Same v the dippers, marginal decisions cost us, always benefits our opponents. When it’s tight they can affect the result and often do.So the refereeing was OK? It was not. If the referee does his job we win that game at the end . Small margins. But ,as Pep will often say about depending on officials " anything we did we did it for ourselves" . We go on from here in 3rd place and hopefully keep within striking distance until start of the new year.
Grealish was quite good today . Lewis coming on helped greatly. Dias better. There's a lot for Pep to work with. But his comment about having fun didn't help our cause today. Humility costs nothing. Get back to basics..
No chance!He was definitely told to blow his whistle.
I wonder if the audio of the incident will be released?
Or when somebody in his ear tells him to…He should only blow if he sees a flag. There was no flag
well theres no rodri in the next game. nor grealish.It is noticeable that Rodri is not on top form at the moment and he’s simply not able to do the job of 2 men right now like he can at the height of his game.
Really needs a back 4 and probably Kovacic alongside Rodri for a few games.
He will be forced in on Wednesday night, break down again then out for several more monthsHard to pin down our struggles at the moment, we seem to go from dazzling to disinterested in the space of 10 minutes, sometimes multiple times in the same game! No real need to panic as of yet, but we made Villa tougher than needed with the 2 daft bookings today. We need John back desperately in the short term.
We had best midfield in world and now we don’t. Rodri is on his own. Need Stones back ASAP.
I think Pep knew a thing or two in his midweek comments about the fans. Talked about worse things to come and we can’t always win the treble and win things. Cycles.Same here, I said after the treble no expectations this season, just enjoy the ride. Then we draw and it ruins my weekend.
He was miles onside...I was wondering if Grealish was offside though..was he?
Doku did the opposite today. He just kept it simple and kept going backwards. I think the injury may of occurred in the first half. I prefer the direct Doku.People calling out Grealish on this thread can fuck off.
He scored what should have been the match winner and who’s to say he wouldn’t have put the ball away when he was through on goal?
It’s all symptomatic of what’s missing this season - too many injuries, too many new players trying to integrate into the squad quicker than would normally be the case, Pep hasn’t been drilling the control into them as much as previously…Doku, Gvardiol, Kova all poor at keeping the ball and tracking back. We’re wide open and our defence isn’t clicking. Rodri is single-handedly trying to run midfield and every game feels like chaos.
We need Stones back, Kev in due course, Pep needs to stop keeping Jack out the starting XI (for starters he links up particularly well with Haaland) and Ake needs to be starting. Alvarez looks knackered and Dias has looked off it but Pep keeps persisting.
Villa isn’t going to be great the way things are going. We’ve already got 2, maybe 3 key players out.
Yep, going to be another Phillip's unfortunatelyPep is repeating the same mistake in game after game but we have nothing on the bench. Buying Nunes was a bit like my Mrs with a fistful of euros in Alicante duty free thinking I must buy anything to get rid of this cash.
Mahrez on a bad day would be a big plus the way we're playingMahrez...need a fkin hindsight statue....biggest miss ever i think...what a player