Villa 1 Man. United 2 Post match thread.

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Fair points that I'd agree with too.

[Percy McCarthy]

Unai is the best manager we've had since Sir Ron, but possibly the only slight criticism I would have of him, is he sometimes leaves his substitutions too late, yesterday the subbing of Bailey did baffle me, maybe cost us the game. Anyway, obviously ignoring the result, there were far more positives than negatives, on another day we would have won quite comfortable, possibly the most pleasing thing was the improvement of JJ, still some way off his best, but he's getting there.

He's behind Big Ron and Little for me, still. Obviously the rest of the season still to go so that may change.

Nurse!

Yep, it's obviously mental thinking that managers who finished higher up the table and won a trophy were better. Pass the meds!

It’s not mental, but there wasn’t the massive disparity of resources with 6 teams then.

[RamboandBruno]

Thanks for the considered response.
So, I didn’t suggest he’s our best ever manager, although he has all the background to be that, hopefully he will be as it means us winning stuff.
I never disregarded what our previous managers have done, I’m sure I enjoyed the successes of the BFR and Little eras as much as you did. I said it was an unfair comparison at this time because of the relatively short amount of time Emery has been here. So the whole better Villa manager discussion is a bit flawed in that regard. I do also think Emery is operating in a different footballing world as has been pointed out by others.

Well then I think we largely agree. He might be and in fact almost certainly is the most able manager we've had, and I hope that ability brings him the success he and we deserve. But you have to back it up by winning stuff or at least doing something materially better than anybody has achieved before. If he can reverse this current blip and get us to 4th or 5th at the end of the season, then that woud be seriously brilliant. Despite the December heroics we were never really likely to be able to sustain a challenge to Liverpool, Man City and Arsenal, but there's no reason we shouldn't be able to go toe to toe with Spurs for the 2 places after that.

If Unai achieves that, it would be a superb season, and the best since Sir Brian. Winning the Europa Conference League would be the cherry on the cake. Sliding back and finishing 6th to 8th would be very "meh". Anything lower than that would mean we'd seriously imploded.

Agree with all that. The worlds a better place…and Bailey has signed a new contract so all good.

[Mister E]

We cant keep trying to remain positive and hope for miracles. We have been playing shit since the city game and had some fortunate results

. Against Arsenal we showed resilience and defensive fortitude. Against SheffU we scored at least 2 legitimate goals - one turned away for very dubious reasons - and should have had at least one penalty. We certainly didn't play shit.

We weren't as shit yesterday as a attacking sense but the finishing and defensive work has been absymal.

I was surprised that we defended pretty well yesterday what with Lenglet and Carlos at CB; I expected a bit of a car crash. Yes, the defensive work at the corner was poor; no excuse after this season's success in defending generally, and despite losing 3 first-choice centrebacks.
I think, if you consider the journey we've been on and the injuries we've sustained, the trends are pretty good.

[Risso]

The Sheffield United home game was atrocious. There wasn't a peep from the crowd all evening. Arsenal wasn't as good as the Man City performance, but it was still a good professional job well done, and the goal we scored was tremendous.

[brontebilly]

The Sheffield United home game was atrocious. There wasn't a peep from the crowd all evening. Arsenal wasn't as good as the Man City performance, but it was still a good professional job well done, and the goal we scored was tremendous.

I think we bottled it that night really (Sheff United). Our best chances and penalty debates came about from woeful defending rather than top attacking play. The hype about going top under Friday night lights I think got to the players.We showed how utterly awful Sheff United are a couple of weeks ago.

A somewhat routine win over a Fulham team with increasingly little to play for would be welcome. Our squad isn't strong enough to cope with injuries to the likes of Kamara, Konsa and Torres. Torres getting through 90mins at Fulham could be huge for us. A night away from Villa Park might be no harm either.

[Demitri_C]

We cant keep trying to remain positive and hope for miracles. We have been playing shit since the city game and had some fortunate results

. Against Arsenal we showed resilience and defensive fortitude. Against SheffU we scored at least 2 legitimate goals - one turned away for very dubious reasons - and should have had at least one penalty. We certainly didn't play shit.

We weren't as shit yesterday as a attacking sense but the finishing and defensive work has been absymal.

I was surprised that we defended pretty well yesterday what with Lenglet and Carlos at CB; I expected a bit of a car crash. Yes, the defensive work at the corner was poor; no excuse after this season's success in defending generally, and despite losing 3 first-choice centrebacks.
I think, if you consider the journey we've been on and the injuries we've sustained, the trends are pretty good.

