It’s quite the illustration of our progress that we’re coming off beating an excellent side and being a little frustrated that we weren’t sharper with our attacking movement.
We struggled against all three promoted teams.. all of which came out pumped up and swinging in one of their best opportunities to grab points. It’s a lot to expect a side that’s bedding in new signings and figuring out new ways to play to swat those teams away. Which isn’t to say we get a pass for failing in the same way three times.
We’re are in similar place to last season vis-a-vis points and fixtures, but where this time-ish last season we got a streaky home win against Liverpool with no possession, against Villa we were the better attacking force and we defended our position confidently. They can’t have been as good as they usually are to have gotten so little from all that possession, but we probably had something to do with that.