Pata

Third game in eight days is fucking miles away from resting almost a week.

He literally changed his formation today after half an hour.

Almost a week off? They played on Tuesday and Saturday ffs.

Lascelles injured, Miley tactical to get Isak on.

Pretty sure Howe chose him as he hasn't used him in a midfield two yet. Miley has been better than Longstaff but I can understand him protecting Miley a bit here.

You're on a roll tonight.

Wow, Gordon too?

They drew 1-1 at Luton a month ago.

Longstaff just gifting them the goalkick. Stay on your feet ffs.

Longstaff is so fucking soft, seems like he’s looking to fall down every time he has possession.

Depends how close he lives to their training complex.

He'll be consistently banned for a year or two or four.

Home draw against Sheffield United without creating much at all is a really poor result, previous good games doesn't make it any better.

Bruno isn’t a proper class DM?

Sheffield U has higher xG, shocking performance from Villa at home.

*raises eyebrow*

Weird decision to not send him off when there’s a bloody wound, should’ve just went down holding his face for a few minutes to get the decision.

Sheff U defending well, Villa hasn’t created anything. Best chances were from corners.

VAR desperate to help Villa.

I was critical of the Milan and PSG away performances but this felt different as we actually defended really well and Chelsea never looked like scoring in the second half until Trippier’s mistake. It’s not nice to watch but we were gifted an early goal and nullified them well. Obviously it would be easier if we could keep some possession but once again tiredness and available players didn’t really help. Ritchie played most of the second half and I can’t really remember him completing any passes right now.

Why’s that?

Today was the first time when I genuinely thought he must be ahead of Longstaff in the midfield pecking order right now. Interesting how Howe saw that Longstaff was struggling to get involved on the left side and was fine with trusting Miley to handle that role too. Moved Longstaff back to his preferred side where Miley had played almost all of his minutes this season.

Obviously Howe hadn’t worked with him before the transfer. This is getting really weird now, everyone says the clause is not appearance-based so the only reason he’s not getting to the pitch is that Howe has absolutely zero trust in him. If we ever get players back he’ll have trouble making the bench. Would love to know what’s going on, surely he should’ve been brought on before Ritchie.

One of the worst performances I can remember without a single massive blunder (Caicedo might have walked with VAR but think yellow is alright too). Was way too happy to whistle any slightest contact and ruined the flow of the game yet somehow didn’t seem to give us any of those extremely soft freekicks.