Europe was always a distant dream, but a top-half finish remains possible.
To achieve that, we need to take points from games like this and Luton, Bournemouth, Forest and Palace where home advantage and/or those teams’ respective struggles open the door for us, even with a depleted attack.
Getting Matheus Cunha back on the pitch sooner rather than later is essential, so hopefully he gets some minutes under his belt tomorrow.
The positive we can take from Villa is that we were more than competitive in the game and created the chances to score, even if we didn’t put the ball in the net.
Incredibly, Burnley are still alive. They were toast without all the points deduction malarky, but a couple of wins now and the great escape is on.
If you’re a Clarets fan you should be rubbing your hands together with this fixture coming at an opportune moment and they’ve still got to play Everton, Sheffield Utd and Forest too, so it could be interesting.
I’ll be amazed if they do survive from what I’ve seen this season, but stranger things have happened and they showed plenty of fight in coming back twice with 10 men at Stamford Bridge at the weekend. They should have won it at the death too but Jay Rodriguez couldn’t convert from back-to-back chances.
The decision to award Chelsea a soft penalty and then send their man off for a second booking was harsh to say the least, so I can understand why Vincent Kompany was somewhat miffed and got himself sent to the stands.
Striker David Fofana, who was looked useful since coming on loan from Chelsea in January, sat out the weekend against his parent club, but will be back tomorrow. He’s one to worry about.
It would be lovely if Cunha could start, but is that fanciful/stupid?
If he can’t play, it’s a coin toss for me between Chiwome and Fraser. Both have shown bits and pieces but have struggled to impact games.
I’m surprised the likes of Doherty, Boubacar and Hugh Bueno haven’t been used a bit more. Could you play without a striker and just give Lemina, Ait-Nouri, Gomes and Sarabia even greater license to break forward? It would at least put eleven senior pros on the pitch.
I suppose with the relative comfort of midtable, Gary might prefer to stick to his principles and style of play unless results continue to slide. Hopefully the issue resolves itself in the coming weeks if Cunha, Hwang and maybe Bellegarde return to the fold.
Well done to Winchcombewolf, Steppenwolfe, Sea Pigeon, Aquilador, Chesterwolf, Nick and Prawny who all correctly predicted the 2-0 defeat at Villa Park.
I do think it’s going to be tough for us again tomorrow. But if we see the same application as Saturday and get a bit more luck/quality around the box, there’s every chance we’ll come away with a result. Burnley give you a chance, so can we take it? I’m going to say 1-1.
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Up The Wolves!
