Aston Villa (A) - Wed 6th Dec, 20:15 | PL | Pre Match Thread

[Tricky_Trev]

With Villa’s fantastic home record and our suspensions and hamstring issue for Doku, plus non-existent defending and needing 5+ clear chances to score a goal, a Villa win does seem on the cards and they would leapfrog us in the table. Pep has some big problems to fix.

 

[Wretched Vengeance]

The Alvarez, Bernardo and Foden thing isn't working. All of them seem to be being played out of position.

Time for a rethink, the midfield and left hand side need reshaping and stiffened up.

An already thin squad minus Grealish and Rodri is a bit worrying - particularly considering Nunes and Kovacic have been poor or not fit, and Phillips is essentially a ghost.

 

[Wretched Vengeance]

Not an ideal fixture after today, it’s fair to say! Hopefully we’ll rise to it though, bit of adversity might not be a bad thing for the squad.

Ederson
Walker
Dias
Ake
Gvardiol
Stones
Kovacic
Bernardo
Foden
Doku
Haaland

Gvardiol looks hopelessly lost in the position. He's had a few moments of decent play, but on the whole, it looks very uncomfortable for him. However, not many options other than to swap positions with Ake.

 

[Franny 1234]

First time I've voted loss. Can't see us winning for the first time in 5 years.

No rodri, grealish, doku, stones, KDB etc...

Dias, walker and akanji playing like absolute fucking dog shit

I hope I'm wrong and it's a catalyst but villa at 16/5 at home looks mega.

Walker was dog shit today definitely watched a different game than me.

 

[super_city_si]

Walker was dog shit today definitely watched a different game than me.

Still livid at his half arsed defending for the thurd. Just jogged alongside johnson, gave him the freedom of the wing to whip in a cross. Needs dropping.

 

[vmsuhail]

I predict a draw, which will still be a bad result.

 

[vmsuhail]

Winter schedule doesn’t get any easier does it?

After Villa, it's relatively 4 easier fixtures until the new year. 13 points from the next 5 will put us on 43 points halfway through the season.

 

[lancs blue]

If we win it'll be some madcap scoreline like 3-4 or 4-5 because I can't see us getting even close to a clean sheet right now, especially with Rodri out.

 

[Gabriel]

If Stones doesn’t start or even feature against Villa, then why have we had him sat freezing his behind off on the bench for the last three games?

 

[Bluewars]

With Villa’s fantastic home record and our suspensions and hamstring issue for Doku, plus non-existent defending and needing 5+ clear chances to score a goal, a Villa win does seem on the cards and they would leapfrog us in the table. Pep has some big problems to fix.

The players are picking games in which to be disciplined.

Watching the game yesterday, Bernardo was so lackadaisical in his positional awareness, he was pressing all over the pitch. Out of possession I expected him to be holding midfield with Rodri, Alvarez was also pressing high leaving Rodri alone in Midfield, this gung-ho mentality is so weird, we seem as a team to get rattled easily (chelsea and spurs) we lose composure in our play and get drawn into an end to end game, I only recall that once last season (N'Castle away)