Andy

The final paragraph is one way of looking at it. The other way of looking at it is that two out of the three years, the data was way off the mark. It doesn't seem useful as a long term metric to me given how much squads change across the league between seasons.

You'd think by now you lads would know that there's only two options with a @Froggy football post: (a) he's trolling, or (b) he's wrong. Embrace inner peace by knowing that one of these options always holds true.

Last permanent boring name you had. Redcafe don't seem particularly enamoured by Howe either, failed at Newcastle apparently.

Worked well for Moyes.

Even in a world where Howe would leave (I don't think it's this one), there is no way their fans would give him time. Way too "boring" a name.

Thought he was MotM today tbh, good as Miley also was. He was an absolute rock.

Definitely a deserved win again. We were a bit sloppy in patches but did more than enough to win.

Yeah I know? It doesn't state how many of them the players on the list have attempted though. If you've only played 10 progressive passes they're far more likely to be accurate than if you've played 200. Likewise, a "progressive pass" can still be safe, so it depends on what kind of progressive pass you were attempting.

The relevance of accuracy as a statistic really depends on other factors as well though. You're far more likely to be accurate if you're rarely playing progressive passes, or only playing them when it's a relatively safe option.

Wish we didn't pay so much for him so I could've enjoyed his match winning goal last night

Villa's players must be shite if they lost so so handily with a manager of Emery's calibre in charge

The inability to do this has been the defining element of our season unfortunately. Hopefully this is the time; the next few fixtures are relatively kind, the next 5 in the league are all ones you'd have to see as being winnable if we want to have a good crack at Europe.

Over the full 90 we were the better team for me. They were on top in the second half until the subs, from about 70 minutes they didn't really create much. And for the stat nerds: 20 shots to 15, 5 "big chances" to 2, 2xg to 1xg. We did enough to win the game IMO.

We made hard work of the second half but were still clearly the better team and had the better chances over the full 90, I'm confident the stats will reflect that too. Obviously it's a very poor Burnley team and there's evidently still work to do, but take the 3 points and move on.

I think the statement "Isak was shite since the cup final" has somehow blurred into "we were shite since the cup final" as this season has progressed. We definitely limped over the line in the last few games and maybe weren't playing our best football from around April, but we were still much more effective for the most part than we've been this season.

Looking back at my post history, I said I wouldn't be against signing DCL way back in June 2024, only two days after I'd called him shite. So all you have to do is cover all bases like me and you can be as wise as Kaka too.

If you're judging them only on their performance in England, it isn't a fact. They're largely similar. Emery has won no trophies while managing two clubs in this league, his highest finish is 4th. Howe has won one trophy while managing two clubs in this league, his highest finish is 4th. These are the only "facts" in the conversation, meaning if Emery frequently changes personnel and systems mid-match, it only works equally as effectively as the way Howe operates in games at best (often worse), otherwise Emery would have consistently better results, which he doesn't. Emery is just flavour of the month again, as KI says, because Villa are on a good run. It's only been a few months since their fans were questioning his job.

Was the disappointment not mainly due to him being home grown though? I had a good read through Villa Talk when he left and the consensus seemed to be that he'd struggled to refind his form from 22/23 and he typically looked poor whenever he played under Emery, particularly in midfield. This matched what I saw in your games over the last couple of seasons too. The only time I'd seen him play well for you was off the left wing.

Also find the comment about last night's performance strange to be honest. It's a bit of a massive stretch to say we played as well as the Chelsea first half, given that Man Utd camped in their own half and restricted us to very few major chances. We didn't control the game as a result of our own play, they finished the match with a team filled with defensive players and just allowed us to have the ball.

On the subject of away form, it's obviously a league-wide issue that teams drop off away from home, but I can't think of many other teams that have such a wide gap in their intensity, energy levels and control of a game as we do relative to our home performances. That's more the thing for me - the performances rather than the form. It's annoying as fuck watching the players go through the motions and look consistently shell-shocked away from home when we know how good they can be when they're up for it. Most of the points we've dropped at home, you can brush off by saying we at least played alright, Liverpool and Chelsea being the main ones that spring to mind. But away from home, I think we've deserved to lose almost every game, even the ones where we got something. Last night was the most on top we've looked but I think it was mainly due to Man Utd playing with a back 8.

I don't think Pilko is on the wind up, like. It's just different perspectives on how the window went, which stories you choose to read and believe, how you think the actual signings have performed etc. The actual wider point of whether we failed to replace Wilson until right at the end of the window, despite knowing he'd need to be replaced for two seasons, is binary. Regardless of reasons or mitigating factors, there was a failure there that deserves a critical post mortem. I also agree with Pilko that the Wissa transfer was a complete mess. That is obviously subjective, but we signed him for the fee that Brentford allegedly wanted 4 or 5 weeks earlier. By all accounts it could've just been done, same as Trafford before City knew Ederson was leaving, we acted way too slowly. The likes of Sesko and Ekitike fall under a different debate as they were clearly prospective Isak replacements. Pedro and Delap went early, so there was still plenty of time at that point.

No sods law or luck about it - he's on a pay as you play deal.

Didn't help that we took off the only winger in our squad who delivers the ball into the right areas with any consistency just as he came on like. Thought some of his movement was decent.

Wish we had the luxury of being able to give him a chance in midfield. Refuse to believe he wouldn't be on a different planet to Willock, Joelinton or Ramsey on the left hand side of the three, and he might actually give us some guile there.

If you want to be a club that competes at the top end of the table consistently, you normally look to improve the depth by bringing in either better players or different styles of players though. The players you've already got then ideally become the "depth". So far it looks to me like we've signed more of the same in terms of style, and arguably worse footballers - certainly no better anyway. At this stage you could only really argue that Thiaw has improved us.