The Thriller In Meh Villa

Savona is the third fb in the europa squad and must have got injured really soon after the squad was finalised, which hasn't helped (not that i rate him highly but he's better there than Abbott or Cunha).

I actually think we need something on Sunday. Mathematically certainty aside. I know I know balance of probability blah blah blah. But I think both Spurs and West Ham will win.

Balanced back four will help and Murillo might be back

We cannot get bullied in midfield by Bruno and his dogs like we normally do. So maybe Dom/Yates/Ando if Sangare is still out.

You think West Ham will beat Arsenal? It's football, so it's possible but there's a 5 times return on that. I could just about see a draw (which still leaves us on the edge of the conversation).

Remind me who we beat to stay up and deny them the title a couple of years ago?

I guess the big question is why we felt the need to bring MGW (and Anderson) on for half of that game when we were 2-0 up and had this one on the horizon, but it's all water under the bridge now.

I thought it was a good move. They were inching back into it. We retook control of the game and scored pretty quickly. We cannot have foreseen the injury MGW sustained.

I also wondered about that at the time. I felt it was an unnecessary gamble, but those who cant find fault in Manager No 4 told me this was great tactical management as he was being proactive in a match with his substitutions.

It’s funny. I’ve just been back to the Chelsea match thread and there were no comments at all about the half time subs. Just immediate celebrations of the third goal.

So it must have puzzled everyone so much that they were unable to type….

Totally agree with Guru, it was a very good change and tipped the game in our favour further. And looking back it was still the right thing to do as those 3 points look even bigger now we are out the Europa. No matter what side we put out last night Villa beat us, they were absolutely on it.

Whilst you run some risk of injury, I thought giving them a half keeps them sharp etc was a thing?

I dont think I posted anything at all in the chelsea thread, so if that was a dig at me its a bit misplaced. I did think (but not post as I dont spend all my time on here sharing every thought) it was a strange substitution to make. Others were quick to say it was great management. We may still have won the chelsea match and not got MGW injured, or we may have lost control of match and dropped points. Who knows? But what we do know as FACT, is that we lost Villa match as we couldn't field anything close to full strength team. My more admittedly snarky point is about folks who are overly smitten with manager no 4 and can therefore find no fault

They'd more or less lost the title already - can't remember the details but think they needed to beat us and someone else and City needed to lose their last game, which was viewed as straightforward, and they had to make up a big goal difference? As I remember it, they were pretty deflated going into the game and the consensus was that they were done. Losing to us just confirmed the inevitable.

Checked, because of course I did, the previous week Arsenal had lost 3-0 at home to Brighton, so going into the game the situation was:

City P35 PTS85 GD+61
Arse P36 PTS81 GD+41

So even if Arsenal had won their last 2, City needed 2 points from three games (Chelsea h, Brighton a, Brentford a), having won 11 in a row.

I definitely think that was the logic, I think he's mentioned this before as broadening the feel good factor of a good win to the whole group, and on average it's probably not a bad idea, but on this particular occasion it backfired and Villa resting all of their players in the build up, though criticised at the time, worked perfectly for their desire to specifically win this game. It's not really a criticism of the manager, just an observation of different approaches and their outcomes. I am interested to see what happens with Vitor though, I quite like him whilst not being totally convinced how far he can go given his track record, but such a dramatic capitulation is bound to have set the controlling mind thinking.

I also think that if we were (almost secure) in 5th spot and not still fighting relegation we'd have taken a more Villa approach to the Chelsea game.

And the next 3 games will have some bearing but not getting to final/winning Europa make it likely we say goodbye to Vitor amicably at end of season.

Marinakis doesn't usually sack a manager until he's got the next one lined up. He's almost certainly having conversations, so if he's burned our reputation with decent prospects with all the sackings, at least he'll know before he bins Pereira.