Pelle

27 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

To be fair didn't Bruce do it too when they fluked a result?

Came out and said it was bollocks

Yeah, they got a late penalty against spuds for a very dubious hands situation.

3 hours ago, Chindie said:

Perhaps one for @Pelle more than most, but this appeared when browsing my usual figure collecting haunts... And well... 

Wow.

They're amazing. Love it.

Former Villa youth keeper had his full senior debut for Rotherham this weekend in their 2-1 win against preston. Really happy for him as he's a great guy. He seems to have had a good game and could not do anything about the goal.

The two swedish pundits put a good view on this situation, IMO. By the letter of the law, yes, it's offside. It's not the ref that makes a mistake. But the rule is not proportional to the outcome of situations like this. It's not similar to the situation vs citeh as that clearly affected Heaton's actions. This time Leno saw the ball when it was hit by McGinn but couldn't do anything about it. He probably wouldn't stand a chance even if he stood in that corner. The ref easily could've said that "Yeah, he's in the triangle between the ball and the posts, if that rule still applies, but it's still not affecting Leno as he can still see the ball and didn't have a chance to save it."

When it comes to southampton's goal against us I wasn't even happy when it was disallowed. I thought it was ridiculous. That's never offside in my book. It was good for us, but it's not how I want to win. Well, we didn't win, but if we had won by one goal it wouldn't feel as good. Luckily, none of the decisions had any impact to the outcome of the games. We won anyway and southampton won anyway.

2 hours ago, Zhan_Zhuang said:

Just to add my tuppence to the God V Grealish debate: 

Grealish is better in my opinion, he excites both fans and players alike with his squash-buckling displays. He is an athlete, a modern footballer.

I'm not going to criticise McGrath at all as he is one of our great modern players, but for me there is no comparison.

It is also said that the modern game is stronger, faster, quicker and more competitive than even twenty years ago.

Yes, a lot has happened since the days of God. Stronger and faster, definetely. But McGrath had all that and had he been in Grealish's age he'd be up there as he was very athletic, strong and fast. For me he is still above Jack, not least thanks to him playing with that knee injury and sadly even more or less drunk in more than a few games. But I think it's hard to compare and I can see why many think Jack is better. I'm just happy we had McGrath when we did and Jack now. Somteimes he's in a league of his own. One of the swedish pundits said yesterday that his performance against arsenal was probably the best performance in the league so far this season.by any player. And I wouldn't be too surprised if that pundit has seen every game so far. He was full of praise for the whole team and refused to belittle it with saying that arsenal were poor.

Anyway, I voted McGinn for motm, but it was just because I had to choose. It could've been him, Grealish, Luiz, Watkins, Barkley, Konsa, yeah, anyone. But McGinn nicked it. Such a lovely team performance and the moves for all our goals were just fantastic. The first one almost arrogant by Grealish and Barkley, the 2nd one with that cross from Luiz and then an even better cross on the volley with the wrong foot from Barkley and Watkins being strong. And Jack's powerrun for the 3rd. I won't be surprised if Jack scores a Maradona goal this season. He has it in him and he's been close a few times already, he just needs that little bit of "luck", timing and the opposition in the right positions and he's there. I'm almost sure it would happen. If so I hope it does happen against manure.

Great win, great performance and great to be back on the winning track again. Shame with another international break.

UTV!

Really nervous. It's been nice to win every week and I don't want it to stop, and less so against leeds. I want us to beat them properly but it will be a tough game and I think it's 50/50.

It'll be a great night, though. About 30 of Aston Villa Sweden West will meet up and watch the game together. That's always great. And if we win...

On 20/10/2020 at 20:21, Davkaus said:

He signed Heskey in our push for 4th. O'Neill's competence as a football manager is vastly overstated.

