Djemba_Villan

Oh ****

I genuinely think that's it. This is the year. Not going to get too excited about bouncing back up either. My WBA mate will be unbearable. He already is....

Today just has that 'last minute Fulham winner' written all over it.

We aren't even playing that badly, with a Benteke/Kozak on the pitch we'd be home and dry by now..

I can see them doubling up on albrighton second half.

Absolutely Sod's law that baggies are flukig their lead ATM too. Thank god..gabby!! Albrighton absolutely phenomenal last couple of games!

Randy Lerner said already when he bought the club that he was going to sell it if he did not succeed in what he planned. Lerner did not succeed, and whats happening now needs no further explanation. Paul Lambert was employed under the following terms from Lerner: Over-paid players are going out, you will have build a team on minimal funds - and your job is to make this team survive in the Premier League. Lambert has nearly achieved this now. Away with wasteful wages, and in with mediocre footballers on a small wage. Aston Villa are now free from debt. That means, folks, that Randy Lerner has managed to make Villa more attractive to potential buyers. A potential buyer would now not sit with great difficulty to get rid of expenses - this job is already done. Lambert has done what he were asked to and Lerner has made the club in great stand in business terms, though it has costed us four utter boring years.

 

Bright future, UTV

...and cost Lerner >£200M.

I can't say I'm not excited by the prospect of us potentially becoming a much richer club once he leaves, but the way I see Lerner being spoken about does sadden me. He's a good man, I'm pretty sure about that. He's tried something, we JUST failed, and football economic tectonic plates moved from beneath his feet. I'm personally grateful for everything he's given this club, even if the past few years haven't been great. It's not like he owed us anything IMO

Right..anyone who has seen my posts knows I'm not a archetypal ITKer...I'm in my late 20's and am certainly not a juvenile attention seeker. 

However, I have it on very good authority, that our club may, in the summer, be brought out by the 5th wealthiest man in the world. Larry Ellison. In typical ITK fasion, I'm not disclosing how I know, but consider this my head above the chopping block.

OK, so it's not concrete proof he is buying us, but I am informed there is genuine interest.

 

So thats Villa, West Brom, Swansea and Fulham all in dissaray at the moment. Love it. Exciting at least.

Yeah its brilliant seeing the club like this, what a strange thing to say.

 

Jesus, how touchy. Reminds me why I rarely bother with on topic these days. 

Not everyone has to be over consumed by grief by our current plight. I just pointed out that there are a number of clubs in very similar positions as us who all have degrees of in-fighting. If nothing else, it's mildly entertaining that there is so much apparent chaos going on. I think some people take football too seriously, get a sense of perspective. It's an 'entertainment' industry, your actual real life is unaffected by these events!

I'm not exactly enjoying my clubs situation, but I'm also not going to cry about it. Seems a bit odd, educated grown men crying over this sort of thing. When you consider the wider context of football (Sheiks, Oil Money, Political Influence)...these kinds of things are just handbags and merry-go-rounds aren't they?

So thats Villa, West Brom, Swansea and Fulham all in dissaray at the moment. Love it. Exciting at least.

 

 

 

 

 

Neil Adams our new manager knows our club inside out, he's a superb coach and mostly we feel we have a better chance of staying up with him than with Hughton.

The national media will be grovelling soon after hammering us this week.

René Meulensteen says Hi.

KMac says hi

Brian Kidd says hi.

Brendan rodgers says hi.

 

Terry Connor wont stop saying hi.

 

Steve Clark says "Why hello"

 

What an embarrassing state of affairs when a Championship reject is the favourite to start as our main striker for the last seven games of the season. Challenging for fourth back in 2010 to now (2014) with Grant Holt leading the line. 

 

It may be devastating but I'm not sure having our 2 main strikers out with long term injuries (and Gabby with a bug) is "embarrassing". You do realise the circumstances under which this has come about don't you?

 

It's not like we're in this situation by choice FFS.

 

Couldn't echo this further. It seems to me that the hyperbole culture in football extends beyond the media and some people live by it.

Since the flight rumours have died down....I'm going to go for a new conspiracy. It wasnt mentioned at Lambos pre-match press conference because........Hes actually had a falling out, found himself in the bomb squad, the fee in the summer is agreed and this a way to ensure he's fit for next season.

