Daweii

Unlikely, Tshibola just needs game time considering he will likely be in our starting XI next week. Tshibola though was injured last season so needs to be eased into playing full time again.

I'd say pretty close. All their supporters were having orgasms over their team selection earlier today.

My thoughts entirely. This is arguably one of the best the Championship has to offer and they have strengthened a bit since promotion too, so considering maybe only 6-8 teams will be promotion candidates that leaves like 60-70% of the league being vastly worse than this.

Gestede is far far faaaaar too slow.. That or he just lacks the motivation to sprint into the box when he see's Cissokho sprinting with the ball.

Great move there.. I just hope Ayew is alright.

1-0, Baker (14 mins)

Plus side we don't look that bad against the team that got promoted from this league. I mean I assume 80% of the teams are vastly worse than this.. We just need to cut out silly mistakes.

The stadium volume is alright. The commentary though is super quiet though.. It's what you get when you fire everyone and get people that don't know what they are doing to set up a stream.

Good showing here and I will be a lot more confident. There aren't going to be many teams in this league better than our competition today.

I get that everyone is down on Bacuna but maybe he's been impressing in training. Just trust that RDM knows a shit ton more than we do about this current crop of players.

I'm just going to assume Tshibola is still getting up to 100% fitness after his injury plagued season last term and that the starting eleven are our best in training currently.

@Chewie I hope all of that in your post above about the Tegra X2 is true. I will be using the NX in home console mode 100% of the time so the more power the better really.

Maybe trimming the squad is just the reason we are floating about cause it sounds better than culling the bad players.

Maybe him keeping a low profile is for the best. I mean every manager recently has a been a bit of a chatter box in comparison and it's almost made things worse. We need managers that only talk when the media speaks to them and also is selective with words. Recently every manager we have had has just talked too much about how the team will be vastly better next time out, yet when it doesn't happen the fans turn sour. We have our chatter box in the lovable and adorable man from China Tony Xia, we don't need RDM to say anything this season.

I quite frankly don't give a **** what Xia tweets, does, doesn't do.. Maybe I just don't give enough of a shit or maybe I have bigger things to worry about in life than the tweets of someone else, or the wellbeing of a football club. I am a fan don't get me wrong, but I swear some of the posters on this forum seem to be getting downright stressed about what Xia is posting and who Villa are and aren't signing. I wish I had so little to worry about in life that Aston Villa Football Club takes up all of my free thought, but it just doesn't. If this whole Xia tweeting thing goes tits up then so be it we can deal with that shit when and if it happens. Same as all the other bollocks some posters on this site seem to panic about, not going to name names but if you think this is about you then it likely is. I just don't care enough, I just like that we have an owner that is communicating after close to a decade of one that didn't.

I get that it is only pre-season but Gollini doesn't seem to shut up in that goal in a good way. He's constantly communicating and telling players where to be and where to go, it's likely why he got the captains armband yesterday. Yet while I know the quality of competition hasn't been great I think he has only conceded 1 goal all pre-season and it was a wonder strike that he was helpless to stop, but Gollini has largely kept clean-sheets this pre-season and it's likely because he communicates a lot so the defenders know what is going on.

I guess it all depends what you are looking for in WWE. I am looking forward to seeing the established names on Raw, but I am also curious and excited about who makes a name for themselves on Smackdown. Yes the difference is night and day, but those on Smackdown won't stay small names for very long. We may look at Ambrose vs Ziggler as a very tame co-main event compared to Rollins vs Balor, but give it a year and Ziggler could be one of the biggest draws in all of WWE.. For all we know Corbin could be or Crews or Ryder. The brand split is unfairly stacked in Raw's favour but that may also lead to some of the big stars you mentioned getting lost in the shuffle. It will be very interesting 2-3 years from now to see just how things turn out.

Smackdown really wasn't that bad. I agree they could have time managed better as having Miz talk to himself for a good 10 minutes was dumb for a 2-hour show, it would have been dumb on Raw but at least that show is 3-hours and could cope. (I mean Raw this week had that retarded "Sunny-Boy" skit with New Day, same time wasting shit) Smackdown was beaten this week by Raw, but that won't always be the case. Raw this week was stacked and I challenge them to stack the card like that week in week out as they set the bar high. Smackdown did what they needed to do and that was pave the way for the shows to come. We have seen the impending Women's Division rivalry this week. The Six-Pack for the number one contender was decided this week. Lots of multi-man matches, but that was Raw in a nutshell too. Next week will be where the brand split really gets going. We will start to see where creative starts taking story lines and how each show builds those story lines. So while Raw did win this week it's not a cut and dry victory to say the least. Smackdown Live have work to do mainly to shake off the B-Show feeling, but that show has been neglected for so long it's gonna take time. If the previous brand split is anything to go by Smackdown will likely be the A-Show 1-2 years from now. I mean history has largely proven that smaller rosters yield bigger stars over time and Smackdown's roster is tiny, so maybe check back on Smackdown periodically as it's only just begun.

Not impressed though this is largely Nintendo's fault. They kept the NX to themselves for the last 2 years despite patents leaking and all this speculation coming out about NX being revolutionary. Yet here we are staring at what may as well be marketed as the 3DS replacement and if that is how they market it then it will be a huge upgrade, but they are gearing it up to be a handheld with a base station. My issue with this is that while it has insane power for a handheld console, it lacks the power to deliver that same experience at 1080p when you get home. So if they market this as a handheld and handheld alone then it will be great as this thing is like 60x more powerful than the New 3DS, but if not then it's gonna flop big time.

WWE Universal Championship just sounds so dumb to me, it's very TNA sounding like they created the King of the Mountain Championship.. That said Rollins vs Balor at Summerslam is gonna be incredible.

Compared to the rest whether RDM likes him or not there are bigger priorities. Ideal scenario Guzan, Bacuna, Richards, Lescott, Gabby and Hutton find new clubs, but it won't be the end of the world if he's the last one left when the dust has settled.

It was no where near his strongest team and RDM likely already knew that. He knows that things appear to happen when Grealish and Green are on the pitch. He left them out likely to see what happens when they aren't on the pitch. Same goes for leaving out Tshibola. I think RDM knows our strongest line up but he's trying to gauge just how weak the weak links are by playing them without good players next to them. I mean Veretout could look world class next to Green and Grealish, but you take them away and he barely does anything for 45 minutes. Our strongest line up based on pre-season is likely.. --------------- Gollini ---------------- Hutton - Elphick - Baker - Amavi* ------- Tshibola - Gardner -------- ---- Green - Ayew - Grealish ---- --------------- Davis ---------------- * I included Amavi because once 100% fit he's the best Left Back in the Championship by a mile. If I would make any changes it would be a new Right Back. Hutton is alright he gets the job done but I just want something new like when we had Kyle Walker on loan. I would like to get 'Morrison' in as a solid Attacking Midfielder. Someone like 'Kodjia' upfront. Keinan Davis has had a stellar pre-season but largely unproven at Championship level, so I would like at least one proven Championship striker like Kodjia to offer competition to the likes of Ayew, Davis, Hepburn-Murphy etc.

I hate the flabby nickname. Yes it suited him last season, but while he may not be a great football player he is shredded this season. I mean if he cut anymore weight without putting on muscle he would look downright unhealthy so the flabby nickname is just stupid now.

Agreed. If we had Guzan out there we'd have likely conceded at least one. Gollini just looks like a genuine safe pair of hands.

I hope that Di Matteo planned for us to look average here. His selection for the first half seems deliberate to analyse some of our weak links even further.