John

Milner will go where the money is and that will not be to us. I enjoyed his time with us as I'm sure did Leeds fans before us. But he is unlikely to return to Villa Park unless he does so near the twilight of his playing days in the way Barry was linked with possibly doing before he signed for Everton.

Source: Player Match Ratings: Is it safe?

No, we are probably not quite safe yet. But, it seems highly unlikely that the bottom two will be able to catch us now. We might have enough points on the board already. Another point or three would probably do it for us. But with the sort of results we have seen recently nothing can quite be taken for granted yet. Our objective is now to stay ahead of a minimum of one of the four teams that are immediately below us. I think given our recent terrific form we are more than capable of doing that. Everton came into this game unbeaten in their previous 6 league games, having won 5 of these and also having not tasted defeat against us since 2010. They were below their best in the first half but we never quite finished them off. Our opponents refused to accept defeat in the meek way that other teams have done of late to teams who are embroiled in the relegation battle with us. We twice stretched our lead to two goals yesterday but our opponents came back twice to bring themselves within a goal of us and to threaten to take a point against the run of play. Everton in the 200th league game between the two teams were a clear threat to us when they pushed forward in the second half to pressurise a defence that has let other teams back into games all too often this season. So our win was not as comfortable as it might have been and the final whistle could not come soon enough against tenacious opponents who were aided and abetted by some very debatable decisions by yesterday’s referee. Quite how we ended up with two players booked and Everton with just one does beggar belief. But Clattenburg who was born in Consett, Co Durham and now lives in Gosforth, Newcastle-upon-Tyne was for some inexplicable reason very reluctant to react to strong challenges on both Delph and Grealish. He also ignored Given’s appeal for a free kick when their late second was scored to the extent that our keeper was given a booking and showed not the slightest of hesitation when awarding them their penalty. But our resilient team were not to be denied the three points we so desperately needed and so very much deserved yesterday. I have to add that I enjoyed the humour of the Everton fans early on when they turned and applauded us as we sung of going to Wembley having beaten their local neighbours to get there! My player ratings from a game that left us still 2 points clear of Sunderland who occupy the third of the relegation places and moved us up to 14th spot having leapfrogged Leicester, Hull and Newcastle in doing so are: Shay Given – 7 – Provided something of a calming influence on a defence that can be prone to fretfulness when put under pressure. Shay’s distribution of the ball was solid other than once in the first half when he dwelt on the ball a little too long and ran the risk of losing it on the edge of his box. Shay was not frequently tested on his return to league action. But he touched a Lukaku shot wide of the post after a strong run from inside his own half from the striker on 47 minutes and almost got a hand to Lukaku’s 59th minute penalty that went in just inside the post. Reached up to claim an effort from the same player on 63 minutes and was very unfortunate to concede a second when being impeded on the line by Coleman as he tried to reach Jagielka’s 92nd minute header that went in off the crossbar. Leandro Bacuna – 7 – Hit a sublime inch perfect pass to claim a big assist for our third and hit a free kick from 30 yards on 15 minutes that Howard needed to push away at the foot of his post. Jores Okore – 7 – Had a decent game yesterday alongside Ron. Ron Vlaar – 6 – Had a free header from a 29th minute Grealish corner but put the ball well wide of the far post. Touched Naismith’s heel inside the box and the Evertonian gleefully hit the deck to claim the penalty that brought them back into the game on 59 minutes. There is a lot of responsibility on our two central defenders at the moment in holding this defence together as a unit. Kieran Richardson – 6 – Another decent performance from Kieran. Tom Cleverley – 9 – His best game in our shirt and he has been a revelation of late. He needs to stay with us next season and win his England place back with us. Tom worked tirelessly throughout and also claimed a second goal in two matches. Bacuna played a perfect ball through to him that Barry was unable to intercept on 64 minutes. His run in the space between two defenders was perfectly timed and his finish was so sweet. That third was so necessary and so timely coming so soon after their first which lifted them and would have deflated us earlier in this season. Ashley Westwood - 8 – Worked very hard and again played an important role in securing another win. He undoubtedly has a big future with us for me. Fabian Delph – 9 – Another fabulous all round midfield performance from Fab. Jack Grealish – 8 – Jack was always available to receive the ball and had an effort from inside the box deflected wide for a corner. His confidence is growing with each game and he is a real headache for defenders. Charles N’Zogbia – 7 – Another very encouraging performance. He left the field to a standing ovation when substituted and who would have predicted that happening earlier in the season? Christian Benteke – 9 – MOTM – He now has 11 goals from his last 9 matches and is unplayable in this sort of form and with his current level of confidence. Headed our opener on 10 minutes when Delph aimed a perfect ball to him and he hung in the air between two defenders before powering his header past Howard. Added a second on 45 minutes when a Grealish corner took the slightest of touches off Vlaar’s head that put it past the defenders behind him and found Christian unmarked at the far post to put the ball in. He has done so much to keep us in the top flight and we really cannot afford to see him leave in the summer as he is simply irreplaceable. Substitutes: Carlos Sánchez – 6 – Replaced Westwood on 75 minutes. Did a decent job in the short time he had on the field. Alan Hutton – Replaced Bacuna on 81 minutes making a welcome return from injury but Alan was not on long enough to gather a rating. Joe Cole – Replaced N’Zogbia on 90 minutes. Joe did not have enough time to merit a rating. Stay up the Villa! John Lewis

