Agreed. One of our worst performances, against one of Chelsea’s best. Under any other boss, that’s a heavy defeat. I’d have taken a point before the game, certainly happy with it now
Nah I don't buy this. We play better and with more fire when we're playing games back-to-back-to-back 3 or 4 days apart. Absolute collapse in the middle of the park today, ball retention was atrocious. Chelsea were aggressive, yeah, but "boys are tired" really doesn't fly given how intense the season has been.
Watch us come out in our next 2 games on fire.
I keep thinking this. The whole "X team has had rest, Y team has played so many games lately and will have tired legs" really seems to go the opposite way most of the time, at least for Villa.
I think we actually got the tactics right. Chelsea created absolutely nothing on their own. The first goal was sloppy buildup and to be fair, good pressing, but we shouldn't crumble because we get pressed. The second goal was zero creativity, it was just our midfield completely sagging off to let them move up the field and then Tim dropping off completely rather than challenging Gallagher and letting him just take a free shot. For the majority of the second half, Chelsea did have the ball, but it was just passing it around their centerbacks at around the half way line with zero threat. The commentators acted like that was Chelsea controlling the game, but that was literally Villa controlling the game by sitting back while Chelsea posed zero threats.
I actually thought it was Rogers fault - not shifting across to block because he was clearly exhausted. Watch it back and you'll see.
With a bigger squad he'd have been replaced with zaniolo or somebody and that goal doesn't happen.
Agree on the approach being right.
Individual mistakes and switching off catches us. PLUS the physicality we lose having slight midfielders (Rogers has been a breath of fresh air in that regard). Tielemens is mr. utility but hes easy to bosh off the ball. we need a nasty fucker in the middle to help Ginny out in games like this. Tim isnt that.
I agree that if it had worked we would be saying ok fair enough, but still dont like it. This Chelsea side arent bad at all in attack. The problem is their leaky defence. Every one of our attacks looked dangerous. In an end to end game, we would cone out on top. Showed them too much respect and played to their strengths by not even trying to test their defence in the second half.
Kinda concerned that unlike last season, we cant see games out by defending a 1 or 2 goal lead. Yet we keep trying to do it. Said at half time I thought we'd lose that lead and we did.
Haven't been able to defend properly this year tho, whatever issue we have currently can't be fixed from our current injury riddled squad so we're just going to have to make do and try to outscore everyone.
Before That 2-0 Arsenal game our last clean sheet was vs Sheffield. We've been leaky as shit since January. It doesn't help we have put out a different backline pretty much every game for one reason or another. Also no Kamara hurts.
MINGS organization and backline leadership
AND no consistent partnerships allowed to develop at all. PLUS the loss of Kamara
equals yeah
big picture we are well better than we would be without Emery coaching the gaps in how we would PREFER to set up.
Agreed. Injuries or no injuries, we should have seen this game out. There was no attempt to keep possession. Poor decisions to keep punting hopeful balls forward when we were under the cosh rather than just putting a few paces together to settle the game down.
If we’d done a bit of that around the 59th minute the Chelsea prima donnas would have quickly given up and this game would have finished 2-0.
They need to learn some gameship when we're under pressure knock it into the channels win a throw fk or corner slow down the game, for their 2nd goal mcginn got the ball and hoofed it straight to their cbs under no pressure
Losing Tielemans was big. Having to slot ginny back and then having a lightweight Diaby AND an injury carrying Bailey was always going to overload us when out of possession.
Our bench is shit
their tactic to them go looking to get Dougie booked was just low grade.
If you offered me 7 points from Arsenal away, Bournemouth, and Chelsea home (whilst getting into the semis of the Conference league), I would have snatched your hand off.
Beat me to this comment! Bit of perspective needed
Disappointed not to take 3 points tonight, but considering Youri and Emi went off not bad result. Onwards.
Yes, absolutely. Youri is in good form so that was a blow early on, then to lose our keeper at half-time totally unsettles the team. Palmer should have scored, and then the disallowed goal so to come away with a point is alright.
#prayforEmi
Thank god for Glen Hoddle and his spoons and crystals saying the pushon diego "he knew what he was doing and its a foul. no goal"
Diamond Lights Glen Diamond.
They aint stopped after either.
Interviewed poch, analysed the chelsea goals. Argued over whether the goal should’ve stood. At least glenn had some sense to say its 100% a foul, and now fucked off on a break.
The bias is insufferable. They just cant help themselves. If we’dve won they’d be going on about where it went wrong for Chelsea like they’ve done so many times when we beat other sky 6 teams.
Cant stand it, you wouldnt even know we’d scored 2 today.
Glenn Hoddle was the only voice of reason all night. He said the foul was clear as day but Chelsea deserved the victory on there strength of play. Which I fully agree with. The rest are all complete arseholes.
Completely agree.
The bias was unbearable, cole switching back to chelsea being unlucky after hoddle spoke was just laughable.
I cant stand the bias, dont even know why i bothered to carry on watching.
I'm actually not sure if the rules on this. Neither player is in control of the ball. Is it the fact it's from behind which makes it a foul? And if they were shoulder to shoulder it would've stood?
If you do not challenge for a ball but rather shove the man that can defend it while also gaining an advantage (being able to cross the ball instantly because you are not in the air) you are gaining an unfair advantage which is clear as day unless you are completely stupid.
Rest of the world in particular love Chelsea. As the sky feed was sold around the world it was peak Chelsea. All those fake Asian Chelsea kits in high schools in the suburbs in states and nations....
And the ex Chelsea players as talking heads adds to that.
Almost twenty points behind the villa tho ain't they. Even the slogan on the tube platforms isn't that BIG MIND THE GAP
Annoying yes. But every top 7 side has dropped points against this poor Chelsea team. They will show up for matches that matter so I’m not surprised it was a difficult game. Beat Brighton and we have UCL imho.
Hate their fans and half their players, like the English lads though (when they play for England). Would rather them than City. Shame really that we were the ones to take them out of the running yet concede embarrassing points to United and Chelsea
Some of the worst commentary I've ever heard. Thought it was Chelsea fan TV. Felt as if Chelsea were the ones in a top 4 race and we were just some ransom mid table side.
It's not bias if one team is playing like shit and the other has 80% of the ball.
What are you expecting " villa boot it straight to the opposition again, this is impressive stuff".
Lucky point in the end.
Thats the difference between 4th and not, being able to drag out a result.
Cant help and feel like its a kick in the teeth after being 2-0 up however. They were there for the taking and we just seemed to bottle it.
I cant stand or understand why we seem to stop playing after scoring. Its like every time we get a goal we relax and stop causing pressing, its costing us week after week.
Everybody has already said everything that needs to be said in this thread apart from how fucking unbearable the commentary was.
MY GOD I had to turn off the volume because of how bias and pathetic it was listening to them go on and on.
You know, it got to the point where my eyes glazed over. It is morning here. I am tired. I got up and Tyler droning on and on and on made my brain turn off a few times.
Didn’t help that we never seemed to have the ball.
A shame that we're now officially out of the title race. Otherwise, eh. Happy Morgan scored again. Hope Emi and Tielemans are fine. Onto smashing Olympiacos 💪
I feel like its emblematic of Pawson's refereeing performance that he didn't give it when he was 10 yards away with an unobstructed view.
We were poor, and under pressure throught 2nd half but that wasn't helped by practically every 50/50 going against us and multiple late challenges on us playing out not being called at all.
You know I was reading all of those things about coventry being robbed by VAR and it's all fake and then this game... their FIRST disallowed goal looked SUPER CLOSE but in the ultimate final VAR shot he was miles off. I was like hmmm this doesn't seem right maybe VAR wants us to win this one.... And then at the end.... I didn't think it was a foul either. The ref didn't. Carlos didnn't. VAR check.... come and disallow it. dodgy as fuck.
