That was some assist from Che for Armstrong’s goal. First view looked like a hopeful lump forwards but having seen it again it was beautifully controlled and exactly into Armstrong’s path. Great technique for it too. Can’t wait for his first goal, he deserves it so much. There’s a really good player in there!
Just back. Great result but my nerves could've done with the second goal being a lot earlier. Villa are really sh1t. Grealish may be a decent player but JWP puts him in the shade when it comes to value to his team. Smallbone was pretty decent, as noted he was given responsibility at quite a few dead ball situations. The bad news is now that Shane has scored with "his gentlemanly parts" as R5 put it, VAR will include it in any offside decisions. So he better not get too excited at dead ball situations.
New strategy with Long: tell him to shut his eyes whenever a cross is coming his way, and just keep running forward. That way, our players can simply use him like a rail carom in billiards; as the trouble seems to occur when he's actively trying to do striker things, this seems a useful workaround.
The referee waiting for ages (not sure if he did get a VAR call or not) certainly killed the atmosphere of scoring a goal.
I hope KWP's injury isn't a long one for JWP's sake as it may harm his England chances but he was very good filling in at RB again.
I sit right next to the press box so always get a view on their screens of the play - Celebrated, then looked and saw firstly the ball did not go out for Djenepo and secondly did not hit Shane not on the arm (Though I think his arms may have touched that part of the body in the past ) So I celebrated within 20 seconds
He got dog’s abuse because he had the presence of mind to roll back onto the pitch, preventing the game from restarting while he received treatment. Him going off did us a favour, because his pace was really causing us problems down that side.
I said to my dad about midway through the second half, that Reina was going to do something stupid that would cost them a goal. He left it a bit late.
That's the problem I have, though: right now, players are heavily incentivized to play through head injuries, because you're leaving your team a man down while you are being assessed, which can take a few minutes. No one likes stoppages, but I'd rather that than having players going back on the pitch with concussions.
Saw him interviewed after a game, when he basically said it was up to him to keep Villa up single handed. I wondered if he might have received a few digs in training after that, because he deserved it imo.
Is there a LWP out there somewhere? I presume we need to keep going down the alphabet if KWP is unavailable.