VillaChris

8 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

I wonder how many verbal agreements we have with players based on us reaching the CL. Bet it’s a fair few. That’s not to say the clubs will accept bids or anything will materialise but you can guarantee a fair few players and agents were waiting on our final league position. 

Hermoso is one I reckon given the strong links over last few weeks. I can see that being announced once the Spanish season is over.

Free transfers tend to be announced pretty early on, Kamara was announced about a week after the 2022 season finished IIRC.

4 hours ago, stewiek2 said:

I've been thinking, considering they need to sell homegrown for FFP this summer, and IF he can prove his fitness (and some players just need a change of club for such fortunes to change), would a cheeky move for Reece James be worth a punt?

Chelsea fans would go into full riot mode if they ever sold him, he's the last player they'd let leave and he's actually their captain when fit I think so 0%.

Have to think though we'd have a decent chance of signing Conor Gallagher if he became available and Unai felt he could improve parts of his game.

He's still very young with plenty of top level experience and a McGinn clone pretty much so we could do worse looking for a 30-40m additional player for central midfield to keep things ticking over before Kamara is fit again.

Can't see any senior players leaving now which is brilliant.

You don't get to CL and suddenly start moving out regulars and replace them with kids e.g. Luiz out and 19 year old CM coming in would just send out the wrong signals in the short term.

What we do have now is the opportunity to cleanse the squad of the fringe players who are barely playing now so won't be around for CL.

Sanson already off the books and you can add Chambers, Lenglet, Zaniolo, Donk, Tim to that.

I guess the one who's seemed set to leave would be Digne but if possible I'd keep him around for one more season given his vast top level experience and I get the feeling we've already seen the best of Moreno so he's one of the bigger names I'd be looking to move on if there's a taker.

Cash will probably be vulnerable aswell as we'll be seeing plenty of Konsa at RB in the CL with some of the left sided players we'll be facing.

We're in that nice position now of only needing to add 2-3 players every summer window so hopefully they'll be high quality in the positions we need them in. Also Buendia, Mings and Ramsey hopefully being fit in August gives us nice rotation options for league games straight after CL next season.

20 minutes ago, picicata said:

You see those draw pots and you think 'this going to be tough!'.

Then you realise that we beat one of the teams in Pot 1, one of the teams in Pot 2 and one of the teams in Pot 3 this season.

We're a good team, yes it's going to be tough but, by god, I'm looking to it!

Newcastle were very unlucky to not make the CL knock outs. Be prepared for some dodgy VAR calls to aid one of the favourites. If you thought the refs in the Olympiakos games were bad you haven't seen nothing yet....

1 minute ago, villa4europe said:

I hope we get someone like Madrid, Barca or bayern, want someone huge both at home and away 

The whole point of being there 

Would love Madrid just to see Bellingham sky one into the Holte early on and everyone just shouting "CITY REJECT" at him for a minute afterwards. 

Don't mind it.

We had Escape for years and was o.k with that and it usually comes back if the change dosen't work.

Remember Elphick picking some weird tune that lasted about five games and then we came out to the darts music that people just chanted "Conor Hourihane" to? Summed up the championship years.

Bells are Ringing was a disaster when that was reworked aswell, sounded like we were coming out to a funeral which summed that period up well.

Uefa have their own intro they like teams to walk out to so that will be different entrance next season before the well known anthem comes on after.

1 minute ago, JPJCB said:

Apols if this question has already been asked but is the 5th CL spot coefficient potentially up for grabs again next season? Or was it a point in time check and Germany have it forever more? 

Same again but less teams. Might only be six if Man. United win the FA cup.

1 minute ago, CarryOnVilla said:

About £30m in TV/prize money. More if we progress 

These are also the games where club level prices will be astronomical as demand will be ridiculous so will make another couple of million from corporate alone.

Maybe also some more sponsorship?

3 minutes ago, MrBlack said:

24th out of 36

Going to be weird looking at the table. Nearly double the length of the premier league.

Unless they split it into two 18 team leagues?

So this new format...

What position do we have to finish to stay in this tournament post January 2025?

Just seems like all the other tweaks to Football in the last decade in that more games are played just for less teams to be knocked out but guess that's good for us in the long run as we'd have likely drawn a group similar to what Newcastle were in and that would've been very difficult to get through given two of them made the SFs this season.

1 minute ago, StewieGriffin said:

We'll be playing two of Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, PSG, Inter, Dortmund, Leipzig or Barcelona. One at home, one away.

Absolutely **** staggering 

Yeah will have to get up to date with this new format.

I'd still rather have the old one as then you'd get a Munich or Madrid home and away. We'd have probably been lowest seeds so would've been a Newcastle type group but still would be great occasions.

