Lotus

Rewatching it and Villa were decent in the 2nd half until our 3rd goal. Their midfield used the ball well but they had a complete lack of intensity and desire when out of possession. They let us run through them at ease or applied no pressure so we could get our heads up and play the direct ball over the top. They were very susceptible to that. Couldn’t believe Kamara wasn’t booked for persistent fouling. Took Cash about 6 fouls before he was booked. I just honestly don’t believe we’d have got the same grace. 3 things stood out for me from our perspective. Miggy defended very narrow which gave Digne complete freedom of the wing. Must have been planned as it was never corrected. Maybe Howe just didn’t believe Digne would do anything with it but he did ping in some decent crosses tbf. Burn cannot defend 1v1. Always needs a teammate to keep him out of trouble. Love the bloke but that really needs sorting out. Schar was great. Seemed a quiet match but so many nice interceptions. Sometimes right at the last beat but he never seemed rushed or stretched. Super smooth. If we upgrade on him it’ll be some player…..

Yes. Odd reading people’s opinion that Bruno was bad when JL had less impact on the game (neither were ‘bad’ imo).

Bruno was better than all the Villa midfielders. I thought Luiz and Kamara were good in patches but neither was good enough without the ball. Bruno exceeded their level. Playing better than your opponents should be enough like……

Very slick player. Just looks like he does everything well. Constantly moving into space which is something I love. Whoever plays with him in midfield is going to really enjoy it

Was strange watching Villa. You can see the talent and you can see the potential within the team method at times. There were passages when the used the ball very effectively. But without the ball they were not consistent nor cohesive. That’s not what I expected. Hope for their sakes Mings isn’t that bad because none of their other CBs looked as capable defensively.

Bruno will be fine. Less responsibility on him which is good but he’ll get back to his levels. He’s super competitive and he’ll sharpen up.

Very good defensively with his head. Other than that he looked very replaceable. Hopefully he’ll get better with games. Might be tough for him though. We’re quite a different side from when he signed.

Unless there’s a achievable release clause I’m not convinced that’s a good career move. Maybe money was the deciding factor. Can’t blame him if it was.

Max squad size of say 28 senior players and you can loan as many as you want? Max of maybe 5 U21 players allowed on loan. The buying up of young potential that then get shuttled around by big clubs who’ve no intention of ever actually involving them in their own 1st team is terrible for football. Most young players develop better if they’re actually owned by the team they’re playing for imo.

Tbf Wham have 2 CBs who are decently quick. Maguire will obvs seriously reduce that average but apparently Moyes likes a low block so……

Ahmedhodzic, Bueno and Olise. Call it a day.

RB is not his position so he can be forgiven but he wasn’t solid at all iirc. Got run all over the place. As did whoever was at LB.

Not very physical but has a velvet 1st touch and elite technique. Reads the game exceptionally well too. Reminds me of Iniesta a bit. If it wasn’t for his injury a year ago (or so) would have expected him to be playing for RM/Barca already. Looks made for them.

https://fbref.com/en/players/00963611/Konstantinos-Mavropanos Seen a link to Mavropanos. Flunked at Arsenal apparently but has rebuilt his career at Stuttgart. Stats are in the elite groupings across the European leagues. 2 years left on his deal. No idea if link is genuine or just lazy journalism/agent talk.

Hope not….

Really? Thats appalling if true. English football needs a proper shake up. No chance of it though. The English way is rarely careful for thought and planning. It’s nearly always exploiting the most right now, even if unsustainable. Sometimes especially so…

Want Olise. We need some left footers. He’s a very good player. He would start RW from day 1 imo. And if that release clause is true…..couldn’t get better for the money.

There was some interesting data analysis from a German bunch not too long ago. Not sure what come of it. They devised a metric that showed how many oppo players a pass would cut out. Players who repeatedly cut out a high number of the opposition would obviously score highly. Was a different approach to just measuring the distance of a progressive pass. If you cut out more players with your ball it was probably far more dangerous. They also measured how many players were cut out by receiving the ball. Was another way to further judge a player’s effective movement.

I think Anderson will be the odd man out, personally (eventually). Shame as I love seeing academy lads coming through to the 1st team. Just think Anderson’s touch is that fraction short of Prem quality. He always looks like he’s on the edge of his ability/control to me. Nothing but good to say about his attitude and engine. If he was ridiculously pacy I’d think he’d stay. No substitute for that. But, in the absence of I think the whole Anderson package is just a couple of % points below a top 6 Prem squad requirement. Reckon we develop him further and look to sell as an FFP bumper next summer. Think our squad is weak enough he stays this year.

Wonder if there’ has been some confluence with ASM not finalising his move and Fabinho’s deal slowing down too. If Liverpool are very vocal in their protest against any fee we might receive, perhaps PIF have decided to put the brakes on an extremely good deal for an over the hill Fabinho. Share the pain.

Isn’t Ivan Fresneda still available? For significantly less money, I believe…..

I want him to be confident and feel like he belongs in the team. Then we’ll see what he’s made of. He looks too good for the U21s. Great sign. Hope very much to see that translate into him stepping up to the level required. Best of luck to the lad. Hope he has a great season.

Got a soft spot for Villa. Years ago I went to see us play them at theirs. Could only get in a home stand. Kept my mouth shut until we scored. It was then obvious I was a toon fan. After the shock the lads around me were decent and even looked after me when some others wanted to leave me with a different kind of memory. All in all they were good to me. And Brummie is one of the best posters on here. I can forgive the banner. Every club has its knackers. It’s England ffs…..what do you expect?

Hits he ball very well with little back lift. Just takes away that fraction of a second for the keeper to react. Seems to make quite a difference.

Not for 90 minutes and that was the key problem. You simply can’t have a player with such poor concentration at CB. A repeated issue. He never grew out of it. In the end, it doesn’t matter how strong or quick you are , how good a passer or how clean you can tackle, how high you can jump. If you can’t read the game well and if you keep getting flustered, the league will quickly find you out. As it did him. Shame, but it was so.