skarroki

Luiz very far forward. Looks in hattrick mode.

Possible handball? Someone fallen asleep on the "VAR check" button in London?

Poor pass by Zaniolo but probably still has double vision. Incredible he's still conscious.

Thank god Zaniolo has come away from that with his skull intact.

Thank you. This was the point I was trying to make a few pages back which seemed to end up backfiring and get comments about me thinking I'm holier than thou. I get that she's going to get comments about her social media and I know that, as an example, Grealish has had comments thrown on here about his off-field antics throughout his time at the club. However, people like Grealish do get the old "he needs to do his talking on the pitch now" cliché thrown about, has a couple decent games and no-ones talking about him drink driving, breaking COVID rules a few times, passing out drunk in the street, cheating on whoever he's with at the time every time, etc etc etc. Lehmann gets her social media discussed and then a few weeks or even months go by without anyone even mentioning the appaearances, goals, assists she's getting for our side during a fantastic season. It's just about wow lots of followers, good presence online, good she's in the villa kit in her videos. People talk about her being popular on Tiktok like she's a sales rep for a night club in magaluf. Shortened version is, if I see Watkins not in the side I immediately come on Villatalk to see what's going on, if theres gossip, if he's injured and how long for and how people are feeling about it. If Lehmann is on the bench I come here and the thread is dead and there's nothing online to find. I never come here say when Dali and Pacheco weren't in the side because there's no point, the few people wanting to talk about it are shouting into void. Plus Dali and Pacheco don't even have their own threads despite being really good professionals, Dali a France international

They definitely won't end up with a plodder, they want someone to please the fans so it'll be someone with a good style of play.

Will hopefully be on TV on Friday for the game against Ipswich

Slightly confused, is the washed up, flop Jack Grealish being discussed in this thread the same as the one we sold to Man City, who was one of the best players last season for one of the best teams in the history of British Football? Who won a historic treble? I guess 8 games is enough to unequivocally say "I told you so" after 2 years of success. He was brilliant for us and so fun to watch. He's definitely gone on and improved as a footballer since, he's obviously not doing what he did for us, but that's because he's not a treble winning player in a championship standard team that he loves, he doesn't need to single-handedly drag his team up the pitch and into the box because they'll slowly get there and he's following the tactics and teachings of a brilliant manager. I don't think him sticking around would have meant we'd have seen a better player. I don't know if we'd have done that much better, if we'd eventually sacked Smith and brought in Gerrard and my lasting memory was not Grealish helping us beat Liverpool 7-2, or scoring that goal against West Ham, but playing under Gerrard before forcing a move to Chelsea or somewhere, that would have been an awful end in comparison. Both him and the club have gone on to far bigger and better things which is great. I'd have him back in a heartbeat and I have no doubts he'll play for us again before retirement.

I listen to the NTT20 pod, What the EFL pod and the Square Ball that is Leeds main fan podcast. They've all recently discussed Millwall and Rowett and the consensus seemed to be he'd completely lost the fanbase who were sick of the bad football despite the decent results on paper over the course of his time there. Seemed to be the thought that the players at his disposal would do better with a different style of play but he was being too one dimensional and sticking to his standard way of playing. I personally didn't know Rowett was a Villa fan and I'm a bit disappointed. Found his comments pretty unsavoury on a few occasions, gave a cold take on players taking the knee and other times that I can't remember off the top of my head.

Salmon blows my mind. Feels like she was making an impression through the academy ages ago, just checked and it was the 17-18 season, and she's still only 22! Her goalscoring record is pretty impressive for such a young player, I bet getting to work every day with someone like Daly now must be a dream. I assume she's not truly "one of our own"? Her Dad sounds about as Brummie as is possible but she talked about "the club" and other distant terms when referring to Villa in her signing video, wasn't talking like she was a fan growing up.

Poor attempt at a joke from me, just that we seemed to spend a couple seasons asking if any potential signing or even new member of the backroom could play left back. In Rachel's case, yes she actually can.

Feels like we're the equivalent of Forest in the late 80's, outside the top 2, great team but still miles off investment wise from matching those top teams, top manager too. The teams below have ambitions and will start to test us and make every week a difficult game.

