MessiWillSignForVilla

I can; McGinn - His touch was awful today and showed that despite his other qualities, his technical ability is not quite Premier League standard in my opinion. Was a good presence but lost the ball far too much with poor touches and running into trouble. Elmo - A touch of Hutton syndrome today. Got forward well but was mostly rubbish with his crosses, although more because they had no pace rather than all going in row z. Heaton - Not much to do, but the mistake for the penalty was **** stupid. Perhaps one of the worst mistakes I've seen from a Villa player in recent years. Until the second goal... Wesley - Didn't get great service, but was a bit ineffectual himself. Trezeguet - Had some really poor movement at times and I felt he held on the ball for far too long only to pass back to Elmo a bit too much. He also failed to beat the full back quite a lot too when he did try to take them on. El Ghazi - A couple decent crosses in the first half but a bit anonymous overall. Although I do wonder how much poor overlapping plays apart in his and Trezeguet's poor game. So there's 6. And there's probably arguments for Douglas Luiz, Taylor, Jota and Davis too. Perhaps harsh on Davis as he wasn't on for long though. Then bear in mind Grealish created 6 chances, won a load of free kicks, got an assist and could have scored himself. All this isn't to write these guys off, I thought we were unlucky to lose, but quite a few players were worse than Grealish today and didn't play well.

Well, I take that back, lol

Spurs still haven't really created a decent chance, the majority of the teams in this league are nowhere near this good, nothing to worry about yet.

It's been coming and we definitely gave the ball away too easily, but I'm heartened we conceded from a long range chance, we weren't carved open easily and giving away great chances, we forced them into a great goal to equalise.

Wasn't sure whether to put this in the Trezeguet thread or here, but that pass by McGinniesta is filthy!

Why would signing a new contract mean we won't loan him out? For me it just looks like a contract so we can try make a bit of money out of him next summer instead of letting him walk on a free, otherwise why would we be so desperately chasing a new keeper all summer? Maybe he won't go on loan, but it's odd that one week before the season, both Kalinic and Nyland are on the bench ahead of him, especially when Nyland hasn't appeared all pre-season, and I don't think the new contract would make any odds other whether he is loaned out.

Probably getting loaned out again as he isn't good enough for the Premier League. It's not a coincidence that 4-5 consecutive managers have all overlooked him and Smith has attempted to replace him already. I'll always appreciate Steer for that shoot-out performance, but it seems that - plus our run of wins - has overshadowed that he wasn't exactly brilliant in Championship. Certainly not bad, but decent at best imo. In fact, I think he was quite dodgy at times last season, but benefited from our massivel improved back four. If we are offering him out on loan, I can't see many Championship sides rushing to sign him either, which you'd expect considering how some Villa fans speak about him.

Because we'd definitely have a chance away to the Champions League runners up if Hourinhane doesn't start.

I know it's only Walsall, but bloody hell were playing some good stuff!

Seen a few comments from Lyon fans saying that this is a terrible move for Newcastle

It was about 3 days in to pre-season and Derby knew and had enough time to prepare that they appointed Cocu the next day. Seems pretty different to me.

At the minute, I think that is more reason why he wouldn't take the job. What self respecting Newcastle fan would take the job under Ashley? They absolutely hate him and many want nothing to do with the club until he leaves. For the Best Supporters In The Country"(tm), there's been 12,000 season tickets unsold after Rafa left, and for once it seems Newcastle fans are actually doing something about hating Ashley, rather than being content with just Shearer have a pop at him on MotD occasionally. So why would a Newcastle fan walk into this dumpster fire of a situation? Personally, I think he recognises this may be his only shot at being their manager, as when Ashley finally sells, no new owner is going to even consider Bruce, so he's going to take his chance even though it seems destined to fail. Plus he has the advantage of being able to blame Ashley when things go tits up. And that's not a dig at Bruce, manager's more than likely think about their "exit strategy" at clubs the join and I think it's part of the reason Lampard took the Chelsea job, he can blame the transfer ban to minimise damage to his career if he's sacked early on. I reckon it's less about being a Newcastle fan, and more about it being his best opportunity to manage them, as there's no way he'd want to work for Ashley if he's a Newcastle supporter.

Apparently that's the Mall of America in Minnesota.

Macron and Dafabet were only 2 seasons together, 2013-14 and 2014-15. And both of those periods had significantly earlier reveals than we are used to. The 09-10 Away kit was revealed 24 May and the Home soon after. The 2014-15 Home kit was revealed 2 June and the Away a week later, again much earlier than the usual July reveal, although still a bit late compared to some. For what ever reason we always seem to get a new sponsor a year before the manufacturer deal ends and vice versa.

He supposedly turned down the opportunity to interview for the WBA job according to VillaReport/The Times, I dont think hes in a hurry to jump to management. Edit: beaten to it

A tale spun by Roberto Carlos too, hes said before that he was close to joining us before moving to inter.

Nah, I think it's the other way around, sounds like the RB is shouting "John, turn!" and is annoyed that McGinn just stands there.

I think that video highlights why he's been so poor the last couple of seasons, Blues are **** awful. Compare the movement between the Brentford players at the start with the Blues players, and it's like Blues are in a division below. They're mostly just standing around watching Jota make runs and when some of the Blues players do actually make runs, they just stop for no reason as Jota passes through to them. Not to mention the number of chances their strikers skied when the ball was put on a plate for them. The Brentford players make runs that free space for themselves and others, the Blues players just let Jota get crowded by 2-3 players. I think Jota could be a very astute signing in Smith's system.

My guess would be that it was a handshake agreement that they'd agree to any offer above £40m rather than a contractual one, so when Arsenal took the piss by offering £1 over, Liverpool didn't have any obligation to say yes.

So... Anybody got a spare ticket?

When I checked earlier there were 5500 tickets left, and I was just in the queue hoping against hope that buying multiple tickets for one game might count (it obviously didn't) and there were even more tickets available than when I checked earlier, so they're definitely holding tickets back. Also, I'm guessing a fair few in that queue are just trying their luck to get a ticket like myself without meeting the criteria.

Hmm, I swear I read that through a few times, dunno how I missed that.

Do Semi-Final tickets count towards the 5 game criteria? I know it keeps getting repeated that it doesn't but is there any official confirmation of this or just rumours?

This is glorious!

He runs up the pitch a lot. Nevermind that he's never arsed to get back afterward though.