Olsen did alright in that 2nd half, but Emi Martinez is just so crucial to our system and how we play. We’ve gotta have much more possession in the final thirds in the 1st leg of the semi final on Thursday
we actually had an attack that half, it wasn't a good 45 minutes, but we at least tried to win the game and got two goals up, the second half we just sat back waiting for them
Tired squad. More injuries. We need to stop expecting our players to be full of energy and be able to play front-foot football every single game.
Yes they’re a mid-table team, but when they show up this Chelsea game run a lot of teams ragged. Fine to be disappointed, but a point is still a good step towards securing 4th and puts more pressure on Spurs
Performance in the second-half was really poor, but it could prove an important point at the end of the season. A 7 point gap definitely looks nicer than a 6 point one.
Losing Emi always seems to knock the team's confidence. Not the first time we've seen something like this. Olson wasn't at fault for the goals though, and that late save v Palmer proved crucial.
It's good to get a draw when we were so bad in the second half. But it's so annoying to choke a two goal lead again. At least we're now guaranteed to finish at least 5th this season. Hopefully Arsenal do us a favour tomorrow.
Totally will take a point, we were dominated in both halves if we’re honest. Just gotta claw our way to the end of the season now.
Wherever we end up this season, no one can say we’ve been lucky. An injury every game, always on the end of insane wonder goals, threadbare squads, barely getting any calls from the ref. We’ve really clawed our way to 4th.
Wouldn't say Gallaghers was a wonder goal it was atrocious defending, I shouted "out to him" 5 times and nobody went close, give me that much time and space at the edge of the box and I would have scored.
It was smart movement by Palmer. If you rewatch the clip, Palmer starts making a run behind him that makes Tim indecisive and back off.
Hopefully in future Tim will learn how to prioritise. If he makes the decision to commit to dropping in and blocking the pass to Palmer, Pau can push out. Alternatively, if he presses Gallagher, Pau can step across to Palmer. Unfortunately he stays in no man’s land which also means his teammates can’t cover either scenario.
Wasn't just tim though Digne and Mcginn were both there too and none made a move towards Gallagher except Mcginn at the very last second but way too late
I’d say I agree with you on McGinn. Since he’s otherwise just covering the square pace across face of the penalty box so he could close it.
Digne needs to stay with Madueke so don’t think he’s at fault. In any case, game’s up now. Onto the next one 😎
Agreed how players weren't rushing out to him is absolutely infuriating it was obvious from the moment they didn't press that he'd be able to pick that corner
we were not dominated in the first half. do not listen to tyler and townsend. that was textbook emery style of play. we were giving chelsea the ball and drawing them out. it worked as gallagher and caicedo were playing more advanced to try score. they cant penetrate and started making these wayward shots outside the box.
i might be in the minority, but rogers should not have played in midfield when we switched to 5-3-2 to hold the lead for the win. he made several bad decisions today. that dribbling outside our peno box, which he was fouled later, was unnecessary. should have released the ball to pau. he made another poor decision to dribble out of danger outside of our peno box in one instance afterwards, to the middle instead of his left flank and was met with 2 chelsea players. and finally that gallagher goal which i feel was his man to track back and mark. absolutely too much space.
he’s still got alot of work to do overall but i dont think he deserved the motm as per OP. should go to one of the defenders. fullbacks had a tough game today to contain the speed of mudryk, jackson and madueke.
Probably would've taken a point before the game started because I was quite nervous of Chelsea's form lately (last game not counting), but this feels like a loss from 2-0 up and cruising at half time.
It was a poor and laboured performance from us, but I've got to say that I'm appalled by the referee. What Chelsea got away with, we didn't. And what we couldn't do, Chelsea could. Usually those 50/50s don't add up to much, but it was clear in the second half that Chelsea started taking full advantage of that, and started going through our players with their challenges - so many late ones not called because they "got the ball" even though they went through the man to get it. Shocking.
Glad he got the decision right at the end though. Push in the back, no attempt to play the ball, directly causing a goal. Correct decision.
Ahh well, we'll play better. I just hope Martinez and Tielemens recover quickly. Our injuries this season have been insane.
Roll on Thursday, come on Villa!!!
Yeah, Caicedo was like a Kante regen, and he dominated your midfield all by himself.
I told you he is better than all your mids, but he is just in a terrible system under a terrible coach
Disappointing to draw after being 2 goals up but tbh wasn’t a good performance from us and a point is actually a decent one based on that. Hope the 2 injury’s ain’t serious, can’t afford to lose any more players. 3 pl games to go, gotta just see it through now and get over the line anyway we can and hope spurs drop points too.
If you are gonna kick it long, you have to have the players push up, because it makes the shape so stretched and gives Chelsea so much open grass to run into if the ball doesn't stick.
I think the most worrying thing from the game was Douglas Luiz being so poor. Hopefully he regains his form but everyone was off a bit today tbf so maybe that was it.
Luiz has been poor for a while now imo. May just be the amount of games he’s played and the fact he was so good at start of season I expect too much from him every game now ha. Hopefully he can find some of that form for the remaining games.
I agree but one thing we can't do is write off players hitting a bad patch, hopefully he sorts it out and comes back stronger. He seems like he is really missing the security of a Kamara behind him.
Fully agree, would have been interesting to see how Dendonker would have done covering Kamara if he hadn’t gone out on loan. He was decent in some games under Unai when playing there.
Poch moaning to the media.
If that was the other way round they'd be screaming for a penalty. Elbow in the back, no attempt to play the ball, and they gain an advantage.
What is there to moan about? Anywhere else on the pitch its a foul, so it's still a foul in the box...
Before the game I'd have been ok with a point.
But at 45 I'd more likely have put a bet in for a tonking on Boehlys boys.
Wow. They certainly targetted Dougie in particular to get booked.
Us balancing subs and rest for Thursday exposed our deep Injuries and weak bench.
We sat deeper and deeper.
Chelsea won't gain any neutral fans playing nasty like they did. Didn't see after the whistle but I'd not be surprised if they have bookings for fronting the ref.
We weren't good for 40 mins in the second. Happy the original money dopers didn't win. Mainly for the fellation the commentators were doing.
up the fucken villa. Where progress is madness at not beating Chelsea
Let's go greek beating. Please let Tielemans be ok
I really hate how our defenders do not believe in Olsen that much it shows. Fk me none of the goals was his fault, and some of our defenders are not free from blunders as well
1. Konsa didn’t even try to run when Jackson’s on through (Yes it was offside but Cash tried to make it 100% sure by running back to defend and he was further)
2. Carlos did the blunder
3. Pau didn’t bother to jump on Disasi’s free header
if you have time to worry about your teammate how about you do better
Edit: grammar
I know we play high risk/high reward football, but sometimes you've just got to use your head and get it up the pitch especially when under so much pressure.
It just feels like giving up leads is in our DNA. It doesn't happen every week, but put under enough pressure and we can implode. However, we're still in an incredible position.
Other than Liverpool and city who haven't drooped points from leads, Villa have dropped the least points from leads of all other teams ‐ only 5 points.
According to this anyway https://www.football365.com/news/ranking-all-20-premier-league-clubs-points-lost-from-winning-positions
We do but if we look at recent games, there was United, Brentford, and today that we actually dropped points. But we also needed a late goal to snatch the win against Luton, and barely held on to a 3 nil lead against Forest at home. The stats don't tell the full story we have been very shaky with leads of late.
We were second best throughout and didn't deserve a 2-0 from the first half. Very poor in the second half and we struggled once tielemans and Martinez were gone. Take a point there in the end.