I can't deny that I enjoyed his time here. We could beat anyone and I had big hopes for the future. But the more you look at all the dross and unseuccessfull players he signed I can't help thinking what could've been with another manager. That's all in hindsight, of course. I don't think Heskey was as bad as many others think, but he was definetely not the striker we needed at the time. And then the way he left...

5 minutes ago, Wainy316 said:

Luckily we have this season...

True. And the next. So maybe it'll be just a relief.

I wonder when they'll realise that having christmas every day takes away the special feeling around it.

The only bad thing with this is that it might end with us not beating manhre at VP ever again.

Edit: Double post

32 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

100% this. It’s a crazy paranoia i’ve seen from fans.  The media love what sells. A wide open league is fantastic for them. Why on earth would they want the same old top 6 every season? Unless I’m missing something.

There might be a reason for them in that those 6 clubs now have got a very solid fan base that will buy their games. I guess most young kids today follow one of these 6 clubs and have done so for a few years. liverpool, manure and arsenal have of course done that for many years and are most likely the biggest and most followed clubs in England. chelski and citeh are probably not far behind. spuds might be a bit behind but has a solid fanbase as it it. If these clubs fall behind and starts to drop many of their followers might lose interest which makes Sky lose customers. Just a thought, and I don't fully buy that conspiracy but I don't think it's that far fetched.

2 hours ago, Sulberto21 said:

Anyone notice after we scored Leicester lost all belief? It's as though they thought if we go gung ho they'll pick us off again. 

We are probably atm the last team that anyone wants to leave space for us to exploit. 

I thought about kind of the same thing. After the liverpool game I think most teams will think twice before they go and attack us with full force. They know we can hit them badly on the counter. They fear us. Which of course helps our defence as they're not that much under pressure as they were last season.

Another test will be against teams that park the bus, like sheffield. I think we'll do better against those teams now with Barkley in the squad.

i've been thinking about our players ages and that we have a very young squad, especially the starting 11.

1 Tom Heaton  34

12 Jed Steer  28

26 Emiliano Martinez 28

28 Lovre Kalinic  30

2 Matty Cash  23

3 Neil Taylor  31

4 Ezri Konsa  22

5 Tyrone Mings  27

18 Matthew Targett  25

22 Björn Engels  26

24 Frédéric Guilbert  26

27 Ahmed El Mohamady 33

30 Kortney Hause  25

6 Douglas Luiz  22

7 John McGinn  26

8 Henri Lansbury  30

10 Jack Grealish  25

14 Conor Hourihane  29

17 Trézéguet  26

19 Marvelous Nakamba  26

20 Ross Barkley  26

21 Anwar El Ghazi  25

41 Jacob Ramsey  19

9 Wesley  24

11 Ollie Watkins  24

15 Bertrand Traoré  25

36 Indiana Vassilev  19

39 Keinan Davis  22

That gives 5 players in the whole squad who's 30 or older and a medium age of 26.

In the most used starting 11 there's no player who's 30+, Martinez being the oldest at 28, and a medium age of 25.

I wonder if we've had such a young squad ever since the PL started. And with that in mind and how good this season has started it's quite encouraging to think about our future. If we can keep the core of this sqaud and build on it steady, then in a couple of years we should be able to compete about the CL spots and even the title. But to do that I think the most important thing is to keep Jack, Douglas Luiz, Martinez, Barkley and Konsa, in that order. These 5 are IMO the most talented players we have and a very solid foundation to build our future on. Keep them and get players around them of similar talent and we're half way there.

In other words, the future looks bright atm.

I remember wanting us to sign Tuanzebe as he'd been quite good for us. I'm happy we went for this guy instead. He's improved so much and for me he's our best CD atm. And probably the best I've seen so far in the league. I mean, van Dijk is obviously better but from what I've seen so far this season Konsa's been better. And he's 22.

For once I think the international break might've been good for us. It gave us time to get back down to the planet we call the Earth again. After that thrashing of liverpool the players might've been flying a bit high.

