Everton vs Aston Villa Post-Match Thread

[Goldie.7]

All match Watkins was in Tarkowski's pocket. Nobody thought to tell him to move out wide then cut in to switch it up once?

A dire snoozefest with appalling officiating which is the standard in the Premier League now.

[astonvilla82]

We weren’t very good collectively. I think looking for an individual to point the finger at is a waste of time as too many were under par.

Agreed

[Chap]

That was a really poor tackle by Tarkowski on Diaby. Reckless and endangered the opponent. It’s a penalty despite getting the ball.

Thought our players should have made a lot more of that. Shocking tackle and he repeated the dose a few minutes later on Moreno. He's another Ben Mee type thug.

Yeah - if that was Duran, he would be rolling around and angrily barking at the ref. Diaby seems a quieter individual and didn't make enough of it.

Wan-Bissaka was booked for a very similar tackle on Johnson in the ManU Spurs game. Won the ball but it was out of control and reckless. If we’d surrounded the referee like the sky6 do, it would have been a penalty.

Thought the Tarkowski was worse than this one.

[Risso]

We weren’t very good collectively. I think looking for an individual to point the finger at is a waste of time as too many were under par.

McGinn was really off today , one eye on his holidays ?

He's never as good playing on the left.

[Somniloquism]

Another below par away performance, can't think of a really decent chance we created, still we got a point and came within an inch of getting 3, what a cracking goal it would've been from Moreno. I thought Kamara now looks like he's getting back to his best and also credit to Lenglet, has much improved in recent games.

Baileys near post strike and Cash's blocked effort probably the two.

[eamonn]

As I’ve said before the pedestrian pace we play at the end of games when we need a goal does my head in

Frustrating at times but it's how Unai wants it.

Emery in his post-match interview: "Even in injury time, we were trying to play with the same idea, trying not to lose our minds. Keeping our game-plan in our mind and in the end we got some chances to score and this is the way"

[eamonn]

Just keep believing…we will see what happens

Let's keep religion out of this please!

Maybe it's magick.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

..Durán spent too much energy berating his team mates or lying on the turf. It's no wonder Watkins was having a heated word with him after the final whistle.

Maybe there was an opportunity for Duran to have headed the ball down to Watkins who had space rather than go for goal. In Duran's defence the chance of Watkins controlling it would be close to zero. A first time shot however.. probably straight at the keeper. We'll never know.

You really don’t rate Watkins.

Put it like this, I don't love him as much as you do (assuming you're not his agent) but then very few do.
Watkins can be either extremely frustrating, like he's been recently or a top goalscorer. It's one or the other with very little in between.

That said, if Emery is going to rely on Watkins to be our main goal threat we should at least adapt our play to his strengths. Today, he was hardly in the game but then we tried too often to play it through the middle where he was easily marked out the game. Diaby was poor too. I'd certainly be looking to try and get early, low crosses into the box against teams like Everton, Sheff Utd etc as the centre of the park is far too congested.

[RamboandBruno]

As I’ve said before the pedestrian pace we play at the end of games when we need a goal does my head in

Frustrating at times but it's how Unai wants it.

Emery in his post-match interview: "Even in injury time, we were trying to play with the same idea, trying not to lose our minds. Keeping our game-plan in our mind and in the end we got some chances to score and this is the way"

Indeed, ‘the way’ has got us to 3rd past the halfway mark

[Rudy Can't Fail]

..Durán spent too much energy berating his team mates or lying on the turf. It's no wonder Watkins was having a heated word with him after the final whistle.

Maybe there was an opportunity for Duran to have headed the ball down to Watkins who had space rather than go for goal. In Duran's defence the chance of Watkins controlling it would be close to zero. A first time shot however.. probably straight at the keeper. We'll never know.

You really don’t rate Watkins.

He's probably still having a go at El Ghazi, even if the poor bugger's without a club!

Ha! He's not even Poundland Ronaldo. The only thing they have in common are the eyebrows.

[Hookeysmith]

Ref was beyond appalling.
Thought we looked out of ideas and the zip we normally have. If ever there was an advert for anti football it's Dyches teams.

Squad needs freshening up even if only one new face

[Ian.]

As I’ve said before the pedestrian pace we play at the end of games when we need a goal does my head in

Frustrating at times but it's how Unai wants it.

Emery in his post-match interview: "Even in injury time, we were trying to play with the same idea, trying not to lose our minds. Keeping our game-plan in our mind and in the end we got some chances to score and this is the way"

It’s hard to argue against him for the way we have played for over 12 months now.

[Skerra]

I keep seeing comments about the pace of Diaby and Bailey but, what I see a lot of the time is them not using that pace to go past a defender but, rather, cut back and just playing the ball backwards. In fairness, Bailey had been decent in the last few games but, today, not so good.

[Meanwood Villa]

Did we win it on xG? Please, it's important.

https://twitter.com/xGPhilosophy/status/1746563563760554286?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

Gulp

[brontebilly]

Ref was beyond appalling.
Thought we looked out of ideas and the zip we normally have. If ever there was an advert for anti football it's Dyches teams.

Squad needs freshening up even if only one new face

I'm wondering if we might move Zaniolo on. We have glaring weaknesses elsewhere in the squad.