Aston Villa v Chelsea - Sun 23rd May - 4pm - Sky | Page 29 | Vital Football

Aston Villa v Chelsea - Sun 23rd May - 4pm - Sky

Thought Jack was off the pace in the first half; wondered if he was 100%. Seemed to perk up in the second half.

He is not fully fit and up to speed. He went very quiet in the middle part of the second half but did get a second wind late on. He has that look of things not quite coming off. Not quite getting past someone that he breezed past before the injury.
That said he was still bloody good!
 
He is not fully fit and up to speed. He went very quiet in the middle part of the second half but did get a second wind late on. He has that look of things not quite coming off. Not quite getting past someone that he breezed past before the injury.
That said he was still bloody good!

Yes agreed , just lacking a bit of sharpness. His first touch is sublime though.
 
Yes agreed , just lacking a bit of sharpness. His first touch is sublime though.
I think Dean deliberately left him on to help him get into the Euros. He didn’t look anywhere near 100% to me. That said he’s got a track record of playing unfit players anyway
 
Well that was fantastic. Given a right run around for half an hour or so , Chelsea looked a top side and I have no doubt that last season we would have been 2 down and game over.

Terrific defending and then we showed some bottle to claw our way back into the game and really ended up been good value for a 2-0 lead. Can't emphasise how good the defence was today and helped in no small part from a terrific display from Marvellous who easily had his best game in a Villa shirt.

Targett was also superb , hard to believe how much he has improved.

Great atmosphere as well , it certainly didn't seem like there was 10,000 spread out around 4 stands.

All in all a brilliant season. Not many if anyone at all would have said we would get 55 points at the start of the season, and beating Spurs and the CL finalists has made it a really good end .
Was Hause as good in the flesh as he looked on telly? Looked like he had a magnet in his head sucking the ball onto it all game....
 
Thought Tuchel showed his true colours for the first time today when he was under pressure probably for the first time since coming to England...very tetchy, complaining about almost every decision, suggesting in after match interview when asked about the sending off that every decision went our way....perhaps he needs to focus on his players slapping opponents across the face and being useless in converting chances!
 
Thought Tuchel showed his true colours for the first time today when he was under pressure probably for the first time since coming to England...very tetchy, complaining about almost every decision, suggesting in after match interview when asked about the sending off that every decision went our way....perhaps he needs to focus on his players slapping opponents across the face and being useless in converting chances!
And especially considering that Jorginho was doing everything in his power to get Grealish booked or sent off with his pathetic theatrics....
Mr Tuchel, please f**k right off. When you’re done f**king off then please f**k off again until you can f**k off no more..... Squeaky voiced pillock....
 
Those people are inside a pub! Where is that?


I'm glad the Chelsea fans remained calm. That would never have happened years ago.

I have always thought some Villa fans (in fact lots) are irritable, gobby bigmouths,(even worse after lots of beer) and I can understand why we aren't particularly liked!
 
Away from the hugely enjoyable game , I am sad to report that there were too many fans not giving a shit about the Covid measures in place.

Walking to the ground was fine , going in was fine .No delays. Weirdly quiet in the concourses, can’t hang around .

On the stands was the issue. Anyone wearing a mask was in the minority I’m afraid. Either no mask or wearing it around the neck were the majority. Another issue was that everyone stood up so people were therefore not in the exact place they should be as planned for social distancing. This meant that people were close together. For example the family next to me , dad and two teenage kids were too close to me and we’re not where they should be. Consequently I shuffled closer to the the bloke on my left. It was on the edge of being too close and uncomfortable. They were not wearing masks and the worst was that the seats they should have been in front of were then filled in the second half by two friends of the daughter who had clearly been sitting elsewhere in the first half. So that is not keeping to their match day bubble is it.
Felt sorry for the bloke in front of me who is a ST holder I sit near to normally who was grabbed and hugged after the penalty by some pissed up bloke who he wasn’t with. He looked really uncomfortable.

After the game, rather bizarrely I thought, everyone was bottle necked out of the same second set of large gates on the trinity rd side of the holte with the first set locked. That meant proper close crowding . I am guessing they were trying to get people going one way away towards the church but that meant tightly packing people leaving which didn’t work. I thought they were staging people exiting to prevent that.

My conclusion.
The only way we are back in August is if the vaccines work. It won’t be beaten or get us back to full houses or even half capacity by people behaving and adhering to social distancing and mask wearing.
Looking from the tv it seemed that the Holte end was relatively busy and vast swathes of the rest of the ground were empty.