TheSufferingVilla

Here's some thoughts from a heavy day of play yesterday: - Villa is easily one of the weakest 4* teams in the game. Playing online Seasons mode with us is a highway to nothing but a constant stream of thrashings. Would be ok if we were lumped in with the 3 & 1/2 * teams but the most frequently used 4* teams are far too good for the Villa defence. I've started playing with Wolfsburg cause Villa just can't cut it. - The whole virtual pro thing has been somewhat cast aside, you can use him in two modes career as a player (player manager no longer an option) and online BAP thing but the stats aren't shared so you can't build the player up in one mode to use in another. I preferred last years setup since it required a lot less work to make him usable. - The skills mode is a nice distraction but what I really like about it is that as you progress it switches to manual passing, shooting and crossing. Hopefully this will introduce many players to the challenge of manual, who would have ignored it in the past. IMO in 2-3 iterations FIFA should go fully manual for online play. - Free kicks you can have 3 players stand over the ball + dummy runs. At first I thought it was just a nice novelty but then in a moment of madness I had the freekick taker slip a through ball to one of the dummy runners as he legged it past the wall sending him into a 1 on 1 with the keeper. Hit the post but it looked class. - Defending has changed and I can't quite figure out how. I was fairly proficient in tactical defending online but now it seems the opposing team is much better at applying pressure than I am. It reminds me of the homing missiles that were defenders in the legacy defending mode, I could swear seeing two defenders sprinting directly into me from 20 years out that my opponents had tactical defending turned off, but you shouldn't be able to do that in seasons mode. Overall matchmaking looks to be fairly quick and stable I guess we will have to wait and see how the EA Servers handle the full release load. - I have only played the player career mode so I can't speak for signings etc, it seems decent enough, presentation has certainly improved, they give you a lot more information about goings on around the league. After each match there's a proper classified results walkthrough. One feature that falls flat is updates during the game, commentary regularly gets interrupted by Alan McInally to tell you the scores in another games. it would be grand if McInally wasn't coming on the blower every 60 seconds to tell announce a goal in the 4-3 cracker between Barnet and Morecambe (I'm playing for Wimbo in L2). - Finally with the commentary I have noticed very few of the Villa players seem to have their names included, Clark, Lichaj, Bent, Ireland, Given, Dunne, that's about it. now I could be wrong but I've heard no mentions for Vlaar, Gabby, Benteke, Bannan, N'Zogbia, Lowton, El Ahmadi, Weimann, Holman, Guzan, Herd. I hope it's just me and I'm a daft word removed for not noticing but at first look Villa seem to be receiving the smae treatment as most League of Ireland teams.

I must say the full release plays, much, much better than the demo. Couple of things I posted on the Twitter: Unlockable 1982 kit: The only player you need for skill challenges First Goal, in the Ultimate Team intro tournament thing. Finally my first Villa game on the Live Fixture mode and I honestly wasn't taking the piss (maybe just a little bit).

Right I may have been a bit hasty but I'm still not sold on it. After the first 5 or 6 games I was a bitter bastard but I had a much better experience playing last night and got stuffed 2-0 in a couple of games, however I maintain it is still far easier on Legendary that FIFA12 was and I've probably won a good 11/12 out of the 15 games I've played (only by 1/2 goal margins). I really have yet to experience many poor first touches but noticed many from the computer controlled team. Also I still have not yet received a single free kick in the oppossing half.

What utter shit is this? The other day I downloaded the PES Demo found some of the gameplay tweaks intriguing especially the challenging implementation of first touches and no spin shots, ballsy move will make the game more challenging and less predictable/repetitive. Looked forward to see what EA had done since the last couple of releases had noticeable improvements like Tactical Defending. What I found was: THE SAME **** GAME AS FIFA12 but with worse presentation. The ball ping pongs around the pitch. I understand they made some alterations to the first touches in the engine but it's **** irrelevant in the Demo since I'm guess poor first touches do not happen with players above 80 points like all the ones in the demo. They say improvement has been made to dribbling, I certainly see no difference. There's some more adventurous movement from team mates which is welcome but tackling has been simplified to comic levels, I was throwing myself into sliding tackles up and down the pitch winning the ball cleanly every time with little attention given to basic timing, what's more and five/six games played without a single foul by the opposition, worse than **** last year. Now I understand it's not the finished version and in the past FIFA has played much better on release than in Demo form but I can honestly say after easily winning all my demo games on legendary, the PES demo was far more interesting to play and a hell of a lot more challenging.

I'm thinking a replacement is in order for last seasons goal of the season contender thread, here's a start. Conor Henderson Ireland U21's vs Italy U21's. Our very own Samir Carruthers had a hand in the build up.

Looks to me like Lambert is putting a lot of faith in Bannan, gave him a taste of the captains armband in preseason and sticking him in a key role once the season began. One moment of Scottish madness and it could well blow up in the managers face. However Lambert does see some potential in Bannan I guess working with him every day will give Lambert a good idea of the lads temperament. In terms of talent I don't think there's another player in the team who can cross as well as Bannan nor hit a free kick like he did against Forrest, certainly not N'Zogbia but Banna does look well out of his depth against a physical midfield.

The big difference for me was Guzan rushing out to claim any direct balls Newcastle launched into the box. Given was planted firmly to the line against West Ham and it cost us with so many balls being won by Carlton Cole in the box.

