Unai Emery

[PeterWithesShin]

Bournemouth 1.12 Fulham 0.89

Bournemuoth won 3-1

Don't say I didn't give you anything for Christmas.

[cdbearsfan]

God bless us, everyone!

[PeterWithesShin]

It's A Wonderful Life is happening in this thread.

[Garyth]

Stop pretending it's some sort of judgement saying Villa are bad at football - in fact, it's saying the opposite

It is being portrayed as the reason it's 'not sustainable', though. That's the judgement people are getting annoyed about.

I get that. The distinction I’m making is why don’t people get annoyed at the folks making those judgments? xG is just numbers. Calling it bollocks is like saying 8 is bollocks, or the square root of 39.64.

You can disagree about it being used to make sweeping conclusions, but your ire should be pointed at those doing so.

It’s just a method to quantify how good are the chances a football team create over time - a
relatively simple number that is at least better than wildly misleading ones like ‘possession’ or ‘shots on target’.

Is it really a shock to learn that pundits or analysts oversimplify things in order to make a point?

Aside: I still don’t see what is so unreasonable about expecting Villa to not ‘sustain’ our current form. I don’t think we’ve put together 90min of ‘good’ football yet. (Which is fine, I think it’s definitely part of Emery’s plan to rotate squads and expend the least effort winning games as possible - but to look at our performances and think we’re never losing again is willful ignorance, imo. Not that I wouldn’t love it to happen, mind. 😆)

[Brend'Watkins]

I see what you’re getting at Garyth but as pundits, analysts and hacks put so much emphasis on this latest metric and use it incorrectly…mostly, I think it would be better if Xg was Toneved into the ether.

[Garyth]

Tonev.

heh. Haven't thought about that guy in a long time.

[SamTheMouse]

He's a total genius.

This thing we do, where we appear to play conservatively in the first half and often have to come from behind. It ain't by accident.

Opponents have to come at us and press like their lives depend on it, just to stop us playing. But they can't keep it up for 90 minutes and Emery knows it. So we just wait for the press to falter, for one of their midfielders to get knackered and stand a yard off his man, and suddenly those gaps start to appear. And that's when we take the game by the scruff of the neck and start carving through them and sowing panic in their ranks.

The beauty of it is that we finish strongly, there's always something left in the tank - and Emery uses his subs bench absolutely brilliantly to take full advantage.

Football fucking poetry.

[LeeB]

He's just toying with our opponents hopes and aspirations now, it's delicious, deceiving them into thinking they're doing well and are in the contest.

[itmustbe_it is!]

Some managers are tactical geniuses. Some are great coaches and improve every player. Some rely on the belief , passion and energy they bring.

Unai is all three.

[LeeB]

Some managers are tactical geniuses. Some are great coaches and improve every player. Some rely on the belief , passion and energy they bring.

Unai is all three.

Yep.

[Rigadon]

Maybe he is reaching his peak.  It’s really something to behold. 

[Witton Warrior]

I owe him a drink

[PeterWithesShin]

He's doing ok so far.

[Chip Butty 111]

Emery,Emery,Emery     oh Emery
Speaking words of wisdom....Emery

What a guy...

[pelty]

I just named my son after Unai… he is 25 years old. I do not think he minds the name change because he is enjoying this run as much as I am!!