West Ham vs Aston Villa: Will This Meeting Be Different?

The philosophy equals the points. The philosophy, the club mentality is the pathway. That’s Emery’s pre-match message: You establish the philosophy, and good things follow. That means he’s less concerned with Europe than he is with foundations. It’s also true that Unai will be looking at the run-in and thinking we should be in with a shout in all of them.

Manchester City vs Aston Villa: Mings a Big Miss

All sorts of things one could write, but I’ve run out of time, as per. But top of my head, Tyrone Mings’ absence is a potentially devastating bit of news on the day.

I didn’t really have a read on the game during the week…Yeah, it’s City away, so there’s the obvious. But I was wondering more about whether this City side was truly sputtering, what results elsewhere would mean, and whether they’d be like a cornered animal.

May not matter much, now.

Aston Villa vs Leeds: Bouncing Back

As we move through the window, Villa will keep working with what they’ve got. So, one would hope lessons have been learned. Konsa’s spoken of hours of meetings where Emery is trying to link what the players see on the pitch to the bigger picture of what they should be seeing. Leeds will present an entirely different kind of challenge, and there should at least be space to play in.