Welcome Toffeenose. I have always found Evertonians to be tough opponents but fair and decent fans.I very much enjoyed the banter with many of them in pubs before our three LCFs in 1977. The humour was very evident then as it was when Everton fans turned and clapped when we sang of going to Wembley today - how sorry we both must be that your neighbours will not be making the same trip! Your boys kept coming back at us today and never knew when they were beaten which was a credit to them. I would have taken a point before the game but all three were needed in hindsight given so many teams around us seem to be getting unexpected results. 200 up and looking forward to the next 2 games in 2015/16.

There are positives at the club now such as Fox & Sherwood and with a FA Cup Final to look forward to as well as another season in the top flight (when that is secured) our stock is high. The delay in our sale may be due to our current ongoing threat of relegation or to Randy either looking for the right owner or the right price for us. I doubt he has had a change of heart about selling us but we appear to be in a better position now than when he made the decision to go and that should attract the right sort of buyers at the right price one day.

Liverpool clearly were in no mood to do us any favours tonight. 4 points will still see us stay up and we can get them. As Corporal Jones often said "Don't Panic".

Why? You can't magically get a season ticket or go to extra games. The only reason I can see the need to know this is to decide whether to attend the next 2 games. Even if they did supply the numbers it's futile because not 100% of people who are eligible will go. I expect once tickets are on sale the ticket office will keep us informed of any criteria changes as they did for the semi. I think they have done the criteria the way they have and have the cut off point at 7 at the minute as that will be virtually the allocation done. I can offer extra reasons dn1982. I would like to know whether my son who has a booking history of 12 has a hope of getting a ticket and if so, I will wait to buy my own (I qualify on day 1) so we can sit together. I'm sure others would like to know how likely it is that tickets will be available on the day that their booking history will click in. I hope you are right and that there will be tickets on 13/5. But a little more information which I hope will come out sooner rather than later would ease the concerns of a lot of Villa fans.

Neither? The myth that Randy is making money from Aston Villa continues He was not "making money" but he was taking money back that had previously been spent on these players and a bit more on top (it was once called "profitable player trading" at our club). This reduced the gap between overall spending on players and income from player sales at the cost of performance on the field but not to the extent that he has added to his wealth during his time as our custodian. So basically, nothing like you said first time around at all? Instead you meant to say "The money was used to help keep the club afloat financially". That Randy, what a heartless bastard! No that is not what I meant to say.I do not consider our current custodian to be a heartless B** either. He tried to spend in order to make us a CL club which would have made that money very well spent given the impact it would have had on the value of the club he had bought, When that did not work because Manchester City and to a lesser extent Spurs had deeper pockets he then took a very big risk in order to try to balance the books with a view to a sale and by balancing the books he will get a larger amount of his money back when selling than he would have done had he replaced like for like. But this is water under the bridge now. We are looking at the summer window now rather than at Randy (who may have left by then) and I like others would like to bring in players to add to a team that includes Benteke rather than to look for replacements for him if that proves to be possible.

If Nursey's original story is correct, then we are their first choice with Albion as the fall-back option should we drop. That would be a big fall back!

