allani

Aren't they officially the main sponsors for the UEFA Euro Championships in the summer? Which does make me question why it's OK for UEFA to use them and yet not clubs in UEFA competitions... I can't believe that the Betano element of all the Euros branding is blocked in those countries where gambling sites aren't permitted on shirts - but maybe they are doing that.

Let's ask that question after we announce our massive stadium sponsorship deal with Coke in the summer and them taking a minority ownership stake in VSports.

My gut feel is that Emery's "reward" will be less about pay and more about further cementing his commitment to Villa and Villa to him - as in I can see him getting some level of "ownership" within the club / VSports. I'm sure his pay will improve but I've said for a while that I think the club and Emery are looking longer-term and more interested in a Wenger style legacy.

To be fair I've seen more of the people on Talksport explain why Emery won't leave Villa when fans of other clubs have phoned in and mentioned how he should be top of their club's shopping list. Simon Jordan has said multiple times that Emery doesn't just have the manager job at Villa and that he's got a unique position that other clubs just can't offer. I think Jordan was one of the first "outsiders" to really get what NSWE are trying to do; to understand their ambition, determination to succeed, prior business success and wealth; he's understood the role that Emery has; he's got why Monchi was an important addition and he's explained the challenges that we will have breaking the strangehold of the Top 6 (which aren't that Emery / Monchi will get poached, that NSWE won't back them or that players aren't 100% bought into how Emery makes them better - but are about how entrenched the Top 6 are in terms of the protection that FFP gives them and the advantage they got of exploiting the money pre-FFP which clubs now can't do). He's a bit up himself and I think he's way off on some of his ideas / beliefs - but I think he's had a good grasp at what is happening here for a while.

Only because Southgate is a ****. He'll take 12 right backs but only consider 1 striker.

To be fair Rogers deserves a lot of credit too. He's clearly paid a lot of attention to what Emery and the coaching team are telling him and he's putting all of that into his performances. He was brilliant going forwards today but he was also very good at retaining possession when the time called and defended well too. At one point in the second half he touched the ball in the LM, CF, RW and LB positions in the space of about 40 seconds. I almost started to think that he must have an identical twin....

I am not sure that we'd be able to give him the playing time he wanted (but hopefully we will have a big European football carrot to wave in his face) but I think Solanke would enjoy playing in an Emery team. Would give us a bit more aerial threat against teams that play really deep. I'm not sure that Rogers and Duran couldn't fill the hole eventually but Solanke would slot in almost immediately. I'm sure Solanke will probably want to be a guaranteed starter but if we could persuade him that he'd get enough time for us and also get some minutes in Europe then it might be a good option. It is crazy that he's not even in the discussion for a place in the England squad.

Gave him MOTM today. Slightly ran out of steam towards the end but in that spell between us being 0-1 down and then 3-1 he was absolutely unplayable. I think he and Watkins are going to form a great partnership next season. And dare I say that he might become Ollie's replacement when Ollie eventually hangs up his boots?

Time to buy me an Arsenal scarf. Two wins for the Gunners next week would be excellent news for us.

Bournemouth have scored more points since the start of November than Spurs or Man Utd. That puts the result into some context.

Brilliant. Brilliant. And thrice more brilliant today. That match had banana skin written all over it in big letters - especially after we conceded the penalty. But from that moment on we were absolutely superb. Another of those matches where to be honest MOTM could have gone to any of about 5 players - Konsa, Tielemans, Rogers, Watkins and Torres were all imperious. I went for Rogers in the end. What a player he looks like becoming. The perfect foil for Ollie.

Although again that would assume that his behaviour (if it even does change during a game) changes in a very different way to other keepers. I would imagine that most teams "slow play down" when they are ahead and closing in on full time. But this would even itself out in the comparative averages. It seems unlikely (but not impossible) that Emi is quick in restarting play a lot / most of the time and then really slows things down as the match progresses. Indeed I suspect that part of the reason opposition fans and even your point that "he had it coming" points towards him taking a similar period of time through a game - he's rarely booked for delaying a single re-start and it is almost always indicated to be repeated infringements. Which I still think indicates that referees are much quicker to book him for time-wasting than other keepers who are basically spending more or less the same time as him - or in some cases noticeably longer. I'd like to see a more detailed analysis (I am sure that it must be available out there) but I am 90% certain that there will be plenty of occassions when Emi has been booked where either his average re-start time and / or the specific incident for which he gets the yellow is quicker than the opposition keeper. Similar to him getting booked during the penalty shoot out on Thursday and yet the guy who kicked the ball into a crowd and therefore effectively extended the period between Ollie getting to the penalty area and him being able to take the kick by over a minute (irrespective of what Emi was / was not doing) wasn't penalised. The question is whether this has a negative impact on us (i.e. when he gets banned for reaching the yellow card limit) as a team or whether the frustration that it causes other fans / teams actually gains us a bigger advantage.

