I want to end Tottenham's league title aspirations more than I want to be smothered in olive oil by Scarlett Johansson while the newsman reads my winning multimillion pound lottery numbers and a meteor quietly de-brains that kid who picked on me back in school.
That's funny, I thought Romeu was man of the match. I wouldn't have had him at fault for any of the bad defending. Maybe I need to watch it back.
No, I don't remember that. Because IMO, Shaw wasn't the only reason we started playing better. Fox was a lot worse than either Cedric or Martina. We also had Hooieveld. As much as I like those two for what they did for the club, they were the definition of good Championship players who were not PL-quality. Goalkeeping was a problem for us until we started using Boruc. We had some decent young players who hadn't quite come into their own just yet. And everyone was getting used to the pace and quality of a new league. It just wasn't a good team. Not even Shaw was THAT good. I think we tend to remember him as being better than he was because of the price we got for him. What was exciting about Shaw wasn't that he was so awesome, it was that he was already quite decent at a quite young age and looked for all the world like he was going to be incredible. But he wasn't there yet. When he left, there was a lot of lamenting over the fact that he was setting his career back by moving too early. And he had trouble breaking into Man U's side that first year. We started using Shaw in late October or November, but things really didn't start to turn around until January. I think Adkins had stabilized the ship enough so we would have stayed up and I hated that we sacked him. But it's also hard to argue that Pochettino wasn't a major improvement. A lot of things changed for that team to get better. Just like we'll need several changes to this team to get better.
I don't know about MTOM, but I thought Romeu was alright. Like I said earlier, VVD especially in the first half was pushing way up so it left the DM's with more ground to cover than usual. I have noticed that Romeu is the master of unnecessarily exquisite passing. I think there's at least once a game where we are bringing the ball up under no pressure, and Romeu has to make a simple lateral pass to an unmarked player with 10 yards of space. And he'll play it absolutely perfectly. The pace of the pass, he'll add a bit of swerve, whatever. But it goes right onto the guy's foot without them having to make an adjustment whatsoever, like dead-on accurate. I mean, it doesn't really make him a better or worse player. It's just kind of cool to watch.
I think today's performance epitomised our inability to play defence splitting passes, with any regularity. You know it's not going too well, when the co-commentator lets out a long sigh as yet another pass misses it's target. Definitely an area for improvement, next season. Strange, strange performance, where I felt we were only playing at around 60% of our best level. Have to feel for the Villa fans, if they have had to endure that level from their team all season.
They did. They also didn't walk from the hotel in Brum to Villa Park. Nice leisurely coach trip back. They don't have to buy return tickets for economy like us ordinary people.
They flew up in G-RAJJ BAe146, there is no return flight scheduled, punishment for not giving 100% I expect, if they had lost they would be walking home.
So the coach went up empty just to transfer them to the airport? Unless it's been up in Scotland since it was spotted up there a while ago and only now coming back...
They've done this before....I remember the coach going to London whilst the team took the train...the coach transferred them to the ground, then drove them back. Not the total luxury they had under Nicola.
I'm sure who went where in the coach is very interesting but getting back to the match and the fact that a few people are disappointed with the score - MAN UTD ONLY BEAT THEM 1-0 AT HOME LAST WEEK!!!
Doesnt the coach take up all the physio equipment, kits etc, meets the players at the hotel and takes them to the ground.
Home from the match and have one thought in my mind. Bacunas back pass is the stuff that match-fixing allegations are made from, what was he doing?
They flew up in an HS146 jet, as witnessed by a phone photo of them boarding. Went from the airport in a Princes white Saints coach to the hotel, as also proven by an earlier photo from FLT's cousin. Then, the next day, they went to Villa Park from the hotel in either the white one or black one, and came home in the black one after the match. Or, Jan could have just got a stock photo of the black one to illustrate that they were going home in a coach. After all, it's a pretty neat trick to take a photo of the coach from a distance when you're actually sitting in it. So they could have come home in the white one and the black one could still be away being serviced or doing something else. Have I covered every base there?
