Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: PeterWithesShin on April 25, 2026, 02:25:29 PM
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Boooooooooooo
Urns
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Be better on Thursday, please.
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did their goalie make a save?
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Pretty, pretty bad.
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An absolutely masterful display of killing the game after the goal was scored. Trouble is, they scored the goal and we killed the game.
What the fuck was that?
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Can someone change the thread name please?
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I hate results like those. Just limping to a 1-0 loss
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I dont understand not starting with Ross when he cant play Thursday.
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My big concern for quite a while is that we have an absolute turd of a performance in us at any point in time. It would be very upsetting if we turn out another one in the Uefa Cup.
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That was proper shit. Let’s hope Palace get something at Anfield today. Really poor all round. Aside from a couple of chances from Rogers and Ollie that went close we created little of note. Outfought mentally and physically today. Very disappointed with that.
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Abysmal, Fulham wanted it more and deserved it.
Not a great way of setting up for Thursday.
Play like that and Forest will battter us.
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Dreadful - Unai got it wrong today and then was far too slow to react.
Awful display, which has left the door very slightly ajar for other teams to capitalise. Need to be much better in the next 3 games.
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There's still too many that aren't up to the level we're trying to get to, and they need to be moved on.
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We gave up when we bought Sancho and Bailey on so I fucked off back to the gardening.
Limp, half arsed and slack.
No-one can claim to have been great but Tielemans was ok.
We won't care too much if we get a result Thursday but right now that was crap.
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My big concern for quite a while is that we have an absolute turd of a performance in us at any point in time. It would be very upsetting if we turn out another one in the Uefa Cup.
I am almost expecting it.
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Flat, no energy, looked like we had zero to play for.
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My big concern for quite a while is that we have an absolute turd of a performance in us at any point in time. It would be very upsetting if we turn out another one in the Uefa Cup.
I am almost expecting it.
[/quote
WHy am I not surprised.
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I hate results like those. Just limping to a 1-0 loss
It seems the performance was far worse than the result.
Why do we keep serving up performances like this ? It happens far too often.
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That was back to a performance from the first 5 games of the season. Dreadful.
Oh well, onto Thursday.
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An absolutely masterful display of killing the game after the goal was scored. Trouble is, they scored the goal and we killed the game.
What the fuck was that?
Fucking shite. Playing to kill the game from the off and then struggled to up the tempo when they scored.
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Absolutely shite.
What makes it even worse when you lose the Saturday lunchtime game is that you just know that in all the subsequent matches, whoever you don't want to win will win.
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Disappointingly poor performance. Never really looked in it after 20 mins or so, Fulham’s goal was in the post for a while before it arrived. Villa showed nothing after that either. Very passive, a worrying lack of urgency, second to everything and no complaints with the result. Fulham probably should have had a couple more.
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Abysmal, Fulham wanted it more and deserved it.
Not a great way of setting up for Thursday.
Play like that and Forest will battter us.
Forest absolutely favourites now for the tie imo.
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My big concern for quite a while is that we have an absolute turd of a performance in us at any point in time. It would be very upsetting if we turn out another one in the Uefa Cup.
I am almost expecting it.
[/quote
WHy am I not surprised.
:o
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Utterly predictable: I got the Fulham goal right...
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I'm going to try and put some positive spin on this. If you could hand pick a game we were to lose in April over the last 7 or 8 years., then that would be right up there. Plus we have two of the bottom three up next, which would be enough.
Other than that, I don't really have anything, as it was shit.
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Emery wasnt happy with that Watkins miss but alot of this today was on Emery too.
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Slow turgid display today, and so many misplaced passes.
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There's still too many that aren't up to the level we're trying to get to, and they need to be moved on.
like most the subs to be honest.
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Thursday was already tough. This weekend's made it like Takeshi's Castle.
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did their goalie make a save?
Nope.
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Abysmal, Fulham wanted it more and deserved it.
Not a great way of setting up for Thursday.
Play like that and Forest will battter us.
Forest absolutely favourites now for the tie imo.
