brommy

The difficulty being 4 or 6 points could be the start of fewer 'feeble loses', followed by decent form, followed by good form. Possibly not of course, but I'm not at the stage of wanting my team to lose and not sure if I ever will.

New to me, so thanks. Design taste is subjective and they'll be some who think it's not modern enough, whilst some think, for example, the use of clear polycarbonate isn't traditional enough, but surely the vast majority of Villa fans will be pleased with the proposals? It's got plenty of detailed brickwork - tick. It's making good use of natural light for daytime matches and the 'leaking' artificial light will look great at night games - another tick.

Yep, purely guesswork, irrelevant to their decision. Not unlike much of this thread in that respect.

I still think it's mostly financial. Poor service aside (although 20 minutes before the West Ham game, I got served within 2 minutes in the Upper Holte), it's obvious to me that an occasional visitor will 'splash the cash' a lot more than someone present at every home game. If I'd have brought a programme, pie and a pint at every one of my 800+ home games, I'd have spent additional thousands!

I'm trying to guess what NSWE will want from the next two games in order of preference (starting with the obvious 6 points) and whether they'll pull the plug on Gerrard before the next game on 2nd October. 6 points - stays Draw Vs Leicester, win Vs Southampton (they'll prefer 3 points at Villa Park) - stays Win Vs Leicester, draw Vs Southampton - stays Loss Vs Leicester, win Vs Southampton - stays Win Vs Leicester, loss Vs Southampton - not sure, probably stays Draw, draw - really not sure but probably gone 1 or 0 points - surely gone!? Not my opinion, just trying to guess where NSWE are at.

I wouldn't equate 'a number of reports on this thread' to knowing Luiz had agreed to sign a contract extension.

I also thought the North was around 7k but I now suspect that was from historic guestimates and some rounding up. Looking at the width narrowness (upper tier) and lack of depth from the pitch (especially the lower tier), it shouldn't surprise me it's capacity is half of the Trinity Road. I assume a stadiums capacity is determined by the number of seats directly facing a view of the pitch (even if behind glass). This would discount most of the hospitality seating other than the match seats outside (are some inside?) the executive boxes, so how would knocking through lounge areas affect the capacity ?

I see from my calculations, I was 8 seats away from working out the current North Stand capacity. I'll take that! Strangely, with the building of a new North stand, the honour of the largest capacity stand moves from the Holte End to the Trinity, whilst the apparently massive new stand comes in third. Another weird statistic is that the new North Stand is exactly, to the seat, twice the capacity of the existing North Stand (6537 + 6537 totalling 13074).

I'm assuming those additional 871 seats will be part of the Trinity and D.E. corners wrapping around to the lower tier of the new North. Effectively the new North Stand adds 13,945 (13,074 + 871) minus the current North stand capacity. The current North capacity must be as low as 6545 as we know this phase is adding 7400 seats.

I can't see that, but 13,074 makes the new North Stand around 400 smaller than the Holte End. Also, I think that only adds around 6000 to the current North Stand capacity and the planning application mentions an increase of 7400 taking Villa Park from just over 42.6k to just over 50k. That said, the new North Stand should hold over 14k.

The link isn't working for me. Does the document state the current and proposed capacity of the North Stand?

An increase of 3053 or 270%, hmmm... I wonder if they've included the hospitality provided by the proposed 'Villa Live' box park (capacity around 2300?) in that increase? The remaining increase of around 750 (still an increase of over 40% on the current hospitality), seems more realistic in terms of new executive boxes. Either way, a great increase in source of income for the club.

Probably more like 49600. Definitely just 'first world problems' but that didn't stop me completing the earlier Villa survey with the comment 'please make it 50.4k+ so we can have a segregated capacity of FIFTY THOUSAND.' Hopefully the phases taking Villa Park to around 52.5k will go ahead and fix the purely phycological issue. Back to the current phase - I'm mightily impressed by the planning proposals!

With a capacity of 50065, we'll need to wait until the future phases are completed on the Holte End and D.E. until we hear a 'fifty thousand' attendance announcement. Even still, this latest step is fantastic news.

In what way?

We're being 'textbook' because we're analysing the referees decisions against the rules of the game. The advantage gained within a few seconds, does not include a foul in a more advanced position or a penalty. The ball is brought back to the position of the first offence. The rules of football don't allow the team to choose what suits them. It's often seen during games. The attacking team is fouled but retains possession only to be fouled again whilst the referee is still waving advantage. The ball then comes back to the position of the original offence, even if the attacking team would prefer the more advanced foul or penalty. Those are the rules of the game, whether we like them or not. If the decisions are to be analysed, which they were, the mistake was not seeing the first infringement, outside of the box.

One foul after another foul brings the ball back to the position of the first offence, doesn't it?

But if we're reviewing incorrect decisions in the same phase of play, the referee should have played advantage after the clear shirt pull and then awarded a free kick after no immediate advantage was gained. Subsequently not giving a penalty and then, subsequently again, giving a soft free kick for Brentford is irrelevant if the correct rules were applied - a free kick for the first offence after no advantage was gained. Teams can't just pick the offence that suits.

Isn't the correct decision a free kick, as that was the first offence they didn't gain advantage from? Not being awarded a free kick at a side edge of the box doesn't equal 'totally shafted', surely? Probably no worse than a goal kick awarded instead of a corner.

Wasn't the first foul (clear shirt pull) outside the box?

What mistake? I strongly suspect Grealish wouldn't have signed his last Villa contract without the £100m release. Would you have preferred £100m or losing Jack for around £40m with one year left or worse still for nothing? Back to our current players, if the club value Luiz with one year left at over £25m, I assuming they're not currently concerned about FFP.

I assume because it wasn't deemed violet conduct and without Jesus fouling (body checking a keeper who has full control of the ball) first, it wouldn't have happened. The severity of their respective conduct was probably seen as a 60/40 but as it was instigated by Jesus and no actual strike was aimed by Emi (more of an extreme cuddle!), it was a 'just get on with the game' moment.

I assume it won't be as steep as the Villa away section in the San Siro. That was like climbing a ladder!

You could be correct. My comment was purely based on the CGI showing a player tunnel sized gap between the newly joined lower North and Trinity.

Difficult to be certain but it looks like the North lower tier meets/wraps around to the Trinity lower/middle tiers (with a pitch level separation for the new players' tunnel), but the upper tiers remain apart to create the desired standalone stand. It looks like the join to the lower tier will wrap around to meet half way up the Witton Lane Stand upper tier, with the North Stand upper tier standalone again.