Lads, it's the Premier League thread - EPL 2019/20

that's unfortunate (for AV), helluva break for Tottenham

Cue motd bore later tonight going on about getting punished for mistakes "at this level"

Clinical finish.

Wonderful

Villa have offered little this half.

Oliver Oliver Oliver skiiiiip

at least I feel better for the family of 4 who went to their first Spurs match that they're not going to go home with daddy in a severe mood, his spouse admonishing him for cussing in the car in front of the kiddies

Villa basically parked the bus the moment they had their first goal.

xp
typical ilx spurs fan not merely cussing in front of the lil' perisher, more like throwing the bairn out with the gripewater!

villa had a few good chances in first half and imo shouldve had a peno

but they'll play better teams than that

goals were good viewed in isolation but struggling to feel invested in watching us grind out a win while being crap and boring

in the exact same manner as last season

Not very good but not a catastrophe by any means. Difficult to say anything about our chances this season till we play against a team closer to our level where we see a bit more of the ball. Encouraged by McGinn, Mings, Heaton. Dunno about Wesley

We weren't very good for the first half but you were very hard to break down for most of that. Felt like a resolute and surprisingly organised performance for a team of basically complete strangers.

Grealish's face doesn't get any less annoying though.

Yes, defensively they were good. Mings in particular but all very organised.

Spurs were a different team when Eriksen came on and it’s going to be a long old season if lo Celso can’t fill that gap.

wb lads

worth noting i guess that several players out there for Villa tonight are probably not long for this team. El Mohamady, Taylor, Hourihane, all theoretically second choices this season following our little summer binge, suspect that Smith was not keen to field an 11 with 7 new signings all debuting at once against vastly superior opposition. to take just one e.g. Guilbert looked good going forward in pre-season, very technically assured with a nice touch, he is presumably supposed to be taking over from Elmo as first choice RB soonish.

big qs for Villa rn are 1) whether Wesley is gonna offer any kind of goal threat or if his role in the team is just to fall over and whinge a lot and 2) who is gonna play in the deepest/DM role in our three man midfield. Hourihane imo not anywhere near up to snuff in that position, doesn't fight hard enough to cover the defence, poor composure under pressure and doesn't offer enough penetration or invention as a playmaker kick-starting our moves from deep. There are some tackling / interception stats out there suggesting that Marvellous Nakamba will be v good as a destroyer and of course all the fans are getting over-excited about Brazil-u23 captain / "Man City midfield prodigy" Douglas Luiz and the possibility that he might turn out to be perfect for the role (we will see about that; good hair tho)

tbh my primary concern coming into the season was that even when we were going great guns last year we were still giving up chances for fun and that this might lead to some absolute spankings. performance of Heaton and the two CBs tonight have eased those fears somewhat

jesus they are determined to extract the maximum possible stupidity from var

Yeah. If Wesley turns out to to be brilliant we'll be over-reliant on him,if not then Kodjia's ceiling is like what, high single figures?

Xp windsor

Was Mings playing centre-back? Played there against us in a PSF and my immediate thought was 'will play for England within a year'

There's a step up between repelling Charlton and mastering international football, granted, but still

well one only takes a spray you get from any good homeware store

buzz off

@imago yes Mings is the violent psycho at the heart of our defence, he is actually very good. could be really really good if he can subdue the impulse to commit grievous bodily harm that one assumes is constantly bubbling away just below the surface. various chumps were lolling at our having massively overpaid for him this summer, by the end of the season itll transpire that 25m or whatever was actually great value

@biscuits maybe Keinan Davis will turn out to be good? apparently we refused loan offers from half the Championship for him in the summer, seems like Smith might have earmarked him as a like-for-like alternative for Wesley. not a goalscorer per se but big and mobile and capable of 'occupying' defenders. fuck it, John McGinn is gonna be our top scorer this season with 9 goals

hating Eddie Howe's look

Mings reminds me of Martin Laursen a bit. Wins everything, chips in with goals from set pieces, relative immobility offset by the colossal extent to which he is Up For It

After that horrorshow Leeds game with the disputed goal he was just booming with laughter, clapping everyone on the back, throwing his shirt into the crowd, didn't give a fuck

He's a bit better going forward than the comically one-footed and nosebleed-prone Dane, though he does probably have slightly more dropped-bollock potential

https://eumerch.bethesda.net/media/image/9f/a3/2c/FALLOUT_4_CAR_DECAL_THUMBS_UP_VAULT_BOY_0005_600x600.png

Eddie Howe's verdict on the commemorative brexit fifty pence.

well, my two local teams managed a solitary point, and Marta managed to get red carded for striking an opposing player.

let's see how my new squad does. Go Wolves!

Newcastle are the better side atm, though Arsenal aren’t playing any of the new signings.

you only whine when youre signing

well this game is kinda dishwater atm. Wolves just getting dispossessed and fouling

Looks like Leicester have been all over us first half but it's not on TV and I'm watching Arsenal huff and puff against Newcastle.

On the plus side it usually bodes well for us playing against the run

goal for Wolves overturned by VAR for an incidental, unclear possible handball.

fuck this

extremely harsh hand handball judgement according to 5live

it wasn't even 100% clear that it did hit his arm, it was incidental.

meanwhile the sportscasters are fellating the ref as to how correct he got it.

Diego Jota is having a terrible match

*Diogo

had 1 v 1 with keeper there

i forgot this is the year VAR will ruin the EPL, just like it did our mickey mouse league since last year.

it's been pretty bad in MLS, but only because the refs that PRO hires are too fucking stupid to know how to apply rules

there's gonna be VAR in schoolyard games soon

Wolves-Leicester has been much mor exciting this half.

For the record I hate the way VAR is implemented before we got robbed. Non-intentional handball is a slightly different stupidity

for me, being a fan of NFL football and watching that game getting micro-officiated into the ground for hte last decade, this feels more like that.

I don't mind it for like, possible red cards that were missed

i hate it for PKs because every little contact looks savage in slow motion

Pedro / Mount / Barkley / Abraham front four for Chelsea today.

Make me bet I say Chelsea edge it but

meh, 0-0 draws are so much fun, thanks VAR!

three teams, two points. not a great sporting weekend, but take one on the road.

Wolves easily dispossessed throughout the match though.

Bit of a gutter after scoring but i'd've took a point at Leicester

yeah and they def were the lesser team so.

ok I guess I root Chelsea now since they have my country's only good player

plus I used to work for Aon and I hated that fuckin company so fuck Man U