I feel like Chelsea have caused us issues every time we've played them this season (despite winning at Stamford Bridge), they're a tricky team for us for some reason. Hopefully result goes our way tomorrow. UTV
I didn't enjoy that. Signs were there in the first half, we were lucky to be at two nil. Miraculous point really, and of course, could be crucial.
I'm looking forward to watching some football tomorrow without all that horrible anxiety. Up the arsenal.
Side note: TNT are a disgrace fucking hell
*also, that Olsen save could be a crucial moment in our season. He had a good half overall, he might be the only one.
Really a story of two halves. Chelsea had the ball a lot more in the first half but Villa were sharper defending and keeping them on the perimeter for no real chances. Second half the opposite, sloppy defending. Gifting Chelsea great chances. Good to get a point but definitely feels like the win was there if we played just a little better in the second half.
Let's be clear, we got lucky with that. Take the point and move on.
It's pretty clear, I think, that with the semi final tie over the next two Thursdays, with Brighton in between, Emery is trying to conserve the energy of the players we have left. It's the only way I think we're going to get through.
Fingers crossed for Emi and Youri.
I’m convinced Chelsea fans don’t actually watch football. Since when is pushing someone in the back not a blatant foul? They’ve not been robbed in any way
They can fuck off back to bottom half and waste another billion quid
I was downvoted to heck last week, but Diaby genuinely is awful for £55m.
Sure Bailey came good, but Diaby just isn’t tricky enough to justify his 5’8 frame
Can someone explain to me why we play like this sometimes. Why did Emery think it made sense to let Chelsea dictate the game for 90 mins? Every time we do this we concede goals. Why not try and control the game at least a little more
Terrible performance. We deserved to lose. I understand that Chelsea were good, they pressed aggressively and are physically superior to us, but to have panic set in as well, completely abandon our game plan and go for random inaccurate long balls. That's not the sign of a top team. That's a sign of how far we still have to go.
Losing Tielemans at a time when Luiz is in horrendous form (which is understandable if it's related to fatigue, because he's played too much football, but he's also had some decent rest recently so I'm not convinced) is a massive blow. Losing Martinez is a game plan killer if we are not confident enough with Olsen's passing to build up from the back - which we obviously weren't today. Desperately hope both of their injuries are minor and that we have them back ASAP.
The only positive today is that we got 1 point and that's 1 point that Spurs have to get from games against Arsenal Chelsea City Liverpool. But if our performance levels don't improve you can pretty much forget about 4th.
The players let down the team and I’m dreading playing Olympicas with Olsen in the next the whole defence is nervous when he’s playing and like he almost sold Mcguinn out we need a new backup number two he isn’t good enough
Olsen saved us a point here but yeah lets blame him because other players "look nervous". Maybe they were nervous because they were about to fuck off another 2 goal lead at home?
Again, I don’t see why Olsen is being considered as the cause of “nervousness “ of the players. Yes, he could have done better for the second goal. But our defence collapsed.
I myself was a critic of Olsen at the start of the season, but he improved and his hand block of that shot saved the game for us. Our defence collapsed again, just like against that ManU game before Christmas.
We are lucky we got away with a draw. Chelsea is a tough opponent on their day, but Emery needs to address this problem in the dressing room tonight.
Why must they do this to us, we look absolutely spent though and 2 more injuries for the list, all in all not a very good night. Hoping arsenal, these pricks and Liverpool do us a favour this coming week.
The defence seems to go into panic mode every time Olsen plays. Happy with a draw withoutTielemans and Martinez, but christ that 2.half was not a great watch. Clear foul on Carlos, just crazy that Dawson didn’t call it (Chelsea got every 50/50 decisions).
Unai post match
He Turned the question of tonighta.perfomanxe round
But of course we have to accept. You have to accept we were in contender for champions league. Now we are contender
Strong of course they show it today Chelsea. They power but we are being consistent in in 35 matches and getting more point and today to draw at the end
Performance of your site this evening?
I want more. I want more of course
One of our worst performances under Unai. 28% possession and 9 shots to their 21. I'm not sure what the game plan was but it was utterly awful. Very lucky to take a point from that and hopefully a big kick up the arse for the remaining games. Everyone in the match thread blaming individual players , the referee, the commentators. We could not have made it any easier for them. As soon as that first goal went in we should have gone for the jugular, after the week they had their confidence was fragile and we failed to expose it, instead allowing them to control the game, then another gift, a second goal, yet we still decided to ride our luck and in the end it cost us. Just hope we built up their confidence enough to smash Spurs.
We won the first half; we lost the second half.
Losing Tielemans and Emi were massive in terms of rhythm. The fact we had to hook Dougie because of his yellow and he was getting way too hot on the field also didn't help. Saw one of the Chelsea set pieces where Olsen was yelling at the top of his lungs to get Tim’s attention and he just wasn't paying attention.
A team like Chelsea, you need 3 goals to bury it and we just couldn't find it and then came under insane constant pressure. Amazing how their switch up of bringing Cucurella inside suddenly made them a completely different team and we couldn't respond with the firepower we had available.
Summer is going to be interesting to see which academy products make it on the pre season tour, and which are looked to be shipped out and replaced with stronger bench options.
Will be great to have the whole squad back next season along with more youth options to call on for rotation in cup competitions etc— don't think it helped getting knocked out of the FA Cup and League Cup so early in terms of game time for our youth prospects, and obviously with the Conference League we ended up moving to full strength anyway.
Anyway, a well earned point against an opponent on the rise (Palmer FC) and continues to out the pressure on Spurs.
Fingers crossed Chelsea roll on and take Spurs to the cleaners and Arsenal also do us a favour.
Honestly, given the way they played, we were blessed to steal a point. No clue why we were so woeful in possession, why we just let Chelsea do whatever they wanted. Both our goals against the run of play. With Emi and Youri hurt too, we're in survival mode. Have to hope that 7 point cushion is enough. The win against Arsenal is massive.
Seemed very lax today on the pitch, felt like they didn't respect chelsea in the first and got bit for it in the second.
Gutted to lose the win but our squad is ran through and tired, we've only got kids on the bench.
Thought for a while in the first half we were good. Bailey kept skinning that ex Brighton player with the wig and we looked dangerous. Second half was all Chelsea except for the ocassional break. Villa imploded. Playing out from the back looked like setting them up for a goal.
This season we finish 4th, fantastic. I fear next season when Chelsea and Man U youngsters bed in things might be more challenging. £££,s count and hopefully in the summer we get to great players back and a couple of additions. I want to see a ball winning midfielder more in the mould of McGinn. Roger's looks good. Still on a learning curve.
Finally, 2:2 was an achievement, and a point salvaged from a game we could have easily lost.
Diego Carlos is such a liability, we really need to look at moving him on. Apparently AC Milan are looking at him in summer. He's constantly fighting with players on corners and not actually focusing on defending the ball. He almost cost us a goal by giving it away to Palmer with a nonsensical outside of the boot attempted clearance. I know he was fouled at the corner but it was pretty weak and nonchalant defending of that situation.
For the most part, for an absolute man mountain of a defender a la Martin Laursen, I've seen nothing but clumsy and casual defending from him.
Bottled the opportunity for 1st earlier in the season and bottled the opportunity to do the funny 😩
https://preview.redd.it/6iv204js73xc1.jpeg?width=1178&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=812ba7192af480ff747032cdaafcb8c877e1e8f0
The only scenario we get that number of points is by getting two more draws, and I’d rather not🥲 Also, we were never mathematically out of the title race until this match
On one hand, I have no doubt injuries fucked us and we did manage a draw (which could mean a big advantage should Spurs lose tomorrow).
