Match Day Thread Aston Villa v Leeds Utd

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Aston Villa v Leeds Utd
Friday 23rd [email protected]| Villa Park

Leeds travel to a rejuvenated Villa Park on Friday evening, still licking their wounds following narrow defeat at fellow West Midland outfit Wolves.

Leeds will be be without their talisman midfielder Kalvin Phillips. The England international injured his shoulder on Monday , and will not be available until Christmas. Skipper Liam Cooper is expected not to be risked following pulling out of Mondays game during the warm up. Fellow centre back Diego Llorente is expected to be out for a further fortnight following a minor groin strain he picked up on international duty.

Pascal Struik and Robin Koch are expected to keep their places at centre back with Polish international Mateusz Klich switching to defensive midfield.

There maybe a big opportunity for Jamie Shacklton to be handed his first Premiership starting debut.

Villa are the only team in the Premiership with a 100% record, and will go top if Dean Smiths men can beat Leeds on Friday night.

Ross Barkley is likely to recover from a knock to his knee ahead of Friday's game. Forward Keinan Davies could return from a calf injury having returned to training last week. Kortney Hause is also regaining his fitness following a groin injury.

Ollie Watkins has recovered from an ankle knock!!!

 

I’m not feeling positive about this game. I can see Bielsa moving Ayling to CB and Struijk the DM role, I can’t see him handing it to Klich.

 

Good morning everyone
I am normally a very mild mannered man, and hate is a very strong word, so I shall say I dislike Aston Villa with a vengeance, after the farce of a couple of seasons ago, (that goal we gave them, which contributed to their promotion) then what happened against Sheff Utd last season (the perfectly good goal they conceded, then was somehow not seen by ref or var) which contributed to them avoiding relegation, plus their on field antics with blow me down Grealish and others.

So I can say I really do dislike them,along with buy me the title (Binoculars fat frank) & Chelski.

So all I can add is C’MON LEEDS lets teach em a lesson.

 

With the injury news I'd say the lineup will be: Meslier, Alioski, Koch, Ayling, Dallas, Struijk, Harrison, Klich, Rodrigo, Costa, Bamford.

Hopefully Cooper won't be injured for too long as it'll look a lot more balanced with Dallas, Cooper, Koch, Ayling and Struijk as CDM

 

Villains are a one dimensional team and lucky to still be in the premier league.

 

Bielsa has confirmed that Struijk will start in place of Phillips on Friday and that Cooper is a doubt and Llorente is still out. I think we'll see Alioski or Davis come in at CB or LB.

 

with man united being a given, villa and Chelsea my two most despised teams too.

lampard and Smith... two most slappable managers in football. The thing that narked me most about that villa game was grealish and (particularly) hourihane... Klich should have decked him.

 

Davies then at LB, Dallas at RB and Ayling to CB - I hate it when we do this...

 

No choice I guess if he doesn’t think that the remaining U23 CB are ready to step up.

 

I’d prefer to leave Struijk in defence and replace Phillips with a midfielder, the way Bielsa does it we end up with three players playing out of position. We barely got away with it at Championship level, to imagine we will at PL level is naive or daring

 

At least he has given up on dallas as a centre mid..... Or has he.

 

Best thing Leeds can do after wolves gameis show what we have learned from the narrow defeat against wolves and go out and beat villa at their own ground , after cheating against Leeds in the championship I would send the players out and tell them we want revenge , villa will start slipping and Leeds match can be the start of their fall , and I don't want to mention cheating Grealish who falls down when he I touched , come on Leeds we can beat villa

 

After a slightly unlucky, but probably just defeat to Wolves it will be interesting to see how we perform against the Villa.

Perhaps of even more interest, is how the unforgiving Leeds faithful would react to a 2nd defeat in a row. It seems some supporters have already forgotten that getting to roughly 40 points is the goal for this season and anything above that would simply be a welcome bonus.

Im my opinion if we keep performing well, then the results will come. That attitude has served us well over the last 2 seasons when there has been plenty of bumps in the road. So far this season we've performed to a very high level in every game and that has to be the most pleasing thing. Somehow though, I'm getting the feeling that the knives are being sharpened in readiness and that concerns me far more than the prospect of losing tomorrow night.

 

The 40 points is a bonus for you not me

 

Just bought a new pair of rose tinted glasses ready for tonight’s game so I am quite confident we will get something
Providing of course certain opposition players manage to stay on their feet

 

I'm hoping that they don't, permanently

 

Well I disagree. I don`t think the board, the owner, manager, players have set a 40 point goal. No, I think they want a top 10 finish and so do I. But as we ha e seen in the last games, we struggle to get clear cut chances and to score goals. We got away with it in the championship but we will not get away with it in PL. And that is something Bielsa has to sort out or we will not get many points and I fear we will end up in a relegation dogfight.
As for this game, I can`t see us getting anything from it. But I hope we can nick a point and I`m dreaming of 3 point

 

Diving cheating bastards 3-5 Leeds United

 

After watching our pee poor attemps at goal in the last game i fear the worst. Should have beaten city and wolves but sadly skint rads spent nothing on a goal scorer. Last goal bamford got was off his beak. Rodrigo is no striker and he has been poor for us and spain with his head roberts is not a striker at any level.
If Alioski starts at full back we have problems. He is no defender by any stretch of the imagination.
We have capable u23s but bielsa will not use them. Yes he used sruijk but only because he was forced. Five million pounds for dougie the dud total waste.

 

Hmm i hear what your all saying,but i don't think it's the quality of the finishing that's in question,more of the poor finale ball, crosses over hit,trying to dribble threw a packed defence, and extremely poor corners either over hit, or not clearing the first man, given clear chances we do take them, hence our goal tally last season,and the not to shoddy one this, sadly we picked up on those old habits against wolves, but hopefully not tonight.