Rio De Janiero/Ihla Grande (Brazil) - Rio propelled itself to one of my all time favourite cities on a recent trip. Beaches, women, sightseeing, nightlife, food, drink...it had it all.

Laos - Stunning, mountainous country, amzginly friendly people, real sense of being away from the usual backpacker trail (with the exception of tubing at vang vieng...which in fairness was immense fun)

Basque Region (Spain) - Did the festival of San Fermin (Running with the Bulls) at Pamplona, loved San Sebastian and surfing at Biarritz was great.

Sky Sports front page.

"Title Drama"

Then refers to Chelsea result, Arsenal result...aaaand Man Utd win.

So why not the Saints win? Anything to support the Sky 4 and the 'image of the league' I suppose.

Football has lost it's way big style nowadays IMO

Surprised nobody has mentioned it yet...but was anyone else equally irate about the quality of the coverage for our game vs Man Utd today?

BT sports buildup = nothing more than a cursory mention of the opposition. I honestly nearly forgot Villa were playing

During game - Just after Mata's goal - "That goal was coming, man utd dominant since the whistle, Fellani has been such a handful" - utter tripe.
After Game - Again..who were the opposition? No mention of Benteke misses or fortune of Man Utd's 3rd.

Fawning over Rooney

Fawning over Kagawa (who IMO was anonymous)

Fawning over Man Utds improved defence

At the end "Man Utds support standing in unison for the chosen one" - PISS OFF.

I hate modern football.

 

 

 

Get your crayons out and do it yourself.

 

 

Not likely. I wont be paying to watch that shit again. I can't even get my 12 year old nephew interested. Sad times

 

 

Bye then. Cheers for coming.

 

 

 

That is probably the same attitude the club has had in recent past which has saw attendances and commercial income fall. If you don't keep your core supporter engaged you're in trouble.

 

A 12 year old supporter, one that could be the lifeblood of the club for the next 50 years has become so disillusioned/bored with going to watch us he's no longer bothered if we go or not. Tragic really. Mind you that Crystal Palace fiasco was the last straw for more than just him.

 

Next time you're at Villa Park look around and see how few young supporters there actually are. If I were on the board i'd be worried BIG time because there appears to be no next generation anymore. Kids have either been priced out of going or simply aren't interested due to the complete lack of anything for them to latch onto. What's going to happen once we all stop going ? (i already have i guess, well i do sometimes but my season tickets didn't get renewed obviously)

 

And that's down to the board and their continued shocking decision making.

 

PS.

 

I will add the club are clearly aware of this and ring me on a monthly basis asking me when i'm coming back, and if i'd consider a season ticket again. And they always get the same response. They even rang me at the start of last week trying to flog me tickets for the West Ham match. Methinks they're getting desperate. Maybe the penny has finally dropped.

 

so the only way to entice fans such as yourself back would presumably be to spend beyond our means again? Put the club at long term risk for a couple of interesting seasons where we finish somewhere 4th-6th because even if we spent £150M we wouldnt compete for the league unfortunately.

Not having a go at you, but it's the way of football now, I fear the worst tbh, not sure how a club such as ours can realistically appeal to the younger generations (in their masses) purely due to the probability of associating ourselves with "glory"

Im not usually one for doom and gloom, but the dealthy silence on this one is VERY Okore/Kozak-like.

I'm preparing myself to hear the inevitable "Out for the season" line and everyone will be up in arms. If that happens, some points in the next 4 games becomes ESSENTIAL because without Vlaar, we wont be getting many in March and the pressure on such a young defence in the last 7 or so game run in might be too much this time.

 

I think i'm on my own in being reasonably content with our business so far. I don't want a WBA-like kneejerk signing, I'd be content for us to persue better targets and get them in very early in the summer like last summer.

GK - Fine, as good as any other team really

DC - With Okore on the mend we'll have 4 more than competant Centre Halves

WB - Bertrand has solved the LB gap whilst Lowton and Bacuna will do us until the end of the season when we'll upgrade i'm sure

CM - Obviously an AMC would be nice, but IMO Weimann has performed that role pretty well when needed and if the right quality isnt available at a good price now then a panic few million potentally wasted wouldnt be wise

Wingers - With N'Zog to come back, we have enough quality and backup there for this season.