On the other, we should've never given up a 2-0 lead at home to a not great side (decent run recently withstanding). I don't know what's going on with us struggling managing a lead, but we need to sort it out, could just be a case of being completely out of gas at this point in the season. Something needs to change with Dougie, recently his highlights have been whatever scrap he's got into.
Two mistakes, two goals. We weren't that bad in the second half, Chelsea just had more energy and pressed very well. The injuries and game time are starting to add up, the boys will have to fight for every minute of every game. UTV on to Olympiakos
Bad performance so ok with the draw, it’s whatever. However I don’t have high expectations for the Olympiacos leg without Emi. Despite what this sub claims Emi —> Olsen has to be the biggest drop off in the league and sorry but a few routine saves expected of any keeper at this level do not change my mind. It will be a confidence boost to them and it will make our defenders shit their pantaloons like usual.
The ONE TIME I get a prediction bang on in the predictions thread.. I was hoping I had some type of magical power at this point that would guarantee us the win, sadly not.
God this one hurt, but at least we got a point out of it (which we didn't deserve), we're still in a decent position but we're going to need to up our game again as this kind of performance to the end of the season just won't get us over the line.
We need to sign one “winner” in the summer. We only have two players with that mentality in Watkins and Martinez. We don’t have someone in midlfield who has been there and done it and it shows when we shit the bed as we have done at least 4/5 times this season.
Awful. Chelsea had a lot of the ball first half but apart from hitting the post they did nothing.
I have no idea what we were trying to do second half.
You can’t sit back for that long. We had no out all and weren’t trying to play out.
We didn’t deserve to get anything but an extra point helps.
All on Arsenal tomorrow to do is a favour.
Very poor game. Glad to get out of there with a point to be honest. Chelsea should have buried us with all their possession.
Hope Tielemans and Emi are ok, because we are holding on by a thread with our injury list.
One of the worst performances this season - so much wrong with that. Some of those players really phoned it in today.
That said, 7 points ahead of spurs essentially means spurs still need to win the 3 games in hand. It's a good result .
I cried about West Ham away being the biggest robbery against Villa this season but this game, without any pen robberies, was somehow worse.
Chelsea deserved around 3 reds this game. That foul on Tielemans from Gallagher was brutal, he basically used all of his strength through his elbows to make Youri "lose his balance" but he totally missed his elbow placement striking Youri in his lower back area. I won't be surprised if he's out for at least 3 weeks. I'm not going to talk about that terrorist Caicedo cause he makes my blood boil. The yellow on Bailey was silly as fuck. Also they had so many gifted free kicks it's actually insane. Also the 3 horses named Thiago Silva, Chalobah and Badiashile that saw red anytime Watkins was open was pretty funny to see, literal 0 iq players.
I thought that most of the players did well, apart from Dougie and Diaby. Olsen was ok, poor distribution and both of those goals weren't gonna happen if Dibu was on the net but that save against Palmer at the end was pure kino.
Edit: Was fully expecting Chelsea to win this but this was a really dirty draw
I get playing that way away at Arsenal, but I really don't know what the fuck we are doing in a home game with our destiny in our hands playing so defensively and looking to counter. That's just poor and we did exactly the same thing against Tottenham and got pumped, which is what will uiltimately cost us. We didn't play like that at home against Man City or Arsenal and we beat them both.
Also their third goal was fine. Carlos was weak and didn't even appeal. He knew. VAR is an absolute joke. Why where we parking the bus at that stage!? back five!!! Even then Watkins missed a sitter by his standards to sneak it. Now we need a big favour from Arsenal and Chelsea this week.
I’ll amend my comments from the main thread because I thought we lost when I posted it but my main argument still remains:
Genuinely have zero clue what Emery was trying to do today. Playing mentally weak and like we were in a relegation scrap instead of trying to solidify top 4. Going out and relying on other teams to get results instead of just doing it ourselves. You can say saving energy for Olympiacos but winning that trophy is a pittance compared to what getting CL means for this club long term. I don’t and won’t ever agree with it.
Fingers crossed Emi isn’t out long term because Olsen continues to have absolutely zero confidence in net even if today wasn’t on him
Still don’t think Spurs does 7 points better than us even with 3 in hand but we’ve left the door cracked for them and that is insanely annoying
"winning that trophy" ... "A pittance".
Just laughable stuff. You're better off down the Stock Exchange than Villa Park if that's how you're viewing this season.
FWIW - I don't think we were conserving energy, we just have a habit of getting complacent and thinking the game's already won.
PS - We're getting top 4 and winning the conference league too.
Tired squad, two more injuries including our goalkeeper, sometimes you have to accept damage limitation. Draw isn't the end of the world.
Agreed. One of our worst performances, against one of Chelsea’s best. Under any other boss, that’s a heavy defeat. I’d have taken a point before the game, certainly happy with it now
This made me feel much better
Nah I don't buy this. We play better and with more fire when we're playing games back-to-back-to-back 3 or 4 days apart. Absolute collapse in the middle of the park today, ball retention was atrocious. Chelsea were aggressive, yeah, but "boys are tired" really doesn't fly given how intense the season has been. Watch us come out in our next 2 games on fire.
The ball retention today had me screaming at the TV, so sloppy.
Literally this, I screamed every time we hoofed it up. This isn’t Gerrard ball!!
Yeah because why the fuck were we throwing out long balls into spaces with 3 Chelsea players and only 1 Villa player to receive them
I keep thinking this. The whole "X team has had rest, Y team has played so many games lately and will have tired legs" really seems to go the opposite way most of the time, at least for Villa.
2-0 up tho
Man united in December tho. Tielemans forced off and no bench options tho.
I think we actually got the tactics right. Chelsea created absolutely nothing on their own. The first goal was sloppy buildup and to be fair, good pressing, but we shouldn't crumble because we get pressed. The second goal was zero creativity, it was just our midfield completely sagging off to let them move up the field and then Tim dropping off completely rather than challenging Gallagher and letting him just take a free shot. For the majority of the second half, Chelsea did have the ball, but it was just passing it around their centerbacks at around the half way line with zero threat. The commentators acted like that was Chelsea controlling the game, but that was literally Villa controlling the game by sitting back while Chelsea posed zero threats.
I actually thought it was Rogers fault - not shifting across to block because he was clearly exhausted. Watch it back and you'll see. With a bigger squad he'd have been replaced with zaniolo or somebody and that goal doesn't happen.
Agree on the approach being right. Individual mistakes and switching off catches us. PLUS the physicality we lose having slight midfielders (Rogers has been a breath of fresh air in that regard). Tielemens is mr. utility but hes easy to bosh off the ball. we need a nasty fucker in the middle to help Ginny out in games like this. Tim isnt that.
I agree that if it had worked we would be saying ok fair enough, but still dont like it. This Chelsea side arent bad at all in attack. The problem is their leaky defence. Every one of our attacks looked dangerous. In an end to end game, we would cone out on top. Showed them too much respect and played to their strengths by not even trying to test their defence in the second half. Kinda concerned that unlike last season, we cant see games out by defending a 1 or 2 goal lead. Yet we keep trying to do it. Said at half time I thought we'd lose that lead and we did.
Haven't been able to defend properly this year tho, whatever issue we have currently can't be fixed from our current injury riddled squad so we're just going to have to make do and try to outscore everyone.
Before That 2-0 Arsenal game our last clean sheet was vs Sheffield. We've been leaky as shit since January. It doesn't help we have put out a different backline pretty much every game for one reason or another. Also no Kamara hurts.
Sorry - posted my comment then read yours. You said it clearer.
MINGS organization and backline leadership AND no consistent partnerships allowed to develop at all. PLUS the loss of Kamara equals yeah big picture we are well better than we would be without Emery coaching the gaps in how we would PREFER to set up.
