OutByEaster?

We've drawn most of 'em!

We're unbeaten at home so far this season in nine games. That's the longest unbeaten home start to a season in 26 years, in fact, since 1990 in a run that included Inter Milan on the way to a seventeen game unbeaten home start. Two things: I wanted to point it out I reckon we've a chance to get close to that seventeen game run - we're tough to turn over at Villa Park.

I think the region might well come apart as AWOL says, I think the Kurds are doomed because we'll take our traditional stance on things and make sure the Turks are kept happy. They're the buffer, they're geographically and politically important - we'll damn the Kurds to maintain that.

Over at their equivalent of this (where they're very polite by the way) they're convinced that Jedinak is a bluff and that he'll play (and also that he's filthy with his elbows which we haven't seen) - chaps, we've tried it once this season, it didn't work, he had to be subbed off early - he won't play.

If they are to be our future, we could do with signing RHM up sharpish, there are rumours of a January contract offer from Rangers. His is up in the summer.

Amavi is a doubt with his foot injury.

He's withdrawn from the French U21 squad with the foot injury he picked up in the Blackburn game. Helpfully it's nothing too serious.

Meh

If we go to three in midfield against Brighton, it might make it difficult for him to make the bench (if we assume Gestede and McCormack get on there ahead of him) - I think that would be an interesting test of his delicate return to fitness - he has two enemies, the potential for a proper setback like an injury and the idea in his head that he's made it back and can relax. He's an interesting test for the manager.

If this is as good as he gets, maybe he's not for us.

I always think it's probably better to make the good bit apply to more people than to bring everyone down to the same level. I'd be happy for the pensioners to keep the triple lock. I think what we need to be pushing for is a bigger minimum wage and better conditions for the young workforce of today - y'know, making the corporate structure pull its weight a bit. I realise that's laughably naive.

You spoke to soon. Today they're talking about removing the triple lock from pensions so that they can take some money off the pensioners too. Essentially, for this government anything that has public money is bad, full stop.

The ball for the goal was fabulous. Other than that he did okay in terms of closing people down and using his frame to intimidate people on the ball, but his general passing was dreadful and he's not got a great deal of mobility. Yesterday was a five out of ten performance with a single ten out of ten pass. I'm not convinced he's turned some sort of corner.

Some interesting selection problems for this one. The keeper and back four increasingly pick themselves - but I think we'll need three in the middle - you'd expect Gardner and Jedinak to be two of those, so either Tshibola or Westwood should come in (imo) - then up front there's a whopping great conundrum - pick three of these four - Kodjia, Ayew, Grealish and Adomah. For me I think at the moment Grealish is probably the man I'd drop out, but it's a toughie. It's also one I wouldn't be too surprised if we'll bottle by playing all four and weakening the midfield, personally I think that would be a mistake, but then I don't have 11 points from 5 games do i? Some of our problems are problems, some of our problems are great problems to have.

Where would the "d" in the "da" come from? I respectfully suggest that Chris Kamara has made a tit of himself again.

I think we've got a better footballer than we realise here - he's one of the three that can change games on his own (with Ayew and Kodjia) and should we reach a point where we start passing the ball I suspect we'll really see the best of him. He was good today, he helped change the pace, kept things calm and got us back into the game with the run that brought the penalty.

He's something this fella. if we get our balance right and get the team set up properly behind him, he could score an absolute sackful this season.

He did his ankle in scoring the second goal. He tried to carry on so hopefully nothing too serious.

Grafter.

