Risso

All Emi needed to do was put his foot on the ball and let that snivelling little twunt Maupay waste more of Brentford's time.

He's a very good right back, he's a mostly useless wide midfielder. Don't know whay Emery keeps playing him there in away games.

Wordle 911 4/6*

I know exactly how the German two-tier system works, I've worked with and audited lots of German companies. Supervisory Board members are subject to the same liability regime uder German law for directors as the Management Board are. In fact German legislation refers to 'members' for both boards, so if members of the management board are considered directors, so are the members of the supervisory board. You don't have to take day-to-day business decisions to be a director, although you could argue that a lot of the supervisory board decisions are important, such as appointing the management board in the first place. You're mistakenly comparing the German system to the more common unitary board, prevalent in most countries like the UK. Sawiris is on the board of Adidas, and has a liability for the decsions he makes whilst on it.

He owns 3.3% of Adidas, and he is a director. He's on the Supervisory Board which in German companies appoints and oversees the Management Board (ie the execs).

Sawiris is a director of Adidas.

Not really no. V Sports own 100% of Aston Villa. If Atairos now own say, 10% of V Sports, they indirectly own 10% of everything V Sports own, including Villa.

Agreed, he needs a run of playing full games. every week. He's not going to get that at Villa.

Wordle 907 4/6*

Monchi has stated that the summer transfer window was difficult because he arrived late, so I don't think it's far fetched to think that not every signing would have been his first choice.

We're so much more of a complete team than Leicester were. They had Vardy, Mahrez and Kante who were the three best players in the league that season. Kante went on to be the best midfielder in the league for Chelsea for several years, and Mahrez was similarly impressive and even more successful at Man City. Other than though they were mainly decent but unspectacular players like Huth, Morgan and Simpson. Once Vardy and Kante had gone, it was a few years of mid table before Brenda got them up to 5th again. We're not going to lose our best players, and even when we did through injury (eg Mings and Buendia) we'd already bought in big name additions like Torres and Diaby. We share the goals around and have quality in all departments.

I don't think it's downplaying the achievement Stevo, more taking exception with the inherent suggestion that we'll be a similar "flash in the pan."

Leicester did brilliantly, but it was mostly down to the brilliance of Vardy and Mahrez that year who got over 40 goals between them, plus Kante in midfield. Keep a tight defence and have your two best players score 40 goals and any team at all is going to pose a major threat. As soon as the big boys plundered them for their best players, that was pretty well it. Emery has achieved what we have so far with mostly other managers' players, and has consistently got 2 points a game. Plus I'd say there's zero chance of us losing all our best players next season, like Leicester did. We're here to stay, people need to get used to it.

Fair play to him, came in and put in some decent tackles and helped us get over the line. The attempted 40 yard cross field balls in the 90th minute can get in the bin though!

I think Zaniolo was an emergency signing who Monchi got in because he hadn't had much time in the post and we needed bodies in, and he knew Zaniolo. I fully expect now Monchi's had chance to calmly assess what we need and work on it that we'll be seriously after one or two major players in January. When are you expecting there to be games where we can afford for Zaniolo to be given time to get up to speed?

Not really, apart from the three games mentioned above, when we actually played quite well against Arsenal and Leicester. He's averaging over two points a game in his Villa career now, and I think I saw a stat at the weekend that said a mere 1.6 points a game for the rest of the season would see us with enough points to finish top 4 most years.

Two or three of my Leicester-supporting friends were telling me his legs had gone. Newsflash, his legs haven't gone. Great player.

I'm not that bothered what the stats say, I've watched his performances, and they've mostly been very poor.

Wordle 905 3/6*

Wordle 903 2/6*

Zat Knight says hold my beer.

He's excellent, pure and simple. Nice to have Moreno as an option, but the left back spot is Digne's to lose.

Wordle 901 5/6* Very much not spawny.

Wordle 900 3/6*

Paul McGrath could more than handle himself, despite having the exquisite skills of a brain surgeon. Ugo was as strong as an ox, I remember one (fair) tackle on a Sheffield United player in the FA Cup when he absolutely marmalised the Blades player. My favourite ever tackle though was Marv in the League Cup final, absolutely superb and went through the City player at 100mph, great stuff.