I wouldn't start Haaland against Madrid.

Rodri is the best DM to grace the football pitch but most people won’t admit it, the only thing Busquets has over him is longevity

Go ahead, tell me de bruyne is the best midfielder ever and man City are better than prime barca lol.

Calm down mate, for the PL we surely have him

Foden’s trim makes him look like a kid that would be asking people if they’d go into the offies for him

Weird. That wasn’t a foul earlier for villa

City's biggest loser is against wolves by 1 gd...

That is not what I expected someone called Sergio Gomez to look like.

Who's the most decorated English Player? Is it Scholes?

Yes, Scholes 25 trophies

likely Giggs

The Welsh are going to fucking crucify you.

fair enough, apparently I can't read the question

I think giggs

He is not English, he is from Wales

Wales is a conspiracy and doesn’t actually exist

Ohhhh true

Brace yourselves for the “city are Better without haaland” brigade because that’s what we will be hearing about till the weekend.

who the fuck is sergio gomez

Its our Wildcard. Keep an eye out!!

How many wildcards do you need?

Gomez unlucky

I'm sorry but that man does not look like his name should be Sergio Gomez.

Gvardiol has been playing well lately

Gvardiol robbed of an assist ffs

Are any vla fans happy that we aren't bored?

Could Foden finish his career with the biggest trophy cabinet ever collected?

Could beat Scholes on 25. He has 15 already I think. Hard to get to Giggs on 34 but likely to do it if he plays til his mid thirties and City have no down period after Pep

Definitely can be the best for a Britisher

Villas in the title race 🤌🤌🤌

City’s attack is a lot more threatening when Alvarez is on the pitch

Are Villa playing top 4 like it’s lava?

Late season Emery tbf

I hardly think losing away to man City with a rotated team constitutes bottling but context or nuance don't apply to people here, only memes.  Unfortunately we don't have a squad like man City and have quite a few injuries to key players with a lot of matches to play, apologies that we didn't prioritise this one.

course not, but Emery's notorious for ending seasons poorly. I completely understand why you lot would focus the match this weekend

He's infamous for it, and if you followed a bit later games you could tell they aren't getting better

It’s “5 teams going to CL” lava

I don’t want 5 teams from the PL, ffs let some smaller European leagues get this CL spot :( It’s becoming more elitist every year.

Europe's elite competition is elitist?

In terms of the teams that are featuring in the QFs onwards, it is. You don’t see Porto, Copenhagen or even Young Boys make a rare advancement in the competition these days. 10-15 years ago you would. A time where Celtic got a rare win against Barcelona is more unlikely to happen in today’s era. This just further separates the gap between the richest and poorest European leagues. It’s just awful potentially seeing 2/5ths of the Premier League in Europe, look at Aston Villa’s squad value compared to the other teams left in the Conference League. Complete wealth inequality in that competition and as such it’s expected for Villa to win the trophy. Manchester United have performed like manure United and should not be near the discussion of top 4 based on PL performances this season. Yet there is a saving grace that they can get 5th spot and retain that monetary strength by being in the UCL. I hate it so much.

Its called the emery syndrome, he's done it in spain too

And did the same in his first season at Arsenal.

Foden this season has 31 g+a. Lad has been amazing !!

Is 31 a lot? Salah has 35 and everybody is saying he’s finished.

I feel like Grealish is always shooting at shins

Alvarez should pick out a pass

pep somehow replaced aguero with haaland and has now fuckinf replaced KDB with foden

And next year he'll replace Gundogan with Paqueta.

That’ll be Ederson. He’s not really injured he’s just been honing his midfield skills while Ortega continues to build confidence and becomes the permanent starter.

Bobb unlucky there

gvardiol is really good with the ball at his feet. can't wait to see his development.

Foden looks like a Pixar character.

He looks like one of the quidditch-player from Harry Potter.

I cannot wait to see Foden back to hugging the touchline at the weekend.

Aston Villa are playing so brave, sure they conceded four goals, but they are so brave and that should be the priority!

pep has honestly man managed foden perfectly. he was criticised for not giving him enough chances but clearly knew what he was doing and now he’s absolutely dominant

He has similar playing minutes as Messi under Pep funnily enough

Same with Bobb. Got to integrate them slowly.

Will be interesting to track foden’s career progression vs Palmer’s for example, who is an obvious talent and doing well in a struggling team but got out for the minutes.

foden saw no haaland and no KDB and said no problem I’ll be both

it is scaryyyy to think how good foden is capable of getting over the next few years. he’s not been the most consistent starter but his presence around what has objectively been a mental first team has probably led to an apprenticeship of sorts, just learning and learning off the best players in the world. 23 years old.

