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2023-24 Premier League Thread

jeffbear said:
Lloris really lost the spring in his legs, as I recall. He'll be better in MLS where it's a bit less physical in the box.
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Yeah still a decent shot stopper despite not being what he once was….we had agreed to move him in the offseason and he rejected it unfortunately.

Glad to see him find a home in MLS tho, like you say I think it could be a decent fit so long as his squad isn’t playing out from the back.
 
Real impressive showing from the lads today at Old Trafford….going there without any of Son, or the creativity of Maddison, Kulusevski, or GLC meant it was gonna be a hard day at the office, but everyone put in a shift and we wrestled away a point despite being down twice, and had 64% possession, 89% passing, and dominated shots, corners etc….we’re a bit unlucky to not win all three points in the end.

With a midfield of Bentancur, Skipp and Hojbjerg I thought we would be more likely to lose than win, but Bentancur played great, and Pedro Porro was man of the match, stretching the concept of inverted fullback to its limits, and damn near being a CAM….while still tracking back to help contain Rashford.

All the goals today were pretty legit, and well earned and it made for a satisfying game all around. United have to be pretty thrilled with that point themselves.

Brought a tear to my eye seeing my boy van de Ven back out there after his long stint away, and other than cramping up at the end, he didn’t look like he’d missed a day. Real happy to see Richarlison continue his torrid pace of late too…he’s work his tail off since he got here, so he’s earned a nice spell of great form.
 
The 2nd round of Premier League profitability and sustainability findings were released today, which includes the 2022-23 season. Everton was spanked again, on top of the 10 point deduction they’re already fighting. Nottingham Forest joined them on the naughty list, even though they were in the Championship for the first of the 3 year period. They’ll both be referred to an independent commission for review and levy of any fines and/or points deductions. But any points deductions won’t be known until after the season ends.

For Everton, it’s a continuation of the same. They were already sanctioned for the 3 year period ending with the 2021-22 season. Forest will argue that their excessive losses are entirely due to the sale of Brennan Johnson to Spurs. He was sold on September 1, which was after the books closed for the 2022-23 season. They’ll argue that they would have gotten a lower price had they sold him earlier in the window, before the season’s accounting period closed.
 
Somewhat disappointing to not take all three points against Everton, but Villa looked much more rested at least after the brutal December, so that's a big positive. Diaby probably should have had a penalty, but he made the classic mistake of fighting to stay on his feet and got rewarded by eating a semi dirty tackle right after for his effort. I know he played himself into the starting lineup, but I kind of wish we went back to bringing Bailey in off the bench where he can start really running at tired defenders. Really nice to get Kamara back after his silly suspension. The difference in our buildup with him is huge. Dendoncker looked better the past few games and has gone from unplayable to a reasonable backup, but the difference in class is huge between the two.
 
VinatieriDefinesClutch said:
Somewhat disappointing to not take all three points against Everton, but Villa looked much more rested at least after the brutal December, so that's a big positive. Diaby probably should have had a penalty, but he made the classic mistake of fighting to stay on his feet and got rewarded by eating a semi dirty tackle right after for his effort. I know he played himself into the starting lineup, but I kind of wish we went back to bringing Bailey in off the bench where he can start really running at tired defenders. Really nice to get Kamara back after his silly suspension. The difference in our buildup with him is huge. Dendoncker looked better the past few games and has gone from unplayable to a reasonable backup, but the difference in class is huge between the two.
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Dendonker is fine when he can actually get some time to get settled. He's just terrible off the bench. And yeah, bad result Sunday but a better performance so ... fine. Take the road point and move on.
 
VinatieriDefinesClutch said:
FourFourTwo did a good breakdown of why he's going to be perfect for Spurs. I generally enjoy their content since it's very tactics based and uses stats to compliment arguments rather than making them the entire argument *cough* TIFO *cough*


View: https://youtu.be/JiPAcHPqDRA
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This was fantastic, thanks for that…..and I’m of a very similar mind, he’s there to stretch people, tax them physically, press like a demon, and fire passes into the box for Sonny, Richarlison or Brennen.

I think we could see him on the end of quite a few Porro crosses as well….so hopefully he can maintain that RB pace of matching his xG, that would be a fantastic cherry on top.
 
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I was hoping that Villa would have a no doubt drubbing today, and boy did they deliver. Sheffield set up for the first half hour in a way almost perfectly designed for Villa to dismantle and we scored four quick ones, before SU decided to stop pressing and just sit back and Villa were more than happy to just see out the match from that point. They pressed high, but not well and Ollie kept being left isolated in space and getting to run onto balls in the channels is what he does best. Nice to see Tielemans get a nice goal as well since he's looked off since return from injury.
 
Sheffield are just a mess. Playing a five man back line, you should NEVER see the kind of room Villa was allowed on three of their goals. Poor Aaron Trusty. I haven't felt that badly for an American playing in England since poor Gooch had his heart repeatedly ripped out playing for Sunderland.
 
I was fully expecting them to play like they did against us last time where they sat back and made a bunch of cynical fouls and dared the ref to take control of the match. Instead, I guess they thought, we're at home we should go at them and no team is set up to dismantle a team doing that which has no business doing that like Villa are. Luiz had been kind of off form for a while and this was the perfect match to snap him right back with him getting the ball right behind the press with no pressure on him and all the time in the world to turn and immediately spring our offense with a pass into the channel.
 
Apparently Konsa's knee injury is looking serious with the team worried he might be out for a long time period. If this ends up being a third Villa player to tear their ACL this year... Such a huge blow as he's our most reliable defender and one of the best on the ball defenders in the league. Currently Mings, Konsa, Pau, and Digne are all out injured. I'm really hoping that Pau is back sooner rather than later, since Lenglet is quite the step down from him for sure.
 
Yeah ... the fact that they've had such bad injury luck and are still bobbling along in the upper part of the table has been a bit of an overlooked storyline for Villa.
 
That’s mental having all four of them down….i thought we had it bad when Romero & Van De Ven were out at the same time, but that’s peanuts by comparison…
 
Tabke is pretty amazing this season with all of Villa Tottenham, West Ham, and Brighton all in the mix for CL…..going to make for a fantastic back half of the season.

England had better do well in Europe cause it would be a sin to not have 5 of these Prem teams in CL next year.
 
Konsa is out 3-4 weeks according to the team, so thankfully not worse case scenario, but still a huge blow. Villa fans in general feel like the team is mostly ignored by the media at large, but it's always hilarious when they talk about the injury issues of teams we're playing and we've probably missed twice the amount of time to injury as them. Full list of Villa players who have missed large chunks due to injuries: Konsa, Mings, Tielemans, Buendia, Digne, Pau Torres, Moreno, Jacob Ramsey, Jhon Duran. Duran aside, those are all key players.
 
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