We're the worst team ever to get eleven points from five games. Watching us repeatedly demonstrate our inability to pass the ball on a weekly basis this season has been a truly saddening experience. It stops us creating chances, it stops us gaining that little bit of confidence that comes with moving the ball, it stops us connecting as a team and it allows the opposition to feel like they're in control. It means our confidence drops away and as our belief falters and theirs grows it makes life more and more difficult in games - we become worse, giving it away more and more, becoming almost unwatchable, desperately digging in against a team at the bottom of the table because we've killed our own confidence in not being able to play the ball to another man in a Villa shirt. Thankfully, we've got some of the best players in the division - so whilst we can't pass the ball to save our lives, we can run at you and hurt you and we can win games on moments of genius - actually, quite a few moments of genius. Like Grealish running past three men and winning a penalty, or the incredible Kodjia turning a crossing opportunity into a shooting opportunity into a goal. In the likes of Kodjia, Grealish, Ayew and Adomah we have players that don't need passing to make goals - which means we can develop a certain confidence even when we're playing badly - which means we can be the worst team ever to get eleven points from five games. We'll struggle against some really bad teams this season and we'll beat some very good ones; we'll do this because we're as bad a footballing team as there is in the division but with a sprinkling of individuals that should be a division higher. It's like school football where the cool kid with the talent beats teams on his own and everyone else shuffles around or tries to get the ball to him. It's Sunderland with Messi. We're moderately successful at the back - Chester and Baker look a solid partnership, Hutton is more good Hutton than bad Hutton right now and Amavi had another very good game. In midfield, Gardner gives us half a midfield and he worked his socks off again today, Jedinak may only find a Villa man with one pass in every twenty, but the one pass tends to be a good un - they're neither of them as good in midfield as our defenders are in defence and they're from a different division to our front line - but we're somehow muddling through. Interesting set up for most of the game, with Grealish and McCormack up front, Kodjia down the left and Adomah down the right - seems the wrong way around, but kinda worked. Personally I'd rather see another midfielder in there (even if it's Westwood) and I still don't think McCormack is a good fit - but again, it held out. So, Steve Bruce - he's a genius. Or maybe he's very lucky. Or maybe he's being rescued by individual moments of talent. Or maybe he's cleverly set us up to do less of the things we're rubbish at and allow us more opportunity to do the things we're good at. I don't know. I don't care. We've eleven points from five games - he's doing good. If we were to buy the players that would enable us to play normal football in January, with the forward talent we have here, we could win fifteen on the trot. Sally can go on waiting as long as she likes.

Not seen that one. I've watched "The Mayfair Set" by him over the last few weeks which I've really enjoyed, there's a massive amount of modern history which seems to go completed unnoticed and completely unreported. I'm always really surprised by how much we don't know about the world we live in.

Move the road.

I'd like us to buy the land between the ground and the railway station, so that you can get off a train and walk down the steps off the platform into Villa Park via the impressive rear of a massive new Witton Lane stand. I'd like the area from the back of the North stand to Witton Island redeveloped with underground parking; a new office, shop and ticket office building, a museum and properly structured landscaping right across the North Stand car park with a pre-match (outdoor) pub and German market feel. I'd like the car park between the Holte Pub and the Holte End made level, with cars moved underneath and a fan garden area with another outdoor bar and food market on top. I'd like a ground that looks from the outside like some giant, dark satanic mill, like Tim Burton drew it, a Gaudi-esque masterpiece of Victorian brickwork, St Pancras station as a sporting edifice, the kind of place that has young children wondering what goes on inside, the kind of building that causes chaos on the M6 as people stare in awe, the kind of building that kids in Spain dream of visiting, that becomes the building that people associate with this city, our Eiffel Tower. From the outside, I want an ornate brick castle for a Victorian adventurer, on the inside I want a shiny explosion of light and chrome and colour and modernity. I want the spaceship from Close Encounters, crashed into the Albert Hall with a lush green pitch in the middle. I think I may have covered off the "being ambitious enough" thing. I think about this way too often.

The new Adam Curtis film 'HyperNormalisation' is absolutely amazing. I know it's a tough ask, but you should find three hours of your life for it. It's on the BBC iplayer.

In terms of how MP's will line up to vote on this, I can't remember if the referendum was counted on a constituency by constituency basis or by some sort of regional method. I'm thinking, if I'm the MP for an area of Sunderland and that area voted overwhelmingly in favour of Brexit, then as their MP I'd be duty bound (and with one eye on my next local election well advised) to back their choice and vote that way. If I was an MP for a constituency of Sunderland and personally in favour of remain, then even though Sunderland as a whole voted Brexit, I could claim my particular constituents were in favour of Remain and that I've spoken to them and they've agreed, so I'm just doing my job by voting Remain. If the original counting lines aren't aligned to constituency's then MP's have a lot of wriggle room, if not, they have very little. Or are both of those far fetched and I'll just vote the way that Theresa tells me or she'll have my knackers on a platter?