Saturday brings our second of back to back home games. Wolves are another team in good form, currently in 6th position in the league, having won 3, drawn 1 and lost 1 of their last 5 games. In Dean Smiths most recent game against Wolves his Villa side surrendered a 2-0 lead with 10mins left of the game to lose 2-3. We are fresh off the back of our first back to back Premier League wins for god knows how long, and the first time we have come back to win in 36 PL games! A great win in Dean Smiths first game but I’m under no illusion that their is still plenty to improve on from Saturday. Dean Smith has now had his first full week with the team so hopefully he and Shakey have had more of a chance to instil their ideas and plans into the players. Cantwell and Gilmour were both welcomed back to the starting line up last weekend and despite Sargents driving performance I can’t see that Smith will change his starting lineup for this one. Cantwell, Gilmour and Hanley all appeared lacking in a bit of match fitness to varying degrees, the latter 2 grew into the game but Cantwell wasn’t given that chance. He needs to keep playing through this period to get that fitness back and prove his value to the team. Positive vibes time! ON THE BALL CITY!!!
I'd rather see Cantwell come on from the bench until he gets his form and fitness up. I'd go with Rashica and Sargent on either side of Pukki and the same midfield and defence to get some continuity going.
I think that in both the previous games we got the run of the ball. The expected goals were higher for our opponents in both. Although arguably it was overdue for us to get a bit of luck. I think that our first against The Saints would have scored very low on the expected goals rating. Pukki with a header? I can only recall one previous, against Stoke. Despite their keeper getting the brickbats though I think Pukki should get the plaudits. It was a hard header from his position and it clipped the post on it's way in. It was also pretty firm. Personally I don't think that it's "x" rating would have been much more than 0.1. Hopefully it's given us a lift for tomorrow.
Both of which sound more like relative chances of scoring headers from corners/crosses from those positions rather than the actual chance of scoring with the players and the positioning, as well as the direction of the cross, which actually happened. Both were excellent finishes, but not ones where I thought wow that was ridiculously lucky, came out of nowhere.
I agree. Given how close to the goal both Pukki and Hanley were, McCarthy had to leap sideways and try to gauge the height of each header. Had those been scored against us I'm willing to bet the xG rating would be higher. There's too much subjectivity involved.
This site is a vital part of continuing education - 'fungibles' are new to me just like Bure's 'Yam-yams' on the prediction thread!
The Pinkun predicted lineup: That would be mine as well. Subs: Gunn, Omobamidele, Giannoulis, Rupp, Cantwell, Dowell, Lees-Melou, Tzolis, Idah