danceoftheshamen

Some lovely stories emerging from the tour in Australia. Anyone got any info on how many Villa fans were in the 40,000 crowd? Just out of curiosity. It looked quite a lot? Any nice stories or pics / vids? It is amazing to see the global reach the club has when it pulls the plugs out.

Odd game, First half I thought we started very slowly but grew into it on about 15 minutes when we settled a bit and played some decent stuff occasionally. Olson played well I thought in the main, Mings was just Mings with some good but some shakey play. I thought a few looked off the pace but that's to be expected. Watkins, Cash, Digne & Ramsey were not really "at it" I felt. Another typical poor miss from Watkins when he should have buried it in one of the corners, instead a poor shot high in the centre of goal which gave there keeper a chance to save he should not have had. Shocking penno from Coutinho too who I also thought looked off the pace a little despite a few nice touches. We were though the better team i felt in that half and should have gone in ahead. Second half was all about that numpty Bamford. Clearly Leeds knew they had been second best in the 1st half and they came out like demented idiots determined to get right in our faces and get physical "in a friendly". That has to be on their manager for me and Bamford was the ring leader. Up to all his usual cheating antics. Over reacting to challenges, diving and feigning injury etc and then reacting as though he'd been shot at the slightest contact half of which he instigated himself. His team mates all then followed his lead culminating in their 16 year old youngster going in badly on Buendia which nearly caused him injury. This all went on for a while until The Villa lads had little option but to give a bit of like for like and Mcginn awkwardly caught the lad Gray on his ankle and he was stretchered off. It was a poor challenge but more by the weird nature of how he went in than having anything malicious about it. Of course the Leeds media will see it differently and try to drum it up as us being dirty. For the record It was Leeds going in dirty in that second half and Villa simply had to stand up to it. Sadly the young lad was the one who came off worse. So a horrid, scrappy & poor quality second half all in all I felt. We were reasonably solid I felt but could on another day have conceded one or two. Clearly a work in progress but the new guys look decent. I thought Sanson had some better play in that second half but still some very "meh" play too. Positives, Defensively quite strong Olson, Kamara, Carlos, Feeney, Ings Concerns Poor finishing again and clearly things are not clicking yet but of course it's only pre-season so. Watkins, Mings look exactly the same as last seasons versions.

It's awkward, clearly driven by his agent "Giving it the big one" and trying to get as much ££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££'s as he can for himse.....doh! I mean his client. Clearly Chuk is a good prospect and such but it sounds as though they are basically crossing the line with demands for him. As such the club has zero option but to not be bullied for obvious reasons. I understand players & agents trying to get the best deal but there are other ways to move forward, for example why not put in a clause whereby he signs but his contract moves up with his experience or something? I dunno I am not up with footy contract negotiations but to just go on as though to run down the contract, when he can leave for effectively nothing at the end, for me is disrespectful to the club which has helped him get to where he is. The least you do then in my opinion is to do right by the club by not allowing that to happen at least.

Mr Gray has a history of being a rude and arrogant so & so. I too will never forget the day he was our assistant manager and we played at Aggborough (Kidderminster Harriers ground) in a pre season "Friendly". Before the game had even started during the warm up he came out and was just stood doing nothing really. A young fan aged about 7 or 8 politely asked him to sign his programme & he just bluntly told him to "FO". the kid was distraught. No doubt ruined his day. I was ashamed to be honest as a Villa fan. It wasn't as though he was being constantly harrased by loads of people it was just one kid! Shame on the guy. What an a-hole.

On this doors thing.... I do remember an ex who had this weird obsession with blocking every doorway in the house, also the stairs. Always but always left stuff cluttering the stairs despite me pointing out it was actually dangerous on a countless number of occasions. The door thing was just weird though. Always stuff shoved behind every one in the house so as you couldn't open them fully. Used to do my head in. Must be something psychological in it somewhere?!

Just speaking with the missus & we are talking about a woman at her work in her 50's who earns circa £80k per year and represents the large company she works for to the general public. She is also head of her department & yet she rocks up in filthy dirty white Matalan trainers every day! Wrong in my view. Buy some new ones for goodness sake! Or at the very least clean them on occasion! The customer service around by me is nothing short of a disgrace generally. Rude obnoxious people. I even went into McDonalds the other day. Ordered some food and a McFlurry and they served the McFlurry 1st into a boiling hot car! 6 minutes later I was still waiting for them to cook a cheeseburger and the McFlurry had melted to nothing. I pointed this out to the guy in the drive through kiosk and he just, in a really cocky & rude manner, said "Oh well it's been done now so!...." That's about the norm in Burton on Trent

No that's their carpark on matchays

Surely it is at the stage now where Gerrard needs to see the squad in pre season before deciding where to strengthen? Afterall we don't know what Ashley Young is doing yet regards back up LB. We have what feels like dozens of midfielders, some of whom he hasn't really seen much of and none of them with the benefit of a pre-season to see if they can come up to scratch. McGinn & Luiz were being played out of position & Sanson may benefit from it too. Then you have the kids, Chuk & co. Maybe he wants to see if Chuk is ready & will sign before replacing him (Meaning he would almost for sure then not sign). Then upfront we have Davis & Archer back in the fold. From what I saw last season the ball was not sticking upfront. Watkins is great at pressing but his hold up play leaves a bit to be desired. Davis excelled in this at Forest, albeit in the Championship. He was also adding goals having finally been given a run of games. We know the rest of the team hate playing against him in training so maybe he just wants a good look at him. For me, especially considering we already have a couple of new faces & effectively another new player in Bailey, SG may well want to see how it's looking prior to his next move?

