allani

That doesn't mean that the local residents will not face similar issues to those faced in Liverpool. Suddenly an extra 20,000 people tramping past their homes, parking outside their front gate, the extra exhaust fumes caused by more cars stuck in traffic jams, reduced access to sunlight (Liverpool have had to convert many properties into businesses because they are not subject to the same planning restrictions), etc. There's a whole heap of issues that need to be properly assessed. Of course the NS redevelopment plans had been approved but I'm not sure whether expanding any other stands wouldn't face significant issues. In which case spending a bucket load of cash that we might end up throwing away before we've even managed to break even on the project would be a pretty flawed approach.

Pretty sure that they started buying some of the properties well before 2014 too. So the timeline stated in the picture is pretty obsolete. The way they went about buying up properties is really not something that should be applauded or repeated if we do want to expand our current site. They've also had to convert some of the surrounding houses into business properties because those are not impacted by light restriction measures. If we do what Liverpool did then it is safe to say that most of Aston will despise Villa.

I agree. I think that Emery prefers McGinn higher up the pitch (thankfully!). Whilst McGinn is great at harrying opponents in their half of the field his defensive ability near our own box is limited. Moving him back into a 6 role not only detracts from McGinn's game but it also detracts from our defensive structure. It's not Tielemans best position either but I do think that he's better at filling in there. It is a big ask to put Tim into the role for the rest of the season - especially as it is a really important position with the way that we try and play the ball out of defence. I suspect he'll play more often than was probably the plan but I would still expect that he'll be coming off the bench for the last 15 - 20 minutes most of the time.

How many chances did we create at 1-1? The answer is an awful lot more than they did.

So you didn't watch and yet are happy to comment on the match you didn't see? We didn't deserve to lose today - the better team but we squandered four or five chances. 4-2 would have been a fairer reflection. If we play like this we will win a lot more matches than we lose.

Outplayed Utd and lost to a bad goal from the officials, a bad goal from the defence and we should have scored four in the second half. Unlucky that the shots we did all go well all hit their keeper. But play like that and we will win a lot more than we lose.

It wasn't marginal though - the guy was standing further offside and getting closer to being onside but never made it. If he'd broken past the defender then maybe but the linesman should spot that he never got back into an onside position before challenging for the ball.

Not sure how we are losing. Oh yeah - a **** ref and a linesman making a bad call for the first goal. The ref's best moment was "playing advantage" as Kamara was fouled three times and then lost the ball so that Utd could launch a dangerous counter-attack. As for Casemiro appealing like a pantomime clown for 45 seconds and not being booked for dissent or Fernandes doing the same - having dived two footed into a challenge - yet Lenglet then gets a yellow for calling for a yellow card when we're cynically prevented from launching a counter-attack. Nothing like consistency.

I don't think VAR can intervene for a corner. Weirdly if they score from the free kick it probably would have been disallowed because Casemiro tries to get the ball.

As soon as the offside corner was given I thought - here goes. Shocking decision as the guy was stood offside before the ball was kicked and never even tried to get onside.

I think I would be quite happy for Chelsea's season to start now. Their next league fixtures are: Palace, Man City, Spurs, Brentford, Newcastle and Arsenal. So there is some serious potential for them to take points off some of the teams around us. We are 15 points ahead of them with a 20 goal differential - so effectively that makes us 16 points clear - with 15 matches to go. It is highly unlikely that they will get more than 30 points from those games - which leaves us needing 14. We are apparently in terrible form and yet have gained 7 points from our last 5 matches. So if we continue as is then we finish comfortably clear. They'd need to get 38 points out of 45 and rely on us not finding some OKish form between now and the end of the season to be a threat. The biggest worry is them stealing a European place through one of the cups - so hopefully Liverpool do a number on them).