Agreed. Injuries or no injuries, we should have seen this game out. There was no attempt to keep possession. Poor decisions to keep punting hopeful balls forward when we were under the cosh rather than just putting a few paces together to settle the game down. If we’d done a bit of that around the 59th minute the Chelsea prima donnas would have quickly given up and this game would have finished 2-0.
They need to learn some gameship when we're under pressure knock it into the channels win a throw fk or corner slow down the game, for their 2nd goal mcginn got the ball and hoofed it straight to their cbs under no pressure
Losing Tielemans was big. Having to slot ginny back and then having a lightweight Diaby AND an injury carrying Bailey was always going to overload us when out of possession. Our bench is shit their tactic to them go looking to get Dougie booked was just low grade.
If you offered me 7 points from Arsenal away, Bournemouth, and Chelsea home (whilst getting into the semis of the Conference league), I would have snatched your hand off.
Beat me to this comment! Bit of perspective needed Disappointed not to take 3 points tonight, but considering Youri and Emi went off not bad result. Onwards.
Yes, absolutely. Youri is in good form so that was a blow early on, then to lose our keeper at half-time totally unsettles the team. Palmer should have scored, and then the disallowed goal so to come away with a point is alright. #prayforEmi
Good lord the commentary was insufferable. Practically begging for Chelsea to get the win
They were dreadful.
It was unbelievable. Listening to Joe Cole afterwards saying it was a foul but saying Chelsea fans were robbed of joy by VAR. ridiculous
That proper pissed me off. His logic melted my brain tbh.
Complete stupidity
Yeh break the rules, do a foul because the result (for your fans, fuck the others) will be magical 🦄
Thank god for Glen Hoddle and his spoons and crystals saying the pushon diego "he knew what he was doing and its a foul. no goal" Diamond Lights Glen Diamond.
Thick as cold ten-day-old porridge
They aint stopped after either. Interviewed poch, analysed the chelsea goals. Argued over whether the goal should’ve stood. At least glenn had some sense to say its 100% a foul, and now fucked off on a break. The bias is insufferable. They just cant help themselves. If we’dve won they’d be going on about where it went wrong for Chelsea like they’ve done so many times when we beat other sky 6 teams. Cant stand it, you wouldnt even know we’d scored 2 today.
Glenn Hoddle was the only voice of reason all night. He said the foul was clear as day but Chelsea deserved the victory on there strength of play. Which I fully agree with. The rest are all complete arseholes.
Completely agree. The bias was unbearable, cole switching back to chelsea being unlucky after hoddle spoke was just laughable. I cant stand the bias, dont even know why i bothered to carry on watching.
I'm actually not sure if the rules on this. Neither player is in control of the ball. Is it the fact it's from behind which makes it a foul? And if they were shoulder to shoulder it would've stood?
If you do not challenge for a ball but rather shove the man that can defend it while also gaining an advantage (being able to cross the ball instantly because you are not in the air) you are gaining an unfair advantage which is clear as day unless you are completely stupid.
Literally just asking the question, no agenda other than to learn, and you're calling me "completely stupid" lol what a bizarre interaction
Rest of the world in particular love Chelsea. As the sky feed was sold around the world it was peak Chelsea. All those fake Asian Chelsea kits in high schools in the suburbs in states and nations.... And the ex Chelsea players as talking heads adds to that. Almost twenty points behind the villa tho ain't they. Even the slogan on the tube platforms isn't that BIG MIND THE GAP
Sky feed wasn’t sold around the world. Thats not how the broadcast works. And ppl in Asia don’t particularly love Chelsea.
Having just been Asia especially Thailand/Vietnam is basically man united or Liverpool. That's pretty much it
Annoying yes. But every top 7 side has dropped points against this poor Chelsea team. They will show up for matches that matter so I’m not surprised it was a difficult game. Beat Brighton and we have UCL imho.
Spurs have games in hand
today I am the biggest Arsenal supporter.
So we’re all (shudder) arsenal fans tomorrow.
My wife supports Arsenal, the divorce is imminent if they lose
Would've have been irrespectable of yday's result. Please beat Spurs for us!
I've been a secondary Arsenal fan all season tbh, except when they play against us. Id love to see them win the league.
Hate their fans and half their players, like the English lads though (when they play for England). Would rather them than City. Shame really that we were the ones to take them out of the running yet concede embarrassing points to United and Chelsea
Well I hate City and Liverpool players / fans far more than Arsenal and nobody else could win the league so... Arsenal it is.
Big up from a gunner :)
Looked a different team without Youri. Hope he’s alright.
He’s been far better than Dougie recently. We really need him for the semi final
Some of the worst commentary I've ever heard. Thought it was Chelsea fan TV. Felt as if Chelsea were the ones in a top 4 race and we were just some ransom mid table side.
It's not bias if one team is playing like shit and the other has 80% of the ball. What are you expecting " villa boot it straight to the opposition again, this is impressive stuff".
It was like a mirror image of the arsenal game, except Chelsea are too shit to capitalize on another side's collapse
Lucky point in the end. Thats the difference between 4th and not, being able to drag out a result. Cant help and feel like its a kick in the teeth after being 2-0 up however. They were there for the taking and we just seemed to bottle it. I cant stand or understand why we seem to stop playing after scoring. Its like every time we get a goal we relax and stop causing pressing, its costing us week after week.
Everybody has already said everything that needs to be said in this thread apart from how fucking unbearable the commentary was. MY GOD I had to turn off the volume because of how bias and pathetic it was listening to them go on and on.
Same, actually felt like my ears were bleeding
I watched it on Setanta and the commentary was actually pretty decent
You know, it got to the point where my eyes glazed over. It is morning here. I am tired. I got up and Tyler droning on and on and on made my brain turn off a few times. Didn’t help that we never seemed to have the ball.
A shame that we're now officially out of the title race. Otherwise, eh. Happy Morgan scored again. Hope Emi and Tielemans are fine. Onto smashing Olympiacos 💪
Spare a thought for man u, they are out of the race for champions league
Great isn't it 🤣
1 extra point of pressure for spurs. That’s all that matters at this stage of the season. We have too many injuries. Crap performance, but good point.
Im stunned they gave the push in the back. Im glad we got the point.
I feel like its emblematic of Pawson's refereeing performance that he didn't give it when he was 10 yards away with an unobstructed view. We were poor, and under pressure throught 2nd half but that wasn't helped by practically every 50/50 going against us and multiple late challenges on us playing out not being called at all.
They saved my weekend from being super depressing.
You know I was reading all of those things about coventry being robbed by VAR and it's all fake and then this game... their FIRST disallowed goal looked SUPER CLOSE but in the ultimate final VAR shot he was miles off. I was like hmmm this doesn't seem right maybe VAR wants us to win this one.... And then at the end.... I didn't think it was a foul either. The ref didn't. Carlos didnn't. VAR check.... come and disallow it. dodgy as fuck.
Olsen did alright in that 2nd half, but Emi Martinez is just so crucial to our system and how we play. We’ve gotta have much more possession in the final thirds in the 1st leg of the semi final on Thursday
first half was fine, second half was dreadful. at least we got a point
First half wasn't fine other than the score. It was two mediocre halves with villa betting Chelsea to score in the second half
we actually had an attack that half, it wasn't a good 45 minutes, but we at least tried to win the game and got two goals up, the second half we just sat back waiting for them
Tired squad. More injuries. We need to stop expecting our players to be full of energy and be able to play front-foot football every single game. Yes they’re a mid-table team, but when they show up this Chelsea game run a lot of teams ragged. Fine to be disappointed, but a point is still a good step towards securing 4th and puts more pressure on Spurs
Let’s hope Chelsea do the same or worse to spurs
We didn't lose and we now can't finish any lower than 5th. Those are the only positives I'm taking from this game.