Still, no matter their injury list, I'd take a draw on Sunday. Of course we can win, but this will be a tough one. And a draw would still see us unbeaten and still on great confidence.

I hope Jack comes back with a feeling that he has something to prove. To prove Southgate what a fool he is to not play him at all. A Jack on fire is a handfull for every team.

I wish they could force Glazers and Henry to sell and leave this league ASAP. And sack Parry.

I really can't understand what he tried to achieve with tonight's tactics. What was the plan to win it with that formation and all those defensive players? And then, with a man down and a goal behind he didn't make a second substitution to bring some attacking force on untill the 75th (?) minute without creating anything before that. And the substitutions he made didn't make much of sense either. Why did Rice stay on for that long? He didn't do anything of note. He should've been brought off at half time and getting an attacking player on to at least try to get a goal. Just anyone. Jack, Sancho, that everton striker, anyone.

And Maguire, second worst only behind Southgate himself. There might be a good player in there, but he hasn't been seen in a long time. Wasn't it Southgate who said that he only picks players in form? Well...

And 3rd worst on the pitch was the ref. Ok, the red card on Maguire was about right, but the penalty? Very soft penalty. And then he made error after error. The weirdest one was when he had his back to the situation where Phillips took the ball from Povlsen to take the freekick, and Povlsen fell over screaming for nothing and the ref gave Phillips a yellow. Povlsen should've had a yellow for that. I can fully understand Henderson getting frustrated with him earning himself a yellow for not shutting up. I don't blame Henderson there. I would've been furious. That was for another situation, I know, and that situation looked very dodgy too. Phillips simply took the ball and the danish player wasn't strong enough. And then Povlsen should've had another yellow for shirt grabbing an english player. Nothing more than a freekick. The ref was a joke but England fell on Southgate's tactics and stubborness.

Trying to really make a point, Gareth? I mean, at home to the mighty Denmark most managers would see one point as a good result, right?

I get Phillips besides the odd "PL experience" debate. He's a good DM, no doubt. But Rice? What exactly has he done? And the two together suring up in front of a 5 men backline? I bet that if he could have used two goalkeppers he would've.

But apart from all that I think the worst thing is Maguire. Why? He's slow, poor feet and got ran over by spuds a week ago. He might'vee been good for leicester, but since his move to manure he's just declined.

At least he didn't pick Dier as a CD. Probably too attacking.

1 hour ago, theboyangel said:

Not at all. It should be one team one vote in the prem regardless of how many plastic fans follow you or Saudi princes pay into the club. 
 

No, thought not. That's the main issue I have with all this, I think. I want it to remain 20 clubs in the league but that is not as important. That's why I asked as that were the main thing for me and I was a bit surprised with your answer. Thought about different things.

3 minutes ago, theboyangel said:

But the TV money would switch to the new ‘super league’ and the Premier League would in effect become the new championship. 

I don’t mind a reduction in teams in the Prem but would also like to see the football leagues reduce to 20 teams per league too. If that means having a 5th division (league 3) with the conference teams then so be it.
 

Depends on if they build a "super league" with the top clubs in Europe, which is the only possible way. But I doubt it'll work. Football like it is today can't be built on 18-20 clubs. If that happens it might not only be the final nail in the coffin of football, it might also be the needle in the bubble to finally make it burst. That would on the other hand be a good thing.

Are you also ok with 6 clubs deciding everything in the PL?

2 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

Please let them do it.

No one would miss them. League would become more competitive.

Absolutely agree.

Just read a tweet from Sky, I think, that says that the "Big 6", Sky 6, threatens to pull out and build a new super league if this doesn't get through. Well, I bloody well hope they do. But the problem is that Sky and FA will do everything they can to keep them in the PL and probably bend over as much as they can to please them. They think they're more important to the league than all the other clubs combined. I hope the rest of the clubs in the whole PL and EFL get together and stay together on this. They've taken it one too far.