WakefieldVillan

U ok hun?

Fit in well then Joking aside, you're right he did, doesn't mean he doesn't still have ability. Anyway I'm no Cairney bum-boy, wouldn't mind seeing his missus at VP though just think he would improve the "squad" better than the likes of Lansbury/Jota.

Lansbury and Jota are both 29 too and have contributed pretty much nothing since they signed for us. My suggestion was to improve the squad (and at the right price) IMO Cairney would be a better option than the other two.

Lansbury and Jota are both 29 too and have contributed pretty much nothing since they signed for us. My suggestion was to improve the squad (and at the right price) IMO Cairney would be a better option than the other two.

Presuming Fulham do the job tonight then the play-off final against Brentford is going to be interesting with regards to the respective clubs main assets when one team fails. Brentford obviously have Benrahma, Watkins and Henry - who would all be great additions for us. Fulham have Mitrovic and Cairney that I would take all day long. Mitrovic for his experience and aggression, something we are lacking (and still only 25!) and Cairney seems like his career has "stalled" a bit at Fulham but he still has great talent and a cracking left-foot. Maybe we could get him on the cheap (though I would guess he may want to stay in London). Offer them Lansbury and Jota as part of the deal. I would prefer someone like Cairney coming off the bench and I think he would add much better competition to our squad. Eze and Buendia are obvious talents whom would be great to sign, but think we need to be wary of what clubs are going to charge.

Don't worry mate, won't happen for a looooooooooooooong time

Paves the way for Zaha's Villa move Joking aside, I would love us to make a real big statement signing before Jack or anyone else leaves. We are a huge club, we've got wealthy owners and we need to stay in this division now for a long time. We won't do that without real quality competition. Love to see the reaction of one of the so called "top 6" clubs if we were to bid for one of their "stars" I think we have to be careful not to change too many players but also make sure we aren't sentimental and keep players just because we managed to stay up. Wide areas and up front are our main weaknesses but we can improve all over if truth be told. I'd love something like this in front of the defence; Luiz McGinn Eze Benrahma Abraham Grealish Or Luiz McGinn Grealish Benrahma Abraham Sarr

I think if you asked a sample 100 Leeds fans now, the majority would still say Hernandez was better Ridiculous

Living in Yorkshire and having a lot of Leeds fans on my social media, yesterday was beautiful and I was extremely childish in tagging each and every one of them on my Villa related posts Not sure if they just don't like me or whether they hate our club or probably a mixture of both ha, but the ones I know were gutted we stayed up and now using the "well it's an easy 6 points line" Ridiculously, most of it is coming from that "walk-in goal" - GET OVER IT!

I agree pretty much with all of that, other than I would only loan out Bree and not sell him just yet. He has been performing to a good level albeit at a lower standard, is versatile and I think he still has the potential to develop into a solid Premier League player. Vassilev another to go out on loan. I don't particularly rate Reina and think his best days are well behind him, but I wouldn't be adverse to keeping him as third-choice and around the squad because he is a winner and looks be popular amongst the dressing room - I mean, I woke up and was dancing to La La Bamba at 7 this morning. As many others have alluded to, we don't need wholesale changes we just need to add real quality - It's all about increasing the quality and competition by strengthening our first eleven then it filters down the squad.

He started ok, nothing amazing, but I think some fans got a bit carried away with his performances, the matches we played before he showed up we had El Ghazi up top - There was obviously going to be an "improvement" but that's all it was. Since then, he's been extremely poor. I don't like writing players off, especially foreign ones settling in to a new environment and will trust the management but I really haven't seen anything that suggests he is going to be a real asset to us. If we had of been relegated I would have said keep him on but I hope now that we have kept our PL status, our summer transfer business means that he will either be moved on or our 4th / 5th choice striker at best. Wesley (for all his critics) was performing better and Davis (for all his very limited scoring prowess) brings more to the team than Ally does. We need TWO real class centre forwards next season if we want to push on.

I love his latest social media posts, there is just absolutely NO denying his love for this great club. I still think he will leave unfortunately, but if he does, he goes with my blessing. He led us to promotion as skipper and now scored the goal and pretty much carried us for the majority of the season and kept us in the league. Don't get me wrong, I would absolutely love it if he stayed another season but I fully understand if he wants to play Champions League football and a real chance to win major honours. Staying up as definitely given us a better chance of keeping him that's for sure and also gives us much better bargaining power. In an ideal world before he potentially departs, we splash the cash on some real quality signings - a winger and a striker - and let's see if the owners ambitions match that of Jack's. Two final things, I would be extremely disappointed if we didn't get at least £80 million and I think we need not one, but two or three players to fill the void if he is to leave.

And suffered the recent heartbreaking loss of his father Has it all been perfect, hell no - but I hope that the owners give him the chance to build this truelly wonderful football club again next season. He has earned it

A small part of me wishes we were in Watford's or Bournemouth's position and not favourites to stay up, just feels like the disappointment is going to be a thousand times worse if we go down now after giving us such a good chance with the win against Arsenal. I think we are going to need at least one point and it terrifies me immensely that we are going to go a goal down early and never recover. I really hope to God I'm wrong. I suppose as supporters you always fear the worst and tbh I feel more anxious coming on here, so I blame my fellow Villans I'm 75% turning off my TV and phone 4 till 6

I agree completely. Davis wasn't great at all. The miss wasn't the worst miss ever (I'm looking at you AEG ) but I think it knocked his confidence a bit and his whole game suffered. There was two other instances, miss aside, that spring to mind and that was a simple lay off to Jack which would have set up a nice attack - he played it straight out of play and another instance in the corner flag where he lazily tried winning a corner off the defender, defender moves and Keinan's "cross" goes to one of the Arsenal players and we're immediately on the back foot. I like him too, I would love him more than anyone to get the winner on Sunday that seals our top-flight status.