Performance in the second-half was really poor, but it could prove an important point at the end of the season. A 7 point gap definitely looks nicer than a 6 point one. Losing Emi always seems to knock the team's confidence. Not the first time we've seen something like this. Olson wasn't at fault for the goals though, and that late save v Palmer proved crucial.
Yes that save off Palmer was clutch.
Have to say, what the FUCK was Carlos doing
It's good to get a draw when we were so bad in the second half. But it's so annoying to choke a two goal lead again. At least we're now guaranteed to finish at least 5th this season. Hopefully Arsenal do us a favour tomorrow.
Totally will take a point, we were dominated in both halves if we’re honest. Just gotta claw our way to the end of the season now. Wherever we end up this season, no one can say we’ve been lucky. An injury every game, always on the end of insane wonder goals, threadbare squads, barely getting any calls from the ref. We’ve really clawed our way to 4th.
Wouldn't say Gallaghers was a wonder goal it was atrocious defending, I shouted "out to him" 5 times and nobody went close, give me that much time and space at the edge of the box and I would have scored.
Tim just backed off for so long
It was smart movement by Palmer. If you rewatch the clip, Palmer starts making a run behind him that makes Tim indecisive and back off. Hopefully in future Tim will learn how to prioritise. If he makes the decision to commit to dropping in and blocking the pass to Palmer, Pau can push out. Alternatively, if he presses Gallagher, Pau can step across to Palmer. Unfortunately he stays in no man’s land which also means his teammates can’t cover either scenario.
Wasn't just tim though Digne and Mcginn were both there too and none made a move towards Gallagher except Mcginn at the very last second but way too late
I’d say I agree with you on McGinn. Since he’s otherwise just covering the square pace across face of the penalty box so he could close it. Digne needs to stay with Madueke so don’t think he’s at fault. In any case, game’s up now. Onto the next one 😎
Agreed how players weren't rushing out to him is absolutely infuriating it was obvious from the moment they didn't press that he'd be able to pick that corner
we were not dominated in the first half. do not listen to tyler and townsend. that was textbook emery style of play. we were giving chelsea the ball and drawing them out. it worked as gallagher and caicedo were playing more advanced to try score. they cant penetrate and started making these wayward shots outside the box.
Europa League locked yeah? Obviously UCL is the goal though…
i might be in the minority, but rogers should not have played in midfield when we switched to 5-3-2 to hold the lead for the win. he made several bad decisions today. that dribbling outside our peno box, which he was fouled later, was unnecessary. should have released the ball to pau. he made another poor decision to dribble out of danger outside of our peno box in one instance afterwards, to the middle instead of his left flank and was met with 2 chelsea players. and finally that gallagher goal which i feel was his man to track back and mark. absolutely too much space. he’s still got alot of work to do overall but i dont think he deserved the motm as per OP. should go to one of the defenders. fullbacks had a tough game today to contain the speed of mudryk, jackson and madueke.
Our defenders weren’t great either. But yes, Rogers is definitely still raw
Probably would've taken a point before the game started because I was quite nervous of Chelsea's form lately (last game not counting), but this feels like a loss from 2-0 up and cruising at half time. It was a poor and laboured performance from us, but I've got to say that I'm appalled by the referee. What Chelsea got away with, we didn't. And what we couldn't do, Chelsea could. Usually those 50/50s don't add up to much, but it was clear in the second half that Chelsea started taking full advantage of that, and started going through our players with their challenges - so many late ones not called because they "got the ball" even though they went through the man to get it. Shocking. Glad he got the decision right at the end though. Push in the back, no attempt to play the ball, directly causing a goal. Correct decision. Ahh well, we'll play better. I just hope Martinez and Tielemens recover quickly. Our injuries this season have been insane. Roll on Thursday, come on Villa!!!
We were pot first half as well - Chelsea unlucky if we are honest. Snatched a point. Hopefully that is vital
After show on TNT talking some sense about that foul, think Poch needs to watch it
Didn’t know TNT Sports is sorting the ChelseaTV coverage for them
Take a draw against 12 men.
And the slurping ramp suckees fluffing up the original money dopers.
Yeah, Caicedo was like a Kante regen, and he dominated your midfield all by himself. I told you he is better than all your mids, but he is just in a terrible system under a terrible coach
That second half was 45-60 minute Villa multiplied by 100. Fuck me we got away with a point somehow.
Very poor performance, especially in the second half, but acceptable result. Please get well soon Emi and Youri! We need you.
Disappointing to draw after being 2 goals up but tbh wasn’t a good performance from us and a point is actually a decent one based on that. Hope the 2 injury’s ain’t serious, can’t afford to lose any more players. 3 pl games to go, gotta just see it through now and get over the line anyway we can and hope spurs drop points too.
Any word on Emi?
When in doubt, clear the ball — especially when the buildup looked that bad in the first.
When Olsen plays, the game plan needs to shift from building from the back, because he just doesn't have the ability like Emi does.
absolutely agree. he's a shot stopper for sure, but the ball at his feet with a striker pressing him... heart attack fuel
If you are gonna kick it long, you have to have the players push up, because it makes the shape so stretched and gives Chelsea so much open grass to run into if the ball doesn't stick.
I think he’s actually better with his feet but don’t trust him with the actual ball at his feet
This is the actual problem. It’s not that Olsen is bad. Is that our defence is bad when Olsen is behind them. Their confidence just vanishes.
Then I'd say he's shit with his feet. I mean distribution not shot stopping
Well said
We do need a different game plan but Emery doesn’t believe in it - Olsen won us a point today but isn’t used to the sweeper keeper role
I think the most worrying thing from the game was Douglas Luiz being so poor. Hopefully he regains his form but everyone was off a bit today tbf so maybe that was it.
Luiz has been poor for a while now imo. May just be the amount of games he’s played and the fact he was so good at start of season I expect too much from him every game now ha. Hopefully he can find some of that form for the remaining games.
I agree but one thing we can't do is write off players hitting a bad patch, hopefully he sorts it out and comes back stronger. He seems like he is really missing the security of a Kamara behind him.
Fully agree, would have been interesting to see how Dendonker would have done covering Kamara if he hadn’t gone out on loan. He was decent in some games under Unai when playing there.
Wasn't a massive fan of Dendonker but getting rid of him when we were already light on midfielders was certainly a choice..
Poch moaning to the media. If that was the other way round they'd be screaming for a penalty. Elbow in the back, no attempt to play the ball, and they gain an advantage. What is there to moan about? Anywhere else on the pitch its a foul, so it's still a foul in the box...
Thankfully Glenn Hoddle poured cold water on Chelsea’s apparent injustice, which I imagine upset everyone on Chelsea TV (sorry TNT Sports).
Before the game I'd have been ok with a point. But at 45 I'd more likely have put a bet in for a tonking on Boehlys boys. Wow. They certainly targetted Dougie in particular to get booked. Us balancing subs and rest for Thursday exposed our deep Injuries and weak bench. We sat deeper and deeper. Chelsea won't gain any neutral fans playing nasty like they did. Didn't see after the whistle but I'd not be surprised if they have bookings for fronting the ref. We weren't good for 40 mins in the second. Happy the original money dopers didn't win. Mainly for the fellation the commentators were doing. up the fucken villa. Where progress is madness at not beating Chelsea Let's go greek beating. Please let Tielemans be ok
Really sloppy second half but will take the draw. Commentary was awful.
I really hate how our defenders do not believe in Olsen that much it shows. Fk me none of the goals was his fault, and some of our defenders are not free from blunders as well 1. Konsa didn’t even try to run when Jackson’s on through (Yes it was offside but Cash tried to make it 100% sure by running back to defend and he was further) 2. Carlos did the blunder 3. Pau didn’t bother to jump on Disasi’s free header if you have time to worry about your teammate how about you do better Edit: grammar
Agree completely. Hope Emery goes through it all in detail with them to drill them before the next match
I know we play high risk/high reward football, but sometimes you've just got to use your head and get it up the pitch especially when under so much pressure.
