Howay

Zaha is going to cry if it keeps going like this

This is class. I honestly cannot believe this is the same team (for the most part) that we watched back in September. Literally frustrating Palace to the point they’re resorting to just fouling us.

No attempts for Palace fucking hell man and we were genuinely told Bruce was doing a good job

We need to keep aiming the ball to Almiron. He’s got their left back on toast.

We’ve completely dick slapped these in this first half.

That pass by Bruno was absolutely sensational btw. What a fucking run and finish by Almiron too, that’s what the player we bought was known for

Never doubted him

Love players that spend 95% of their time diving about and then want to be seen as the hard man when everyone is shoving each other.

Nice skill by Almiron playing it off a palace player there. Can Howe tell them to open their eyes

He’s included in my three tbh, off on his fucking travels

Are they certain this is the Chris Wood that played for Burnley? I knew he wasn’t great but fucking hell man the one on the pitch looks like he’s never played football

Think the linesman was being kind

It must be so fucking frustrating passing to these front three man. May as well pass right to palace, absolutely needs to be the priority this summer.

Can we just sub Chris Wood off? Pick a random bloke from the crowd and the result would be the same.

I just don’t get what the rule is any more for hand balls. His hand was away from his body and it blocked the path of the ball, I thought that was a pen under the newer rules?

I can’t wait until we have decent forwards. Brilliant move that let down by the cross country runner

Great run by ASM there though, Matty T put way too much on the pass

ASM is taking the piss doing that

I’m fine if people want to say he’s carrying an injury and that’s hampering his performances. It doesn’t really change my biggest complaint with him, and one he gets immense defence from the twitter crew, which is his tendency to just fucking burn off every time he gets the ball. Mostly a problem on counter attacks, of course I’m more than happy for him to run at the defence and if he sees a channel to exploit then attack it but he does this often in a head down fashion where even when he gets himself surrounded he just stubbornly tries to force it even when it’s just not going to happen, this ends up being a turnover with us on the defence again. The common theme I see is pictures of him alone with 4 blokes on him and comments of “if our team would give him support” there’s times that might be the case but by and large it’s bollocks and finding excuses imo. He’s logically the furthest forward in a lot of our counter attacking set ups, so when he gets the ball and just tears off the team aren’t going to be with him, if the options are closing he needs to learn to slow and shield the ball allowing our team to catch up then he can move the ball and retain it. It’s those type of decisions that he makes that frustrate me the most with him, especially when people want to create this illusion that everyone else on the team is always letting him down.

I think he’s fine as a squad player going forward but I personally don’t rate him highly. I also think we see a similar trend with him when a manager comes in that his performances pick up for a bit and he works harder but it eventually stops. It’s went longer with Howe as I think bringing in Bruno has shown him he will actually have to work to keep his place, so maybe it continues but it’s something to be wary of imo. I think the forward line is the major priority for this summer, so he might kind of keep his place because of that focus but we should definitely be looking to improve on him at some point in the near future.

Imagine the absolute meltdown if we went and spent a fucking fortune on 3-4 players of the Tripper/Bruno level early in the window . You’d have a special about it with Merson wearing his wonky glasses going: “I jast fink it’s a disgwayce Jeff, ow can they allow noocarsell to spend that much? If noocasell spend that then the Villa should be spending twice that”

Fully agree. That was my feelings towards the £60m noted, I think Staveleys comments kind of bit them on the arse during the January window and they struggled to agree sensible fees. I think an early move for someone like Tarkowski on a free would be good, it helps to keep some of these demands low (at first anyway as like you say once we pay a high fee it’s hard to lower that demand), it also strengthens our depth in that position. I agree about selling anyone as well. I keep seeing people dream up orders of “I wouldn’t sell him before this bloke was sold” but it doesn’t really work like that, if we can get a good fee for a player that we know we can improve on for similar then we do it.

League One fwends. It’s fucking class how desperate they are for everyone to love them but the opposite is always the case.