Erm, no!
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We’re going to make the CL. That I have confidence in. But today was just a collectively poor performance. We just weren’t at it. Usually it’s a player or two, but they saw we were lacking and exposed it. At this level those slips in the mental game are punished.
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Fulham were like Duracell bunnies. They never stopped running.
The only two conclusions I can draw from our performance are that (i) the players looked like they were saving themselves for Thursday, and (ii) we have two midfield "enforcers" at the club, and both of them have a disastrous tendency to miss vital matches through injury. Our win-rate plummets without them. So we need to replace one of them with someone who doesn't have legs made of filo pastry.
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It was obvious at half time that changes were needed yet he waited til the seventieth minute,
I can't name one Villa player that had a decent game. Why do Villa always leave us on edge.
One nil down and only a few minutes to play and we pass the ball back and back and back.
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Really disjointed going forwards again. The Summer needs an overhaul of how we go about attacking.
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I think the title is over now.
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Rubbish league form since Christmas, its only those two home wins over West Ham and Sunderland - plus a poor showing from our CL competitors - which has kept us.up there. Very average today and Fulham wanted it more.
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When I saw Sancho & Bailey coming on, I knew we’d lost! Abysmal the pair of them. Emery should have started with Barkley, Bogarde is not good enough at PL level and I have yet to see him pass the ball forward.
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They won the midfield, they went in hard on every challenge and we didn’t fancy it..
Some really poor performances Pau, Buendia and poor Bogarde looked completely out of his depth.
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That was back to a performance from the first 5 games of the season. Dreadful.
Oh well, onto Thursday.
Yep. At least when we were playing like that in Jan/Feb/Mar we didn't have McGinn and Tielemans so that could be the excuse. In this one we reverted back to slow play, and poor creativity / finishing as we didn't really get to the bylines like we had in recent matches. Poor excuse if they were "looking to save themselves for Thursday" as winning begets winning. If we play like that on Thursday it will be 5-0 to Forest again.
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Despite looking blunt today we actually had 4 guilt edged chances and failed to hit the target with any of them (Rogers, Watkins 2 and Tammy). Any one of them taken would have changed the game. Im expecting Unai to give them extra shooting practice before Thursday!
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It was obvious at half time that changes were needed yet he waited til the seventieth minute,
I can't name one Villa player that had a decent game. Why do Villa always leave us on edge.
One nil down and only a few minutes to play and we pass the ball back and back and back.
Its not just the subs. He didn't react to press at all.
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Hard work 1 Pretty football 0.
We lose intensity with no midweek match!!!
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When I saw Sancho & Bailey coming on, I knew we’d lost! Abysmal the pair of them. Emery should have started with Barkley, Bogarde is not good enough at PL level and I have yet to see him pass the ball forward.
I am still trying to understand why Emery thinks that it is a good idea to play the,.
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Rubbish league form since Christmas, its only those two home wins over West Ham and Sunderland - plus a poor showing from our CL competitors - which has kept us.up there. Very average today and Fulham wanted it more.
There is some truth to this. We owe Chelsea a pint.
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Win the next three, please.
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When I saw Sancho & Bailey coming on, I knew we’d lost! Abysmal the pair of them. Emery should have started with Barkley, Bogarde is not good enough at PL level and I have yet to see him pass the ball forward.
They probably would have been on even if we were winning. But we had lost when they were off the pitch for 70 mins so why not put them on?
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When I saw Sancho & Bailey coming on, I knew we’d lost! Abysmal the pair of them. Emery should have started with Barkley, Bogarde is not good enough at PL level and I have yet to see him pass the ball forward.
Spot on alex
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Despite looking blunt today we actually had 4 guilt edged chances and failed to hit the target with any of them (Rogers, Watkins 2 and Tammy). Any one of them taken would have changed the game. Im expecting Unai to give them extra shooting practice before Thursday!
We're saving the clinical finishing for Thursday night, just getting our eye in.