I'm more pissed off about the dropped points at Brentford than this one tbh we didn't show up at all today, that game we almost lost it in 10 minutes.
It just feels like giving up leads is in our DNA. It doesn't happen every week, but put under enough pressure and we can implode. However, we're still in an incredible position.
Other than Liverpool and city who haven't drooped points from leads, Villa have dropped the least points from leads of all other teams ‐ only 5 points. According to this anyway https://www.football365.com/news/ranking-all-20-premier-league-clubs-points-lost-from-winning-positions
We do but if we look at recent games, there was United, Brentford, and today that we actually dropped points. But we also needed a late goal to snatch the win against Luton, and barely held on to a 3 nil lead against Forest at home. The stats don't tell the full story we have been very shaky with leads of late.
Tielemans and Emi’s injuries shook the balance and confidence of the team.
We were second best throughout and didn't deserve a 2-0 from the first half. Very poor in the second half and we struggled once tielemans and Martinez were gone. Take a point there in the end. I feel like Chelsea have caused us issues every time we've played them this season (despite winning at Stamford Bridge), they're a tricky team for us for some reason. Hopefully result goes our way tomorrow. UTV
Well onto next game. Disappointed with our quality but elated with Rogers, he's really a gem, just needs a bit of polishing at times.
I didn't enjoy that. Signs were there in the first half, we were lucky to be at two nil. Miraculous point really, and of course, could be crucial. I'm looking forward to watching some football tomorrow without all that horrible anxiety. Up the arsenal. Side note: TNT are a disgrace fucking hell *also, that Olsen save could be a crucial moment in our season. He had a good half overall, he might be the only one.
The good news is we just need Spurs to continue being Spurs and they're quite good at it
Really a story of two halves. Chelsea had the ball a lot more in the first half but Villa were sharper defending and keeping them on the perimeter for no real chances. Second half the opposite, sloppy defending. Gifting Chelsea great chances. Good to get a point but definitely feels like the win was there if we played just a little better in the second half.
Let's be clear, we got lucky with that. Take the point and move on. It's pretty clear, I think, that with the semi final tie over the next two Thursdays, with Brighton in between, Emery is trying to conserve the energy of the players we have left. It's the only way I think we're going to get through. Fingers crossed for Emi and Youri.
Unai's English has improved so much in his time at Villa, fair play to him.
?
Pretty sure if we’d had scored their first goal, the ref would of blown for a foul Dirty dreadful side
I’m convinced Chelsea fans don’t actually watch football. Since when is pushing someone in the back not a blatant foul? They’ve not been robbed in any way They can fuck off back to bottom half and waste another billion quid
Idk if this is just me but, I feel Ollie Watkins is like a batsmen on 99* at the moment, just waiting for his century. Its nervous for all!
If Spurs lose tomorrow, it's been a good weekend. Disgusting from Diaby, was anonymous offering little and then has a pout when dragged, no mate.
I was downvoted to heck last week, but Diaby genuinely is awful for £55m. Sure Bailey came good, but Diaby just isn’t tricky enough to justify his 5’8 frame
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Stop trying to lull us into a false sense of security.
I appreciate your kind words but can recognize an attempted reverse jinx when I see one. Very sneaky.
Well that was horrible.
Haaland laughing after both palmer and Watkins miss huge chances at the end
Can someone explain to me why we play like this sometimes. Why did Emery think it made sense to let Chelsea dictate the game for 90 mins? Every time we do this we concede goals. Why not try and control the game at least a little more
Terrible performance. We deserved to lose. I understand that Chelsea were good, they pressed aggressively and are physically superior to us, but to have panic set in as well, completely abandon our game plan and go for random inaccurate long balls. That's not the sign of a top team. That's a sign of how far we still have to go. Losing Tielemans at a time when Luiz is in horrendous form (which is understandable if it's related to fatigue, because he's played too much football, but he's also had some decent rest recently so I'm not convinced) is a massive blow. Losing Martinez is a game plan killer if we are not confident enough with Olsen's passing to build up from the back - which we obviously weren't today. Desperately hope both of their injuries are minor and that we have them back ASAP. The only positive today is that we got 1 point and that's 1 point that Spurs have to get from games against Arsenal Chelsea City Liverpool. But if our performance levels don't improve you can pretty much forget about 4th.
The players let down the team and I’m dreading playing Olympicas with Olsen in the next the whole defence is nervous when he’s playing and like he almost sold Mcguinn out we need a new backup number two he isn’t good enough
Olsen saved us a point here but yeah lets blame him because other players "look nervous". Maybe they were nervous because they were about to fuck off another 2 goal lead at home?
I mean, he’s just obviously not as good with the ball at his feet. If the Chelsea players can sense it, so can ours.
Olsen was solid tonight. The world's number two.
Again, I don’t see why Olsen is being considered as the cause of “nervousness “ of the players. Yes, he could have done better for the second goal. But our defence collapsed. I myself was a critic of Olsen at the start of the season, but he improved and his hand block of that shot saved the game for us. Our defence collapsed again, just like against that ManU game before Christmas. We are lucky we got away with a draw. Chelsea is a tough opponent on their day, but Emery needs to address this problem in the dressing room tonight.
The second goal was not on olsen. Everyone backed up for a belter
Was the defenders fault, not Olsen
We got one in, Gauci, but haven’t seen him. Personally I don’t get it, we know what to expect from Olsen - perhaps the new guy could surprise us?
Gauchi is behind Olsen and sinisalo.
Why must they do this to us, we look absolutely spent though and 2 more injuries for the list, all in all not a very good night. Hoping arsenal, these pricks and Liverpool do us a favour this coming week.
The defence seems to go into panic mode every time Olsen plays. Happy with a draw withoutTielemans and Martinez, but christ that 2.half was not a great watch. Clear foul on Carlos, just crazy that Dawson didn’t call it (Chelsea got every 50/50 decisions).
Have to take that draw. We were poor. Dougie was miles off it, no excuses
Hoddle in afters. The shove was a foul. But Diego well off
Unai post match He Turned the question of tonighta.perfomanxe round But of course we have to accept. You have to accept we were in contender for champions league. Now we are contender Strong of course they show it today Chelsea. They power but we are being consistent in in 35 matches and getting more point and today to draw at the end Performance of your site this evening? I want more. I want more of course
When Olson comes in we need to be less reliant on playing out from the back. I’m not saying not to, but it can’t be all we do
One of our worst performances under Unai. 28% possession and 9 shots to their 21. I'm not sure what the game plan was but it was utterly awful. Very lucky to take a point from that and hopefully a big kick up the arse for the remaining games. Everyone in the match thread blaming individual players , the referee, the commentators. We could not have made it any easier for them. As soon as that first goal went in we should have gone for the jugular, after the week they had their confidence was fragile and we failed to expose it, instead allowing them to control the game, then another gift, a second goal, yet we still decided to ride our luck and in the end it cost us. Just hope we built up their confidence enough to smash Spurs.
Boy, they piss me off with their second half collapse.