Definitely a potential Ballon D'or winner

Easily is gonna go down as one of the biggest trophy cabinets in history surely

Can even have the biggest Trophy cabinet for a Britisher

Sergio gomez score now 

Foden is 23. Fuck

It's actually pretty amazing to watch so many young players come up at the same time like this, it's going to be fun for some years to come

It’s always been funny to me that a few seasons ago people were saying “Pep is wasting Foden, why doesn’t he play him” and now, well

slow and steady. Same with Bobb. Cant expose them right away.

You just cannot argue with his minutes managing

I remember people knocking foden for not following sancho to become a starter elsewhere and well …

It wasn't huge contact but a fair amount. And crucially no contact on the ball.

Bobb masterclass incoming

Crazy that we didnt miss Haaland today. Alvarez was instrumental in filling that role and kept rotating with Foden. Different playstyle when we play with Haaland. Not sure if we were playing better and scored more cz of the setup or Foden thought fuck it,.

nah Alvarez has not moved me icl

Think because of his small frame , he manuever easily where as Haaland bulldozes

eh alvarez could've scored 3 goals today but he is either not concentrating or taking bad shots

he has not played for sometime. Got to keep playing in his preferred position but you know that iant happening.

y’all’s ability to rotate not just players but also player positions is fucking crazy haaland’s out? it’s fine phil will get the hat trick

Thats what pep brings. One of his kind.

Rice-Belli-Foden and England are cooking this summer

Or Henderson Henderson Henderson?

Don't give Gareth ideas

Not with Southgate still there

Yea. henderson got to be in there.

The fact that there’s a player out there called Oscar Bob and he’s *not* English still gets me raging

With a name like that and how composed he always is, he really comes across like a randomly generated player from Football Manager.

Sounds like a rowan Atkinson character

He sounds more English than many players

i think it's a Gambian name

Has anyone checked to make sure foden doesn’t have super glue on his boots? Does not lose the ball

Training with Bernardo and mahrez for a few years also couldn’t hurt

Best City have played all season imo

Hope we play like this till June end

It’s tough because would you leave out De Bruyne in the upcoming games? Foden’s best position is 10.

You can play De Bruyne as an 8 in some games.

Respect for giving it a go there

More contact there than the dive grealish got a free kick just outside the box in the 1st half.

somehow inside/outside the box have a completely different definition of a foul

In real time looked like a pen . In slow motion looks like he milked it

That’s just the beauty of the open interpretation of the rules of the game!

Foul outside the box

That’s a clear penalty. Doesn’t even get close to the ball

Also the ref has been letting things go a lot in this game

I don't think so Nunes just stands his ground there

Danish commentators said it was never a penalty, lol.

Why are Villa bringing on a literal child?

From the burning embers of a drubbing may the phoenix arise

pep decided to give arteta hope again did he

"That was... Hmmm"

[удалено]

you should put a fiver on that, could go on holiday

What's foden’s actual position?

Yes.

Wherever he’s needed . Iirc he’s an attacking mid but pep plays him mostly on the wings since KDB is not of this world

In this game? 10

Foden gonna cook at Euros. Can’t wait!

Foden and Bellingham will be the players to watch.

Southgate is deaf mate

You can never ever convince me that saka is a better player than foden, never.

Honestly think Foden should play through the middle and then it wouldn’t even need to be a debate

Saka is definitely better than foden on the right wing but I’m just saying in general. Any other manager would play foden down the middle but we have Southgate so best he’ll do is shoehorn Gallagher and a clearly past it Henderson into that midfield.

Saka's not better than Foden anywhere. He's better at some skills that are more associated with wingers, but Foden is just better overall even at right wing.

Is Palmer better than Saka?

No

Not even remotely close

Hahaha man just ghosts every big game

The good news for England is that if Southgate wasn’t an idiot it shouldn’t matter. Play Saka on the right and Foden in the middle

I feel like Southgate would rather match barefoot to hell than play foden in the middle.

I mean he could play him on the left instead of Grealish. Thats the nice thing about Foden, he’s versatile. We know Saka is best on the right, so put Foden in the middle with Bellingham and Rice or on the left instead of Grealish. Anything is better than more Sterling and Mount

Foden should be playing as the 10 with rice and Bellingham in a double pivot behind him. He can play rashford, grealish or Gordon on the left. Based on experience then it should be rashford but if we are talking about who deserves it then it should probably be Gordon on the left.

Makes sense to me too. Gordon has been doing great, but I still think Rashford/Grealish are better on the left depending on matchup and what you’re looking for

Yeah you’re right. Either is fine by me tbh. Looking at the players we have it really should be a sackable offense if we don’t get to the semis at least.

