[justsomebloke]

Agree with this - it was a competitive game with chances for both but ultimately we'd have been mortified with anything but a win.

Should have been easier - again we miss easy chances. The Pogba one especially comes to mind.

But alarmingly - we again gave away too many presentable chances. On another game - Villa score 3 or 4. We are that open in the back - this seems worse when McTom and Fred play together. I won't go into the Pogba debate - he's a shambles defensively and all his good work going forward means nothing when he is playing as a CM and cannot track players or retain the ball. He's a great footballer but so naive positionally in a defensive sense. Villa's midfield of Luiz and McGinn looked so much better than ours - and Grealish looks twice the player Pogba is.

Martial - glad he got a goal but another laboured lazy display.

The positive is we won and spirits are high and there's scope for so much improvement.

We are on a good run and looking confident - despite some glaring frailties in the team.

Really hope we sign a CB and a CM/DM within the next 2 windows. We're not far off.

Okay, so on the one hand it should have been easier because we threw away too many good chances, and simultaneously it should have been harder, because we gave AVL the chance to score 3-4 goals?

Villa would have wildly overperformed if they scored 3 or 4 goals. They had 15 shots, and an xG of 1.56. Ours was 19, and an xG of 2.56. Which means a score of 2-1 reasonably reflected what happened in the game.

"Skill A means absolutely nothing because the player lacks skill B" isn't my favorite logic, I'd have to say. I also think Pogba was better and more influential than Grealish in this game, and his positives outweighed his negatives by a very large margin. Which isn't always the case, unfortunately. Also, you seem to miss that he did not play as a CM in this game. In fact, he played the position Grealish usually plays.

I also thought Martial had a markedly good game. What he does just doesn't jump out at you, because he's not the type of player who's constantly involved. But just because he's not Aaron Connolly, that doesn't mean he's lazy.

On the rest, I agree with you.

 

[Icemav]

Okay, so on the one hand it should have been easier because we threw away too many good chances, and simultaneously it should have been harder, because we gave AVL the chance to score 3-4 goals?

Villa would have wildly overperformed if they scored 3 or 4 goals. They had 15 shots, and an xG of 1.56. Ours was 19, and an xG of 2.56. Which means a score of 2-1 reasonably reflected what happened in the game.

"Skill A means absolutely nothing because the player lacks skill B" isn't my favorite logic, I'd have to say. I also think Pogba was better and more influential than Grealish in this game, and his positives outweighed his negatives by a very large margin. Which isn't always the case, unfortunately. Also, you seem to miss that he did not play as a CM in this game. In fact, he played the position Grealish usually plays.

I also thought Martial had a markedly good game. What he does just doesn't jump out at you, because he's not the type of player who's constantly involved. But just because he's not Aaron Connolly, that doesn't mean he's lazy.

On the rest, I agree with you.

His hold up and link up play in the middle of pitch is now unbelievably good. World class even. Makes up for losing his shooting boots this season.

 

[alanjohnson]

Joint top of the league, creating chances out of our holes, huge 3 points in a tight game against the only other team in the league on good form atm, and you want to post negativity? Absolute madness.

but still cant pass a ball straight