skarroki

3 minutes ago, AntrimBlack said:

The decision to move Philogene, Ramsey and Archer out does not seem so smart now.

Yes, it would have been much better to have been hit with a points deduction for breaking FFP rules and keeping 3 championship quality players we got £40+ mil for sat in reserves until throwing them into these massive end of season games and hoping for miracles. 

Also from another commenter, poor to let Dendonker go, the guy was as much a liability as Tim but on 5x the wages and didn't want to be here. 

People acting like an injury ravaged squad limping into the champions league and at least a cup semi final is beginning to look like a poor performance by the manager because he hasn't used hindsight enough to make us still look like world beaters 50+ games into the season. 

This used to be us every week for 15 years, maybe just take a couple poor performances  on the chin and get behind the team for a hopeful miracle Thursday. 

Also Konsa bad at right back? It's a bad performance not a fundamental error. He was acceptable at RB when we put in the best performance against Pep anyone's ever seen on our 14th home win in a row 

I think Olsen is leaving and I think Marschal and Sinisalo will be gone too. Martinez, Gauci and one of the younger lads coming into the under 21s will be our 3 next season (think we've had Proctor on the bench a few times?)

Martinez wants to win everything and he doesn't want to sit on a bench when we're trying for trophies, we're Unai's Aston Villa now not a Steve Bruce "half arse the cups and glad if we go out" attitude, where any keeper will do because conceding isn't a bad thing. 

I've said it several times before but will repeat it till the cows come home, it baffles me how much people get fixed on the idea of us having some worldie backup. If we upgrade as much as some people suggest on Olsen they'll be one of the best backup keepers in world football. And they'll be massively cheesed when we go into February and they haven't seen a blade of grass. How do you sign someone with them knowing, all being well they will never play, but if they do they'll be immediately dropped no matter their performances as soon as Martinez is fit. 

Gauci is 24 by the time the new season rolls around, we've clearly signed him thinking he'll do a job for us when called upon. Otherwise we've signed him because we're planning to farm him out on loan and eventually make a good profit. 

22 hours ago, Zatman said:

Maybe an unpopular opinion but I think specific club podcasts are more interesting when the team is struggling

Only so many times you can hear how great Unai is

Very much this. Although living in Leeds I started listening to the square ball and this season it has been fun to follow along. It has been much more fun to follow during the recent collapse however and the copium, especially as they're self-aware. 

I enjoy listening to "podcasts" like the kick off just because some of their "opinions" are so obviously not even what they think, just throwing out controversy to generate outrage in the comments. Particular highlight of that pod is how much credit Monchi gets for building this squad whenever they accidentally touch on Villa. Clearly just had a look at staff names and decided to credit everything on him without checking how recently he joined. 

2 hours ago, duke313 said:

Why not?  Two good seasons as more or less starting RB for a team finishing in European spots and 3 years left on his contract.  We should be looking £25m at the absolute minimum for Cash.

It actually blows my mind how much Cash plays for us. I feel like whenever I hear about him people are complaining that he's back in the side or we're waiting on him to return from injury. I would have added him to the list of people we've missed a lot this season. The guy has had minutes in 43 games so far. 

18 minutes ago, It's Your Round said:

 

...

1874 - I’ve listened to Dan Bardell’s views ever since Villa View started, and I don’t mind him now. What I do mind is that he perseveres with Gregg Evans still. I get why but I can’t abide him so don’t listen when he’s on. Jacob Tanswell on the other hand, I’ll always listen to him. He’s like the anti-gregg.

...

I dabble with the Athletic podcasts, Tifo and other general football discussion shows. But they mostly focus on the ‘big six’ which is boring. Villa come up occasionally but it’s rare that the commentator gets us. I am a fan of Football Cliches though, that always gets a listen. 

Just wanted to respond to both of these. Dan can surely see cliff face drop-off in listener's every pod he does where Gregg appears alongside him. When you say "I get why" what is the reason? I genuinely don't understand why someone so uncharismatic, unconnected and not a Villa fan would be regularly turning up to do a podcast about us. Blows my mind. 

