VILLAMARV

Have they bought it on a permanent transfer or just a loan?

This is exactly how my brain is processing it all too.

If Unai had rocked up at his first press conference last season and said we'd be playing in our first European QF since Collymore came on against Athletico Madrid next year we'd have thought he was mental. It's been a long wait. Was it really 26 years ago? Jeebus, I was a young man! Memories like that, Inter and Athletico, and for the older guys the proper European nights at Villa Park. Barca in the Super Cup. This is what it's all about, exciting innit. Hope the lads do themselves proud tonight. UTV

What's wrong with them?

I'm definitely in the 'thinks there's a player in there worth finding' camp. And I don't think the reported fee's all that much in the grand scheme of things, but the bottom line for me is he just hasn't shown us enough yet to warrant a permanent investment. I think that the intensity and the speed of the Premier League has been hard to adjust to and I'm not sure if he fancies being a cog in the machine either and after years of injuries and lack of minutes for various reasons I wouldn't blame him for wanting to go somewhere where he'd be more the main man than squad filler. Hard not to like his endeavour though and I hope he has a storming end to the season. The wall thing is hard to come back from really but I get why the Italian VTers seem to like him. I like him. But remember when Mings walked in the door and put in great performance after great performance and it was the start of something undeniably beautiful? - it's kind of been more of the opposite of that really so far with Nico.

Can't see my mind being focussed on work all that much today.

My mum always remebers it fondly because of basically how bonkers me and my brother would go, over excitedly jumping all over the sofa and all that, trying to do flying kicks n that, calling our own cloud I have very scratched, obviously a kenneth, but much loved 7" BBC single amongst the 7"'s. Gandara on the b side plays just fine. Born from an egg... not so much anymore

I'd say it's pretty awful and only worth it in a "this is an Aussie show for kids but my love for Monkey is strong and I'll still watch it" type of way. A far cry from the amazingly mental 70's one though.

I was down in Devon-by-the-Sea. I very much remember all the flashes going off around the coastline as everyone took a picture of the darkness or something

I'm sure I haven't perfected this one to land right but if we can look past the real men bit and understand my intended use of speech marks there's a rather funny inadvertant " 'Real men that do real work' ARE woke shocker" headline from the heil

Honestly, and I get that flippancy might be more fun, but I wouldn't hold your breath on that one. The powers that be have been attempting to clamp down on our collective freedom of expression by writing into Law things around 'offensive' or 'insulting' speech and actions for the best part of my 40 something years now. If not much longer. Isn't this just more of the same? It seems to me the same nonsensical playbook as served us up such wondeful ideas as Section 5 of the Public Order Act or the new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act. What is always fascinating to me is that many of the people I meet with 'a team' or who feel allied to one group identity agree/disagree with this Orwellian approach when it suits them. i.e. the people up in arms about this clamping down on free expression in this poorly written legislation in Scotland are not all seemingly as concerned with the clamping down on free expression in the poorly written legislation around speech and assembly in England and Wales, or whether prosecutions would be justified for calling police horses gay and so on. Fascinating, but in a sadly not at all surprising way. While these examples are still things that divide us, isntead of concepts we rally around, I can't see much appetite for anything different. Mind you I'm an emotion discussing builder who once eat an avocado for brekkie so I should perhaps consider getting back in my box.

I think it's the club in the qualifying/playoff rounds with the highest club coefficient wiki This year I think the Ukrainian Champions went straight into the group stages instead of the qualifying rounds because Man City had already qualified and won it. Presumably someone in round 1 qualifying gets a bye.

No, there are no qualifying games for the new Champions League format for any English teams, either the top 4 or the extra coefficient places or potential Europa League winners https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024–25_UEFA_Champions_League#League_stage