Hi mate 🙂

I mean it was a improvement on the newcastle and chelsea but that first goal i cant just understand how we leave hojland unmarked. It doesnt matter if you defend well for 70 mins if you make a collosal defensive error like that.

I hate to keep saying it but our injuries have not been as bad as newcastle and spurs and they keep getting results recently. We just seem to have hit a poor run at the worst possible time.

Hopefully with pau back (which i think is games away as he isnt getying any minutes whoch suggests to me he is still carry a injury) we will see an improvement

[VinnieChase84]

Our last 2 league performances have been superb. The midweek loss and injury news is just blurring and adding negativity (right in part)

But we were superb yesterday, just not clinical enough which we can’t afford against the likes of Yanited

[Demitri_C]

On the villa inst its all spammed with mesaages from manure fans. They really are a sad and pathetic fan base

[brontebilly]

We cant keep trying to remain positive and hope for miracles. We have been playing shit since the city game and had some fortunate results

. Against Arsenal we showed resilience and defensive fortitude. Against SheffU we scored at least 2 legitimate goals - one turned away for very dubious reasons - and should have had at least one penalty. We certainly didn't play shit.

We weren't as shit yesterday as a attacking sense but the finishing and defensive work has been absymal.

I was surprised that we defended pretty well yesterday what with Lenglet and Carlos at CB; I expected a bit of a car crash. Yes, the defensive work at the corner was poor; no excuse after this season's success in defending generally, and despite losing 3 first-choice centrebacks.
I think, if you consider the journey we've been on and the injuries we've sustained, the trends are pretty good.

Hi mate 🙂

I mean it was a improvement on the newcastle and chelsea but that first goal i cant just understand how we leave hojland unmarked. It doesnt matter if you defend well for 70 mins if you make a collosal defensive error like that.

I hate to keep saying it but our injuries have not been as bad as newcastle and spurs and they keep getting results recently. We just seem to have hit a poor run at the worst possible time.

Hopefully with pau back (which i think is games away as he isnt getying any minutes whoch suggests to me he is still carry a injury) we will see an improvement

Watkins pushes out like he was meant to and it doesn't really matter that Maguire wins the initial header. Maguire is good in the air and caused us problems at set pieces, Carlos should have man marked him. But look through the height of our team and we will always have issues at set piece time. Man United were very strong defending our multiple set pieces.

Watkins has been a bit sloppy defending set pieces recently, against Newcastle he simply missed a header at front post and they scored from it. Last night he wasn't on his toes and it cost us.

[Paul.S]

Our last 2 league performances have been superb. The midweek loss and injury news is just blurring and adding negativity (right in part)

But we were superb yesterday, just not clinical enough which we can’t afford against the likes of Yanited

I think you’re right. We were superb in spells and they couldn’t have moaned if we’d have scored 5. We had them in the palms of our hands and just didn’t put the game to bed.
Defensive errors and missed chances cost us but the performance overall was very encouraging.

[VillaTim]

Our last 2 league performances have been superb. The midweek loss and injury news is just blurring and adding negativity (right in part)

But we were superb yesterday, just not clinical enough which we can’t afford against the likes of Yanited

Superb ? we really were not . We played better than the very low bar of NUFC/CFC but we were not as good as you make out.

[Allan C]

In fairness Unai also took us from 17th(?) to 7th in 6 months and European qualification for the first time in 12 years or whatever it was. That's a pretty impressive achievement, one that will culminate in Villa fans swimming in a fountain in Athens in three and a half months.

and Steve Bruce took us from 16th in the Championship to play off finalists . Also impressive

There really really is no comparison there. Bruce failed in a ridiculously substandard league

[danno]

jumping ten places in the championship happens on a regular basis.  Didn't Steve Cooper do similar at Forest? just as an example.

[VillaTim]

In fairness Unai also took us from 17th(?) to 7th in 6 months and European qualification for the first time in 12 years or whatever it was. That's a pretty impressive achievement, one that will culminate in Villa fans swimming in a fountain in Athens in three and a half months.

and Steve Bruce took us from 16th in the Championship to play off finalists . Also impressive

There really really is no comparison there. Bruce failed in a ridiculously substandard league

I#m saying Bruce did a good job to pick the club up at a seriously low ebb and turn it around. Laid the foundations for Smith & Emery to build off