Unai Emery

[kippaxvilla2]

Ah okay.  Glad I checked.

[PeterWithe]

If were the manager, and its a bloody good job for all our sakes I'm not, it would be a fairly simple choice. Are we going to dominate possession, does the opposition have a shit hot physical Centre Forward?

[ChicagoLion]

I know I go against the grain here but I do think we have been better this season with Tyrone instead of Pau.

That's not really going against the grain, that's broadly in line with what most people have said.

The schism is whether Pau is a failed waster who should be rushed out the club while we instead plan our first-choice defence for the future around 32 year Mings, who has since been elevated to the status of the new Franco Baresi.

When you put it like that

[ozzjim]

I know I go against the grain here but I do think we have been better this season with Tyrone instead of Pau.

That's not really going against the grain, that's broadly in line with what most people have said.

The schism is whether Pau is a failed waster who should be rushed out the club while we instead plan our first-choice defence for the future around 32 year Mings, who has since been elevated to the status of the new Franco Baresi.

When you put it like that

Scouting a version in between the 2 would be good.

[Dave]

I know I go against the grain here but I do think we have been better this season with Tyrone instead of Pau.

That's not really going against the grain, that's broadly in line with what most people have said.

The schism is whether Pau is a failed waster who should be rushed out the club while we instead plan our first-choice defence for the future around 32 year Mings, who has since been elevated to the status of the new Franco Baresi.

When you put it like that

Scouting a version in between the 2 would be good.

Presumably we did, and that's Ozcan.

[stevo_st]

Is Ozcan left footed?

[brontebilly]

Correlation is not causation.

6 of those 14 games he played in the league were against sides in the bottom half at the time. It included wins against Southampton, Leicester and Everton- all bottom 5 at the time. A win at Brentford who were 11th.

Draws with West Ham and Ipswich who were bottom 5 too, at home.

It included notable draws at Arsenal and at home to Liverpool, the later where he turned his back during the block where the goal deflected in from Trent Alexander Arnold.

It also included a win against Chelsea, where bizarrely enough he defends the Neto cross for the goal, just like absolutely everybody said we wouldn't have done if he was in Pau's shoes at Man City. Curious the amount of wisdom there was that Ty would have dived in, when he did no such thing against Chelsea.

A bit like how he let's Havertz get the run on him for Arsenal's second. Ball watching and slow to react. But he'd have definitely earned us a point at Man City.

Wins against Forest and Newcastle too- both excellent wins, although a ropey 2nd half in the former. A win at Bournemouth, although he goes off on 70 minutes and Torres does fine when we're down to 10.

He's massively at fault at Monaco and Bruges, but ultimately irrelevant.

I like Mings, but can we please for the love of fucking God stop quoting context less stats with such idiotic smugness.

Agreed with a lot of that but Torres was appalling when he came on at Bournemouth 😜

I thought Mings was finished at the top level that night v Chelsea, that was after a number of poor games but Chelsea was a horrid low. It was sad to watch that night but he has turned it around since. Brentford, Bournemouth, Newcastle he was excellent.

We might as well look forward, if Torres continues to be Emery's boy (4 years younger and hasn't had serious injuries like Mings), what does he have to improve upon and is Konsa the right partner for him? If we are under serious PSR pressure, should we consider moving Konsa on? If Kamara moves on, what kind of profile in CM do we need to get the best out of Torres and limit his weaknesses.

[Monty]

Correlation is not causation.

6 of those 14 games he played in the league were against sides in the bottom half at the time. It included wins against Southampton, Leicester and Everton- all bottom 5 at the time. A win at Brentford who were 11th.

Draws with West Ham and Ipswich who were bottom 5 too, at home.

It included notable draws at Arsenal and at home to Liverpool, the later where he turned his back during the block where the goal deflected in from Trent Alexander Arnold.

It also included a win against Chelsea, where bizarrely enough he defends the Neto cross for the goal, just like absolutely everybody said we wouldn't have done if he was in Pau's shoes at Man City. Curious the amount of wisdom there was that Ty would have dived in, when he did no such thing against Chelsea.

A bit like how he let's Havertz get the run on him for Arsenal's second. Ball watching and slow to react. But he'd have definitely earned us a point at Man City.

Wins against Forest and Newcastle too- both excellent wins, although a ropey 2nd half in the former. A win at Bournemouth, although he goes off on 70 minutes and Torres does fine when we're down to 10.

He's massively at fault at Monaco and Bruges, but ultimately irrelevant.

I like Mings, but can we please for the love of fucking God stop quoting context less stats with such idiotic smugness.

When he's right he's right!

[brontebilly]

If were the manager, and its a bloody good job for all our sakes I'm not, it would be a fairly simple choice. Are we going to dominate possession, does the opposition have a shit hot physical Centre Forward?

Mateta, Jimenez, Delap, that guy at Luton last season bust that theory? We would be expected to dominate possession against those teams.

[Dave]

Wins against Forest and Newcastle too- both excellent wins, although a ropey 2nd half in the former. A win at Bournemouth, although he goes off on 70 minutes and Torres does fine when we're down to 10.

While we're going into granular detail on performances, Schär's goal for Newcastle is from a near-identical position on the pitch to Semenyo's chance at the end for Bournemouth that is evidence of the defence falling apart after Pau replaced Mings.

Neither chance is the fault of Mings / Torres, but stories gotta be told.

[chrisw1]

I know I go against the grain here but I do think we have been better this season with Tyrone instead of Pau.  I have started to get a sense of dread (similar but not quite) to when Olsen was announced in the starting 11.  This is not necessarily correlating to me thinking that Tyrone is a better all round player than Pau.  Just that I think Pau has not been on it especially since he came back from injury.  I hope of course that the summer break puts that right.

I'm also nailing my colours to the Mings mast (calm down children it's not funny).  Much as I think Torres contributed well last season, I just think when the going gets tough we're a far better team with Mings.  It really felt like we were crying out for him against Man U. 

[VillaTim]

If were the manager, and its a bloody good job for all our sakes I'm not, it would be a fairly simple choice. Are we going to dominate possession, does the opposition have a shit hot physical Centre Forward?

Mateta, Jimenez, Delap, that guy at Luton last season bust that theory? We would be expected to dominate possession against those teams.

add the boy at Burnely (Foster ?) who rolled him so easily a couple of games into his Villa career and the issues were clear at the outset he needed to add to the rigours of EPL

[ROBBO]

Mings is a talker and a leader Pau is not. Not blaming Pau for the last game debacle as i believe Emery got it all wrong. There are games when you have to build slowly, playing against a side that are on their knees is not one of them.

[RamboandBruno]

If were the manager, and its a bloody good job for all our sakes I'm not, it would be a fairly simple choice. Are we going to dominate possession, does the opposition have a shit hot physical Centre Forward?

Mateta, Jimenez, Delap, that guy at Luton last season bust that theory? We would be expected to dominate possession against those teams.

add the boy at Burnely (Foster ?) who rolled him so easily a couple of games into his Villa career and the issues were clear at the outset he needed to add to the rigours of EPL

Your choosing to just ignore Ad’s post then, not worth commenting on?

[VillaTim]

Mings is a talker and a leader Pau is not. Not blaming Pau for the last game debacle as i believe Emery got it all wrong. There are games when you have to build slowly, playing against a side that are on their knees is not one of them.

Correct , and if we are casting our mind back over performances against bottom half clubs as per the poster above did, lets not selectively leave out / forget Everton H 2 conceded, Ipswich A 2 more, Spurs A 4 more , Palace H 2 more , all Torres games .