Pizy

You cannot keep giving away so many corners and fouls to a q0 man team in these conditions. Easiest way to let them back into this. Combined with our 10 missed chances.

Bro, we should have about 6 goals right now and be out of sight, ffs.

Gusto and Disasi on that same side is a disaster waiting to happen.

Being dominated by the team bottom of the table.

Players slipping all over the place.

Two terrible errors from Gusto and Enzo there. Fucking terrible goal to concede. Midfield nonexistent so far.

I get what you’re saying but look at some of the guys we’ve rotated. Lavia, Colwill, Neto. All of whom have a pretty significant injury history. Sancho has just come back from injury. I think it’s smart to rotate here. We need those players 100% fit for Spuds at the weekend.

Hope we don’t run Caicedo into the ground. He’s so incredibly important to the team. So for him to play 3 matches in 7 days we’re gonna be hoping he comes through this unscathed. Because remember he was also away with his national team and only arrived back 2 days before our match a week or two ago. Lot of mileage and football in his legs recently.

This attack looks pretty fucking sexy if they click here. Defense on the other hand looks suspect. But if we can’t beat an injury and suspension ravaged, bottom of the table Southampton side with this team it’s a disgrace. Absolute must win to keep pace with Arse and to keep some distance between us and the chasing pack. A slip up here would be our worst result of the season by far.

Thinking about it more, I highly doubt Lavia will play here. Forgot that Maresca has said that he likely wouldn’t be playing multiple games in short periods much like Reece and Fofana. So I wonder if we may see KDH being given his big chance here. If Maresca, who knows his game better than anyone, can’t trust him against the bottom of the league side then when can he?

Very skeptical that we will or even should dip into the market for another CB in January unless someone gets a super long term injury. Sounds like Fofana’s is a medium term one which isn’t disastrous. Much as we may not rate Badiashile, Tosin, and especially Disasi as consistent PL starters they are definitely enough to weather 1 injury for a few matches. Only CB that is panic worthy if they go down is Levi. Otherwise we stick to what we have until the summer.

Rotate Neto and Sancho for this one and rest them for Spuds. Perhaps start Cole on the bench and bring him on if needed. Other than that I’d start our strongest midfield and defense again. We have to win these games against sides we’re massively superior to. The likes of Felix & Nkunku are perfect to rotate in here and will be desperate to show they should be starting more often in the league.

CB’s not dealing with easy stuff back there and gifting Villa the ball over and over is why this game is FAR from settled. It’s like we want them to score, ffs. And it’s Fofana in that identical situation again and again. That ball over his head he just panics all the time all season.

Also must get Palmer involved much more. Been this way for a few PL matches now where he has been on the periphery. Which is obviously down to opposing teams marking him closely and not allowing the ball to him as much, but still he needs to be involved more. Sancho and Neto are getting the ball a lot but Cole not so much.

Villa can’t play much worse than that in the second half and there are just enough unforced errors from us for this to be comfortable. We need to go up 3 or this could get sketchy. Villa will try to come out and blitz us to get themselves back in it I think.

LET’S GOOOO

Why the fuck didn’t Nico just lunge at that and toe poke it in!!!!

Only Chelsea can not score from that. Fucking hell.

Badiashile has actually been really solid both on the ball and defensively. It’s actually Fofana out of our CB’s that makes me nervous whenever he is pressed in possession. He panics sometimes and does silly things.

Their super deep block has kind of limited the effectiveness of Cole. He has played some very nice passes and 1 that should’ve led to that Madueke goal but he hasn’t really been able to shoot on goal enough himself because they have so many men crowding the box. Need to get him more aggressive in the second half. Also, Caicedo is more or less completely alone in the middle of the pitch defensively since Enzo is pushed so far forward. It meant that whenever Leicester bursted forward on counters they found so much joy towards the end of the half. We should probably bring Lavia on soon if that continues. Especially with Caicedo now on a yellow.

There are some glaring weaknesses we have in defense when it comes to concentration and focus but I’m going to take the positives away from that. Arse have been miles and miles ahead of us but we have absolutely cut that gap. We aren’t quite a top team yet but we’re heading in the right direction. We played them completely evenly there despite our best attacker having perhaps his most ineffective match of the season thus far. Caicedo excellent, Neto getting better and better. We no longer panic and shit the bed when we concede against the big teams. In all 3 of the matches against Liverpool, United, and now Arse we give away a goal and respond well. We are on the right track. Just a couple of steps away from being a serious team.

Really, really have to stop allowing Saka to get isolated on one of our wingers. Cucu needs to take that responsibility himself.

Just look at that replay, man. They had TWO players wide open on our back post. WTF is Gusto doing there?!

Fucking kill oursleves again with a terrible giveaway in midfield.

Some nice bursts into space from Jackson that half but I thought he once again struggled to actually be a danger in the final third when it matters. He thrives against high lines where he can burst in behind, but when he’s got multiple defenders who he can’t run past he struggles.