St Marco

Don't think they have beat us at our place for quite awhile? 3-4 years or something?

It was. But if the goal is to make football 100% precise and every decision correct it isn't going to happen. VAR has made a lot of mistakes already. Imagine it was the last game of the season. We needed a win to stay up. It is the 93rd min and we get a goal. VAR looks into it. Using the space telescope it spots that a piece of fabric that cannot be seen by the naked eye is offside. We go down. Whilst a bit dramatic is that where we want to be going?

Because it isn't what Var was supposed to be used for? It has gone from clear and obvious errors to major, mega zoom into trying to determine mm. The problem is it can't do that. The problems we are seeing are that the players are level. It is only when you super zoom in and try and get to individual pixels that these decisions are being given. That isn't what it was supposed to be used for. As some of the pundits were saying if you are going to look so far into detail that way then it is eventually going to creep into the other parts of the game too. Are we then going to look into details of fouls? When the ball hits a shoulder does it slightly touch the arm? When someone jumps for a ball are they being impeded at all? The game is going to be stop start and the flow will be destroyed. The rules need to be set in stone so they can stop all these pauses. If a player is level and the only way you can determine they are not is by zooming in x300 to see a hair is offside for me that ruins the game.

VAR has been great for us this season so we can't really complain. But I think what people are annoyed about is if you are level and VAR needs to go into super zoom mode to see something you are going to always find something to not give a goal. There are issues in determining how to apply the rule which I expect will be changed at the end of the season. They said that it counts for any part of the body that can be used to score goals. So that means arms/hands are not offside. If you then take into account the attacker is facing goal and the defender has their back to goal means the attacker is likely to be leaning forwards which is a natural position. Their feet are likely to be onside whilst their armpit isn't due to being in the natural leaning forward position. I expect they will change it to be where your feet are. That seems the best way to do it imo.

Haha get in there.

Need to stop the long balls, long crosses. They are being dealt with easily by their defenders. Keep the ball down and work it into the box. Create some space etc.

Centre midfield needs to be changed up. Losing the ball way too much now.

Zaha getting annoyed already, nice

Excellent 1st half by us. Everyone putting in a shift. Adams and Armstrong getting stuck in. The tactics thus far have been good. Push them out to the wings. Knowing full well that their wingers are greedy individuals who will try and take 4 players on rather than cross. Only concern is we need to start going forwards again. We can't all go backwards all the time. Either keep Oba or Redmond further forwards. Dropping back and having no outlet isn't a good idea imo.

Dominant first half by us. By far the better team. Our pressing has been great. Armstrong and Hoj have been working so well together. Soon as they get to the half way line one of them closes down causing Villa to go to the flanks and get crowded out. All of them have put in a shift. Keep it up!

Of course. It isn't like managers stay in jobs for 3+ years these days is it? But the point I was making is the three managers (except Hughes) previously have had the same results elsewhere. With different players. Leicester are a good example of how a different manager can get different results with largely the same squad of players. Which again highlights my point I made earlier in the thread that unless you are a world class manager that has history at top clubs you won't be getting any of the top jobs that enable you to spend fortunes every season on players. Everyone else including Ralph will get jobs at clubs like ours to prove themselves. If Ralph is a type of manager that can only manage quality players and not the average ones to me it suggests he isn't the right guy. If we go down we will have an even less quality squad.

What he is kind of saying is that it is difficult for a manager to have much affect on his players in a match. You can work on everything in training but soon as the match starts beyond subs it is difficult to change things. That is why it is important to work on what he wants them to do before the match. In the game he can't speak to them in detail to tell them what to do. Look them in the eyes to gauge what they are feeling. The noise makes passing instructions to players difficult. Players should be able to adapt to their physical situations themselves. They should have the intelligence to adapt to the game as it plays out and feel freedom to make their own decisions. Those individual decisions create some of the most memorable moments in the art of football. The bit you mention about three managers is of course true. But that doesn't mean those managers were actually any good. In fact other than Hughes the other two lost jobs since leaving us. And Hughes hasn't been given a job since. So yes we have some crap players, I think everyone of us agrees on that. But it doesn't mean the managers we have had were any good. The fact they got sacked again after leaving here would indicate that.

Robert Pires.

The commentator summed it up for me. Some managers just can't manage in this league. The fixtures are relentless. You get no time to spend trying to figure things out. You have to be tactically aware every minute of every game. You either can adapt to the league or you can't. Ralph would appear to fall into the bracket of those who can't.

I bet the subs must be so ****ed off. No reason for them to be there.

Ah ****... Really good shot though by Ings. Think Long needs to come off for Adams tbh.

Surely time for Armstrong or Adams.

Hey Ralph, how about maybe putting someone on Antonio?

Unless I'm using Diane Abbott style maths here £100m isn't quite £125m? Seriously though. Do you think we would spend those amounts without player sales? Plus you also have to take into account the revenues of the club's. Spending £100m+ in the PL must be about average? Didn't Villa spend that just this summer? In Germany where the revenue is much lower (tv rights etc) being able to spend that amount is nuts.

Didn't understand why he didn't make earlier changes today. We only used 2 subs with the last being in the 88th min. When Newcastle made changes at around the 60th min we didn't react to it. We started going deeper and hitting balls into the channels for Long to chase. Kept inviting pressure by not being able to keep the ball. I think jwp had run his socks off so would have put Romeu on for him. And Obafemi on for Ings.

Really poor second half. Long and Djenppo should be replaced.

Goal machine does it again!

First 30 mins I thought we were pretty decent. Some nice quick football. JWP probably our best player. Last 15 we seemed to lose our way a bit and started giving away free kicks.

Should be winning. By far the best team thus far.

I think a draw would be a good result for us. It isn't a bad place for us really. Think we have lost something like 2 games there in the last 5-6 games?