Agreed, in that game he also followed up that disgraceful decision by booking almost our entire defence for the exact same offences he then would'nt book their players for within minutes of each other, effectively meaning our players were petrified to go anywhere near them and thus handing UTD victory gift wrapped on a platter. One of the most obviously corrupt & manufactured results I've ever seen.

Depends on your club badge that, if it's Salah or Bruno Fernandes, Saka or Kane against us or any one of the "Outsider" teams then it's a foul, if however it's Watkins against one of them then you run the risk of being yellow carded or worse sent off (as has been evidenced).

Well I think most people on here know my thoughts on it all. After doing a pretty indepth study for a couple of seasons of all the top flight games (Not just the Villa ones I hasten to add), certain sequences emerged which for me confirmed that it is actually by design, not just bad reffing. In my humble opinion there is no doubt that the scummy 6 get a massive helping hand season in, season out from the FA, Via their employees the referees, and now they are double protected by the further layer of deceipt or "smoke screen" that they have handily turned VAR into. Yes the "Checking club badge" before we interevene or not, or whether we decide to apply, totally ignore or even reinvent rules as we need to, to keep the status quo is so obvious it's ridiculous. Funny how it's no issue in other sports or even over in Europe where it appears to be used for purpose, rather than to control results. So now, in my view, a team outside of the scummy 6 and especially those who also reside outside of London, would have to effectively play well enough to beat those teams 2-0 to end up with a likely draw or play well enough to beat them by around 3-0 to end up with a single goal victory. Obviously that won't happen very often at all considering those teams usually have the better players regardless. The old "it all balances out over a season" thing is frankly a load of tosh. At least it is when you play one of those sides. It never balances out against those teams but the illusion that it does is created by the fact that when they play each other, Man U v Liverpool for example or City against Chelsea, then those games do tend to balance out. And of course similarly when we play wolves or Leicester or Southampton play Brighton or Everton, then those games balance out too. This enables the "It all balances out over the season" comment, to be used by all & sundry on repeat year in year out. What is not measured is how the decisions fall when those scummy 6 clubs & to a point the other London clubs, play against the rest of us. Well let me tell you, the scales of balance are sitting in their two extremities with one dish on the floor & the other as high as it could go! As for the attempted "cover up articles," which are published annually in the media stating "Where would your club have finished without VAR" & then go on to show a couple of images (More often than not of one of those Lverpool v Man U incidents showing one or the other finally getting a decision against them), though of course these ridiculous articles show barely any difference in the table, especially "as it happens" for those same scummy 6 teams, who bizarrely are often shown to have suffered & got less points than they should have had, whilst of course nothing is mentioned, apart from the odd random thing, of the total shockers the rest of us consistently suffer. This for me is simply another smokescreen put out to blur the lines of truth. It is no surprise that the usual match rigging troup have been moved into the VAR room. We all know what will happen next.

Some decent looking stuff to be fair ….. …….as for the cost!!!

I can see Gerrards idea clearly now..... It's to sign all the small players and have such a low centre of gravity that the opposition will have no clue how to get the ball off us with it being the equivalent of inbetween foot level & head level much of the time. So we head it about & win loads of hand balls.

For me Ginola ......The good version, not really the one we saw apart from one European game when he was electric. Dennis Mortimer the Captain marvelous..... as I feel we need that Paul McGrath ...Easiest choice ever!

I'm actually pleased we didn't sign him. I think he's extremely injury prone and would have always played here with one half of him regretting leaving his home club. Another who will have a trophy cabinet full of purchased trophies which will mean little as the mists of time decend & it becomes clear how a few greedy clubs, funded by states and backed up by greedy FA & FIFA officials who greased the tracks for them with lots of dodgy deals, effectively destoyed true competitive football in the 21st century. Oh.... Welcome Newcastle Arabia too BTW

Sadly no chance whatsoever that the "staus Quo" will be allowed to change with the scum 6 losing their places at the top table. The constant dodgy rule changes & FA interference / result tampering will see to that, as we do see every season. VAR has become just another blanket of protection for those clubs so it's even harder now with the "checking club badge" approach which has now been incorporated into it. Add in 5 subs & dodgy behind the scenes financial deals to appease them (as happened to help prevent the ESL by all accounts) & other rumored dealings & you can see the joke it has all become. One or two clubs may eventually get in at some point but boy will it take some doing to bridge the moat of corruption surrounding those top 6 spaces.

