Nottingham Forest v Aston Villa Pre-Match Thread

[Jockey Randall]

As a manager you spend the season getting to know what your best team is. When you reach the semi final of a European competition you play that best team. You don’t faff about trying to counter the threats of an inferior team. Let them counter us.

The issue is that he is unable to play his best team, if Onana is out then that will be 2 of his best X1 not available.
That is a real problem.

Agreed. After Saturday I was thinking it's clearly a massive issue when we have to chuck out makeshift midfields so had a look at what that difference looks like.

Over the last two seasons when two of Tielemans, Onana and Kamara start in midfield we've won around 61% of the league games which is clearly top 4 standard.

When two of those players are missing we plummet down to a 26% win rate. We basically go from being a top 4 team to a bottom 6 standard team depending on who is available in central midfield. If he's out I'd snap your hand off for a draw and hope he's back for the VP leg.

[ChicagoLion]

As a manager you spend the season getting to know what your best team is. When you reach the semi final of a European competition you play that best team. You don’t faff about trying to counter the threats of an inferior team. Let them counter us.

The issue is that he is unable to play his best team, if Onana is out then that will be 2 of his best X1 not available.
That is a real problem.

Agreed. After Saturday I was thinking it's clearly a massive issue when we have to chuck out makeshift midfields so had a look at what that difference looks like.

Over the last two seasons when two of Tielemans, Onana and Kamara start in midfield we've won around 61% of the league games which is clearly top 4 standard.

When two of those players are missing we plummet down to a 26% win rate. We basically go from being a top 4 team to a bottom 6 standard team depending on who is available in central midfield. If he's out I'd snap your hand off for a draw and hope he's back for the VP leg.

I didn’t realise it was that stark, we struggled the whole period without Kamara and Tielemens and Emery chose to carry on playing the same system without them( the results show it didn’t work).
Just hope that Onana is fit or Emery does something to compensate.

[Grumpy]

Just thought I’d swing by and post a rare comment…

I can’t relax, focus, work or do anything really other than SHIT myself about the next week or so.

If we go full Villa and exit the cup then fail to get top five I might talk a walk into the sea.

Night night

[KingstandingVilla]

As a manager you spend the season getting to know what your best team is. When you reach the semi final of a European competition you play that best team. You don’t faff about trying to counter the threats of an inferior team. Let them counter us.

The issue is that he is unable to play his best team, if Onana is out then that will be 2 of his best X1 not available.
That is a real problem.

Agreed. After Saturday I was thinking it's clearly a massive issue when we have to chuck out makeshift midfields so had a look at what that difference looks like.

Over the last two seasons when two of Tielemans, Onana and Kamara start in midfield we've won around 61% of the league games which is clearly top 4 standard.

When two of those players are missing we plummet down to a 26% win rate. We basically go from being a top 4 team to a bottom 6 standard team depending on who is available in central midfield. If he's out I'd snap your hand off for a draw and hope he's back for the VP leg.

I didn’t realise it was that stark, we struggled the whole period without Kamara and Tielemens and Emery chose to carry on playing the same system without them( the results show it didn’t work).
Just hope that Onana is fit or Emery does something to compensate.

Lindelof as a 6 maybe.?

[Bent Neilsens Screamer]

👆Im not sure why we’d do some crazy shit like that in such an important game having not really done it at all save for the odd 10 minutes when he first joined.

[olaftab]

Just thought I’d swing by and post a rare comment…

I can’t relax, focus, work or do anything really other than SHIT myself about the next week or so.

If we go full Villa and exit the cup then fail to get top five I might talk a walk into the sea.

Night night

You are unnecessarily grumpy.

[eamonn]

Portuguese ref. Reffed wins over Bologna and away in at Club Brugge.

Great, he'll be cracking jokes with Pereira in Portuguese pre-match and a flicker of conscious bias will set-in when he awards Forest free-kicks for 50/50 duels.