MessiWillSignForVilla

33 minutes ago, Paddywhack said:

Can’t believe these lot beat us 5-1, they’re shite.

I can, we're genuinely cursed at St James', one win there this century and that required 3 red cards and a penalty

5 subs used, time to test the theory of whether Olsen is better than nothing 

That post is making it out like they are some of Europe's biggest names, but are they really that huge? As good as Emery is and as excited as I am for Torres and Monchi, it's not like we've shocked Europe by getting them.

If you look at these signings objectively (even a tad pessimistically) they don't seem that outlandish;

- Emery has had two bites at the apple at the "top" level, and has arguably failed both times. The fact his most successful spells have come at Valencia, Sevilla and Villarreal would suggest a club like Villa is exactly where his level should be.

- Monchi spent his entire playing career and, with the exception of a 3-year period between 2016 and 2019 when he left for Roma, got fired after 10 months then spent two years unemployed, his entire post-playing career with Sevilla - 11 years as a player, 20 as a DoF. There are serious doubts over whether he can be successful outside of Sevilla, which is probably why he went back there after his Roma spell as no-one esle seemed interested. Him coming here is a big risk for us and him.

- Torres is highly rated yes, but has spent his entire career at Villarreal (who by the way are tiny. Half of Villarreal could fit inside their stadium and the club is the definition of punching above their weight). At 26 having not played at a higher level raises doubts over his ability to reach a higher level. Yes he was linked with some of the biggest names in Europe, but if he was so good, why wasn't he snapped up a couple of years ago? And it's not like we beat any of those clubs to get him, by all accounts we only got him because Bayern passed on him. He's played in Europe, but just one season in the Champions League which Villarreal were in "only" because they won the Europa League - performance wise they're basically Villa from the 90s/00s if they took Europe more seriously.

I'm not trying to suggest these guys are shit or anything, as I said, I'm excited for them and what this season holds, but it's not like we snagged Zidane and Militao (plus the DoF equivalent). I wonder if he felt the same way when Ancelotti and James went to Everton? That was way "worse" than us getting these three.

If Alemany had joined I could see the argument with him, it would be absurd for us to poach a DoF from Barcelona even with their financial situation.

17 minutes ago, nick76 said:

Yep they are

 

The easiest article ever, probably been in the drafts since Gerrard first got linked to a Saudi team

Reckon Starc had that under control there

7 minutes ago, rbcuk said:

Mings literally just fits 

 

Looks to me like it's just been printed far too high up, when I look at shirts I have in the wardrobe the names are about 5 inches from the neck, that looks about 2 inches at best, whoever gets that shirt will have the name on their shoulders rather than their back

6 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

forget the badge for a minute....that blue is a bit worrying...what the **** is that 

It's BK8's brand colour

1 minute ago, Rustibrooks said:

Mellberg’s little one has been signed by RB Salzburg, that’s a good club to join for his development. Will be sure to keep an eye on him to see how he gets on.

According to Gregg Evans we were interested too hence Olof being at the Brighton game

24 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

 

Something, something, something. It’s between us and Juve.

You’re welcome. 

Translates to:

"Pau Torres has two official offer on the table. One is Villa, the other is not Juventus. The decision will be made during the vacation months"

I presume that just means off-season.

I think that's on unfortunately

I knew the Royal Family was German but didn't realise they'd won so many Bundesliga titles

Just now, YLN said:

Commentator analyst is dead wrong there. It came back to him in the air under zero control. It's not the same

And was immediately under pressure, not like he received it to feet in acres of space.

What a **** cross by Moreno!!!

37 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

Que?

I'll preface this by saying that JPA is probably my favourite ever Villa player, I was obsessed with him as a kid, but I assume Bobzy is referring to the fact that he was quite hot and cold during his time here and even back then got a bit of stick at times. He had two very good seasons hitting double figures in 01-02 and 03-04, but other seasons he really struggled and started off very slowly considering he was our record signing.

I imagine if we made a similar signing these days, especially with goalscoring being even more improtant in player discussions now, they would be written off fairly quickly, at least by a loud minority. For example, Watkins' two season so far have been far better than all but JPA's best two seasons, with Watkins' best matching JPA's second best, and I imagine not many people would tolerate Watkins having a season similar to JPA's other 4.5 seasons here.

3 minutes ago, Genie said:

He’s been suspended 

1 minute ago, ml1dch said:

Only until the end of the week, on a completely unrelated matter. 

3 hours ago, ml1dch said:

Just the Tory party there (admittedly one of its stupider constituent parts) comparing Covid vaccines to the Holocaust and citing a far-right, Russian-backed website. 

Edit - that was quick. Now had the Tory whip removed. 

Bridgen embarrassing his constituency again, must be lunchtime.

God I can't wait until that word removed is no longer my MP.

2 hours ago, duke313 said:

Was just looking up Moroccan players who have played for Villa, and seen that El Ghazi was eligible to play for Morocco and that he was trying to switch allegiance before the world cup, but how's that possible if he's played twice for Netherlands in competitive fixtures?

New FIFA rules mean that players can switch allegiance once if they have played no more than 3 competitive games (and 0 tournament games) for their nation prior to the age of 21. The rule is designed to stop bigger international teams from giving young players with dual nationalities caps just to lock down their future elligibility, i.e. El Ghazi with the Netherlands, Zaha with England.

3 hours ago, BleedClaretAndBlue said:

Another has a reel of tape placed in the shot, with ‘Baalenciaga’ purposely mispelt. Turns out ‘Baal’ is a pagan deity or demon that people sacrificed kids to. None of these things are a mistake or coincidence.

A roll of tape that has the word Balenciaga on it repeated over and over being cut off and reading as "Ba-" "-alenciaga" seems like something that could easily happen by coincidence.

Not to mention the sacrificing kids to Baal thing comes from a Roman source discussing the Carthaginians, it'd be like someone digging up WW1 propaganda in 2000 years and coming to the conclusion that Germans were a huge ape-like creature.

9 minutes ago, tomav84 said:

i meant in tests vs tier 1 nations they've done nothing till this year. never gotten out of the pools at the WC. i'm not knocking them, i just think trying to shoehorn them into the 6 nations isn't the way forward

do we need annual test matches between england and australia/SA/NZ? maybe the way to grow the game is to have more games vs the likes of georgia in the autumn. but then twickenham doesn't sell out tickets at £150 a pop vs georgia does it...

I feel this is often overlooked when discussing Georgia, and it's forgotten that Italy weren't allowed to join the 5 Nations just because they were best of the rest, between 95-99 they record wins against Ireland (x3), Argentina* (x2), France and Scotland, they got invited because they started regularly beating T1 nations (not sure if Argentina would've counted as T1 at the time however).

If Georgia can continue this and get a few more wins, then it might be worth adding them to an expanded 6 Nations.