Didn't think we were "very poor" at all, thought we played ok but got done over on the day by an excellent Spurs. Delle Ali ran the show, fabulous player, no disgrace being outclassed by the likes of him. I thought Gladys looked good and justified his selection, Mulumbu and Tettey were decent as well, just not good enough on the day. Absolutely no need for any silly overreaction based upon today's result, it was a bad one yes but the performance was far from a disaster and we move on.
Well said Munky and agree that we need to be realistic about our chances against teams in the top 6. When you are up against Kane and Ali when they are playing well they are going to be very difficult to beat.
I agree with all of that Munky and Braveheart. Spurs were just too classy for us today, but credit to Rudd as well for some great saves.
Rudd seems to be the answer to our GK problems and let's hope we can add some quality players in the upcoming transfer window.
The way I look at it is this:- when KIO was doing the match day threads, we won a lot more than we lost. Since he stopped doing them, we've lost a lot more than we've won. If you want someone to blame KIO, look in the mirror!
Those teams up in the top six Or otherwise well in the mix, Will be hard to match On their, or our patch Without getting ourselves in a fix But when, as we so often do We trip up and end in some poo, As yesterday showed Our progress is slowed Now bring on the next in the queue. OTBC - INIT
Further to the above, the art of making mistakes is to make sure that you make them when they don´t matter. That art we haven´t mastered yet, but then, no-one on here should expect us to, we´re still novices in this league. Case in point is naturally Rudd, for their first goal, he ´d have had just as much chance of preventing a goal, to have stood his ground and made himself look big, rather than charge out and dive at Kane´s feet, almost guaranteeing giving away a penalty - goodness knows why keepers do it. But then, older, wiser and far more experienced keepers than Rudd will do it, and are in fact doing it - Howard in Everton´s last home game, charging out and demolishing Vardy - ridiculous! Can´t really say Spurs´s last two goals were down to mistakes, but by then the damage had been done, up until the penalty we were more than holding our own, and Spurs didn´t look at all special. Rudd, it has to be said though, did pull out a quite miraculous stop to foil an Alderweireld header later on, so he made the amends that he could.
Thus far, we have played only 8 at home and 10 away. Swansea have played 10 at home and 8 away. After 20 games those stats will say 10 each and could have a different picture to tell. Villa's next two are Norwich and then Sunderland both away. If they lose both of those they have to be gonners.
Good point K E M P. Yes, you can really perm any 2 from about 6 and if any of those 6 get 2 or 3 wins by the end of Jan, then it all changes!!!
Yes, but if Villa lose their next two then we are perming 2 from 5 and our chances have improved a bit.
Well, after today's team selection and result, then I guess AN now has 'a stay of execution'. I have to say I was not impressed by the inclusion of Dorrans and his performance was pretty dire to say the least and was surprised he lasted so long before being subbed.
He's certainly learning and bringing on Vadis for an underperforming Redmond proved to be a masterstroke!!!
Hopefully things go right for him in regards to attracting the right players in this transfer window, though a lot of that will be down to players wanting to be here and the board giving him full financial support. Unfortunately it's become customary to expect disappointment in this window.