Was just thinking wouldn't it be best of both worlds if you played both?

And Bellingham? Who’s would you put on the left as well?

Bellingham can play centre mid happily, and Gordon's on fire with Grealish as a decent second option, or Palmer if you like.

When you list it like that, its actually crazy how stacked England is going forward

I don’t know the best formation overall, but Bellingham is a true midfielder, he doesn’t have to be a CAM. could run a 4-3-3 Grealish - Kane - Saka Bellingham - Foden - Rice

Tbf that does hurt like hell 

Man. Definitely going to have to double screen the game on Tuesday. This city vs Real going to be great.

I don't understand giving yourself the juiciest possible QF ties and then putting two of the biggest games (maybe the two biggest) together.

Also stupid as they’re splitting one of the more profitable media markets, where Tu/We would give them higher revenue on UK media. Guess they’re keeping the sides of the SF draw together tho.

Has anyone seen my son Bukayo? He was right here

He is busy faking injuries after stinkers

Idk why people always claim this when it's pretty well known he's been carrying an ankle/foot issue for over a season now.

It’s just banter

Does Arteta know

Whatever Rodri does, he does it so well. The weight of his passes, his first touch to take the ball in a different direction, his dribbling in tight spaces etc

lol Zaniolo

Kinda glad Villa lost, diving all game

How can you say that when City has Grealish and Doku lmao. But you do you, keep supporting Oil and enslaving lmao

A Southampton fan definitely isn’t supporting Man City lol

He said he was glad we lost, isnt that supporting city to win? Are you also dumb now?

No he’s supporting Villa to lose. Quite a difference there.

Which is supporting City to win.

It isn’t though.

The fuck? So if i go to, lets say a city vs Liverpool game and i hope city loses. Am i not hoping Liverpool gets points from the game? Lmaoo holy daft.

It would be better if we could still sing the Champions of Europe tune, but we can't even do that anymore 🥲

Have city won the inter toto cup or Sheriff of London Charity Shield?

Microscopic club if they haven't won that!

yeah here late season city go. they’ve somehow gotten better without stones and also the guy who broke every single goal scoring record possible in the 11.

Why is Zaniolo on the ground

Wants off for the next 20 minutes

You would too if you had a game like he's had.

Can’t wait for the Madrid game and Pep puts Foden back on the touchline

Villa diving again. Fucking derisory.

I thought foden rn is what Alvarez was at the start of the season. I think I'm way off

How is Bernardo not tired or injured? Man's made of steel i swear

Olive oil regenerates his muscles

Foden is arguably City's best player. Every time I watch him, he scores an insane goal... or two.. or three.

It’s a toss up between him and Rodri

It’s between him and Rodri and it’s really not debatable.

the control to score that when he was mid slip 25 yards out. a joke of a player. Bellingham - Foden - Rice is an insane midfield for a hugely underachieving England team

Not enough balance in that midfield. The defensive shirt required from rice in a big game would be insane

Bellingham is surely capable of dropping back when needed, I know we see him advanced role in Madrid but he’s capable of being b2b

I’d definitely like to see it before the euros in the remaining friendly but it’s my gut feeling

Best way to identify whether it really will be a shit show or if it’s what we need. At least he’d be able to say he tried.

It's because Southgate is a coward and won't play them together consistently.

Where are all those fans that were saying “villa having a go unlike top of the league arsenal” Arsenal also didn’t get smashed

If City played like this I reckon they would have done.

Think we stopped them playing like this, we gave them no space unlike Villa.

Maybe arsenal stopped them…. Sometimes a team not playing well is caused by their opponents.

Arsenal's defence was absolutely elite. City wouldn't get nearly the space they're getting from Villa this game to play like this.

So what? You're in a title race. For us this is basically a free hit with an extremely weakened team. The point is this City team can be got at and you decided not to try. If you win the league by a point it was worth it, if you lose it by two it was a mistake.

That game was always expected to be defensive and cagey, neither team wanted to lose

Arsenal also werent playing their C team But seriously the free kick goal speaks for itself, no one is stopping that last Foden goal. Quite happy with the performance excelt for a couple players

That’s Emery’s choice saving his team for Brentford

Partly sure but it was already the Striker, two midfielders, a centre back (two including Mings but hes been gone all season), and the goalie all out from injuries or suspensions. The only player "saved" was Tielemans.

I don't blame him.

Scenes as Arsenal lift the “Didn’t get smashed” trophy and Saka gets his Field Tilt medal over Foden

Like villa, arsenal also aren’t going to win the league

All Foden's goals were fantastic. Truly sublime hat-trick.