mikeyjavfc

A crazy decision. How can the brand be so disjointed even on the SAME SHIRT!? Would have been easiest decision in the world to flip that around to match the new badge. I bet it is the old Lion shape too.

Kit would look 10x better without the blue shoulder pads. I quite like the claret detail but those shoulders are unforgivable.

lol so much for moving forward in a new direction. Shambles.

I bet Purslow is raging. Badge rebrand was a major project for him that’s been massively undermined, presumably by Heck. Very strange all round. My guess is this will be the start of another rebrand process that will ultimately end with a stand-alone Lion. Not sure if facing left or right though!!

lol an almost perfect milkshake duck. The dark side of Spanish culture I’m afraid. Wait until you hear what they do with bulls.

I don’t mind Purslow but his legacy is flattered slightly by the unbelievable job Emery has done since his appointment, which was a Nassef hire. If Purslow had left the same day as Gerrard then he would be looked on much less fondly than now after Emery salvaged the season for him. Truely Gerrard was a terrible decision that has basically led to a total reorganisation of the club leadership structure. That being said I don’t begrudge him; getting out the championship at first time of asking, avoiding relegation and getting established in prem was no mean feat after the state Toby Xia left the club. The infrastructure upgrades have all been welcome too. I would say much like the sacking of Dean Smith he has simply hit his ceiling as a CEO and it’s time to pass it over to others and a different structure to progress Villa into a consistent top 8 team.

To be fair when they launched a few years ago I remember they did make a big song and dance about how you wouldn’t find them joining the transfer speculation with the rest of the media and they only dealed in facts and well researched journalism. They seemed to have rowed back on that in recent years presumably as the public blood love transfer rumours and it sells subscriptions.

I love little Phil, he can still do things with a ball that no one else in the squad can, it’s just that these moments are few and faw between. I hope he gets fit, has a full pre-season with Unai and can make an impact on the team next year.

I don’t think fans will turn on Emery for that. The feeling I see around the club is “if we can’t find success with Emery then we will never will”, such is his obvious quality as coach. If we slump back to mid-table next year then I think the reaction will be mostly dissolution around the rigged nature of the league system with the top 6 /7 so entrenched thanks to FFP and oil clubs, rather than anything aimed at Unai.

Tieleman has a high ceiling as we know from his previous years performances so would be a decent shout as a free. Let’s face it, the only reason he is available to us is because he has had a poor season and needs some rehabilitation to be a top player, otherwise he would be off to Man Utd or Arsenal as he was linked a couple of years ago after the FA cup win. We have all seen the effect Emery has had on players on poor form so I would back him to work his magic again. People love to talk about money ball signings…this is a good example of a top player who has had his value suppressed by bad form likely cause by circumstance, who could be top player once again fairly easily. Could be really good value signing.

I'm not too bothered. I would be very wary of any so called 'elite' player that we are able to land as a (currently) mid-ranking club. Look at James Rodreguez to Everton or Coutinho to us. If Asencio was all that he would have his pick of the top teams in Europe not a 2 way shoot out between Villa and a clown car PSG. The only downside is Emery clearly want him but I feel we can scout out better value than this.

It wouldn’t cap individual wages, just total wage and transfer spend. How the teams manage that between the playing squad is up to them. You could have one player on £500k a year if the rest of your team was on £20k. There would need to be a transition period to let the clubs that exceed the cap bring their spending in to line. I would vote for this in a heartbeat. The Sky six will resist this at all costs which tells you that it’s a great idea. I think the overall effect would be to suppress wages in the industry so doubt players unions or agents will be in favour either.

It’s sad but it frees up a big chunk of wages and I imagine we will be in for a top right back so make sense to end this now since there’s no long term future with AY. The fact we got 2 good years from him was already miraculous.

Going to be a tough end to the season now. What a buzzkill.

Another club seemingly sacking their manager without a clear contingency plan in place. Massive risk with so few games left in the season. Appointing the assistant or U21 coach rarely works out in such a competitive league so they need to get their next man sorted ASAP. Can’t imagine they will attract any one with prospects or currently in job to take on this sh*t sandwich, so probably a job for one of the professional out of work fire fighters. Likely Hodgson, but I can also see big fat Sam being summoned from his cave.

Cannot wait for SG to get another crack somewhere (hopefully PSG ) so we can relive how useless he is as a football manager without Beale to make him look good.

He’s a decent player and we are lucky that we have a ready made No.6 replacement for Kamara whilst he’s injured, so we do not have to play someone out of position. Most fans would have written off McGinn as a waste of space before Emery arrived, now he is a starter, so let’s give the Donk a chance eh?

Would be a good super sub to bring on fresh against tiring defences imo. I would try him off the bench for a couple of games. We need a squad and we need subs who can impact the game so no shame in that. He seems a bit lightweight and sloppy to play the full 90 at the moment, since he does cost us a lot of possession through turnovers.

Fantastic penalty today. Such a clean and confident strike which is not something I associate with Ollie, shows how confident he is feeling at the moment to hit it like that. Especially when his penalty Success rate is only 3/7. Hope he makes it 6 in 6 next week.

It must seriously boil the piss of the other clubs relegated from the Championship whilst this lot cheat and lie their way to 17th each year. Let’s hope there’s a campaign to get the punishment applied this year so they can finally flush. Derby took their medicine and so must blues.

He was targeted today and it worked a treat as he was caught on the ball a couple of times leading to goals. A pretty obvious tactic in hindsight as he often does the heavy lifting in carrying the ball out from the back for us. We could do with a few more ball players so we aren’t so reliant on him making him an easy target. He also needs to learn when to make the safety pass but no doubt he’ll learn a lot from today.

Come on villa, give us one of these

Sort it out next Jan obv.

Looks like a transitional season then if we are not going to address the holes in our squad. It’s a shame but I understand it and we have rarely bought well in Jan. We are much more likely to add to our problems than solve them in the Jan market. Just look at last year. I’ll expect big things in summer!