Credit to @useless after seeing his post and agreeing to the sentiment. Here's a short video of an interview after winning PFA players POTY award: Seems to be enjoying life here and talks about coming back to England to be closer to family, which maybe helps to ease fears from the rumours of her returning to the US that rumbled along in the summer. If you'd asked me who her idol was, even knowing she's a Yorkshire lass it would have taken me weeks to guess Mark Viduka.

Rachel Daly of Aston Villa, a fantastic footballer, golden boot winner, PFA Players' player of the year award winner, England international, the answer to the quiz question "can they play left back" Not seen a topic of a footballer started recently after they've signed so here's a video of 20+ goals to prove she's signing for us.

@useless do you think Carla will stay long term? I can't see us getting rid of her even if results aren't going well because I don't think there's anyone better out there and this feels long-term what we're building, she's partly the face of it all I feel like. I read recently that we have one of the smallest budgets in the WSL? Is this true and has the club given a reason why they're not investing properly in the team? It's a fear I have since hearing it that Carla will think she's gone above and beyond what's acheivable at the club if they're not going to increase funding to align with the increase in stature, good cup runs and high league position finishes.

Never thought it was true anyway

He's had a long interview on the " Not the Top 20" podcast today, he comes across very well, you can tell he's media trained. Sounds like he's enjoying his loan and talks about things that he wanted to work on during this loan spell. Gets directly asked if he'll stay at Stockport all season because he's moved clubs in January last two seasons and just does a politician style duck and roll out of it so that debate can continue for another few months.

Bottom centre for me. I don't mind what the badge looks like around the ground, on sky sports and FIFA. Just give me that lion on the shirt, without the star and 1874 underneath next season.

I would agree and personally I would rather have Watkins up front, especially for Villa. But I think Toney's presence up front means the ball sticks better, if he improves his passing then he'll be even better. I think a lot of big clubs are linked because they see how impressive he's been and believe they can improve on that with better team mates around him. I think another thing in Watkins favour is how good he is off the pitch and how little is spoken of him, he's a model pro.

Had a really difficult start with the fixtures but if we could hold on here or even take a point, I'd have snatched for that start of the season. Put it behind us, get Dali back fit and Hanson back from suspension and start getting some points and momentum. I've seen them talking about the Arsenal bench being good but Nobbs, Leon, Lehmann and Salmon is a great set of players to choose from. If anyone's starting to look shaky in the back 5 I'd think it would be best to throw one of them on and go more attacking, sneak a second

I've already responded to most of what you said in my original post so rather than retreading that I'll just leave you to your own opinions. If you think I'm on my high horse for saying can we talk about a footballer playing football, in the football section of a football forum, good for you.

As much as I want Watkins in the squad I think based on the ability Toney has shown he should be 2nd choice behind Kane. I think Wilson is 3rd choice in a lot of people's eyes and he does perform very well but his legs are made of shatterproof rulers. Watkins is indestructible and good so I think he has to go, he's a safe bet and not much of a downgrade if at all on other options.

Rinse and repeat the same conversation over and over and over and over and over again. She is popular on Instagram. There's a lot of thirsty men who know about her. A lot of people think we only have her in the team because of her insta follow count and some people realise that she's actually a legitimate professional footballer who plays in the world's most competitive women's league, for a team that finished 5th and gets called up to her national team. Just pin this and close the thread if this is all we're going to do. When was the last post in here about how she played in the most recent game? I suspect those posts are outweighed by "this is good PR" posts 20 to 1. I hope none of you are involved in PR if you think that is how this works. We can't sell more than 12,500 tickets for a 43,000 capacity stadium with the women's golden boot winner and someone with 45 million followers. If she's signed for PR reasons we've well and truly sh** the bed. I would wager 12,400 of the 12,500 minimum would have gone regardless of whether or not she was there. People with 1% of her following could get a room filled at a conference or a stadium several times a year. If there's anything to do with PR in her contract she's in breach of it because she's not doing enough to promote the team. She's doing the normal amount a football player at the club would do. The undertones of it all stink of "sex sells" as well, which I don't think is the way a women's football club think in 2023. Maybe West Ham but that's what you get when you make your money from porn and then hire your son to manage the "ladies" because you don't care about how that team performs. I'd like to think we're above that as a club and fanbase.