Jonas

Very commendable. Nearly got the optimum out of this last round. European champions cannot beat us. Even with their referee chums.

Imagine the level of decision that he'll pull out of the hat if it stays like this?

Was benched because otherwise he'd be playing every game if he wasn't and were all knackered.

Andy Cole and shin splits in his 2nd full season, was right off the boil.

Was pissing his pampers in interviews last week about PSR after they got beat.

Its got to have a better percentage of leading to something than what we've been doing for too long which is demonstrably not working. If we were creating lots you might argue percentage wise its a waste of ball to have a pop but were not.

Its not a Villa controlling. We did even less against the worst team in the league last week

Even when we've won some they've felt bludgeoned rather than one of the abudance of chances from any sort of flowing play being converted. Wolves and Fulham e.g.

Almost like that's been the way almost everywhere most all the time for almost all of our lives

Been more interested in that league than ours this season tbh

Its already been proven he can do that. 4th/CL and a final to 7th and no Europe followed by winning a cup and CL. All we'd be doing is hoping someone else can do what's already been done. Just need to get this turgid league season out the way. That said we've not been the same since he was ill.

Were a weaker team than we were last year and we just scraped 5th so dropping a couple places would just be natural and expected (accepting 7th or so as midtable) but If we'd have known then how bad the signings of Ramsey, Wissa, Elanga would end up being thus far, 7th would be an overachievement.

We are. Its frustrating for some fans being reactive to whatever the last result is "were only X points from top 4" etc. after a win or two e.g but thats not happening and the cold reality is weve looked a midtable side from the start and the results and performances 100% reflect that.

Were a lacklustre attacking team now and we've fully come to expect nothing else. That's harder to accept than effectively being a midtable side - I expected the latter from the summer and have never seen cause to doubt it but thought we'd have rectified our toothlessness by now.

Its not about Villa, we've played the same all season.

Its stark how shit the refs are after a European game.

By the time he gets around to booking Villa players, they'll make subs and start the immunity process all over again, thus negotiating a game with constant niggling cynical fouls.

So far this game, but still in defecit

Enjoyed the first fifteen minutes. Between our being uncreative, their time wasting and this f*cking shit ref its soured enormously. Turns out pouncing on a couple PSV errors didn't solve our creativity issues, who knew? Wish I had the courage of my convictions to just entirely fuck these league games off, enjoyed hardly any of it and expected that

Better teams wont be pressured into those mistakes. And if teams don't play that way like Wolves, what then?! I'll still wait to see a glut of chances created in a game before assuming that weve sorted that season long problem all of a sudden.

In a way would love Napoli, would feel like a destiny being fulfilled (and it would mean them beating Chelsea into the bargain) but in another more practical way would prefer not. PSV again like Villa fetched up with Brugge would do nicely.

They just cant concieve that's there's more out there than beating or finishing above your local rival because, well, that's all they've ever had. It would be existential to them to even ponder that they might not be the biggest game to us that week when were their biggest game imaginable.

Gifted the first two so much as I cant ask more, I'm not taking that as a corner turned re creating and taking chances (outside of Harvey) generally. Bruno pending, nothing but good out of that. At least three more nerve wracking CL games it is then.

Shades of Tino's second against Metz on the goal