Remember that my comments are coming from a position where my introduction to Zaniolo was with his emergence at Roma. I have been a huge fan since - I thought he was showing 18 months ago that he'd returned to approaching his best from his nasty injuries - bearing in mind that the way Roma played under Mourinho was less suited to him than the way that they played before his injury. He got really badly treated by Mourinho and elements of the Roma fanbase because he wanted a new contract and turned down the first offer (which Mourinho took as a personal snub). He was probably THE most promising player I have ever seen break through the ranks of a team that I support. I know some people said when we were linked that his stats weren't that good (goals / assists) but that misses two key points (1) his age and (2) the number of shots that he had that resulted in goals for Roma that didn't get designated at assists (he led Serie A in both seasons before his injury). Remember this was a kid of 19 coming through one of top leagues in Europe - everyone here was talking about him either for Roma or for Italy. Yes he had faults (what player doesn't at 19) but he had seemingly everything he needed to be one of the best players in Europe. You don't get lauded by the likes of Mancini, Baggio and Totti unless you are seriously good. When we were first interested I ended my "assessment" of the potential signing as follows: I really want to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that the problems with the betting scandal, the hangover of his departure from Roma, arriving in a new country, being played out of position, etc could / should be mitigating circumstances that mean he could still come good. And he could. I am sure that he's over-thinking things and is probably putting too much pressure on himself. However, there's been precious few times when he's looked anything like the player he was. He was unlucky not to catch a couple of breaks early on but with Diaby and Bailey - even when they struggled, I think you could see that there was something there. It really pains me to say this but Zaniolo just looks lost. Can we afford to sign him permanently and hope that he finds himself? I'm just not seeing it - he seems to be struggling with every part of his game. I really want him to come good (for him and for Italy) but I have to say that I think the best thing for him now would probably be to return to Italy - probably on loan to a mid-table team who like to play on the break where he can be used it the same role he played when he started at Roma. It would be interesting to see whether that would help him recapture his confidence and then see how much form came back. Whether we (Villa) want to retain a position whereby if that happens we can try him again in the PL I don't know. It's still possible that everything clicks and he ends up at a top team in Serie A and claims a starting position with Italy. But I just don't quite see it working here unfortunately. That's a tough write - as I would have loved it for him to rekindle his career at Villa and be the player who made everyone want to go to Villa Park just to see him play (and so that @romavillan and I could then say every week "told you so"!!). I have everything crossed hoping that it comes good. But my head is saying that this is one of those gambles that hasn't quite come off and it's probably best for all parties to move on in the summer. It felt like a gamble that could be a 5/10 or a 9/10 - it looks distinctly like the latter. But I still think it was a good gamble to take. We're operating in a space where we have to try signings / loans like this - some won't work but we only need to land 1 and it could be transformational.

You could say the same about the other 9 outfield players. (Although I do have to admit that I wondered whether Luiz had fully recovered from whatever illness he had at the weekend) We don't really ever want Luiz sprinting around the pitch - he's our midfield conductor, controlling the ball and making the rest of the orchestra hum. Unfortunately when half the orchestra fail to turn up and keep playing dud notes - the conductor can look like a bit of a d1ck. But he had no outlet today - McGinn was awful, Tielemans was invisible and Ollie & Bailey had the deckchairs out after the first 15 minutes. We really miss the fact that before when Luiz had no options - he could always lay the ball back to Pau and change the angle. Passing the ball back to Carlos or Lenglet just seems to put us under more pressure. I know we all see the game differently. But I think there were plenty of other players who played a lot worse than him today.

Yeah he was terrible at the weekend only creating three goals. The trouble isn't Luiz - it's Tielemans and McGinn having awful matches and giving the ball away every time they got it. It meant that Chelsea could put two men onto Luiz as he was our only midfield threat.

My only possible solace from tonight is that so far this season every time we have lost we've gone on to win our next match. 3 points against Man Utd will put is in a great position in the league. I just hope the players remember how to pass and control a football as quickly as they seemed to forget tonight.

Kind of shows how bad the starting XI were. At least he scuffed it in. The rest of them kept scuffing it straight to Chelsea players.

The attackers have to hold their hands up too. Ollie's hardly made any runs in that first half - every time we have the ball he's stood next to the CB. Bailey's dropped back to try and get involved rather than pestering their back line. When the service is struggling you need to do more to try and create a chance - they (and Tielemans) have vanished. The whole team are playing too passively and are too static. Maybe they are focussed on the weekend's match?

It's the same line-up at the team that played great at the weekend. The problem is that we are playing our 4th and 5th choice centre backs - who look like fourth and fifth choice centre backs. McGinn and Tielemans have disappeared and so the only midfielder Chelsea have to worry about is Luiz - so they are crowding him out of the game. Ollie has barely broken into a sweat and is waiting for the ball rather than trying to make the runs he did at the weekend. We're static all over the park - I don't see how you can pin that on Emery. He's not told the players to stand still like statues (at both ends of the pitch).

You have massively oversimplified the viewpoints there. A lot of people have said that pausing the redevelopment makes sense (to them) at the moment because of the challenges with the FFP rules tightening over the next 2 seasons and that there are other ways that we can raise revenues in the meantime that don't require such a large investment. That isn't the same as your Option 1. Qualifying for the Europa League of the CL especially with the revised format coming in - earns far more additional revenue that adding extra seats. Given the FFP restrictions - I'd rather we maximise the money we can invest in the playing team in the short term rather than tie all the money up in a redevelopment project that either means we can't spend as much on new players as we would like and / or that we have to sell key players in order to fund it. That makes little sense (to me) in the short term. Ultimately, I do think we need to do a thorough assessment of whether VP can be expanded, how much of it needs to be (as a minimum) renovated and review all the options available. But given the FFP issues over the next 2 seasons or so - I'd prioritise the on field investment for now (6 - 8 European matches a season dramatically increases our annual match day income).

