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Villa have been the luckiest team by xG by a wide margin all season and have hit a horrible run of form. Liverpool and Chelsea also looking extremely spotty. We've gotten through the toughest part of our season and our remaining fixtures are pretty easy with the exception of Arsenal (a). They could basically have the title in the bag by the time we go there. We've screwed things up enough already so it's not going to be easy, but you can just barely see the outline of a world where we go on a run and squeak into 5th. Would be an insane result after the season we've had.

The PL is in an era of extreme parity and even the shit teams are pretty good. Makes sense that most of the top teams can't get a consistent run of results and the middle of the table is wide open. If everyone is underperforming maybe nobody is.

I spent a few minutes asking Claude what the biggest upset results in club history were: Candidates were: (1) 3-2 at home against Barcelona in 1997 CL (2) 1-0 at home against Juventus in 2002 CL (3) 5-0 at home against against Man United in 1996 (4) Last year's league cup final win Given that this is away against a team that is close to unbeatable at home this year, if we get a result there's a fair argument that it's the club's greatest upset ever. Cup final has the benefit of being a cup final but I never felt that we were that much worse than Liverpool.

I probably should not have checked to see what their home record is this year. Blissful ignorance would have made this much more enjoyable.

For what it's worth I don't think we need to be that concerned about no accomplishment ever feeling as good as this one. Winning one of the "big" ones (PL or CL) for the first time will probably hit just as hard, if not harder.

Did so little of note all around. I don't recall him standing out as being pathetically bad relative to the players around him, but I can't remember a single thing about him other than the Villa own goal.

Depends on who would cost less money (or to be more accurate, cost less PSR spreadsheet numbers) to keep around or a couple years. Also depends on who is more willing to be #2 I suppose. That might be Ramsdale.

"No he's not injured or unfit, he's just shit." Not a great sign when the manager feels the need to say that

I do think we've gotten to the point that whatever small chance we have of advancing in the CL outweighs whatever small chance we have of qualifying for Europe through the league. I know Eddie doesn't do "rest games," But I'd strongly consider it.

In retrospect he was probably already experiencing some early symptoms of dementia when he was managing us, which makes it all the more stupid/cruel for Ashley to have hired him.

Tudor is bad, but he has an actual resume and was coaching Juventus as recently as six months ago. Kinnear had no experience to speak of other than a decent stint with Wimbledon in the 90s and had been out of football for nearly half a decade when he got hired.

My man he was literally diagnosed with dementia within five years of being our manager and less than a year after being our director of football.

Your memory has gone in your old age.

We employed Joe Kinnear (RIP) for five whole months, and didn't even sack him voluntarily.

Even if we didn't go through we would have always had the memory of dominating Barcelona and beating them at SJP. All that taken away in a moment. It's almost worse than losing the tie itself.

We have been preposterously unlucky this season.

To be fair the clock had basically run out and we had no reason to believe that the ref would gift them an entire extra possession.

We're not allowed to have nice things.

Most fucking undeserved result for this cuntbag asshole team of wankers.

Corrupt fuckers I knew it

Because it's a two-legged tie?

Again, absolutely zero expectation that we'll ever get a pen when our players go down in the box. Heart rate doesn't go up by a beat.

Everyone back to defend now please. I know we should probably try to score another for a second leg, but I really just want to be able to enjoy the memory of this.

FUUUUUUCK YES

Step forward Willockinho.