Another week in the topsy-turvy season has passed and so much to say! Man City did a defeat, Man Utd are melting down, Luton and Burnley earned points, the VAR apocalypse happened. But of course, the main event for me was seeing Villa hop up to 5th, 3 points off the summit, having absolutely destroyed Brighton 6-1 at the weekend. This, the same Villa that meekly exit-ed the Carabao Cup 3 days prior vs the Everton team that went on to lose to Luton. To the outsider there is no explanation for how this can happen. There are two strong theories though:
Theory 1: tight tuning - from my cousin Tom, who convincingly supposes that Emery has tuned Villa so very tightly that even the smallest disturbance from usual patterns is near fatal. This adds up. Against Everton, we had Olsen in goal (more on that in theory 2), McGinn lined up at left back, our centre midfield had Dendonker and Tielemans, and Bailey and Duran, neither guaranteed starters, featured up front. So whilst arguably there is enough quality there to do the job, the reality proved different. The patterns of passing and pressing that serve us so well were a mess and it makes all the difference.
Theory 2: Robin Olsen - I am not sure if all teams have this experience with goalkeepers, but Villa have absolutely had their share over recent times. Enkelman and Nyland were both synonymous with comedic failure. Olsen is right out of the same mould, with crowd and team alike immediately on edge as soon as he has to do anything with the ball. In the Everton game, he was instrumental in the first goal, exchanging shit passes with Dendonker that served only to put all of our defenders out of position before conceding. He then proceeded to permeate anxiety across the Aston area, as is typical each time he plays. This is not a keeper who is a couple of games away from finding rhythm, this is a disaster waiting to happen and I will be surprised if he isn't ushering shots towards some other team's net before the end of January.
Villa continue tomorrow with what is considered a must win European game, and the prospect of needing to get their win with both the tuning and Olsen issues in play, it could be an exciting ride.
Meanwhile, whilst not laughing at the absolute mess that Man Utd is, I have of course been following the VAR story this week. The audio recording that has come out is quite something, and having this mad flap going on behind the scenes is just so counter-productive.
I can fix VAR in 3 easy steps:
1) We need to stop using VAR to 'check the referee'. This was the absolute root cause of the issues at the weekend. VAR assumed the ref had given the goal, and declared 'check complete' when they agreed with that assumption. Instead, why not use VAR to offer either a clear factual output: "not offside" or an instruction for ref to review, e.g. "dangerous challenge, needs ref review at screen"
2) The whole process should be audible rather than this weird offline conversation. 50,000 people aren't going to just stand there and let an onside goal be accidently ruled out without providing audible checks and balances.
3) This step isn't needed if you do the first 2, but is the one i expect will happen first. Just allow games to be stopped whilst in flow if VAR has a significant intervention to make - like if they've totally fucked it and need to put it right. I think we can all cope with occasionally the start of a move being abandoned because, in fact, we need to award a goal.
Right, that's me for now, off to watch Oil and human rights abuse FC vs Oil and corruption FC, somehow wishing both could lose.
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