Aston Villa 3-0 Bournemouth post match pint and pork scratchings

[Risso]

Konsa got caught on his heels really badly twice, and as Bren says better teams would have punished us. Konsa's one of the players who even in the improved run I still think we need to replace, if not with Carlos then with somebody else.

[eamonn]

That was a fantastic recovery challenge from Mings to stop Solanke (?) from getting a clean shot when through on goal.

[Risso]

That was a fantastic recovery challenge from Mings to stop Solanke (?) from getting a clean shot when through on goal.

It was, although Solanke had overrun it anyway (thanks in part though to Mings) and had pulled it wide.

[Flamingo Lane]

That was a fantastic recovery challenge from Mings to stop Solanke (?) from getting a clean shot when through on goal.

It was, but it was really poor play by the striker, taking that extra touch to his left, and that led him nowhere.

[danno]

Has Emery finally found best system? - From The Guardian

Unai Emery took over from Steven Gerrard in October, and since then Villa have been better but still erratic, winning two consecutive league games just three times.

What a weird definition of "erratic". Most clubs outside the top four would be pretty happy with winning twice in a row three times in three months let alone all the other "one in a row" wins we've had.

Isn't our top four/five position since Emery took over a little bit more of an accurate reflection on how well he has done?

I think the writer may have meant erratic in the sense that when we win, we win deservedly and when we lose it’s a horror show of individual errors.

[paul_e]

Has Emery finally found best system? - From The Guardian

Unai Emery took over from Steven Gerrard in October, and since then Villa have been better but still erratic, winning two consecutive league games just three times.

What a weird definition of "erratic". Most clubs outside the top four would be pretty happy with winning twice in a row three times in three months let alone all the other "one in a row" wins we've had.

Isn't our top four/five position since Emery took over a little bit more of an accurate reflection on how well he has done?

I think the writer may have meant erratic in the sense that when we win, we win deservedly and when we lose it’s a horror show of individual errors.

I doubt it, I suspect they're just looked at the table and seen our position has been fairly steady and assumed it's because we're erratic.



That's not erratic, it's 1 bad run in a set of results that would be title contender level otherwise.

[danno]

Yeah I doubt it too, was just trying to give the guy a pass.

[pablo_picasso]

Has Emery finally found best system? - From The Guardian

Unai Emery took over from Steven Gerrard in October, and since then Villa have been better but still erratic, winning two consecutive league games just three times.

What a weird definition of "erratic". Most clubs outside the top four would be pretty happy with winning twice in a row three times in three months let alone all the other "one in a row" wins we've had.

Isn't our top four/five position since Emery took over a little bit more of an accurate reflection on how well he has done?

Only Arsenal & the two plastic Manc clubs have better form than Villa since Emery took over...

[Hookeysmith]

Has Emery finally found best system? - From The Guardian

Unai Emery took over from Steven Gerrard in October, and since then Villa have been better but still erratic, winning two consecutive league games just three times.

What a weird definition of "erratic". Most clubs outside the top four would be pretty happy with winning twice in a row three times in three months let alone all the other "one in a row" wins we've had.

Isn't our top four/five position since Emery took over a little bit more of an accurate reflection on how well he has done?

Only Arsenal & the two plastic Manc clubs have better form than Villa since Emery took over...

The more we are under the radar then that is good (even though i think Emery should be applauded for what he has done already)

The minute the knobs in the media start waxing about us will be the start all our decent players will be linked with the likes of the Red filth etc - just like we dared to have  the best keeper in the world it was instantly thought that he would be joining one of the scum six - even mentioning Spurs FFS

[Smithy]

We've gone under the radar because our league position hasn't really changed, and that's what most people notice.  We've gone from a relegation scrap, to last place in the top half battle, but that 'last place' is still eleven points clear of team behind us. 

After we lost 4-0 to Newcastle in the last game before Emery took over, we were 1 point above the relegation places, 7 points from a European place, and 12 points from a top four place.

Today we are FOURTEEN points clear of relegation, 4 points from Europe, and 11 points from the top four.  We've actually GAINED on the teams going for Europe and even the Champions League.  That is a ridiculously good turn around for a team that was in the relegation mix.

I think we'll struggle to maintain the same form to the end of the season (not least because we've got some tough games coming up, certainly tougher than the last four), but there is absolutely no way we start next season without us being a few people's picks for the season's dark horses.

[PeterWithesShin]

We have played more games under Emery than a lot of the sides that are above us in the actual league table, and are also just behind us in the 'since he's been in charge table'. Quite a few have played 13 or 12 league games in the time we've played 14 under Unai. Not diminishing what he's done, i'm delighted with him.

[Risso]

We've gone under the radar because our league position hasn't really changed, and that's what most people notice.  We've gone from a relegation scrap, to last place in the top half battle, but that 'last place' is still eleven points clear of team behind us. 

After we lost 4-0 to Newcastle in the last game before Emery took over, we were 1 point above the relegation places, 7 points from a European place, and 12 points from a top four place.

Today we are FOURTEEN points clear of relegation, 4 points from Europe, and 11 points from the top four.  We've actually GAINED on the teams going for Europe and even the Champions League.  That is a ridiculously good turn around for a team that was in the relegation mix.

I think we'll struggle to maintain the same form to the end of the season (not least because we've got some tough games coming up, certainly tougher than the last four), but there is absolutely no way we start next season without us being a few people's picks for the season's dark horses.

Yep I think people finally noticed we were ahead of Chelsea, even if it was only for a couple of hours, and are now level with them. The win against Palace is what put clear daylight between us and the Eagles, and therefore everybody else. Also the fact that we hammered Bournemouth who had just beaten Liverpool and played well against Arsenal probably helped.

When we beat Chelsea, the narrative will be that we're an unstoppable juggernaut....

[eamonn]

I'm really looking forward to the Chelsea game, the two games at Stamford Bridge last season (under Dean) were really harsh on us. 

[boozey182]

What's really pleasing is that we won comfortably and still have plenty of areas in which we can improve. A couple of players could have done better (Bailey and Buendia particularly), and we don't yet have the squad depth to rotate things when things go wrong. Although to stick up for Buendia a bit, I can't believe how unlucky he is when it comes to assists - it seems everyone misses when he puts them through on goal, the poor bloke. It was the same last season as well. So happy for him to get his goal though (not least because I got 40/1 on him to score a header).

We started and finished the game so well. I don't think Bournemouth kicked the ball in our half in the first or last 10 minutes, which is incredible really. We were utterly dominant, and when we can start doing that for longer periods of matches, we'll be a serious team.

This was the result we all needed, I think. The perfect way to go into a break.

[paul_e]

We have played more games under Emery than a lot of the sides that are above us in the actual league table, and are also just behind us in the 'since he's been in charge table'. Quite a few have played 13 or 12 league games in the time we've played 14 under Unai. Not diminishing what he's done, i'm delighted with him.

The only teams who have played less games than us since the 1st November (picked to cover the games played in the same round as our horror show at Newcastle) are Brighton, Newcastle and West Ham all on 13. 9 teams have played 15 or 16 so, if anything, us being high up that table is slightly underestimating how well we've done. Again, as I posted earlier, be careful where you get stats like this from because a lot of sites use round/matchday rather than date which means the round 7 games which have been rearranged aren't being included in the stats.