VILLAMARV

Have they bought it on a permanent transfer or just a loan?

19 hours ago, markavfc40 said:

We can take it as a given that Spurs will beat Sheff Utd. I think we can also say it is highly likely they beat Burnley. That then gets them to 66. 

It then comes down to us needing to get more points from our four games against Chelsea (H) Brighton (A) Liverpool (H) Palace (A) than they do against Arsenal (H) Chelsea (A) Liverpool (A) Man City (H).

We both play Chelsea and Liverpool with the big advantage for us being we are at home for both whilst they are away so even if we are a little pessimistic and say we both take the same amount of points from those games it then comes down to us needing more points from Brighton and Palace away than they take from Arsenal and Man City at home. 

What a fantastic position we have put ourselves in.

This is exactly how my brain is processing it all too.

If Unai had rocked up at his first press conference last season and said we'd be playing in our first European QF since Collymore came on against Athletico Madrid next year we'd have thought he was mental.

It's been a long wait. Was it really 26 years ago? Jeebus, I was a young man! Memories like that, Inter and Athletico, and for the older guys the proper European nights at Villa Park. Barca in the Super Cup. This is what it's all about, exciting innit. Hope the lads do themselves proud tonight. UTV

4 hours ago, gilbertoAVFC said:

Bowen potentially out for both legs

What's wrong with them?

I'm definitely in the 'thinks there's a player in there worth finding' camp. And I don't think the reported fee's all that much in the grand scheme of things, but the bottom line for me is he just hasn't shown us enough yet to warrant a permanent investment. I think that the intensity and the speed of the Premier League has been hard to adjust to and I'm not sure if he fancies being a cog in the machine either and after years of injuries and lack of minutes for various reasons I wouldn't blame him for wanting to go somewhere where he'd be more the main man than squad filler. Hard not to like his endeavour though and I hope he has a storming end to the season. The wall thing is hard to come back from really but I get why the Italian VTers seem to like him. I like him. But remember when Mings walked in the door and put in great performance after great performance and it was the start of something undeniably beautiful? - it's kind of been more of the opposite of that really so far with Nico.

Can't see my mind being focussed on work all that much today.

5 hours ago, tomav84 said:

we could get toney 

2 minutes ago, Rds1983 said:

Fair assessment. 

My wife bought me the book for Christmas, not sure I'm up for reading it though as doubt it will have the same levels of charm.

One of my favourite ever bits of TV is where in response to someone (possibly Tripitaka) being incredibly sad, Monkey convinces Pigsy to cheer them up by doing his little dance. Pigsy starts dancing like an idiot, everyone stares at him like an idiot and Monkey falls over laughing. 

Wish I could find that clip.

My mum always remebers it fondly because of basically how bonkers me and my brother would go, over excitedly jumping all over the sofa and all that, trying to do flying kicks n that, calling our own cloud

I have very scratched, obviously a kenneth, but much loved 7" BBC single amongst the 7"'s. Gandara on the b side plays just fine. Born from an egg... not so much anymore

On 03/04/2024 at 22:30, Follyfoot said:

And monkey

On 04/04/2024 at 07:00, Rds1983 said:

They remade Monkey a few year's ago. Think there's 2 seasons on Netflix. 

On 04/04/2024 at 12:46, theboyangel said:

It’s awful and not worth it sadly

I'd say it's pretty awful and only worth it in a "this is an Aussie show for kids but my love for Monkey is strong and I'll still watch it" type of way. A far cry from the amazingly mental 70's one though.

23 hours ago, Xela said:

Remember when we had it... late 90s I think? I remember loads of us from the office in Colmore Row, standing on the roof staring through special glasses!

I was down in Devon-by-the-Sea. I very much remember all the flashes going off around the coastline as everyone took a picture of the darkness or something

18 hours ago, Mark Albrighton said:

Woke builders with their talking to colleagues and their breakfast not covered in saturated fat while learning history.

 

I'm sure I haven't perfected this one to land right but if we can look past the real men bit and understand my intended use of speech marks there's a rather funny inadvertant " 'Real men that do real work' ARE woke shocker" headline from the heil  

On 05/04/2024 at 10:13, lapal_fan said:

Can you see it as somewhat of a tipping point for being too "controlling"? 

Honestly, and I get that flippancy might be more fun, but I wouldn't hold your breath on that one.

The powers that be have been attempting to clamp down on our collective freedom of expression by writing into Law things around 'offensive' or 'insulting' speech and actions for the best part of my 40 something years now. If not much longer. Isn't this just more of the same?

It seems to me the same nonsensical playbook as served us up such wondeful ideas as Section 5 of the Public Order Act or the new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act.

What is always fascinating to me is that many of the people I meet with 'a team' or who feel allied to one group identity agree/disagree with this Orwellian approach when it suits them. i.e. the people up in arms about this clamping down on free expression in this poorly written legislation in Scotland are not all seemingly as concerned with the clamping down on free expression in the poorly written legislation around speech and assembly in England and Wales, or whether prosecutions would be justified for calling police horses gay and so on. Fascinating, but in a sadly not at all surprising way. While these examples are still things that divide us, isntead of concepts we rally around, I can't see much appetite for anything different.