So, Finally I have managed to get sorted! Moved from L5 to K4 Upper Holte! Took just under 1 hour from being on hold to finishing the call. A few pointers for you all.... The options. STAGE 1 When I finally got through at exactly 2pm (After their lunch break between 1pm & 2pm) to what i'll call "Stage 1" of being on hold, there were rather unclear recorded message options with none actually stating "To relocate your seat". This was a little confusing/concerning as I did not want to click the wrong option which then took me to a robot and possibly ended the call after giving some useless pre-recorded info (Which is often the case I have found with this type of phone system). So having taken a risk on the "To enquire about match tickets or season tickets" option, I was put into Queue no.1. After listening to the recorded "hold" music for around 40 minutes the phone started ringing! .......Only to another pre-recorded message with more options. Again no mention of seat relocations so I took a punt on the "To book match tickets" option. STAGE 2 So once again I was on hold listening to music. This time around 15 minutes passed with an intermittent (All our agents are busy / You can go online / your call will be answered by the next available agent) message. Then Finally after around 55 minutes I was put through and got my seats relocated! Couple of points 1. When I asked why it was so hard to get through & that the whole process was really frustrating etc I was told what was clearly a pre scripted line of "we are very busy & are open for 3 days" with no apology or willingness to pass on my point to whoever. He did say that ""they could not do online relocating as it's very complicated and too many people get in a mess when doing it"". It was also stated that there were only a few agents which begs the question "WHY NOT GET MORE AGENTS FOR THESE MOMENTS?! I am sorted now thankfully after effectively writing off a day. Luckily I work from home but how on Earth people at work would cope i'll never know! It really is a shoddy way of doing it. If has been stated above by some they will relocate you prior to this 3 day nonsense then why have the 3 day thing at all? Why not just do it generally to stop the huge snare-up?

Hilarious! I just had this reply from the Twitter "Support" team on AVFC Support.... ""Morning, all our staff are currently busy taking incoming calls, unfortunately we are unable to offer a call-back. The relocation window will be open for the next few days. Please keep trying to get through and a member of staff will help you as soon as they can."" Joke of the day then followed... I rang & rang & after being booted off the phone system saying "We are very busy, please call back later" I finally got through and put in the "Queue". After holding 10- 15 mins It connected......................To an answer phone saying they are closed between 1pm & 2pm for lunch and the lines are closed.... Please call back later!! Proper joke this. How on Earth is someone at work, who in the norm is not allowed to make, or only allowed to make brief personal calls at the bequest of a manager, supposed to get through exactly?! Then you finish work & they are closed or call on your lunch & they are closed! What a farce! But it's ok I can do the same for 3 days don't you know!

Ok here we go again, I am trying to contact the ticket office to move my seat and, as was the case last season, it is totally impossible to even get in the queue on the phone. You are not able to do this in person either at the ground! So how on Earth is one supposed to move seat in such a small window of time if you cannot contact the club to move it? Does my head in. Surely some extra staff during these windows would be possible? Or at least a decent phone system which doesn't kick you out or even let you into the queue? It just says "we are very busy and cannot take your call at the moment but please call back later!!" So infuriating and poor that this happens every year! Surely there cannot be that many people trying to move seats as there are only 30k season ticket holders anyway?! Most will stay where they are regardless. I think last season there was a twitter page or something but I cannot see it this year.

Renewed also! Me & My daughter, who's now aged 15 so moves up a bracket into the under 18's, so a bit more costly but still a bargain for her. Will be moving seats though when the window comes up as not a great view from behind the goal in all honesty.

I could never fathom how such a big guy was so useless in the air tbh. Always find it bizarre how we have/had so many big players none of whom seemed able to guide a basic header on target from a corner!? I include in that Mings, Davis, Wesley, Konsa, Hause (although he did finally get a rather good one at Old Trafford of course) etc Surely we should've had far more headed goals with players like that?

A huge well done to him for wrecking the Jubilee celebration weekend His ridiculous, hippocrytical treatment of our players, especially as a former player here himself, is enough for me to enjoy watching his boring team implode. Cue a shambles of a Nations League now having lost to the Worst team already.

What a let down on the UK's big Jubilee weekend!

Typical Southgate "Pick the players from the Bigger clubs" bottlejob performance for me. Lucky it wasn't a bigger defeat from what I saw. Awful team selection & tedious cowards football. Bowen looked Championship quality with his dismal finishing, though had a few dangerous moments/dribbles. No surprise who gave the penalty away lol! I thought the defence looked awful to be quite honest and I am relieved Mingsy boy was not there to take the brunt of it. I thought Phillips looked way off it when he came on & why on Earth bring him on when chasing a lead anyway? Bellingham is clearly a prospect & one for the future..... But clearly that future is not quite yet as he looked a liability I thought & was constantly giving possession away. Maybe will knock them down a peg or two as they looked a bit cocky headed to me. I will say though, how stupid to have this tournament inbetween a covid affected season & a World cup in Dec?! Fools!

So as it stands at the start of June we have: Made Coutinho permanent Filled the No.6 Void (finally) Strengthened Central defence Replaced the main Coach It looks like we are deffo after a back up LB, Will be extending the back up keepers deal and will be possibly bringing in at least a couple of others. I'm personally already very optimistic now for the new season.