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It was obvious at half time that changes were needed yet he waited til the seventieth minute,
I can't name one Villa player that had a decent game. Why do Villa always leave us on edge.
One nil down and only a few minutes to play and we pass the ball back and back and back.
But the changes he made actually made us worse!
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From a Villa perspective, a complete waste of time for everyone involved. I could have been mowing the lawn.
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more nervous for Thursday now and I was nervous enough.
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At no stage of that game did I think we would get back into it. This slow slow play will be our undoing in the semi final.
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It was obvious at half time that changes were needed yet he waited til the seventieth minute,
I can't name one Villa player that had a decent game. Why do Villa always leave us on edge.
One nil down and only a few minutes to play and we pass the ball back and back and back.
But the changes he made actually made us worse!
I suppose we did have one shot on target somewhere so not having any in the last 20 mins technically meant we did get worse.
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Didn't really get going at all today but still had chances to have got something from the game.
Probably should have started Luiz instead of Bogarde.
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We played so badly that the Forest scouts will report back on how shit we are, lulling them into a false sense of security for next week. 4D chess by Unai.
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Last 14 league games
W 4 D 4 L 6
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At no stage of that game did I think we would get back into it. This slow slow play will be our undoing in the semi final.
Yep, it's utter shite at times.
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Last 14 league games
W 4 D 4 L 6
Injuries aside, that's really poor.
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Very hard to believe what I've just watched. An absolutely shocking performance. We have now put huge pressure on ourselves for the Semi Final games and the Spurs game in between. Fulham were bang average yet we had no idea how to generate any pressure in that second half having gone behind. The lack of energy, fight, invention is hard to take. Bringing Sancho and Bailey on to save the day just summed up our day. To give up our hard won momentum at this stage of the season is criminal. Forest will be all over us like a rash Thursday.
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not sure if it's a combination of Forest's performance last night, with our performance today, and general nerves and how we can shoot ourselves in the foot - I'm not looking forward to Thursday night.
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Last 14 league games
W 4 D 4 L 6
13th since 1st Jan. Considering our start to the season it is mental where we are in the league. That run was obviously incredible, but we do need to get busy this summer.
Edit: Also, Kamara. We need Kamara.
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The comparison, between our performance today and Forest's last night is massive and not to mention worrying.
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Rogers lost the ball 21 times.
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Last 14 league games
W 4 D 4 L 6
13th since 1st Jan. Considering our start to the season it is mental where we are in the league. That run was obviously incredible, but we do need to get busy this summer.
Edit: Also, Kamara. We need Kamara.
We do need to be busy in the summer - but that’s not really a surprise. Another way to look at it if we get Champions League it’s pretty remarkable how much has been squeezed out this squad.
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After that, Konsa, Rogers and Watkins should start planning their summer holidays and where they intend to watch the World Cup on TV.
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Last 14 league games
W 4 D 4 L 6
13th since 1st Jan. Considering our start to the season it is mental where we are in the league. That run was obviously incredible, but we do need to get busy this summer.
Edit: Also, Kamara. We need Kamara.
We do need to be busy in the summer - but that’s not really a surprise. Another way to look at it if we get Champions League it’s pretty remarkable how much has been squeezed out this squad.
Agreed. I was gutted coming into the season, because despite the obvious strength in certain areas, thought we were too short elsewhere (wide) to do anything. It would be pretty remarkable to qualify for the Champions League via the league and win the Europa. Or either solo tbh.
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Last 14 league games
W 4 D 4 L 6
13th since 1st Jan. Considering our start to the season it is mental where we are in the league. That run was obviously incredible, but we do need to get busy this summer.
Edit: Also, Kamara. We need Kamara.
We do need to be busy in the summer - but that’s not really a surprise. Another way to look at it if we get Champions League it’s pretty remarkable how much has been squeezed out this squad.
Agreed.
Lack of invention up top has been displayed more often than just today.
Even with the four goals last week, we have just about the lowest goals for out of all the sides around us this season.
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Unai and the players (most) have huge amounts of credit in the bank. What we have achieved is incredible really.