Mind you I'm an emotion discussing builder who once eat an avocado for brekkie so I should perhaps consider getting back in my box.

5 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

If an already qualified team wins the EL, who gets the extra space?

I think it's the club in the qualifying/playoff rounds with the highest club coefficient

Quote

Should the Champions League title holders have qualified via their domestic league, then the club (Champions Path only) with highest club coefficient will enter the league stage.

Should the Europa League title holders have qualified via their domestic league, then the club (Champions Path & League Path) with the highest club coefficient will enter the league stage, except for the runners-up of associations 11–15, as they have higher-ranked domestic team in the qualifiers.

wiki

This year I think the Ukrainian Champions went straight into the group stages instead of the qualifying rounds because Man City had already qualified and won it.

Presumably someone in round 1 qualifying gets a bye.

No, there are no qualifying games for the new Champions League format for any English teams, either the top 4 or the extra coefficient places or potential Europa League winners

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024–25_UEFA_Champions_League#League_stage

7 hours ago, DakotaVilla said:

5.7 is not going to fly at all in such an important part of the pitch.

Oh I dunno, Edgar Davids wasn't a bad player. None out of Mascherano, Deschamps, Dunga, Makelele and Matthaus were more than 5'9"

Not that I know the lad from Cov or have an opinion on him, but there have been some truly great DMC's that were about the same height.

I wouldn't swap our remaining fixture list for Spurs's.

No place for factoring in all the recent history, another team we haven't got the best record against and all that but ultimately for a team chasing the top 4 we should be picking up 3 points against the sides in the bottom half.

Hook or crook I'm not bothered. 3 points please.

Gutting news though, although I'd rather they try and sort it out properly than throw him back in and end up with a longer problem.

17 hours ago, Panto_Villan said:

This is one of the reasons why gender self-identification is unlikely to become commonplace, in my opinion at least - there are plenty of trans advocates who think it literally should be as easy as saying "I identify as <x>" but I think there's too many issues in practice.

I've had a variation of this chat with some friends of mine who were asserting that "gender shouldn't be self determined". I argued that surely gender can only be self determined - but that we agreed if what they really meant was that the Law should not be self affirming though. Despite accusations of engaging in a semantic argument, I think there's a massive difference. Their suggestion that gender can be determined externally is rather silly to my mind. How people identify and what the Law should do about that are very different questions that are unlikely to be answered with a simple catch-all statement.

20 hours ago, DCJonah said:

We also had 5's let you play another card above a 5. And a red 3 can be played on anything and let you give the build up of cards in the middle to any player.

14 hours ago, tomav84 said:

our rules were:

2 - play on anything and resets count to 2

8 - skips the next player

10 - trashes the deck

4 of the same numbered card played in order (doesn't need to all be by the same person) - also trashes the deck.

i believe these rules are in line with the shithead mobile app

This is what I was wondering - Occasionally there'll be someone suggesting I can't put 4 x 5's on a 7 or somthing like that - we grew up playing them as a de facto 10.

MrsVM thinks I have to show my bottom cards if I can't play them - which I assume was born out of youthful exuberance when turning them over.

It's not a game I've ever read rules to though, it's just learnt behaviour.

There's already a couple of variations I've never encountered listed in these two posts, namely the red threes and the extra card higher than a 5

Which festival's that Xann? - asking for a friend obviously

We moved back to the middle of nowhere a while ago now. I've been trying to convince MrsVM that the local surgery is not all officious and nasty to you when you phone them up like the one in Cardiff. Anyway, I got MrsVM to fill in all the registration forms and all that back before xmas and I personally hand delivered them to reception (I think in November IIRC). She has been spoken to appallingly in the past by receptionists in Cardiff and is rather nervous about speaking with them as a result at the best of times. Whereas some of us don't blink at having to phone the doctors up, It's a bit of an understandable thing, given her past experiences, that she has to psych herself up for.

Today was the first time she had reason to call them and they had no record of her at my current address whatsoever. So they've lost the previous form and presumably the confidential medical information attached, they couldn't/wouldn't book her an appointment or a phone call (despite being on their records previously as a temporary patient, so existing on their database) and obviously - as a speedy resolution is not an option - speed is kind of of the essence medically in this instance too. Just an annoying time to have internal proceedure quoted back to her when it's their error. 

It's one of those unfortunate errors that is not that hard to rectify but the damage, mentally, is hard to either explain or to quantify. I love my local surgery, I find them friendly, helpful and I can usually speak to a doctor within 24 hours of contacting them. I'm gutted for her that the first time she's reached out to them for help has been a beurocratic clusterfunk. I know it will probably stop her reaching out for help in the future and it just further reinforces some of the negative outcomes she was worried about in the first place.