JoshVilla

No Lee Johnson interview?

Managed to grab a couple in the Upper North, was a nice surprise to finally get some. Will have to consider getting the membership to be honest, as I really can't see many games making it to general sale, unless they purposely hold a few thousand tickets until general sale each time?

Glad that they're getting rid of him, but I'd love to hear their explanation of that audio recording if they reckon that he "did not commit the offences". Feels as though they've listened to the public backlash rather than having a conscience themselves.

We did exactly what we needed to do, which was a relief after what happened last week. Everton looked very poor, but they still had players on the pitch that could have hurt us. Solid performance and the new boys looked good. It's a good job that the game went a bit flat in the second half. Wouldn't have been ideal to have 100+ minutes of high intensity when we've got another game in 3 days. The injuries stacking up is taking the piss a bit. Can't wait to get the absentees from preseason back so we can start rotating as the fixtures congest a bit.

He was brilliant today, exactly what we needed from him.

Going to have to wait for the general sale to get my ticket for this. Can anybody with a membership see if there's still a fair few left? Sounds like there's nothing available in the Upper Holte, so hoping for Upper North or Doug Ellis.

That's about the worst opening game of a season that I can remember. There's no doubt that the Mings injury completely rocked us, but it was concerning just how much of a shambles we looked today. Konsa or Torres will have to seriously step up and show some leadership this season. Mings is a massive presence on the pitch and I do worry how our defence is going to look without his organisational skills.

Our passing really has been off it today. Just can't seem to get any flow going. Credit to Newcastle as they're closing down well, but even our cross field balls into space just aren't on the money today.

This is awful

We might beat them at their place this year now!

Lee Johnson is Hibs manager. Isn't he a bit of a helmet, IIRC?

It's all a bit confusing isn't it? I remember us having a similar level of optimism (though nowhere near as deluded) when Xia took over, and look how that turned out. I'm sure that their hedge-fund minority owners will be thrilled with another season below mid table, because last time I checked their squad is still shite. There's plenty of owners in the Championship better than theirs and they're not exactly rocketing their clubs into the PL and then pushing for Champions League places. They think that they've won some sort of golden ticket, when I can see it taking years just to take the club from being a laughing stock to a slightly better laughing stock. But we're all rattled, apparently. Mate.

AND he can drink in town.

Phwoarrr.

As a Washington Fan, I fully agree. The sooner a new stadium is built, the better.

What a guy. Its just a shame that we had him during what was a pretty shit period for the club. I have some brilliant memories of him as a player, but my god, that was a grim time to be a Villa fan. He was one of the very few bright sparks, and his goals 100% gave us a stay of execution when we really should have been going down. It was pretty telling that the wheels fell off when he (and probably Delph too) left. I think that his time at Liverpool and Palace has tainted the memories of most non-Villa fans. When he was at his best for us, he was absolutely one of the best strikers in the league. He was unplayable on his day.

I quite like this Summer Series. In past seasons, I've often thought that our preseason opponents were a bit too low level, and we'd look a bit shell-shocked in the first league game. They're still just friendlies, and the results don't matter, but I think they're giving us a much better workout and will hopefully get us up to speed much better come game 1.

Not sure if this has already been posted, but: I was having a look at this SkyBet "Fan Central" thing that keeps popping up on twitter. Essentially, they've polled 1400 PL fans for their thoughts on the upcoming season. One of the questions is where do they rank the other managers in the league from best the worst. According to the 1400 fans polled, Unai Emery is ranked, on average: The 13th best manager in the league. Seriously!? He's below the likes of Thomas Frank, Vincent Kompany, Roy Hodgson, Rob Edwards & Steve Cooper. I swear that there's a huge number of football fans that try to be controversial for the sake of it.

Why does the go-to place to store letters seem to be down the side of the microwave? I swear all of my local takeaway menus are now radioactive.

I went to Uni in Chester (lovely city) and subsequently stayed for another 2 years afterwards. I spent a lot of time going to and from Liverpool and Manchester for various things (I worked in Liverpool for 2 years). I actually don't mind Liverpool. There's some pretty nice parts, especially by the docks, and there's loads to do there. Made some good friends working up there (who were always quite complimentary about the Villa too, and this was around the time we got relegated...). Manchester, though, I just really didn't enjoy going there at all. I never felt safe walking around there, especially getting back to the train station after gigs. Not a fan at all. By comparison, Birmingham really does get a bad rep when it's absolutely no worse than any other of the big cities. I'd much rather walk through Birmingham at night than Manchester. I think that most of the preconceptions about Brum come from the fact that we're rather self-deprecating by nature, thus you don't often hear Brummies talking about the good things about the city. I'd take Birmingham over Manchester any day of the week.

Pisses me right off when I take a bite out of an onion ring and the whole piece of onion comes sliding out and I'm stuck with a hollow ring of batter.

!!!

Bring him home

The LHW belt is cursed