Strikers - Tick.

Basically..our squad is looking alright at the moment IMO. If we add quality over quantity in the summer we'll have a decent season next season IMO.

So does this mean we can now sing the Pride of the Midlands song again? Or do we have to wait til we finish above them?

I'd actually rather we didn't.

I kind of preferred the fact that at new years (when they first started singing it when they found themselves above us in the league) we didn't rise to it and belittle ourselves.

It's kind of just acknowledged that we are, and always have been, the pride of the midlands, and we aren't small time enough to need a song to bleat about it. They make far more of the 'rivalry' than we do anyway...i see them as just a local derby, if they were relegated and wolves promoted it would probably be equivalent.

Unless...The plan is this:-

................................Benteke........................................

Dongou  ..............................................................Gabby

................................Weimann.........................................

....................CM...........................CM................................

With Subs of Holt (for Benteke), Helenius (for Weimann) and Bowery/Graham for the other two.

As much as I'd love Dongou to be true. I just cannot see this from a rational point of view.

6 (7) decent strikers is nuts! 

Target Men - Benteke, Holt, Kozak

Wide Forwards - Gabby, Weiman, Dongou

Then Helenius, Bowery to fit into either.
 

Interesting article on the OS here. Especially when complimented by our 1.5M+ Facebook followers, good news, always nice to see us compared to decent teams rather than West Brom and Norwich. Let's just hope they all become so inspired by our twitter account that they all go out and buy Villa shirts and tickets.

Villa are the 12th most popular European club in China - and that's official.

The club's Sina Weibo account - the Chinese equivalent of Twitter - has charged to a whopping 100,000 followers.

That figure dwarfs those for clubs like Valencia, Atletico Madrid, Napoli, Roma and Wolfsburg.

But the most fascinating and encouraging statistic is the rate of growth for our site.

Villa are now at 100,000 in just two months while Valencia are at 40,000, Atletico Madrid at 18,000 and Roma at 11,000 after close to two years.

That shows the progress made by Rongtian He, our new social media executive.

He - a huge Villa fan of 12 years from Guangdong in China - joined the club in November 2013 and has worked hard to produce appealing content for our Chinese supporters.

In front of Villa are Ajax at 260,000, Real Madrid at 315,000 and Paris St Germain at 750,000, although all three have been in the market for a much longer period.

Man City lead the way with a remarkable 8.5m followers after two years. Man Utd have 1.9m after six months while Liverpool are third with 1.6m in two-and-a-half years.

Villa post 11 items per day, a good level of engagement, with content ranging from news stories, pictures, promotions, video footage with subtitles and competitions.

Villa also have a Youku channel - the second biggest video sharing website in the world behind YouTube - which also continues to go from strength to strength with 12,000 subscribers.

Head of Marketing Russell Jones said: "We are delighted with the growth of the Villa Sina Weibo site.

"The rapidly-expanding platform helps us expand our fan base in Asia and at the same time provide content in Chinese language for existing fans.

"We are very pleased with the content we are producing and judging by the popularity of our site, it appears our fans are too."

Social Media Executive Rongtian He said: "We are very happy with these new figures.

"To be the 12th most popular European club in China is a great achievement and in such a short period of time.

"We will continue to work very hard to produce engaging, interesting content for our fans."

Official Aston Villa Sina Weibo channel - http://e.weibo.com/AVFCOfficial 

Official Aston Villa YouKu channel - http://i.youku.com/AVFCOfficial

Commentators on bein sports couldn't be any more negative towards villa if they tried. They give the impression it's the nation vs Aston villa. sad.

THIS IS THE TRANSFER THREAD!!

Please, please, take your PL bickering to the appropriate thread and leave his thread to those of us who kind of just want to get on with supporting the club and don't want to sit reading a political debate between people who love their own voices. It's depressing.

THIS IS THE TRANSFER THREAD!!

Please, please, take your PL bickering to the appropriate thread and leave his thread to those of us who kind of just want to get on with supporting the club and don't want to sit reading a political debate between people who love their own voices. It's depressing.