Smal

should be getting on the end of that Trippier cross

Burn is good. He needs Gordon to actually be able to do his job defensively though.

Really hope Trippier is on it. The difference him being in form makes is absolutely monumental and we can embarrass them if he's on his game.

Need leaders/characters for games like this. It's easy to see why Burn and Longstaff were picked over Livramento and Miley. Livramento was the worst player on the pitch against a very low bar against Liverpool. Didn't look right at all.

Trips is definitely there, anyway

hate it when keepers don’t even dive

they have been if you go by xG difference since Emery took charge, but it’s a big enough sample size now to say their position in the league can’t be by accident. I’d be interested to see some opinions from analysts on what Villa are specifically doing to defy these metrics so consistently. Man UFC are the spawniest cunts going, like. I wish Bruno Fernandes got injured for once because they might actually get relegated without him.

Pope being out is making a really massive difference. It feels strange to say that after Dubs made a lot of good saves yesterday but... The defensive line doesn't know where to position itself when he's playing because he never comes off his line and they are second guessing themselves as a result. I've seen more of our defenders make mistakes when trying to keep a defensive/offside line in recent weeks (Burn, Trippier, Livramento, Botman all been guilty in the past couple of weeks alone) than I have in all the time Pope has played for us. Pope's aggressive sweeping and presence lets them play higher (+ crucially closer to the midfield line) and more confidently. IMO it's time we went out and got a similar keeper to Pope who isn't allergic to the ball at his feet. Seems harsh on Pope but this is the second time he's had this shoulder injury and that's a concern on top of his lack of ball playing ability. Don't ask me who we should get like, 'cause I've no idea.

I guess the evidence from the Man Utd game (that we won 3-0 away!) is an argument for rotation and playing fresh players to give regulars a break every now and then. That team was fresh and managed to carry out Howe’s principles and won 3-0 away against a CL team. A functioning Howe team is far more than the sum of its parts so why not play some of that side more often when the main lot are absolutely on their knees and have been for weeks (months?)? Some of them simply cannot fulfil basic duties.

The fatigue is 100% a factor. We haven’t attempted to adapt to try and combat it one bit though. Howe is right to try and stick to his principles, but if the whole principle is intensity and you can’t be intense then there has to be some room for manoeuvre. I think/hope Howe will learn from this experience. We should come back stronger from it.

these are *extremely* bad numbers, like

Think we have to try a 4-2–3-1 soon (or perhaps even a back 5 like we ended the game with tonight) and try to keep two midfielders back to protect the back line. Without the speed of Willock and Joelinton in midfield and transition, and the added issue of fatigue to exacerbate the lack of pace further, I think it’s clear we simply don’t have the recovery run ability in midfield to play the midfield structure we have been using in this run. It’s been so, so easy to get straight at our defence and run through the midfield - even against weaker sides. I think Miley looks more like a #10 and it would take some of the defensive responsibility from him too, which he’s understandably struggled with recently.

Thought Burn was fine tbh. Won most of his duels. It was the defending once they got past him that was the major issue. Gordon also gave him absolutely no help when he switched over to that side.

I’m not even slightly Howe out or anything but I guess my counter to that point would be why on earth is he playing? It was obvious he couldn’t run weeks ago, let alone after the first half today. That he played the full game today seems absolutely mad to me. That we haven’t really got anyone else doesn’t really change that point either imo. He’s (same applies to Miggy) been struggling for ages… just take him out and play Ritchie for a game and sacrifice that area of the field/adapt to suit. The season is long, and especially this season you can’t just take each game as it comes like we did last season.

We… really were though? Honestly it’s remarkable we didn’t concede 7+ goals, there was no point in the game where we looked in control defensively, and we really didn’t offer any consistent threat at the other end of the pitch either. We defended atrociously and were really, really poor when we did have the ball for more or less the whole game.

it’s .76 (I rounded for ease) but yeah. It’s based on historical conversion rates iirc.

I mean it bumps it up 1.5, which isn’t massive given the numbers involved.

7.2xg conceded is really whew, like. It wouldn’t have been unreasonable for them to have scored 9 or 10 goals. It doesn’t get worse than that performance in the PL.

gonna assume he’s injured. Only excuse for pulling out of challenges like that one with Van Dijk. Could’ve cost us 3 or 4 goals by himself today.

I mean, it’s another away game where the opposition should’ve scored 5+ goals, like. I’m not sure what’s gone wrong the last 5 weeks but we’ve been well and truly awful defensively.

Tino’s been an absolute disaster, man

Gordon really needs dropping

Think we need Krafth on for Tino soon

is Livramento injured or something? As bad an individual performance I’ve seen all season