How **** hard is it for a winger to run down the wing and swing a cross into the box? N'Zogbia just doesn't seem capable. Every time he gets the ball he turns into the opposition instead of running away from them. I don't mind a winger cutting inside looking for the occasional shot but in order to catch the defenders off guard you have to go down the bloody line a couple of times. Instead they just stand there waiting for him to come inside and throw away possession.

I remember in MON's first season when we bought Watford's best player, also a 22 year old he turned out to be a pretty useful tool in our survival against the drop.

The first shooting was the manager and happened outside the pub that myself and the other NYVillans will be watching the game tomorrow, staff are saying that the lad shot was a regular. From the reports I've seen so far it looks like many of the others injured were hit by the cops as they unloaded on the gunman.

We are definitely of the same generation If we're going that direction though I would suggest either: Ah ffs if it's going to be 16 bit game music there can be only one choice:

How's this thread still open? Based upon inside info from a hack who's last two predictions were Roy Keane to manage Leicester and Chris Hughton to bring in Brian Kerr as his Newcastle assistant, both of which were bollocks. Maybe it will be third time lucky but the source is about as reliable as a 13 year old Twitter IDK bored of being on his summer hols.

Agree with this. I'd like to see a nasty physical presence up front, not only to hold the ball up but knock the defenders around, somebody who works really hard and is consistent. Hate to say it but I was very impressed by the shift Carlton Cole put in against us on Saturday would love to see somebody who could do that for Villa week in week out. I hope Weimann can grow into that role.

Made the mistake of watching The Dictator a couple of nights back. I rarely give up on films early but half way through I switched it off. Never have I seen something so completely unfunny. On the rebound I put on the first episode of Breaking Bad, **** brilliant.

As a former smoker I think these are brilliant. They have disposable ones in the shops here at about half the price of a regular pack. What I like about the disposables is an alternative when you have a major urge (on the piss or bad day) to get a fag or two in. You can pop down to the shop buy a disposable get a decent hit of nicotine and then **** it away afterwards as opposed to buying a pack of fags which more often than not ends up sending spiraling back into the habit. As a quitting tool I could also see them being quite effective, switch to e-ciggs and gradually cut down without the massive expense of other cessation aids like Nicorette.

He's been far and away our best player in pre-season, have you not watched any of the games? Or do you for whatever reason harbour some bitter resentment for the player?

Villa wouldn't really care if people stood in the Holte if it wasn't the rake of fines they get from the local council on the charge of persistent standing. If you really want to get the Holte back on its feet you need to let those local counselors know that Villa fans are a powerful voting block who can be rallied and wielded when we don't get our way (regardless of whether that is true or not).

Eh?

Somehow managed to avoid it: reviews, spoilers, hype for more than a week and saw it tonight. Utterly superb, love how it stayed true to the over the top and sometimes cheesy comic book nature instead of going 100% serious. Also, best sound I have ever experienced in a movie.

BOF, should football be in the Olympics?

Lets see. Very romantic and appealing to owners at about the same level as what we have now. More ambitious new owners prefer to rewrite history. Case in point: Cardiff City. Delightful but I don't see how that would attract a wealthier owner than Lerner, what we've seen elsewhere (man City, PSG, Liverpool) is that these dream moneybags owners come in and care bugger all about youth. They just want to show off to their mates by throwing money around on flashy new signings. Not as big as we like to think, very little interest outside the West Midlands and Ireland. International brand recognition is very poor and despite our best efforts in places like the US we still lag far behind the likes of Spurs and Newcastle. Fan base revenue generation is relatively poor and difficult to build for Villa. We are rebuilding a squad that nearly sent us down last year and one that doesn't have the same quality that we did in MON's final season with Young, Milner and others. A number of our young players I hope will come good but they aren't the finished product yet. Bent is our only real star in the current side. Matters little most new owners come in and remove the manager fairly quickly: Claudio Ranieri, Mark Hughes, Antoine Kombouaré. With very limited development/redevelopment potential. We can only increase capacity at the North stand, the Witton is crippled by the road. The area has very low development potential, train service isn't great, parking is a major limiting factor but accessibility by car is excellent. In comparison, one of the most attractive parts of the Man City take over was the stadium. Brand spanking new modern stadium with massive potential for further development both to the stadium itself and the surrounding area. The club I believe owns a significant amount of development sites around Eastlands with an eye to additional future revenue to offset Fair Play rules.

Yeah there's Billionaire Arabs queuing up around the block looking to buy Villa off Randy? Give me a **** break! For every Sheikh there's lots more David Gold's, Carson Yeung's, Milan Mandarić's and assorted other clowns. Do you think he would sell to an owner who was not reputable then? No I'm saying if forced to sell he might not have much of a choice. We aren't a very attractive prospect. If I was absurdly wealthy and looking for a toy to play with, I'd look outside the Premier League where I'm not going to be consistently outspent by Man City and the other absurdly wealthy clubs. Now if I was somebody who appeared absurdly wealthy but was really just neck deep in dodgy loans Villa would be ripe for a plundering.

Yeah there's Billionaire Arabs queuing up around the block looking to buy Villa off Randy? Give me a **** break! For every Sheikh there's lots more David Gold's, Carson Yeung's, Milan Mandarić's and assorted other clowns.

Best player on the park by a mile last night, ran the game and displayed a range of passing superior to anything I've seen at Villa before. I fancy Bannan will be key to the possession system Lambert is putting in place he looks a different class of player in this setup than the lost boy under McLeish last season.