StanBalaban

Thought he looked good today, and filled in well on the left side of the defence in the second half.

I would say that the reaction, in the heat of the moment, with just a couple of minutes to evaluate a situation whilst a match is being played, should not be indicative of the overall competence of our medical team. Protecting the health of the players is literally protecting the investment from the owners. These are two very wealthy and very experienced sports team owners. They've had the opportunity to clear house when there's a managerial change, along with the fact that Unai is not only a perfectionist, but also relies on the competency of the medical staff to help him field the best team possible. This would indicate that they are happy with the medical team that we have. We are a wealthy premier league club. We can literally attract the best sports medical professionals in the world if we needed to. The fact that we haven't says a lot IMO.

A really great agent. Even got him a gig as Alf Stewart's wife on Home & Away

Whatever happens for the rest of this campaign, I really hope Unai realises just how much pride and joy he's delivered to us Villa fans. Just the most remarkable manager that we could've wished for in the modern game.

Clearly

A lot of the officials simply do not understand what they're looking at. They're waiting for the outcome of an event to determine what action (if any) they take. I can understand the onfield ref maybe being unsure about what he's seen and erring on the side of caution, but there no excuse for the VAR not to give him the opportunity to review it on the monitor.

Here it is.

Blatant justifyable shout for a penalty in the Forest v Brentford game. Wissa runs towards the ball as the keeper is getting it out of his feet. Wissa nips it away from the keeper's kicking motion, which then subsequently misses the ball and brings Wissa down. As the ball was still heading towards the goal, Wissa gets straight back up to try and score so the ref ignores it. No apparent VAR check. Had Wissa stayed down and appealed harder he would have been more likely to get the pen (which IMO he should have got anyway). The reason players exaggerate most of the time is because the officials don't know what they're looking at, and need a neon sign to highlight a foul. They ref the outcome and not the challenge itself. Idiots.

Oh, thinking back you may be right actually. My bad. It's just all so rubbish, and they know it. Hence why they don't want the audio to be broadcast in real time. I understand that there may be some issues with the language for TV broadcasters, but surely they could operate a 5 second delay, or do what they do for the F1 comms broadcast. There's no reason to be opaque unless they know themselves that there's a serious shortfall in the standard of officiating.

The irony here is that the linesman did put his flag up (incorrectly) for offside - exactly the scenario where he should be keeping his flag down to allow VAR to check. There's so much wrong with the implementation, it's daft. If the lino keeps their flag down and the ball goes for a corner, the attacking team still get the corner even if the play was offside. PGMOL are one of the worst things about the game right now.

Unlike Targett, Digne chose to fight for his place when Moreno came in, to the extent that Unai made in-game changes at LB. He's always been judged by the salary that the club chose to offer him, but I'm very glad he didn't leave in the window. He'll have patches of poor form for sure, but he's seems a good character and an integral part of our good league start.

Klopp being oddly magnanimous in his post match interview

Foreshadowing

BeIn Sports drawing the line, apparently using 'FIFA recognised' technology.

It's truly bizarre, especially with the speed at which they cleared the VAR check. Liverpool equalise.

I hate that Everrrrton song. I can't stand the **** Z Cars music too. There's another shit song they play at Goodison as well. Goodison is **** shit. words removed.

We're being bullied by Everton. It's a shocking performance so far.

Olsen to the rescue again!

No VAR c'est soir

Was talking about the shirts with a mate of mine yesterday, and the discussion turned to the winter games. Obviously the players will still sweat in cold weather, but with that amount of moisture being retained on the shirt, it's surely going to be freezing and uncomfortable to play in? Apologies if answered before @NurembergVillan but is this an intentional element of the kit, or a by-product of a poor shirt? Also does my hypothesis about being more uncomfortable to play in over the winter months hold water? (pun intended)

The team just doesn't tick in the same way without Dougie.

This is a good point. He's still only 23 years old, and still has a lot of conquer in his development to become the consistent, elite player we know he will become.

But that's the thing at the Villa - we don't have our own 'international revenue churn machine' as we're not a commercial success outside of the UK. The international revenue that we partake in comes from being in the Premier League, not through anything we've done as a club to increase exposure in the US, Middle East, Asia and Africa. Right now, the local fan is hugely important to the club as they are not only the support at games but the vast concentration of direct revenue too. I'm sure Heck and his team will have a remit to make us more of a global brand, and they need to as we're miles off it at the moment. For comparison, Leicester City have over 4 million more people following their Instagram account alone. Chelsea have 38 million more than us. Heck has his work cut out.

Sad reality is that we need more revenue in order to have a strong team. And some of that will be geared towards attracting more 'plastics' and corporates, as they bring the cash in. If, at the same time, they can improve things like matchday food & beverage, merchandise, Villa TV and various other subscriptions that we can all partake in, that to my mind is bringing in more direct revenue, whilst giving fans a better experience. Win, win! As an overseas fan, it's not easy buying from the Villa store, especially as their shipping service is expensive and unreliable, yet won't allow us to use our own freight forwarding services. And there's plenty of us who would happily buy more stuff. Same with Villa TV. I have no issues paying a tenner (or whatever it is) for matchday passes from pre-season games and the like, but would be even happier if the product was better. Whilst some very loyal fans can rightly look around and not like everything they see, there's a lot of people that never go to a game, look for a stream for a match that can be bought from the club, or proudly share info on how to buy a replica jersey from DH Gate, but still moan about the 'Americanisation' of the club's marketing policy. Be nice if they could do their bit too.

Madness when you realise that he's only 25 years old. Feels like he's been around forever, but his peak years are yet to come. A new contract is great news for everyone.