It begs the question, do we have the right to be angry and livid at performances like that or do we put it down to a ‘bad day at the office ?’
For me, we put in too many of those half arsed performances too regularly.
Unai talks constantly about consistency and maintaining our levels, and we seem to be able to it, but only in bursts.
I guess if we were ultra consistent, we’d be where Man City and Arsenal are now.
But I do worry that these low energy, low intensity, low quality performances are a little too frequent.
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We've seen it before and we'll see it again no doubt.
Set the team up like that against Forest and we'll lose badly. Get this out the system and plan to take the game to Forest as this one never works, for pretty much any team that tries it.
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need to be more combative and controlling - shame Barkley can't play - which makes me wonder why he didn't start today
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I'm hugely disappointed by today but I can understand it. Despite Emery's talk of the league being all-important it's Thursday where the mental focus is. But that's the worrying thing for me: talent wise, we have it, at least in our starting XI. But far too often we're not playing the game as we need to. Fulham were energetic but nothing special. We couldn't seem to switch into another mindset, though. Forest on Thursday will rip into us at a hundred miles per hour, which is what Palace did this time last year, and we couldn't deal with not dictating the tempo then and I don't see much in today's performance to suggest it's changed now.
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Unai and the players (most) have huge amounts of credit in the bank. What we have achieved is incredible really.
It begs the question, do we have the right to be angry and livid at performances like that or do we put it down to a ‘bad day at the office ?’
For me, we put in too many of those half arsed performances too regularly.
Unai talks constantly about consistency and maintaining our levels, and we seem to be able to it, but only in bursts.
I guess if we were ultra consistent, we’d be where Man City and Arsenal are now.
But I do worry that these low energy, low intensity, low quality performances are a little too frequent.
I'm not angry at the players. I don't think we're good enough in certain positions and that's not the players' fault. Some of it's poor recruitment, some of it's PSR (the Jacob Ramsey sized gap wide left is still unfilled). Either way, I doubt we get away with it again next season.
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Players we may need to move on: Bailey, Sancho, Bogarde, and Barkley (first three because they aren’t good enough and Barkley is probably too old]. Digne and Torres are borderline. How Lindelof doesn’t start over Torres is beyond me. He’s a far better defender and only very slightly inferior on the ball.
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Emery doesn't seem sure when Onana will be back, says he was happy with the performance but not the result. I feel the same about the fence I've been spray painting.
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Barkley is fine for another year. He almost always brings value. Digne probably the same, but if the chance is there on either it should be taken. Attacking width needs complete reform. Bogarde isn't good enough.
Torres I'd contest rationally before the fanboys rock up. He brings a lot of value. Does have glaring weaknesses though. Surprised he was up against Jimenez, because that isn't the first time he's done that to him.
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Despite looking blunt today we actually had 4 guilt edged chances and failed to hit the target with any of them (Rogers, Watkins 2 and Tammy). Any one of them taken would have changed the game. Im expecting Unai to give them extra shooting practice before Thursday!
Our xG was shite too.
Away from home in the PL we're soft as shite.
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Marco Silva isn't a bad coach.
But hey !
Good news, that's our season over (according to the naysayers), so we can get on with those days jobs we've been postponing for the last few weeks.
Off down to B&Q to buy everything.
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I know we have won on the two previous visits there, but whenever I go to Fulham, we turn in an insipid or poor performance.
It wasn't as if we were ever under the cosh from them, but they harried us quite well and defended with relative ease. However it was all aided by our wayward passing and sluggish play.
If we play like that for the rest of the season, it could all end in huge disappointment.
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Really disappointing performance as we could have pretty much sewn up the CL today and concentrated fully on the semi final. I can't help feeling that there were a few of them saving themselves for that game. Several players well below par. Fulham worked really hard to close us down and we didn't have any answers to it. Not sure how Rogers missed that first half chance after dolng all the hard work, other than that, he was poor too. If the answer is to bring on Bailey and Sancho, we are in trouble. Cash, Torres and especially Buendia were very poor. Fucking hate losing.
