palace!
There have been games this season where I’ve seen us look as if we were going to give somebody a good hiding – but only in patches.
Definititely time that we let-rip!
PL site on Palace:
“Mid-table obscurity beckoned for so long, but now, after winning four consecutive top-flight away matches for the very first time (and, remarkably, all to nil), Palace are surging towards new territory in the Premier League era.
Last year’s 49 points was Palace’s joint-best return in a Premier League season.
They need 17 points from the final 12 matches to beat that, or 1.42 points per match, only slightly above their current 2024/25 average of 1.27 per match.
It’s definitely on, especially with a defensive record this good. No Premier League team has kept more away clean sheets this season than Palace (six), who prevented Fulham from getting a single shot on target at Craven Cottage for the first time since May 2021.
But the challenge now is to replicate this at Selhurst Park. Palace rank fourth in the Premier League on away form (22 points from 13 matches) but 16th for home form (11 points from 13 matches).
Villa on Tuesday is an important moment. Win that one, and a record-breaking season is on the cards.”
Villa’s attack will have to really click to give us a chance.
As OLL pointed out – Villa winning a midweek evening kick off at Palace a complete unknown.
A club with a pretty poor away record against a club with a poor home record!
We will need to keep a clean sheet – not a high percentage likelihood of that.
Not feeling at all positive!
Any other oldie remember a night win v Palace? It was my nearest ground for half my life so I didn’t miss many Villa games there. We beat the Crazy Gang and Charlton while they squatted.
Horrible ground and devoid of tradition. They have changed the club colours! the badge and the nickname. They used to play in a fag packet strip of white with thin claret & sky blue stripes. The Barcelona red and blue is recent. They used to be called the Glaziers and have the Crystal Palace outline as a badge. No idea where the Eagles came from. They were the ‘team of the eighties’ – probably still are.
Their old sash strip was a touch of class. Very ‘Peru’ 1978.
The rebranding is not great. They do have some good players though! I still think we’ve got this…
It was my nearest ground for a few years too (when we lived in Beckenham for a few years in the 80’s) – and it was always pretty awful then!
Still, the fans were a bit better than the other ‘local’ teams back then – Wimbledon & Milwall…
Emery commented both Mings and Rogers face late assessments today.
More interesting was his comments about Mings – he was committed to playing Saturday even though he didn’t ’feel right’ and didn’t want to come off – it was Emery’s decision to substitute him.
As an aside, I thought Bailey looked lively when he came on and made more efforts to get to the byline rather than turning back which he’s been guilty of, of late. We need to see the Bailey of last season – be pretty useful over this latter part of the season.
Bailey did look quite useful when he came on, although I think that he’s got a lot to do to live up to the ‘promise’ he showed last season.
One of those who seems to blow hot & cold – unless he can be consistently good, I can imagine him being let-go in the summer.
Ye was a lovely kit that old one I love a kit with a sash would buzz off us doing maybe a third kit like that
Big one tonight always tough there a point would be a good result
I wonder if Bogarde will start. I always thought of him as an ‘investment’ player but he’s really shone. I think we’ve got another gem there.
He’s only 21 – great prospect, and doing well already.
Personally I’m looking forward to seeing whether Disasi will be as good as he looked against Liverpool (if we’re going to re-shuffle the back 4 again).
It comes to something when you’re counting down the hours until KO! We could actually sneak into 4th tonight even though we’ll have played a game more.
Will the footballing Gods smile on us and will we be able to capitalise?????
Looks like we are starting with the second team again.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/live/c2kgd9q4jnxt
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
More like resting players Gerry, imo.
Don’t forget we have another game on Friday (!)
Martinez, Garcia, Konsa, Disasi, Digne, Tielemans, Bogarde, McGinn, Rogers, Ramsey, Watkins.
Subs: Olsen, Zych, Mings, Maatsen, Rashford, Malen, Bailey, Asensio, Jimoh-Aloba.
Look at that bench!!!!!!!!!!! Updated my prediction to 3-1 Villa!
Is it 3 CB’s or does Bogarde play CDM to allow McGinn or Tielemans the freedom to venture forward.
I’m not confident and I would take a draw however that’s not enough to get top 4/5. I think we need to outscore them considering we will concede (probably with their first effort)
I’ve predicted 3-1 to Palace on the Super 6. Hopefully I will be wrong 🤞