Vancvillan

Was behind enemy lines reading RAWK earlier. They were saying what a bellend Emi is, but a fair few pointed out that:

A. You hate him if he doesn't play for you, love him if he does

B. He's a master of the dark arts, and they've had plenty of players (Suarez, etc) who have done the same.

Pretty much sums it up for me. World's best keeper, our best player, and the most important man on the pitch for us this season.  I'll forgive him pulling that little shit's shirt.

Internet randos commenting on one side of a relationship can't say much with any certainty but my opinion:

1. @KentVillan above is right

2. She's not the woman of your dreams, right now she's two or three personalities and you don't know which one is the real her

3. She's nowhere near rock bottom yet but that's likely where she needs to be before she looks for proper help. There will be a lot of collateral damage along the way, and you're in the firing line being close to her.

4. Assuming she gets help and goes through a long process of healing and working on herself, she'll be a different person at the other end. You can't just "take the bad bits out" and be left with all the positives.

3 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

I don't expect Howe to be available. 

I have a sneaky suspicion that his overlords are looking for steady hands to hold on to European football until a more glamorous option comes along. 

Complete speculation though - maybe their plan is to upgrade the squad depth significantly, which is what would need to happen for them to really compete at that intensity all season.

Promoting the U21 manager is such a lower tier club team thing to do.

Sure, if Southgate and his entire team walked on the eve of the Euros then maybe? But we need someone with something resembling success at club level.

There should be several dozen names about Carsley.

Assuming Southgate leaves after Euro 2024, who would you like and who would you bet on?

I think I might have a cheeky punt on Eddie Howe, who I think might be out of work by then. Not my dream appointment but think he could do a job since we have a deep squad and his tactics usually require it.

8 minutes ago, villan-scott said:

Hang on… I thought it was the end of the world the other day when Newcastle and Man U got eliminated? 

It was.

For them.

On 13/12/2023 at 04:49, Jareth said:

We wouldn't be happy with a nationalistic Russian player would we?

Have been thinking about this a lot. It's actually a pretty deep question.

Unpopular opinion - if he has his beliefs and doesn't try to push them on others I'm fine with it. I guarantee that for every supporter, a decent number of prem players, staff and management hold certain beliefs that the supporter would find objectionable.

I guess that I've got to the point where I accept that I regularly work with people who might have differering opinions towards race, religion, immigration, sexuality, etc but we can get a job done. Would we be happy with a nationalistic British player? A socialist? A Marxist? A neoconservative? A hardline Catholic or Muslim? An Israeli who supports their governments actions? A Palestinian who does the same?

It's all so tiresome.

5 hours ago, YLN said:

Every time i see his name I think he's that old 3rd choice keeper we had a few years ago, and I'm surprised he's still knocking about.

I'm thinking of Andy Marshall who is 48 years old. 

He was with us three or four years and I think made that many appearances on the bench but never actually played?

I applied for that job but Kalvin Phillips beat me to it.

At home this season they're 3 wins 3 draws, 2 losses.

Away we're 3 wins, 2 draws and 3 losses.

We've played three of the top seven teams, they've played two (loss against Arsenal and draw with spurs).

So pretty similar and they're missing a lot of key players. Think we win this but doubt it'll be one to watch again.

20 hours ago, Kiwivillan said:

I'll ask again how is it good business to wait for players to go on long contracts, 3 mentioned today, and pay big money if Monchi is master of deals. Makes zero sense

Yeah that's why we passed on Bellingham 

https://collecttrumpcards.com/

Scroll down to Get The Suit.

You're welcome 

On 08/12/2023 at 07:04, Rolta said:

A lot of people post Emi Martinez stories, and I have one too. I’ve decided to put it in here though for obvious reasons. I used to post quite a lot on Villatalk and but it's been an odd few months as you’ll see.

Basically on the eve of my brother's wedding day, when I was having a meal with my girlfriend, mum and step dad at their house (where we were staying for the wedding, and where we used to stay a lot—we both lived in Spain, so we when we went to the UK we spent months with my mum and step-dad and were all very close), we got into a discussion about Rubiales.

 

I think Rubiales is pretty much the definition of toxic masculinity, and I was saying so. Having taught in Spain for so long I've seen a lot of people with backwards attitudes towards women, race, class and so on, and toxic elements of Spanish culture is something that interests me. His behaviour during and after the world cup wasn’t surprising—so far so good.

 

Well, my step dad brought up Emi's golden glove gesture at the men's world cup, and he and my girlfriend jumped on it as an example of even more toxic masculinity.

 

I was like, 'Meh, I think it was cringeworthy and embarrassing and a stupid thing to do in the greatest moment of his career—but it doesn't feel like the same thing.' I said it wasn't a great look, but I started defending Emi as a character as he seems so humble and nice in real life. Things escalated when my girlfriend started riffing on all mens sport being toxic.

 

To be fair, there'd been a bit of wine and some high spirits. I am a feminist, but my (then) girlfriend of eight years really runs with this in a way that to me comes across as unnecessarily extreme. She started basically saying that all mens sport was toxic—including at amateur level. Some mens sport is definitely toxic, but the sweeping statements grate my brain.

 

That’s how I remember it anyway. I felt as if it included basically all men who play sports, including team and people I play with in Spain. As I say, I'm a very open-minded person, and I have never fallen into any of the 'not all men' (well rarely—only when the narrative I hear is so brutally over-generalising) counter discussion. Some people would call me as 'woke' as they come.

