janpawel

Must be a nice life getting clean sheets against City and Man U but being immune to the stress and pressure of these league/CL games ?

I remember him seeing him smile/laughing a lot, and looking quite 'relaxed', whereas I feel he is normally super focussed Kind of think he was focussed on not looking stressed and trying to appear like he doesn't care /look cool but this resulted in quite a meh performance

You're right, unfortunately for me I get my hopes up after amazing performances like against Man U, despite what you just mention. It's probably more down to a spirited performance, rather than a sign that we are able to play that well with all the injuries on a consistent basis Playing away also seems to affect us a lot too

Villa also don't play every game 100mph like we do, surely that helps with fitness / injuries I'm hoping it's the next thing Howe implements as we continue to make progress and improve as a team

Really hoping for a turn in our way form, though hard to expect with our limited squad due to injuries

Thankfully Villa are no where near as good away from home as they are last night, they're only slightly better than us away from home roughly looking at results so far. Both of us should look to improve away results to try and consolidate top 4 in the table

Villa look like a super well drilled team who are better than the sum of their parts, just like we are. They're playing great Quite enjoy watching them as they play a totally different style to us, more technical ability but less athleticism than us

I agree, a while ago I used to want him as an 8, however I think it's more clear that we need high levels of athleticism in our 8s which Bruno doesn't have, instead being better at other things and orchestrating play from the middle I do often wish we had someone more athletic in the middle, especially for protecting against transitions/counters etc, but if you mix Bruno and someone like Kante you'd probably have the best midfielder ever so its unlikely someone exists like that ?

Very true, also forgot they beat Tottenham just over a week ago ?

As good as Villa have been and I think they've been great, have they beaten a good team? I can only think of Chelsea and Brighton, whereas we've beaten Man City, Arsenal, PSG etc Not that it matters in a way, points on the board are more important of which they have a few more than us Be interesting how they do against City and Arsenal, should be fun games

Would love to see us with a bernardo silva/barella in midfield...Though we seem to prefer pace and power in our midfield looking at our options, though that could change in future windows

Yeah I hate to go along with the conspiracy stuff, but even the fact VAR is only supposed to intervene when a mistake had been made, not re-ref every decision... I think it's even more clear in slow motion that it isn't a pen. You could understand if he had a poor view and awarded the pen (which he correctly didn't) But how on earth he ended up changing it... I thought other than that he reffed the game well, and remember in the world cup final he was great.. This just stands out so much to he incompetence

Yeah I think to play in our midfield 3 requires a huge amount of intelligence and each position seems to be unique, ie Longstaff and his relationship with tripper/Miggy is totally different to joelinton and burn/Gordon... It's not a case at all of just slotting in and winging it Amazing he can fill in as effectively away at a European superclub. Wonder what we will do next season with him, a loan at some point I'd have thought would be the plan but he looks good enough to genuinely be a key part of our squad

They remind me of us last season, I think they could get 4th

If they play like today, and we have a better bench than yesterday, id favour us for 3 points. Then again our away form is crap and we'll probably have more injuries by then ? Villa weren't exactly good and they managed to get the 3 points. Was a great game to watch. I think a full strength Spurs are the better side but Villa have a better squad and seem to have managed the season brilliantly so far and don't have the injury issues like us I hope we have some luck with injuries and our away form picks up so we can continue to compete with them for 4th

Only if Milan don't beat Dortmund I think?

Does anyone actually know any specifics of city's 100+ charges? Not asking for a list, but surely not all these will be specific X amount over FFP threshold like Everton Just seeing a lot of stuff on social media about how the charges city may get need to be directly in proportion to the Everton deduction, when you can't be over the FFP threshold 117 times in a handful of years...

Really hope this guy isn't going to be someone who is frequently injured ala Wilson. Not certain, but pretty sure he had an excellent injury record while in Spain. We could really do with a guy we can rely on for season

Man u always are there or thereabouts, even if they are playing terrible, I always feel when we go on a losing streak the table massively swings against us ?

Totally agree! Though I do think Willock has such a high ceiling and unique skillset, if he could do the great work he does on the left chanel also in the middle of the pitch, we'd have our own Bellingham

I know what you mean, and whilst Gordon pretty 2 footed, his right is definitely stronger, and livramento/tripper both like to put a cross in so I can't imagine this being best for Gordon Not saying it might not be the plan, otherwise Barnes and Gordon is means a pretty strong LW spot with 2 40m singing there ?

Surely we can raise this as collusion of some sort? Even if the 3 things put in place in spite of us have a reasonable argument, it just seems extremely targeted?

I agree

I kind of feel they beat us the way we beat arsenal, player for player arsenal are clearly superior, but we nullified them and played to our strengths, won it physically etc Feel the reverse is true for dortmund

Dortmund aren't near the best team we've played the last year, but we seem to struggle against them the most.... Sure Howe will get lots out of this no matter how the tie goes F'ing hope we do something this half mind