I really like Jacob but I've clicked off so many videos seconds in now that I don't get the videos showing up in my feed anymore, YouTube has learned. Also Ornstein et al focusing purely on big clubs means I've unsubscribed from the athletic and don't get to enjoy Jacob's writing anymore either. 

Football cliches I think is brilliant and it's nice to have something out there so removed from biases towards clubs or leagues or anything, just straight up funny football chat. 

The cadence of David Ornstein gets under my skin like no other person and I don't know why.

Listening to a podcast with him on could be turned into a bingo card.

Drink when he says the exact sentence "but we'll come on to talk about that later" even though he's never hosting.

Drink when he name drops a person completely unrelated to the question and also when he announces their job title or position too.

Drink when he starts with "look" talking on a non-visual medium.

Bonus round during the transfer window, drink when he agrees to go on a podcast but then stands up and walks out on the phone within minutes just to prove how busy and important and connected he is. 

Drink when he plugs an exclusive the athletic did on something or someone, as if he's got a controlling stake in the company.

Double shot when that exclusive lasted seconds, before being reported throughout all other media. He'll make it out like anyone who doesn't read the athletic is oblivious to this exclusive information. 

Also his reporting on Villa seems to always come around Unai so I assume the contact the athletic have is connected to the manager from his Arsenal days, rather than anyone in the club. 

As big a loss as Martinez feels, as long as we get through to the final he's back for that, I can live without him in our last 3 games. Spurs will probably go out there way to make 4th spot easy to hold onto and we've won games with Olsen in the sticks before. He's not a bad keeper he's just a dropoff from Martinez. 

When he made that save from Palmer when one-on-one I did think, this guy would be lauded as a huge upgrade back when we were choosing between Nyland and Reina and others. He's unlucky in that he plays understudy to an incredible player, person and presence. 

I don't think I've been this nervous for a league game in my lifetime, going to be like this every week now. Might be the first time that I've spent more focus and worry on the bench than the starting XI. 

Getting on the bench twice in row, must have got the attention of the staff. Especially surprising seeing as our bench was already 90% defenders 

Come on Jhon you know it makes sense 

On 02/04/2024 at 12:27, Villa_Vids said:

Pop at Grealish.

I don't think its that and it's also a very easy thing to say when we're heading towards the top 5 with Emery.

If Gerrard was still here and we were hoping for Coutinho and Henderson to be fit enough to play 45 minutes in our fight to finish 15th, I don't think Emi would be saying that because I don't think he'd even be here. 

It's a nice thing to read and to think if a big team come in with an offer his head wouldn't turn now, but I think every footballer would agree it means more to play Champions League with a less favoured team, just a lot of the people who agree with Emi will do that whilst sat on the bench earning the same as him for a Milan club or Munich or someone. 

12 minutes ago, peterwithethewinner said:

If we start Duran and Zaniolo..we’ll be down to 9 men after 20 mins due to 2 red cards!!

Duran only has one red card, in Chicago two years ago. Zaniolo has four over 150 competitive games. 

Do they have no discipline in your opinion or will City pay the ref to send off players coming into the starting XI? Not sure what the suggestion is from your post. 

2 hours ago, AVTuco said:

This will be a nice match to watch, as you can just enjoy the game without any nerves.

This for me only applies if they score twice in the first ten minutes and then the rest of the game is close. 

If there's even a sniff of getting something out of this I'll be a wreck, if we get walked all over I'll find it painful and watch something else 

Think he'll end up being the reverse of Barkley, storming the last section of the season, couple of small injuries and patchy form at the start of the season. 

I'm in two minds, putting aside his comments and personal life and just treating him based on him being a footballer.

I don't think he's done enough to warrant a transfer at the moment, and if he does continue to improve up to the end of the season then he will still maybe not have done enough over the full season.

However, if he does continue to improve then there will be signs that he's going the right way and worth whatever price Monchi can negotiate. Then it becomes a case of seeing if there's any room for him once Buendia is back. 

