Austin MacPhee

[Somniloquism]

Never got the impression that Unai warmed to him particularly.

So Emery, who totally changed all the backroom apart fom MacPhee, kept him for 3.5 years and used to allow him to take over the technical area with no fuss during set-pieces, didn't warm to him?

[Somniloquism]

I often wondered if he worked on that side, because as good as we have been offensively we always look vulnerable defensively.

We derfinitely improved defending them, but whether that was better players defending them or improvements from Austin is always up in the air. Although similar can be said from scoring them, there is the odd one or two which have definitely been coached in (the final for example), but most are down to the quality of the ball in and the finishing of the player.  Sometimes we were not even clearing the first man. Was that down to a poor ball or because a player didn't do his job at the routine to draw that player out.

[Behind Bluenose Lines]

Prog rock wanker.

It's a key area these days, I hope we don't Rush the appointment of his successor.

Yes!!

His departure is going down like a Led Zeppelin with some people.

[Eckybloke]

Had a feeling earlier in the summer that this was going to come sooner rather than later.
He left Scotland to go to Portugal and I’d like to think he had more affinity for his country than a club.  Even this club! 🤣

[brontebilly]

Hopefully the PL over the summer kick back hard against those set piece brawls that favour the Stokes/Wimbledons/Arsenals and goals from open play are prioritised again. Austy was great though we had quite a small team so had to be innovative at set piece time. The Tielemans goal in the final as a case in point.

[mrfuse]

We scored 18 Premier League goals from set-pieces last season — only the joint-10th most in the Premier League.

We conceded 16 set-piece goals, with seven teams conceding fewer set-piece goals than Villa.

I think we will be ok.

[Ian.]

That’s quite interesting. Nowhere near as good as I thought and pretty much where I thought defensively.