 

She got a bit pissy with me about it. The meal ended, and she walked off to have a shower. I felt annoyed that she’d been pissy with me.

 

When she came out of the shower we were up in the bedroom and I tried to address with her calmly that she didn’t need to get pissy with me. I began defending Emi, but this sparked an escalating twenty minute argument. We weren’t rowy people at all, but she had this ability in her to snap and really jab below the belt. She started mocking the way I was saying her name, laughing—the worst bit, fifteen minutes later came when she stopped letting me speak.

 

Suddenly she came up to me and said, 'Look I love you let's stop.' But by then I'd had enough and went to sleep in another room. In the morning she was more furious than I have ever seen a human. Because I left to sleep in another room in my Mum/step dad’s house.

She seethed at me, saying that me sleeping elsewhere was manipulative and abusive like her dad used to do to her mum. She said it was a power play. I said I just needed space—I had come in to make peace with her and to go have a good day together. She seemed to project a lot of stuff onto me, then completely dissociate before my eyes. She started packing her bags. It was so horrible to see. I regret and regretted upsetting her like that. It's the worst moment of my life, and one that just seems so foolish and pointless now—I'm so sorry that we got into that row and I hate my part in it.

After eight years, she ended it there and then, didn't come to the wedding and cut contact—stonewalled me, dropped out of every whatsapp group. We'd been having the best year of our lives together. We were talking about the future. I was thinking of marriage/a kid—we were on course to talk about it.

We’d been away from each other for a week, but before that seemed completely loved up. I actually couldn’t believe how in sync we were and how much we were growing ‘more’ a couple even after all these years. One of the last things she said to me pre-row was, ‘I believe in us so much. And I think that’s special.’

She had a shitty childhood. I’ve interpreted her as having ‘dismissive avoidant attachment’—it’s the only way I can get my head round it. Anyway, I didn’t really die on this hill specifically, but I started walking up the hill defending Emi as a human. It’s a frikking

 

tragedy though.

There is 100% something else going on here and it has nothing to do with Emi Martinez.

If she's cut off all contact then honestly you're better off taking care of yourself. Your 2025 self will thank you for it. It sucks, but it gets better every day and it's not like a death where it sits with you forever.

If she contacts you then you can talk, but she needs to be open about what really upset her. Let her talk. Don't feel like you have to solve anything, just listen. And then decide if what you've heard is enough - be compassionate but remember that your own mental health is more important than anything.

VT in agreement for 9-10 of the starting eleven?

Villa fans in disbelief when Don Emery checks the official UEFA website and plays Swinkels in nets.

I'm tempering my excitement knowing that these kind of injuries and getting back to match fitness can be unpredictable.

I've written him down to zero for this season, anything more than a few sub appearances will be a huge bonus.

3 hours ago, Adam2003 said:

I think Dougie is the best player in our squad - BUT, in my experience, there’s nothing players value more than being the guy who puts the ball in the net more than anyone else.

It's not Dougie or Ollie as much as I love them.

It's Emi and it's not even close.

On 09/12/2023 at 14:45, Tom13 said:

Really don't know if I'm a fan of how xG is calculated

In a different life I studied worked in statistics for a fair amount of time. I'll just say your suspicions are well placed.

4 minutes ago, MrBlack said:

Stop clicking on his articles and the BBC stop paying him. 

I'll try but I think you overestimate my clout.

Value is one thing, but price is what the seller is willing to accept for the asset.

Anything under $80m-100m for the following during the Jan window would be laughed at. That can change quickly with form, who we buy, injury, and it being a summer vs winter transfer, but none of these are leaving this window unless it's daylight robbery numbers.

Martinez
Konsa
Torres
Ramsey
McGinn
Kamara
Luiz 
Bailey
Diaby
Watkins
 

38 minutes ago, sidcow said:

McGinn is the only Villa player in Garth Crooked team of the year. And ends up with saying that talk of Villa winning the league is fantasy. And that there is more chance of Prince William taking charge of Villa's remaining fixtures than them winning the Premier League.

Would he put it so comically/disrespectfully if discussing Newcastle or Spurrrz? 

Of the 134 words Crooks wrote, only 32 were about McGinn and he made no mention of him scoring.

And yes I counted because I'm petty and bitter. 

Emi, sjm and Carlos all potential motm.

That said, entire team left everything on the pitch.

8 hours ago, villa89 said:

So what? We're not even halfway through the season yet. Teams start seasons well all the time. We need to be realistic about what we can achieve this season, win the conference league and finish fourth. Anyone sensible would bite your hand off for that. Title talk is laughable. 

Stopped reading here

11 hours ago, El Zen said:

Not living in the UK, I can get every Villa game on TV and in the pub. The price is eyewatering though. About £70 per month for a subscription. Interestingly, the rights holder in Norway appears to be bleeding money, having massively overpayed for the rights and not getting enough people to pay.

I think I pay less than £150 a year to have every Premier League game, and they have a channel that shows one game but cuts to goals in other games. And obviously you can watch later, whether it's 15 minutes behind or 5 days.

Downside is I cant go to games and that is a huge loss. English-based fans might not have the tv coverage but don't forget what you do have.

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mate

5 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Spurs cant relaly complain about injuries now. Only bentacur, van de leen and maddison

To be fair if you asked any spurs fan to make a list of five players they don't want injured, those three would be on it.

Lol.