2 minutes ago, UpTheVilla26 said:

That's not a red. 

I've seen tackles like that in the Prem plenty of times that only warrant a yellow. 

The reaction from the Spurs bench and Udogie fully swayed the ref. 

 

You haven't unless you're going back pre-VAR and even then those tackles wouldn't go in the modern game. 

He's starting to show the form of Mings for me now, one of the things I hated most about Mings. Solid and unspectacular for 80% of his minutes, noticeably good for 15% playing good passes, great tackles and generally showing quality, then 5% of the time, almost every game, he just completely loses his marbles and does something to put us in massive danger. The only reason it's not costing us as much as Mings used to is because everyone else in the squad has stepped up now so others can bail him out, Mings was usually the one trying to bail others out when he did something calamitous. 

Edit: I should add by solid and unspectacular I mean relatively speaking for a top half Prem CB, I do think both players are very good and don't really want to replace either in our squad. Ideally I'd want them both as backups with Torres having a new CB partnership next season and Carlos, Chambers, House et al out of the club. 

3 minutes ago, AshVilla said:

Finishing 6th and missing out on CL would be a disaster for this football club.

Were then not talking about selling one key player in the summer to keep in line with FFP it will be 2 or 3.

 

 

Tell me what's wrong with the modern game without telling me what's wrong with the modern game. 

13 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

Said in the match thread it's a lower Sunday league tackle you'd expect from a hungover fat guy 

It's a dirty put one on him tackle 

I agree, although if someone tried that on me on a Sunday morning I'd have reacted a lot worse than Udogie did. I'd like to think I'm leaving the Sunday league pitch capable of walking into the office on Monday. 

4 minutes ago, jimmygreaves said:

It should have been a yellow. It was a tactical foul. Even the match commentator was surprised when the red card came out.

The player wasn't hurt, there was no intent to cause harm. Watch it back....

A harsh call from the ref.

Players don't react to "no intent to cause harm" challenges and you had players running from all over the pitch to tell McGinn what they thought of that. 

100 times out of 100 that tackle causes harm because there's no way it wouldn't. 

Don't think he got the game plan wrong we just got undone by a great goal with their first shot on target, then Konsa and Tielemans just pointing and passing at the worst place on the pitch to misplace a pass minutes later. 

Game gone before Emery could react and then soon as Emery does start project salvage, McGinn "Leroy Jenkins" his way straight through a player in front of the ref, 4th official and staff and we've got half an hour to go knowing we've got close to 0 chance of sorting anything. 

Players look knackered, injuries has meant no rotation all season and it's starting to show. We've played more games already than Spurs will all season and we've still got 12 to go if we can get through midweek in Europe. 

11 minutes ago, Amed said:

Seen way worse challenges where only yellow given - wasn’t even off his feet. Stupid but 3 game ban for that is harsh. 
 

 

Do that to the average bloke in the street and you'd be calling an ambulance. He's t-boned him both going full speed in different directions. 

Lucky he didn't do damage otherwise we'd be waiting to see if it was only 3 games

6 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

If that’s red there should be one most games.

Behave

2 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

I think we'll be 8th-9th in the league this time next season so this forum will be an interesting place if that happens especially if we have to sell a key player in the summer.

I don't think playing one season in CL will be this transformational moment everyone thinks it will be. You need to be making it four seasons out of five and that's a very big ask.

 

1. Thinking we'll be 8th in the league next season when there are 19 other teams who will have their squads changed and there's still months to go in the current season is a weird take. Almost like a coping mechanism after a heavy defeat to a top 4 rival. 

2. If you want to finish in the top 4 for 4 of 5 seasons, you need to start by finishing in the top 4 once in 30 years. Let's do that first and celebrate it as the amazing achievement it is and see if we can kick on or maintain after. 

2 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

Tbh Emery did lose his bottle today. 5atb at home against Spurs is cowardly and pathetic tbh 

Careful with your hyperbole there you're not leaving much room to get more angry.