Following on from this - Emi was booked 5 times in the first 10 PL matches immediately after the World Cup for time-wasting. Yet he was not taking longer than he had been before the World Cup (on average) and one article I've seen (but now lost the link to) suggested that in the same time period he was around the 7th slowest from restarts - in other words there were something like 65 times where keepers took longer (on average) restarting play than Emi did and yet collectively they ended up with something like 4 or 5 bookings between them.

I remember reading last season that it after the World Cup, Martinez was disproportionately booked for time-wasting compared to other goalkeepers who were taking longer to re-start play. Some of the analysis is in the link below. The analysis basically shows that we were the 8th slowest team at re-starting play from a goal-kick. However, we are within half a second of being bang in the middle and the teams below us were all taking about 2 seconds longer than us. We were taking 30.1 seconds to restart from a goalkick. The league average was around 28 seconds. However, Martinez was booked for time-wasting more often that any other keeper in the league - Raya (whilst at Brentford) took on average 1.8 seconds longer per goalkick and yet never got booked for timewasting once. Newcastle were taking almost 6 seconds longer per re-start and yet got away with it much more. Basically the idea that Martinez wastes time more often that other keepers is mainly horse$hit. I can't believe that referees can distinguish between a 0.5 second delay on average (which would put us in the middle of the pack) and they are clearly swayed by the "idea" that Emi wastes more time that anyone else. He clearly gets carded more frequently than he deserves to (in comparison to the behaviour of other keepers). If referees are genuinely concerned about re-start times then it really wouldn't be difficult to have a countdown clock (they do it in rugby) either on screen or with the VAR officials and then anyone repeatedly breaking the countdown could justifiably be booked for wasting time (it wouldn't be difficult to stop the countdown for unavoidable delays). As it is referees are clearly being impacted by reputations and crowd behaviour. Time Wasting

The thing is that now Emi can do nothing and people will still think that he's got something going on or is about to do something. When doing nothing is enough to rattle people you've got it made.

He's an annoying b******d who knows how to win a free-kick. But he's a very good player with plenty of room to develop into a great player.

He was AEG like though. Never any question that he wasn't going to stick his penalty in the back of the net. Just like you knew that Emi was going to save at least one penalty but probably more.

I think the bigger issue is that he's having to cover the whole of central midfield because whilst Tielemans and McGinn have plenty of positives points, defensively they are pretty bad (or more correctly they're pretty bad when they are defending close to our own box). He looks so much better when Kamara plays because it lifts that burden off him. So he's doing more of the dirty work and less of more eye-catching stuff. The midfield is less balanced and I think that puts more pressure on Luiz. We seriously need another DCM to cover for Kamara and at times to play alongside Kamara and Luiz so that we can absorb more pressure and then hit teams fast on the break.

Great save by their keep to prevent Jhon being the name on everyone's lips this evening. Thought he did pretty well when he came on - seems to be much more aware of what is going on around him. Not sure how he got booked for the Lille player deliberately not going for a header that he was never going to win. Just one of several strange bookings.

Best keeper in the world. No debate.

I'd maybe drop the second part of the question. Not because I am not intrigued by the answer - but because it might mean that the answer to the first part gets "hedged". Asking about the new directors, their skills and previous experience might (or might not) reveal some insight into why they've been brought in. By asking directly why they've been brought in (especially if there are any commercial or contractual implications to starting a rumour about major works in the pipeline) we might just get a more political response.

I think that's the ideal solution - it means we don't lose any revenue by closing stands, we can make better decisions without being constrained by what is already there and we remain in Aston. I'd also like to see us use a lot of bricks as well - so that the beauty / history of (parts of) VP are not completely cast to one side.

No worries. I agree with the above. I just think NSWE are ever so slightly better than the Conservative government and so less likely to be running round in circles making u-turn after u-turn.

As I said in the post that you've part quoted. The question I asked about that exact possibility were - how can we do that in a way that doesn't adversely impact on our revenues? Can we afford to have 1 or 2 stands closed or partially closed for 3 or 4 years (given that it isn't just the NS that needs updating) with reduced attendances? Is there somewhere else that we can play - like Spurs did - whilst we redevelop the existing site? Can we acquire enough land in Aston to build a new stadium whilst still playing at VP?

Did they categorically say that? I thought it was more like "we have no plans to move" (but I could well be completely wrong ). Which is a very different statement. Plenty of clubs categorically state that the position of their manager is not in question before losing, sacking said manager and recruiting a replacement within a period of time that suggests that they'd already decided who they were going to approach.