Football is weird sometimes. Wouldn’t surprise me if we had a better game there than City last night. And that City or Villa do better in some games where we struggled.
Give me that Torres final minute winner from 09/10. 
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I forgot about that one!
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One of my favourite goals, actually. A limp end to a shit year for me personally. More than the goal itself, I always somehow remember the image of Aquilani standing and looking forlornly while the snow is falling around him. Oh, those days…
I mostly remember being traumatized by the beach ball goal, feeling like the universe itself was conspiring against Liverpool that season.
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He is also a continental style manager in the sense that he wants to be given players and left to get on with the job of getting them to play. At Arsenal the job was FAR FAR bigger than that. Arsenal’s success since he left was largely one in learning the right lessons from a good manager failing, the ones that Utd have refused to learn.
At Villa I think it’s also relevent to remember that he inherited a group of players who were underperforming. A lot of this group were the ones who got them in european contention prior to Gerrard being appointed, and so even getting them back up to par would look like a big improvement. He did that and then some but I do think it is a better group of players than lots of people are painting them as. They have 1 world cup winner and have 5 or 6 other players who wouldnt require too many turns to come back from the next major tournament as winners of that.
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Villa are at home on Saturday against arsenal. We do the business against Palace and we’ll end the weekend on top if Villa can play like they did last night.
Interesting…
23:28 6 Dec
Post update
FT: Aston Villa 1-0 Manchester City
Aston Villa
More from Aston Villa manager Unai Emery on Amazon Prime: "They are very good players and when I arrived here they were very good players. But sometimes you need a comfortable atmosphere. Then you have to use the right players and their skills in the right combination.
"John McGinn is the sample of it. He’s a fantastic man and captain. On the pitch he is smiling but he is also so responsible.
“Firstly I am very happy because our supporters were connected with us, fantastic. I want to extend it to Saturday. Connect with them. Of course we will try to be competitive against Arsenal because they will impose a lot.”
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My bad then. Let’s hope Villa have something left in the tank, they will have one day less to prepare for the match and they ran their socks off against Man City. Emery will likely have a point to prove, too…
I forget sometimes that Coutinho is actually a Villa player, on loan in Saudi
Villa have a nicely balanced side - loads of pace up front, good mix of technical and physical qualities in midfield.
Not entirely surprised to see them doing well. Tielemans seems to be finding his feet there as well after being written off as a sunday league player on here.
They have still got Ramsay to come back as well. Strong squad.
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They are having a good luck with injuries too. I think only two players are injured at the moment.
Yeah. Gerrard did get good players to work with and even his signings weren’t bad (with the exception of Phil) , he’s been a cropper at Villa ever since Beale left.
Qatar isn’t it? He wasn’t even wanted enough to go to Saudi.
I think that’s right. What has happened to him since he forced his way out at LFC is really quite sad. He really did end up killing his career to follow the dream to play at Barcelona.
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I hope someone tells Diaz that story
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still making 8+ mil per season…
Why? Are there rumours about Diaz wanting out?
Apparently his dad wants him to go to Barcelona. Might just be a rumour.
It was mentioned ages ago.
Problem is they are skint.
A nice enough, if not particularly deep, interview with Villa’s record signing:
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