VAR wasn’t involved. The ref spoke with the assistant by the touchline, changed his decision and ruled it as a goal. He didn’t check the monitor either. VAR apparently didn’t believe the ref was obviously wrong so didn’t interfere.
I understand we wanted to sit back and play on the counter after going ahead, but Leeds were extremely unlucky not to win that. We won’t get many points in coming games with performances like that.
Really strange game. Villa lost all energy after the first goal and were pretty awful the whole game. We hardly won a single duel or 50/50 all night. Where is the energy?
Usually I’m over the moon when we win but that was poor. Young, Kamara and Martinez good, the others less so.
Bloody hell, Cucurella keeps getting worse every game. He’s a nightmare defensively, makes the wrong decisions, gives the ball away repeatedly and can’t even control a football. It’s like watching the Stevenage version of Leon Bailey trying his luck as wingback.
You’re right about him having a number of appearances when Gerrard was new, but he actually got pretty quickly in under Smith and appeared in 9 games when he’d just arrived, Feb-March 2021. Played mostly 10-20 minutes, started two games. Then he got his first injury early April.
It’s true we on the outside will never know who pushed for which player.
But in the corporate world, if you’re the boss you will be responsible even if the idea came from someone else. You are supposed to create an organization that works.
If recruitment is poor over time, blame the sporting director. And maybe the one who hired him.
Signing a 21 year old would be a radical change from the current policy, yes.
Since the summer of 2021 Villa have signed 13 players (including loans). 1 was under 25. Average age of signings just over 28 years.
Goalkeepers ... Most clubs have a number of goalkeepers over 30, just like we have.
30 or older this year are Martinez, Olsen, Steer, Young, Carlos, Mings, Digne, Coutinho, Ings
Villa have the second highest average squad age with 27,7 years. Not that many are over 30 that's true, there's 9 of them which seems a fairly average number or slightly above average.
Just checked how many players under the age of 25 each Premier League side has in their squad. Chelsea have 13, Arsenal 11, Man City 6, Liverpool 10, Man United 9. Most have between 6 and 10. Villa only have 2 players who are under 25 this summer.