Neither? The myth that Randy is making money from Aston Villa continues He was not "making money" but he was taking money back that had previously been spent on these players and a bit more on top (it was once called "profitable player trading" at our club). This reduced the gap between overall spending on players and income from player sales at the cost of performance on the field but not to the extent that he has added to his wealth during his time as our custodian. I just do not want to see Benteke leaving in the way these players did if at all possible.

We need to stop being a "selling club" and the line needs to be drawn now before Benteke like Barry, Milner, Downing and Young before him leaves us to make us a lesser side than we were before the transfer happened.

£30m + & Lambert would most likely see a deal happen. But only if we do not win the FA Cup, Benteke wants away at the end of the season, Tim cannot persuade him to give us another season at least and we do not get a new owner in that would see Benteke as a player we cannot afford to lose at any price. Benteke is a player whose goals have kept us in this division to date. He will take a lot of replacing and we should be looking to build a team around him rather than to sell him. Did we replace Barry, Milner, Young or Downing like for like or did selling them help our owner's bank ballance but see us facing bottom 6 rather than top 6 from then onwards?

4 more points should do it and if we cannot get that with 3 home games to come then we cannot blame anyone for our relegation other than Palace, Stoke.....

Tim did his own version of the "Do you want to bet against us?" from Ron Saunders when he was interviewed post match by the BBC below "What we play like that and we'll get relegated. You're having a laugh ain't you?" http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/32468787

It would be great if the club could supply some figures concerning: How many tickets are being made available to fans of the original 25,000 allocation. How many current ST holders we have. How many Villa Cash members we have (ST holders could be deducted from that figure). How many fans have a 4 + Cup booking history (excluding ST holders). How many fans have an 8+ game history. I guess those figures were used to set the sales criteria so they should be available. This would enable fans to get some idea of how likely they may be to get a ticket on the understanding that this information could not be said to guarantee their right to a ticket which would still be subject to availability. Or the club could just say we expect there will still be some tickets available at the start of 11th, 12th or 13th May for example.

John I think you are being too kind. I don't know any "true" Villa fan who could make such a mistake. That he may "prefer" Villa due to the Dugdale family connection I accept, but his remarks show him to be A fraud. Happy to be considered as being "too kind" Mike. His late uncle took him to Villa Park and he has been a fan or had a preference for us over other football clubs in the years since then. I would see him as more of a fan than say Tom Hanks for example but less of a fan than both of us by some very considerable distance. He has said a lot about us in the past that was positive and that outweighs this one off remark for me. But I trust we can agree to differ on how serious this slip up is in the grand scale of things Mike.

I do not consider it is in any real doubt that he is a Villa fan. I guess his speech writer may have got this one very wrong and he had not realised what he had said was not quite the case until after he had said it. I think other politicians may have done the same once or twice in the past.

I bought Everton , West Ham and Burnley all in one go this morning ... They make no difference to my criteria though. I qualify the day after the Villa cash guys. But yeah, Burnley is on sale. Thanks got my son his Burnley ticket now. I hope I can do the same for the Final. It is. It would suggest there will be a hell of a rush on that day if there are still tickets and I would have thought it better for the ticket office to space these out a little and STHs a little less. I wonder how many have been to 8+ (possibly less than we would all think from this decision)?

I pray you are right! So do I but I'm not sure the tickets will last until the start/end of the last day. We can but hope.

I don't think the Burnley tickets are on sale yet.

For the semi-final I was told there were enough tickets to accommodate all of the criteria first published. I'm not so sure on this one but no doubt they have done the math at the ticket office or I guess they would have asked for say a 16+ and a 12+ booking history on the last 2 days. It would help a lot if we had an idea on how far down the table this might go with a view to holding back to be able to sit with others but I can understand the club would be plagued by complaints if tickets dried up before they had said they would.

Details on Villa site now on sale from Tuesday going down to + 7 booking history on 13/5.

Still no ticket news on the club's site. If they go on sale on Sunday it would be nice to know who to.

I would take a point but 12/1 might prove to be another high price that the bookies come to regret offering.against us.

I have heard Wolves fans say that he might do well as an impact player say coming off the bench for us and that he may thrive on not getting the sort of challenges he currently attracts from lower league defenders as well as by possibly getting a little more space than he is now allowed. On a free he may well be worth a look if his wage demands are reasonable.