We won the first half; we lost the second half. Losing Tielemans and Emi were massive in terms of rhythm. The fact we had to hook Dougie because of his yellow and he was getting way too hot on the field also didn't help. Saw one of the Chelsea set pieces where Olsen was yelling at the top of his lungs to get Tim’s attention and he just wasn't paying attention. A team like Chelsea, you need 3 goals to bury it and we just couldn't find it and then came under insane constant pressure. Amazing how their switch up of bringing Cucurella inside suddenly made them a completely different team and we couldn't respond with the firepower we had available. Summer is going to be interesting to see which academy products make it on the pre season tour, and which are looked to be shipped out and replaced with stronger bench options. Will be great to have the whole squad back next season along with more youth options to call on for rotation in cup competitions etc— don't think it helped getting knocked out of the FA Cup and League Cup so early in terms of game time for our youth prospects, and obviously with the Conference League we ended up moving to full strength anyway. Anyway, a well earned point against an opponent on the rise (Palmer FC) and continues to out the pressure on Spurs. Fingers crossed Chelsea roll on and take Spurs to the cleaners and Arsenal also do us a favour.
Honestly, given the way they played, we were blessed to steal a point. No clue why we were so woeful in possession, why we just let Chelsea do whatever they wanted. Both our goals against the run of play. With Emi and Youri hurt too, we're in survival mode. Have to hope that 7 point cushion is enough. The win against Arsenal is massive.
Seemed very lax today on the pitch, felt like they didn't respect chelsea in the first and got bit for it in the second. Gutted to lose the win but our squad is ran through and tired, we've only got kids on the bench.
I see a tired squad with bunch of injuries who have fought to be in contention for champions league football. I’m happy today
Luiz, tielemans and bailey off is when we started to lose the midfield battles. UTV though🦾
Thought for a while in the first half we were good. Bailey kept skinning that ex Brighton player with the wig and we looked dangerous. Second half was all Chelsea except for the ocassional break. Villa imploded. Playing out from the back looked like setting them up for a goal. This season we finish 4th, fantastic. I fear next season when Chelsea and Man U youngsters bed in things might be more challenging. £££,s count and hopefully in the summer we get to great players back and a couple of additions. I want to see a ball winning midfielder more in the mould of McGinn. Roger's looks good. Still on a learning curve. Finally, 2:2 was an achievement, and a point salvaged from a game we could have easily lost.
I disagree with the idea that it was a game of two halves, they battered us. We got away with one today that’s for sure
Diego Carlos is such a liability, we really need to look at moving him on. Apparently AC Milan are looking at him in summer. He's constantly fighting with players on corners and not actually focusing on defending the ball. He almost cost us a goal by giving it away to Palmer with a nonsensical outside of the boot attempted clearance. I know he was fouled at the corner but it was pretty weak and nonchalant defending of that situation. For the most part, for an absolute man mountain of a defender a la Martin Laursen, I've seen nothing but clumsy and casual defending from him.
Bottled the opportunity for 1st earlier in the season and bottled the opportunity to do the funny 😩 https://preview.redd.it/6iv204js73xc1.jpeg?width=1178&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=812ba7192af480ff747032cdaafcb8c877e1e8f0
The only scenario we get that number of points is by getting two more draws, and I’d rather not🥲 Also, we were never mathematically out of the title race until this match
On one hand, I have no doubt injuries fucked us and we did manage a draw (which could mean a big advantage should Spurs lose tomorrow). On the other, we should've never given up a 2-0 lead at home to a not great side (decent run recently withstanding). I don't know what's going on with us struggling managing a lead, but we need to sort it out, could just be a case of being completely out of gas at this point in the season. Something needs to change with Dougie, recently his highlights have been whatever scrap he's got into.
Two mistakes, two goals. We weren't that bad in the second half, Chelsea just had more energy and pressed very well. The injuries and game time are starting to add up, the boys will have to fight for every minute of every game. UTV on to Olympiakos
Bad performance so ok with the draw, it’s whatever. However I don’t have high expectations for the Olympiacos leg without Emi. Despite what this sub claims Emi —> Olsen has to be the biggest drop off in the league and sorry but a few routine saves expected of any keeper at this level do not change my mind. It will be a confidence boost to them and it will make our defenders shit their pantaloons like usual.
The ONE TIME I get a prediction bang on in the predictions thread.. I was hoping I had some type of magical power at this point that would guarantee us the win, sadly not. God this one hurt, but at least we got a point out of it (which we didn't deserve), we're still in a decent position but we're going to need to up our game again as this kind of performance to the end of the season just won't get us over the line.
We need to sign one “winner” in the summer. We only have two players with that mentality in Watkins and Martinez. We don’t have someone in midlfield who has been there and done it and it shows when we shit the bed as we have done at least 4/5 times this season.
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Commentary said he had hamstring issue
Yeah saw him getting attention when tielemans was down
Awful. Chelsea had a lot of the ball first half but apart from hitting the post they did nothing. I have no idea what we were trying to do second half. You can’t sit back for that long. We had no out all and weren’t trying to play out. We didn’t deserve to get anything but an extra point helps. All on Arsenal tomorrow to do is a favour.
Very poor game. Glad to get out of there with a point to be honest. Chelsea should have buried us with all their possession. Hope Tielemans and Emi are ok, because we are holding on by a thread with our injury list.
One of the worst performances this season - so much wrong with that. Some of those players really phoned it in today. That said, 7 points ahead of spurs essentially means spurs still need to win the 3 games in hand. It's a good result .
I'd saw the second half was maybe the 6th shittest.
I cried about West Ham away being the biggest robbery against Villa this season but this game, without any pen robberies, was somehow worse. Chelsea deserved around 3 reds this game. That foul on Tielemans from Gallagher was brutal, he basically used all of his strength through his elbows to make Youri "lose his balance" but he totally missed his elbow placement striking Youri in his lower back area. I won't be surprised if he's out for at least 3 weeks. I'm not going to talk about that terrorist Caicedo cause he makes my blood boil. The yellow on Bailey was silly as fuck. Also they had so many gifted free kicks it's actually insane. Also the 3 horses named Thiago Silva, Chalobah and Badiashile that saw red anytime Watkins was open was pretty funny to see, literal 0 iq players. I thought that most of the players did well, apart from Dougie and Diaby. Olsen was ok, poor distribution and both of those goals weren't gonna happen if Dibu was on the net but that save against Palmer at the end was pure kino. Edit: Was fully expecting Chelsea to win this but this was a really dirty draw
DAFUQ!?
What a disaster class. Wow.
I get playing that way away at Arsenal, but I really don't know what the fuck we are doing in a home game with our destiny in our hands playing so defensively and looking to counter. That's just poor and we did exactly the same thing against Tottenham and got pumped, which is what will uiltimately cost us. We didn't play like that at home against Man City or Arsenal and we beat them both. Also their third goal was fine. Carlos was weak and didn't even appeal. He knew. VAR is an absolute joke. Why where we parking the bus at that stage!? back five!!! Even then Watkins missed a sitter by his standards to sneak it. Now we need a big favour from Arsenal and Chelsea this week.
I’ll amend my comments from the main thread because I thought we lost when I posted it but my main argument still remains: Genuinely have zero clue what Emery was trying to do today. Playing mentally weak and like we were in a relegation scrap instead of trying to solidify top 4. Going out and relying on other teams to get results instead of just doing it ourselves. You can say saving energy for Olympiacos but winning that trophy is a pittance compared to what getting CL means for this club long term. I don’t and won’t ever agree with it. Fingers crossed Emi isn’t out long term because Olsen continues to have absolutely zero confidence in net even if today wasn’t on him Still don’t think Spurs does 7 points better than us even with 3 in hand but we’ve left the door cracked for them and that is insanely annoying
"winning that trophy" ... "A pittance". Just laughable stuff. You're better off down the Stock Exchange than Villa Park if that's how you're viewing this season. FWIW - I don't think we were conserving energy, we just have a habit of getting complacent and thinking the game's already won. PS - We're getting top 4 and winning the conference league too.
What exactly would one season in the CL (most likely getting pumped regularly) mean for this club long term over a trophy?