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Half arsed infuriating performance, which felt like everyone involved had one eye on the semi final. Tielemans and laterally Dougie, showed something like desire, for everyone else it looked like the season was done.
I find it hard to get as angry with Sancho and Bailey as some when everyone else was shit. Saying that Bailey’s half arsed no look punt to no in the box towards the end was dreadful, and Unai had a ‘your done son’ look on his face.
It’ll either be the start of a wobble that does our season, or the rocket we need to step up at Forest and then against spurs
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Annoying as if we had won today it would be CL for sure - even a point would have been helpful.
Really disapointing performance - our midfield particularly Bogarde struggled. We too reliant on Watkins, McGinn and Rogers. Little Emi has done well but the rest of the attacking options have been unacceptably poor this season.
Hopefully it won’t hurt us too much - just need one more win and I think we’ll be there. More frustrated that we seemed to have clicked a bit but we’re over achieving that’s to Unai, and trust us to get the business done
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The pundits on NBC Sports described it exactly as I saw it - looked like a team operating at 70% because they all have one eye on Thursday. Not great, but not season defining either. We will beat Spurs and/or Burnley (and so qualify for CL) and the semi-final is big
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Sluggish performance we bring on two wide men to inject some pace succeeded in playing the ball backwards? This team team seems devoid of an ability to play defence splitting passes, if Tielemans is off nobody can provide an alternative creative pass.
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Not the first time we’ve seen that sluggish, playing within ourselves performance. We were incredibly flat given what was at stake.
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I can only assume he’s banking on a win at Burnley
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If we put in a performance like that because of Thursday then by extension, we could/should be just as shit against spurs.
If that follows a poor result at Forest it could be a very, very twitchy sphincter time for the remaining games.
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That was a pretty bland perfume but once again poor finishing did for us. Ollie should of slotted his chance in the first half. Rogers should of scored after doing brilliantly and Tammy should of scored after some great footwork.We don't score enough goals. Our goal difference is the lowest in the top five and we have scored in the least goals in the top nine teams.
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We created some good chances to win the game. We weren’t clinical enough at all. But it’s the periods in between where we were too slow and careless that’s been a part of our game all season. Today combined it hurt us.
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Was it impossibly hot there today? Most of our players played like they were in a sauna. Fulham, with little or nothing to play for, brought more desire and intensity to the game and deserved to win. We did create and miss some gilt edged chances but they were more moments created by individual quality rather than anything sustained. I thought today exposed that we do need to change some personnel out of the squad over the summer. Warm day and most of our players were stuck to the ground.
My biggest moan is reserved for Emery. his faith in Bogarde badly misplaced again and leaving our most in form centre back on the bench. But he made a complete mess of the subs, timing of them particularly but they made no sense anyway. Sancho and Bailey, Luiz and Barkley, Tammy barely even 10 mins. Maatsen left sitting.
Martinez 6, Cash 5, Konsa 4, Torres 1, Digne 1, Bogarde 1, Tielemans 4, McGinn 4, Buendia 4, Rogers 5, Watkins 5. Luiz and Tammy were lively off the bench. Can't remember much from the other three.
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We're going to go into the Liverpool game still needing points, I can feel it.
We play this timid, passive, low-energy game every time we have a high stakes game, or something good is within our grasp. Drives me feckin mad.
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That was a pretty bland perfume
It was Panache by Lentheric proportions.
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If we come away from Forest on Thursday with the same scoreline as today it won’t be a bad result. But if we play like we did today against them it’ll be a fkng miracle.
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I am convinced that we went into that game obsessing about next Thursday and playing at 70% intensity. If not, then we will not win another game this season. We badly missed Onana, and Bailey and Sanchez were a waste of air. .Even SJM lacked his usual influence and Pau lost his ability to pass to a Villa player. I cannot think of anyone who had a decent game for us and our apparent lack of drive was troubling. Even then we had enough chances to get something from it. Now is the time to go on a seven match winning run! UTV and FATR.