Smal

Gordon pretty much owes his career to Howe. Wanted him here, took him from Everton where he wasn’t wanted and wasn’t playing particularly well, and helped him become an England regular.

I wonder who it is and why it’s Mikel Arteta

These guys play a really high line and don’t really press. We can thrash them if we don’t fuck about. Main thing we have to avoid is giving away counters.

I’m thinking of Lewis-Skelly’s red against Wolves last season https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11670/13298493/myles-lewis-skelly-arsenal-defenders-red-card-in-wolves-win-overturned-after-successful-appeal It’s not a red of course, but PL refs are celebrities

the thing to be happy about is that we’ve played way shitter (we have) teams in the league this season and either pissed away leads by shitting ourselves once we’ve gone ahead or we’ve missed loads of chances.

https://oxfordlearning.com/is-chatgpt-harming-students-thinking-skills-heres-what-parents-need-to-know/

yeah, I swear it was reported that Villa were in danger of it being 100% and breaching CL rules or something when they signed Rashford and Asensio on loan. A bunch of them took wage cuts in the summer iirc, don’t know if the figures above are taken from then and after Rashford/Asensio left or what.

yeah, his pace is enigmatic isn’t it. A lot of the time he doesn’t look fast enough to be a PL winger but I don’t think anyone else in our squad would’ve moved as quickly and efficiently as he did for his goal last night, where he looked rapid and really strong too? Sometimes I wish he had a bit more ego because he’d probably be in the England squad by now if he was bugging himself up more.

I think you have to consider the state of the games, like. Last night we scored twice in the first half and - like I said - we didn’t have to create anything else. After that you just have to control the game and nullify the opponent. Performances are about more than just creating chances obviously. In the City game we needed to attack and create more and we couldn’t/didn’t. We were much better last night than the City game, and pretty much every other game this season, because we managed it so well for a full 90. Earlier in the season we might well have fumbled a 2-0 HT lead, even to a poor team.

Think we were just marking man to man and Joelinton had been assigned one of their CBs, so he was pressing up alongside Wissa a lot of the time. An underrated part of Joelinton’s game is how good he is tactically and at following Eddie’s instructions. He’s so versatile. Can easily do what he did today, or play like he did in the league cup final where he was the deepest midfielder helping out our CBs with aerial duels.

Gordon skied over the bar in the first 10, Barnes cross for Wissa that he couldn’t quite connect properly with was a big one, Elanga and Woltemade half chances late on. Didn't really need to create anything second half, just had to control them. We did it really well.

I think it’d have been a red in the PL. Was a stonewall penalty on Wissa tonight. Didn’t even seem to get checked? Very strange VAR performance to be honest.

that was much more like the player I thought we’d bought tonight. Worked really hard and looked motivated, which I don’t think he necessarily has recently.

first time since pre-season that he’s looked absolutely rapid tonight. Think the crowd getting behind him immediately took the weight off his shoulders.

that was great, a proper Eddie’s Mags performance where we completely outran and outfought the other team and made them look like kids

been a big part of the performance. Baited their press expertly all game.

someone must be cutting onions in here

we should not take these Hall performances for granted, like. It’s really special.

lord, that defender with the long hair they have is completely and utterly shite like

I remember when no defender ever knew which way HBA was going to go and Hall is the closest thing I’ve seen since

clear pen imo

2-0 up aren’t we. Fine to be patient and wait for the right moment.

he is playing well and aggressively like we all know he can. We keep saying it like but just do it against, ie, Wolves away please

I think he’ll be ok but maybe he should’ve sat this game out anyway given how fucked he looked from the very start.