Couple this with the comments Heck made about the player's tunnel and wanting to make better use of it - I'm also certain that there is revenue to be made by doing that in terms of both fans paying to be in the tunnel pre / post games AND through additional sponsorship. I mean at the moment you might pay for a couple of strategically placed logos but if there's more made about that specific part of the stadium then why not sell naming rights over it. I doubt it is something that we've exploited that well - whereas it sounds like the kind of thing that Comcast / Atairos / Heck are much more acquainted with.

Just reading a bit more on this - the stadium is owned by Comcast who sold the naming rights to Wells Fargo. But a couple of interesting additions - some stadium features were funded by other companies - so for example the scoreboard was purchased by and branded as Comcast, I think all the HDTVs, etc (on concourses and in executive boxes) were also all paid for / sponsored by one of Comcast's partners. Also they changed their ticket provider from Ticketmaster to New Era Tickets - who are owned by..... Comcast. There seems to be just a few too many connections there for this to be coincidence...

I think the Philadelphia stadium is "owned" by Comcast - who have pretty tight connections with Atairos.....

Not at all. One of Ollie's faults in the past has been that in those positions he has either shot low or tried to beat the keeper. His lack of a "dink" finish has been discussed here many times. This allows keepers to set themselves so that they can stay low and then cover either the low shot or the attempted "go around". The fact that Ollie went for the dink (and tried it badly later on) will start to mean that keepers (and goalkeeping coaches) can't rule that out in the future - so it is one more "option" that they need to cover. The dink was almost perfect - the only possible criticism was that his instinct was to head to the corner flag to celebrate rather than follow his shot in (but his natural momentum was kind of taking him that way anyway). But as McGinn covered that off anyway it's a minor point. As a striker you need to have the keeper trying to cover as many options as possible as it is less likely that he can cover all of them and be trying to cover as many as possible there's more chance he's not perfectly set. The reverse is also true at the other end with Emi - he's so good at blocking with either foot, or his body and staying "tall" at the same time that he's always taking options away from the striker - there's no easy way of beating him and so he's immediately putting more pressure on the striker to find a "perfect" finish - which makes it more likely that they'll miss.

Next weekend is massive. A real 6 pointer for us against Man Utd. Win and we would be 11 points ahead of them with 14 matches to go. Whilst Utd are one of those teams that could string 6 or 7 wins together they are also the type of team that can just as easily string 2 or 3 defeats together. I can't see them scoring more than 25 - 30 points in those 14 games so that would leave us needing 20 to be pretty confident. So from that perspective a draw wouldn't be a bad result - leaving us an 8 point gap. So 25 points (2 points per game to be relatively comfortable) from the last 14. Lose and we've got a battle to regain momentum. On the same day West Ham play Arsenal. If we win and West Ham lose - we'll have at least an 11 point lead over the team in 7th. If Brighton don't beat Spurs on Saturday then that lead could be 13 points. I mean maybe draws in both of those other games would be ideal - but I think the dream combination would probably be wins for Spurs, Arsenal and us. That would establish a pretty big gap between the Top 5 in the table and the battle for 6th-9th. Whilst wins for West Ham and Brighton might help us in the battle for 4th - I think I'd prefer to get a step closer to fifth. Worst case would probably be wins for Utd, West Ham and Brighton as that makes the gap below us look a bit more insecure. 6th / 7th was my target at the start of the season. Hopefully by the end of next weekend we'll have a big gap to those places and can then focus on the battle for 5th and above. If we can claim a good FA Cup win in midweek (no injuries and not having to expend too much energy) then all the better. I just hope that we don't have an end-to-end belter of a cup tie that goes to extra time and penalties. A nice comfortable 2-0 home win would be perfect. Well actually two nice 2-0 home wins next week would be absolutely superb.

Ok - Dougie's assist for Ollie's goal was absolutely superb. But the ball through for Ollie that ended up with McGinn scoring was sensational too. I guess it no longer counts as an assist - which is a shame because they would easily double up as the best double assist of all time. But the actual assist - wow, just wow. I mean spotting the run was one thing but getting the ball to bend around the defender, allowing Ollie to run straight onto it and not have to worry about controlling the ball AND giving the keeper absolutely no chance to try and rush out and sweep up the danger.... Orgasmic.