I might be wrong but I think you may be interpreting that if points are equal then it goes on goals scored, which it does, but only after goal difference.

Correct. Goal difference doesn't really come into it with Bournemouth. They simply have to win and hope Watford and ourselves lose.

The pussy side of me is tempted to switch my phone off for a couple of hours from 4 pm, watch a film with the other half then ask her to look at the scores exactly two hours later for me and give me the bad or (hopefully|) good news. But the devil in me is thinking of booking Monday off work, going to a pub for 12, singing my first Villa song at 2, fresh by 4, leathered by 6 and hopefully out celebrating till the early hours of the morning then coming home to the wrath of my extremely annoyed bird whom I told it's "just a steady one". Decisions, decisions...

The problem with putting that bet on is that you could get just one or two correct, not win the money and we still get relegated. The only real guaranteed "consolation" bet is the outright option below; So for instance - £50 stake for £150. To be honest, I would be still be gutted big time regardless of getting £150 back so not sure it's even worth it. An other option (using the same stake as above) would be to put both the following on; £25 on Watford staying up (11/4) - £93.75 (£43.75 profit) £25 on Bournemouth staying up (9/1) - £250 (£200 profit) I will see how my nerves are come Sunday morning, I might just lump on Bournemouth to stay up which has better value and certainly not inconceivable that it won't happen. Anyway, this is probably for a betting thread, so apologies. Is it Sunday yet?! This is the run up to the play-off final kind of torture...

A Leeds fan I work with has just said that first thing we need to do regardless of whether we stay up is to get rid of Smith. I was like, oh right, really, what makes you think that? He said well, he’s crap ain’t he, he’s not up to it. I said but why do you think that? His response “well he got lucky last year, shouldn’t have gone up, defense is crap blah blah”. I pointed out our 10-game winning streak and that he achieved promotion quicker than Bielsa (who is a Leeds God), “ah but he’s crap.....” I am not sure if that is a "Leeds" thing more than anything else as another one of their fans said this morning on a text “I don’t mind Villa (re-staying up) but hope they sack Smith. Which I found quite bizarre. Anyway, it is waffle like that which makes me want him to succeed even more. At least back up the argument with something productive, with some knowledge of why he (in their opinion) is not very good. Stinks of bitterness to be honest. As for Smith, I would keep him regardless of which division were plying our trade – Unless were a Premier League club and we can get a real coup like Poch! I do think that this is probably one thing against Smith, is not being the "big name manager" that can attract star players. But just like our squad, he is learning all the time and yes it hasn’t all been good, far from it, but I think tactically he isn’t bad at all, he selects teams that I generally agree with, the team spirit seems to be just fine and if we finish one place above the drop zone (with the cup final day out to boot) then he has earned another season to have a shot at IMO.

Looks like there's not many people doing much work today, so I'll join in Think there is an argument for being wary on both the "other" games on Sunday to be honest. Negatives; Arsenal could have minds elsewhere and / or field a weakened side. Bournemouth know that a win is their only chance of survival and have dangerous players going forward against a team with nothing really to play for. Positives; The Deeney factor might see Arsenal more pumped than they would be in a game like this, they won't want to lose two on the spin, players playing for their cup final shirts. Bournemouth when going forward could leave gaps for Everton's front line to exploit. Everton's home record is very good. Everton had a great win last time out at Sheffield Utd. A draw for us rules Bournemouth out of the equation. Unfortunately unless Arsenal and Everton both go 2-0 up in the first 15 minutes I think it is going to be a real tense day, one I was hoping at the start of the season we wouldn't be involved in but one I was desperately hoping we were involved in over the last 6 weeks or so. We have given ourselves a real fighting chance but it is far from over - We need to go out against West Ham with a view to getting the three points which would be extremely likely to be enough - Come on Villa, one last push!

I am not too sure why you we're all sooooo worried in the second half - I didn't bat an eyelid... ...having said that I did go to bed at HT, switched my phone off to the world, and resisted looking until 5 AM ! I'm a 42 year old man, I'm falling out of love with the game, dealing with real life trauma's has put football into real context, YET, there I was putting silly bets on Watford and Arsenal to win, and found myself unable to watch the game worrying that we would do the typical Villa thing and concede a couple of late goals - That's what this game does to you I suppose and of course this wonderful club. Watched the second half in full this morning, with no stress, no emotion and for a change it was nice to do that. Absolutely deserved the 3 points and the rebound of the post aside, we were resolute and the team performance, work-rate, desire, will to win was there in abundance and was fantastic to watch. Hard to pick a MOTM, I voted Grealish, second half he was back to Jack pre-covid, Konsa was different class, Mings was solid, Guilbert looked like he's never been away, Luiz was rattling away and Trez, what can you say, he has me lost for words - He takes so much stick (myself included) but you can't help but like him when he is scoring key goals like he has this season. Credit to the management and the coaching staff, they picked a team and tactics, with odd tweaks in-play that nullified a fairly strong Arsenal team coming off the back of two victories against class opponents and this is no mean feat and they deserve plaudits for that. I'm still worried about Sunday and that it doesn't end well, but am extremely proud of the lads character and fight that they have shown in these last few matches and for giving us a real chance of survival last day which we all wanted so badly. UTV

Think to be fair the goal came against the run of play but it has lifted our performance but we all know there is still a VERY long way to go. And fair play Trez, oddest player I've ever seen play at this level. I've done my bit, I've £35 on Arsenal. Worked in the City game, hope it works for us Think Davis for Samatta has got to happen sooner rather than later.

Shhhh. Don't ruin the positivity of this thread

Can Watford play City next week too