funkyrobot

Ok yeh JJ you keep doing what you do bud. Responsible for a large amount of goals conceded and not even trusted ahead of Hamza at right back in The Championship but apparently undroppable for him now.

The question should’ve been. Q. Which player have we already got that would allow us to take Justin out of the 1st team? A. Hamza

Nah - it’ll be BDCR, Ayew (as always) and Skipp

£25 is cheap for 3 tickets tbf, even if it involves watching JJ assisting a QPR goal or 2.

You must be in a posh seat if it’s costing u £25 for the QPR match! Cost me £10!

Ayew definitely has to take some responsibility for Villa’s 2nd goal. The goal was probably 70% down to JJ with a stupid pass having spurned endless options to clear or pass (even Ayew had told him to clear it,) BUT Ayew should’ve received that pass, instead he tried an obvious and lazy dummy, trying to let the ball cross his path rather than moving towards the ball, allowing the Villa player who was further away from the ball to steal in ahead of him. Poor from both players.

Let’s be honest, he was error prone at Everton and in and out of the team. Not particularly an improvement on the 4 we currently have so I’m not disappointed by not being in for Godfrey though I do share the concern that we are going to leave it late. Again.

The point was you putting out a concern over JJ reading online abuse whilst simultaneously calling his form hideous is somewhat contradictory. The fact is, you are correct about his form (and incorrect about Hamza not being able to play in the fullback role.)

Tbf you’ve just described his form as hideous so if he reads that it’s not going to help his state of mind! The fact is he needs a rest from the 1st team. His mistakes have been critical and have undoubtedly cost us points. Hamza playing out of position is not going to be any worse than Justin playing in his natural position whilst he is in this ‘hideous’ form. Keeping him in the first team when he’s in this cycle of form is not helping him. RVN giving him a rest (and he CAN swap with Hamza) will help him far more than people not posting criticism on this or any other forum for fear of JJ doom scrolling through here. It’s up to RVN and his coaching staff to do the right thing - they’ve done it with Ward, they HAVE to do it with JJ if we are to have any chance of survival. It’s as critical as that.

Personally I don’t think it’s Mavididi that’s particularly the problem. He’s getting assists, creating opportunities that should’ve been assists (e.g Daka v Liverpool and Vardy v Man City.) He’s scoring goals too. The issue is that there’s not an alternative option. Most teams above us and around us have multiple options on both wings, they can rotate in and out of selection and bring alternatives off the bench. We have 1 specialist left winger in our whole squad. With Fatawu injured and concerns over McAteer’s fitness and ability he’s really our only real specialist wing option either side. A winger (preferably one who can do a job either side) is a must, just to take the burden off Mavididi a bit.

My frustration with RVN is his reluctance to use Hamza over Justin and his preference for Ayew over Buonanotte. Sticking with JJ is remarkable considering his key role in goals against us in all of the last 4 games - never mind the whole season. The guy is being targeted because he is clearly one of our weakest links. I know Ayew created the goal but his press and back tracking starts off only ok and quickly drops off to the point that he pretty much stops doing it. He was as culpable for the goal as JJ and ultimately Buonanotte is a better all round footballer. Ayew is a great sub and his ability to win free kicks is fine when we are trying to shut down a game but winning freekicks in our own half and in the middle of the pitch, that invariably end up with putting the ball back towards our goal (as the players pretty much always do) isn’t helping us one bit. Unfortunately RVN has got it in his head that he can only play ElK or Buonanotte whereas they are intelligent enough to play together. ElK suffered today because he didn’t have Buonanotte to work with. Play them both Ruud ffs.

It’ll be the 10th Jan but the new signing won’t be able to play until after our home games against Palace on the 15th and Fulham on the 18th due to carrying a ‘slight’ injury. Their first game for us will eventually be 1st Feb away at Everton as the injury has taken longer than expected to recover from. The player will then get an early straight red card and 3 match ban for reacting to shithousery from Tarkowski and/or Ashley Young.

And spent very well 👀

I just watched the 2nd half of the Ipswich match and all the best chances in that second half went to Ipswich. Chelsea had all the posssesion but did nothing, their shots were blocked at source. Enzo put out a weaker team and it backfired. They could’ve played for another hour and wouldn’t’ve scored. Ipswich also shithoused and bullied and Chelsea fell for it. Horrible team to watch win but they showed fight that until Man City we’ve not seen an abundance of.

Winks was better than a 6.

Yeh I think it’s the genuine attempt part that means GK’s will usually get away with a yellow when it comes to DOGSO.

No. If it’s DOGSO in the area then it’s a yellow card

I agree I thought he was a solid 7/10 today.

Keeper only gets a yellow in situations like that now.

Having other ball playing midfielders around him like Winks, ElK, and Buonanotte really helps him and the midfield as a unit. 4 really good footballlers. Ndidi is surely first cover now due to his deficiencies with the ball. Skipp remains way off it IMO.

I think he was sat with the other non playing squad players in the row just behind where the subs sit

I thought Mavididi played well today

We look a much better team when Buonanotte plays on the right. He’s got a great connection with El Khanouss. Far more positive and dangerous with the ball than Ayew. Ayew is fine as an impact sub but m his main skill is winning freekicks and that kills the momentum for us as well as our opponents as we don’t tend to do anything with them unless they are close to the 18 yard box.

I was wondering how the tv would see it. Sounds like as expected, there was more emphasis on Man City. At the game our midfield outplayed Man City. Soumare, Winks and especially El Khanouss played brave, technical football and dominated this part of the pitch. Same could be said of our wingers compared to Foden and Savinho. Sky match review gave Savinho 9/10 despite the fact that other than a tap in from a keeper mistake he was utterly anonymous.

In the second half Coady on the ball gets held by Haaland as he’s trying to move, ball ends up going out of play and despite being in front of the linesman, neither he nor the ref gave us a freekick. That combined with the booking of Soumare and especially of El Khanouss compared to the non booking of KDB and McAtee show a classic case of the unconscious bias trap that most refs fall for.