Holy Smokes. This Villa-Pool is officially bonkers. Grealish shot takes a freakish deflection straight to near post. 6-2 Villa in 69th minute
Yeah, this is one thing I don't care for with Arteta's style (and it's not unique to him!) but when you have a 1 (or even 2) goal lead, don't rest or sit back... keep going for it! I've been keep an eye on this match. 6 goals for Villa after 66 mins... we can only dream of that. Granted at least 2 of their goals were from wickedly lucky deflections.
3! Huge Adrian error on the first, great finish by Watkins on the second, deflection, set piece, deflection, deflection. Edit: and a half-field breakaway for 7
Yeah, don't know anything about today's Zverev thing. But it makes me think of Djokovic's reckless little tournament in Croatia this summer. At least Zverev can take some solace that he wasn't spreading while doing meet & greats with the leaders of "the world's last super power." Actually, by my reckoning, our hold on that title kinda went fully out the window starting about 3 years 9 months ago.
After a lackluster opening by us, it turned into a truly crazy day for the "big boys" of the EPL. Glad NBC had those United & Pool games on NBCSN or else I would've not been able to experience them as easily in real time as I was.
those deflections don’t happen if you don’t shoot. Structure is great for a defense, but not always so great for an offense. Sometimes you need a little creativity.
And the confidence to rip shots at a backup goalkeeper who was solely at fault for a goal after 4 minutes.
Oh yeah, Adrian is a poor #2. It's one of their biggest weaknesses. Klopp & fans must be nervously praying that Allison's injury isn't too bad (I have no idea what it was) OTOH, Emi had a pretty solid day, after he tried to emulate Adrian's sloppy-pass-out-of-the-back a few mins later. But I don't think he was troubled a ton by Pool. I truly hope for his sake that he continues the confident form he finished his Arsenal career with.
I totally agree. Villa had 18 shots (11 on target) today! Against Liverpool! We can only dream of that. Actually I'm not sure Arteta even does dream about playing like that. Comparatively, the last 4 times we played Pool our shots have been: 6(2) on 10/1/20 EFL Cup 4(3) on 9/28/20 EPL 8(2) on 8/29/20 Comm.Shield 3(2) on 7/15/20 EPL
Dean Smith strikes me as a very good manager. It's rare for a guy to have managed as long as he has (first hired at Walsall in January 2011), and never have been fired.
After hearing Earle & Howard say how low-energy and not-at-it Liverpool were today, it got me thinking... A fairly low-key story before this match was Mane testing positive for Covid. What do you think the chances are that there might be more hidden positives amongst the squad?
Not downplayong Villa's performance at all and more power to them, but any chance Liverpool were fatigued by playing their third match in 7 days? Did Villa play midweek?
I’ve been somewhat secretly harboring thoughts about Liverpool’s defense in general and Van Dijk in particular for a bit now. Now’s as good a time as any I came out and said so I guess. They might be physically toast. It’ll be interesting what happens this season and more interesting to see how quickly the club put new money into the defense if they start to dip.
That could be a factor. But that didn't seem to stop Spurs from spanking United today. BTW, wasn't that a result of very mixed feelings for us Gooners?!
not only was it worse (even ignoring his WWE-style acting), he started it. what's the damn point in having VAR and having access to it if referee isn't going to have the spine to call this type of bullshit out?
i don't remember him being any good at west ham the few times i saw him there. that seems a terrible choice for a no 2 when your intention is to contend on multiple fronts.
the shitty part of VAR is that they are using the same shit referees the league is already featuring so, y'know, starting point is already low. then, add to that, they stick them into the booth for a full day doing multiple matches which does not improve focus or concentration any.
Agreed - one way to look at it is that a deflection is simply a shot that the defensive team was unable to keep out, just like goals which have a keeper error
You only need to watch 2 or 3 games of Rugby to realise just how bad football VAR really is By far the biggest issue is the lack of transparency e.g the inconsistency on Arsenal red card decisions - because we never hear the VAR have to explain the reasoning.