st albans fox

Our problem is that we hold onto players for too long. every player has a value and we should embrace offers for them if valuation is met. That probably means selling them at the height of the powers whilst we doing well - we seem to have little confidence in getting in replacements - that reflects badly on us as a club we stopped doing release clauses because of Kante - who knew just how good he actually was when we signed him ?? we’d have been better off continuing with them but setting them at a high level. Then our hand might have been forced on players like wilf and madders earlier and we’d have got a lot more money in as a consequence.

the var and avar are checking the lead up to what they believe is a goal. There are two more avar’s who are checking the lead up to the goal to make sure there is nothing to check. The var and his avar assistant are checking the offside. No one is watching the live feed to see that offside has been given and Diaz isn’t celebrating

We get to play them twice - it’s a problem we can sort out!

Correct but there is a reason for this. IFAB never considered that what happened on Saturday was possible. Once play is restarted the protocol is that you can’t re open any var check. This is to take into account a new angle on an incident being found a couple minutes after a decision has been made. You have to ‘draw the line’ (sorry) to close the check. anyway, the var should have broken protocol on Saturday because this was a unique situation. There will likely now be a new protocol introduced to take account of var comms error where the game can be stopped within fifteen seconds of being restarted. What stands out for me on this is the lino saying ‘delay, delay, delay’ whilst Diaz runs through. That clearly means he is calling offside. Otherwise he’d say nothing. So how did the var and avar both not hear this ???.

if teams feel they have the personnel to play that way then despite the result, i expect opposition coaches to look at what blackburn did yesterday as a blue print to play against us from now on. its up to enzo to have a plan for it. i think switches in play out wide with long balls are a possible the answer to make the pitch big and drag them out of their narrow shape.

Not unless we want to lose ……

Bit concerned about Ricky playing four games in ten days and JJ three in eight can see hamza starting at RB and Ricky playing on the left and inverting for one half and then JJ playing the second with hamza inverting

Impressed with Blackburn’s crowd in that they allowed their team to be v passive as we brought the ball out for a lot longer than most would have done. They either pressed v high and tried to stop us or they completely dropped off. mavadidi’s cross field pass to fatawu showed a way out of that high press scenario. Doyle is v good at those too which is why he’s going to be missed on that side.

I think it’s that they’re coached not to play a pass that they’re not sure will reach its intended recipient. It generally happens when one of the wide players breaks. At that point the game structure is broken and I suspect the thought is that giving away possession in this phase also exposes our defensive structure as we aren’t set. I would think that if we’re chasing the game then we’ll take chances but whilst we’re not, we generally won’t

My son is a journalist and I know when he was on the local rag that he simply refused to put stuff online unless he had corroborated evidence. My assumption was that at organisations like itv news where there isn’t pressure for clicks that they’d do their homework ahead of a big splash

I don’t disagree - perhaps I have too much faith in journalistic standards at itv news

There was a whole section on itv news yesterday about this incident. I would have thought that they would have verified that it wasn’t a photoshop before they went in two footed. At this stage I’d tend to think it’s real on the back of itv

When does it become squeaky bum time ??

Marking winks out of the game so far

Could be game 46 ! or it could be today 😄

At some point we’ll put a stinker in it could happen at any time

The protocol being more important than the right decision tells you all you need to know about VAR ……. It’s our game but it’s been taken over by greed and red tape ……

Sorry villa won 6-1 but Xg was 1.49-1.76 ???? that’s nuts mind you understat has villa at 1.91. Luiz goal at the end has an Xg of 0.03 - that’s rubbish aswell. It’s an open goal. 0.03 says that only 1 in 33 opportunities of that chance are scored - garbage

Haven’t seen the villa players moaning about their shirts today ….

Yes - it’s even worse than I thought So why haven’t any of the three people in the var area stopped the restart to tell the ref that he needs to stop the game ????? Even after the game has restarted they can stop it. It’s simply ludicrous apparently once the game re starts after a var check, it cannot be stopped to rectify an error by the officials. . This is just nonsense

Afaik, the var decided that it wasn’t necessary to draw the lines because the offside was clear. The offside decision is always reviewed by var but it’s their call if they decide lines need to be drawn

Hope your hangover isn’t too bad tomorrow ……

lino called offside But it specifically states human error - it doesn’t speak about tech error like the one at arsenal last season

Btw, this is all on the premier league for refusing to implement the auto offside that everyone else in europe’s big leagues uses we never got an explanation why they wouldn’t use it my guess is that doesn’t provide for the inch offside cases where the lines come into contact - but auto offside uses sensors in the ball so it’s more accurate than freeze frames and line drawing

they have but their explanation doesn’t stack up