Aston Villa vs Everton post-match thread

[ChicagoLion]

Just home. Listened to a few Villa podcasts on the way and the 'bottle job' narrative came up. To me this was not the case today, just the problems of poor summer recruitment, PSR issues and a  number of key injuries finally swung the balance against us today. We didn't play to the level we can, but still did enough to win. Unai has done a miracle with a strong 11 and 4-5 decent subs each game. We had neither today and it was just a game too far.  Hopefully a  few signings, some positive injury news by the end of the month and we can go again.

Yes, we need to look at the overall picture instead of the usual knee jerk reactions. That's our first defeat at home in god knows how long and it happened with 3 first choice midfielders out and we still could have won. We're all disappointed because of the opportunity the other results gave us but its not the end of the world. Let's just hope for good news on the injury front and some activity on the transfer market.

It feels a bit typical Villa though, get to the edge of greatness then throw ourselves off the cliff.
My mate texted me to say that was a bit Spursy and he is a Spurs fan.

[The Edge]

We were down to the bare bones of a staring 11 yesterday, despite the media denial of all things Villa. Replacing McGinn with Guessand was always going to weaken us further. Personally I'd have replaced McGinn with Digne and moved Maatsen forward on the left and adjusted Buendia to the right. It wouldn't have been any less effective than Guessand's spectating role. It also wouldn't have convinced Martinez to catch the ball from a weak shot, but that's a whole different issue.

Our staring 11 plus 40,000 fans and all the Villa staff were staring at that ref when the Everton player blatantly pushed Rogers in the back. Fat lot of good it did. Fucking Mr Magoo refereeing our game two weeks running is not fair.

[Ian.]

Yesterday was just one of those days when nothing went for us. Players off form, injuries, mistakes, refereeing decisions on Rogers (yet again). We did enough to win but it wasn’t to be.