Aston Villa vs Newcastle United pre match thread

[eamonn]

I don't think it's glass half empty at all.  We are clearly well coached, prepared and playing well, but you can only over-perform stats for so long - and we are doing so at both ends of the pitch.  To do so you need an element of luck.  I feel we've had that at key moments in a number of games.  I'm surprised I seem to be alone, but that's how the tinted glasses work.  I don't think I'm being pessimistic, just objective. 

I've revealed my support for your stance, please take heart, you are not alone.

[PeterWithesShin]

Luck rarely plays a part in football. The Arsenal goal is an example of luck but if they don't shoot they don't score, I don't class any of our deflections in the 7-2 as lucky for example, we shot, we scored. Job done. We were much better than Leicester at home but it wasn't luck we lost, it was shit individual play from us 4 times. Mudryk missing wasn't luck, it was a shit finish. Brighton getting skanked wasn't luck, it was incompetence verging on cheating by the officals. Ollie missing chance after chance earlier in the season wasn't down to luck, it was because of poor play and coaching. And so on.

[pauliewalnuts]

Most of those Chelsea shots were from about 3 miles out, too.

[paul_e]

Luck works both ways.

Indeed.

If there's a definition of luck here, what kind of luck does going ahead against Arsenal twice, being at 2-2 on 93 minutes and having a shot bounce down off the bar, off the back of the keeper's head and in represent?

Yep, I agree, that's the biggest action of luck in any of our recent games.

Maybe, but Arsenal completely controlled that second half and you just knew that Martínez time-wasting at 2-2 just before injury time, was going to come back to haunt us.

I can see where Chris is coming from, I know people think xG is bollocks but it is an indicator of sorts, and we're outscoring it in almost every game on this run.

We haven't been swash-buckling in any of our wins but maybe that isn't the Emery way and hard-fought victories where we're more ruthless than the opposition is probably going to be the order of the day under him. Not complaining - we're winning consistently and are remarkably scoring in every game since he joined, I just hope if/when the wheels come off, it's not going to be a car-crash. It's the Villan in me, I'm scarred from years of trauma y'see.

Xg is an imperfect guide that doesn't account for things like form or ability. As an example Potter has now had both Brighton and Chelsea scoring well below their Xg over a number of seasons, that suggests something about how he sets teams up makes them need more chances than is statistically normal for the league. Emery appears, on a smaller sample size, to have the opposite effect where he creates teams that are ruthless with the chances they create. Xg won't adapt its methods for them but it doesn't mean Potter is unlucky and Emery is lucky, it just means that they are statistical outliers. Anything that is based on averages will always have those and it's impossible to account for them in the modelling.

As the most basic explanation Xg will have a hard coded value for penalties (0.79) based on x out y result in goals and situationally they're all the same. What that doesn't account for is how good the penalty taker is, how good the goalkeeper is, how much pressure there is on the taker, and many other things. It doesn' drilldown to those levels because instead it just uses a simple "79% of penalties result in a goal" stat. Across the entire league over a full season it'll be pretty accurate (because the underlying number is pulled from a similar dataset) but it doesn't mean anyone taking a penalty against anyone has a 79% chance to score.

I don't think it's luck if someone hits a screamer from 30yards, I don't think it's luck if a keeper pulls off a wonder save, they're examples of exceptional skill.

If a shot is going 2 yards wide but bounces off a couple of defenders and into the top corner then that's luck (but not all own-goals, sometimes the quality of the shot/cross creates a situation where an own goal is much more likely, that's another example of skill).

What I'm really getting at is that our form recently has been down to tactical and coaching excellence and the confidence that has created in the squad. Putting it down to luck is to subscribe (at least in part) to the 'bit of magic' approach of Gerrard and Bruce.

Someone above mentioned we were lucky with the Leicester sending off and the Forest injury but that completely ignores the fact that in the past we've been terrible against 10men but in both of those games we adapted and exploited the extra space brilliantly, that's not luck, it's preparation.

[LeeB]

Even the sending off is a result of a fustrated player making two errors chasing us in posession, and because of the skill of the player with the ball.

[john2710]

It will be a tight game & 1-1 draw. I'd bring Dendonker into midfield and push McGinn further forward. Traore drops to the bench. We need to be patient, match them physically & alert at set pieces.

With a few exceptions they are not a particularly talented team, but they are well organised, hard working and strong.

 

[sid1964]

They have lost just 3 games this season, I would think they have quite a few talented players

We will need to match them for their work rate as they are an extremely fit side

[OCD]

2 of those defeats were against Liverpool (one before the League Cup final where they just seem to implode) and the other away at Man City.

Their biggest problem is how many games they've drawn. They'll be thinking if they could have turned some of those draws into wins, they could have been in the title picture.

[Drummond]

They will come to stifle us, and nick one. We will do the same and it will be the dullest game ever, 0.23xg and a couple of bookings.

[pauliewalnuts]

Will be interesting to see a team which engages in even more timewasting than we do.

[Hookeysmith]

Reading the comments i also think that the physical battle in midfield will be the reason why we win or lose and for that reason i think the Donk should come in, especially because of Jolinton, so McGinn can get further forward and let them worry about us.
I really like Willock and hopefully St Maximam will have one of his many wasteful off days.

Think this will be our toughest game for a while

[eamonn]

2 of those defeats were against Liverpool (one before the League Cup final where they just seem to implode) and the other away at Man City.

Their biggest problem is how many games they've drawn. They'll be thinking if they could have turned some of those draws into wins, they could have been in the title picture.

I think some of their wins could easily have been draws, and some draws could have been defeats. They're certainly not under-achieving based on how they've played. Their success is based on a rock-solid defence. This often means a reliance on narrow wins.

[Smithy]

Most of those Chelsea shots were from about 3 miles out, too.

That's just not true. 19 of their efforts were inside the box, and 10 of them were closer than the penalty spot. I'm not saying we didn't play well, or that we didn't defend brilliantly after taking the lead (we obviously did!), merely that the sheer number of chances they created - some of them pretty good - would "normally" lead to goals, and that we were a bit lucky on the day. 

And that's okay. It's not a criticism of us or our performance. Sometimes you get the rub of the green, or benefit from the other team's forwards having an off-day, and on that day I think we DID benefit from that.  Like I said previously, I think the "luck" against Chelsea was balanced out by Leicester having five shots all afternoon and scoring four in a different game against us - a game I think we deserved to win on the balance of play, but they go lucky due to a couple of big individual errors.

[PeterWithesShin]

It's not luck though, it's just shit play. Chelsea are mid table partly because they can't score many, as we saw with their shit finishing. Individual errors in defence against Leicester weren't luck, it was shit defending. Ollie scoring a lot now isn't luck, same as him missing loads earlier in the season wasn't luck.

[Axl Rose]

Reading the comments i also think that the physical battle in midfield will be the reason why we win or lose and for that reason i think the Donk should come in, especially because of Jolinton, so McGinn can get further forward and let them worry about us.
I really like Willock and hopefully St Maximam will have one of his many wasteful off days.

Think this will be our toughest game for a while

Isn't Saint Maximin injured?