This new format seems like all the others coming into football over last decade. More games just to see even less teams knocked out so can't say I'm a fan of that.

Just now, MachoFantastico said:

We can enjoy the final game of the season, maybe even play some young lads and rest some of the players who've worked so hard for us this season. 

I'd play Tim. Tielemans did a great job last night but with the euros coming up no need at all to risk him. Also would be an interesting one for KHH to come in with Eze drifting that side.

Bailey probably rested aswell but beyond that think it will be our usual team and hopefully Ollie gets to twenty goals to put the cherry on the cake.

5 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Another pessimistic, negative CVByrne prediction in the bin. You love to see it

He hasn't been too bad in recent weeks in fairness. @Tayls was somehow still last night whinging about how bad everything was, how terrible we are defensively (like all teams in the league just keep clean sheets v Liverpool) and how Spurs were going to beat Man. City 5-0 or something so only fair we see him give the team their dues for a fantastic season.

3 minutes ago, romavillan said:

When we were watching Bruceball in the championship who'd have dreamed it?

Has anyone actually come up and got CL quicker than we have?

Probably an obvious example I'm forgetting but Newcastle was six years between coming up in 2017 and last year.

Guess Blackburn in the 90s but it was totally different back then and they had Jack Walker spending incredible money back then on Shearer etc.

Pretty surreal for this finally to be happening after decades of some near misses.

We basically did it when we won at Arsenal, that was the clincher weekend.

Amazing season by the team and manager.

4 minutes ago, PaulC said:

I don't believe city will be as bad second half.  

TBF normally in this fixture they're already 1-0 down to Spurs so for as bad as they've been this is actually a better outcome than usual.

They're nervous. You can see that with likes of Rodri just booting the ball out of play under no pressure. Combination of what's at stake and knowing Spurs don't roll over to Man. City like other teams for some reason.

Man. City been woeful haven't they? Still haven't scored at the new WHL in premier league!

That said feels like one of those headline writer's dream nights when Grealish comes on and fires us into the CL. His thread on this forum will be amusing if that happens.

11 hours ago, Bunnski said:

Terrible again. Barely even noticed him all game but nothing new there. 

I thought he played some lovely throughballs, the one for the disallowed Ollie goal was inch perfect. Diaby needs to learn to play it like that when he gets in those sort of positions.

Him and McGinn also ratted around Liverpool well in the first half, it really helped them knowing Tielemans was around them.

9 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Anybody got Doug's reaction to our goals from the bench last night - he went mental!

Can't see him leaving unless the club force him out.

Will be desperate to play in CL for us given he's been with us from day 1 of our prem renaissance and all the ups and downs in last five years.

2 hours ago, The_Steve said:

I’m very curious if MON simply did tactics with his favs and left everything else to Robertson 

I don't think MON did any tactics whatsoever. If you listen to some of the Leicester squad from 90s he didn't turn up for training until the Thursday/Friday there.

All about motivation for him so no wonder no one wants to employ him nowadays.

2 hours ago, Panto_Villan said:

Yeah it’s just embarrassing hearing all that. Squandered a huge amount of potential with that team.

It’s interesting to hear young Ashley Young being a ringleader in terms of the team skiving off training - I wonder if Villa imploding taught him some valuable lessons for the rest of his career, given how professional he subsequently became.

Playing under Fergie probably did all that.

That's where Gabby maybe moving around the same time would've probably pushed him on but he stayed and became so entrenched in our mediocrity he was done by his late 20s as a serious prem player.

11 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

The whole segment on Villa is dire to be honest, a dismal progression of everything getting worse through a lack of professionalism and people acting like total dicks. 

Yeah just listened to all of our segment.

Houllier was a petty character aswell wasn't he if it's as Warnock said. Probably very similar to MON in a way.

I also remember Mysterman's ITK on here around the time and he basically said Houllier wanted to get Warnock, Carew, Friedel all out as he'd fallen out with them previously and that's what happened. Guess the big thing in Football is managers forget rules if you lose heavily so don't take any chances there. We should've let him just go to Liverpool as probably could've got 5-6m back if he'd done alright there on loan.

McLeish as suspected a decent guy but just didn't have the personality to manage the group plus all the factors of where he came from.

I was thinking all through the fitness stuff why some senior players didn't just go to Lerner and Faulkner and say this as that's what would've happened at likes of Chelsea at the time but then he says Lerner was blanking him after Lambert decided to bomb squad him.

Great podcast though. I'm sure MON will respond in time to that...

11 hours ago, andym said:

What did he actually do in the week?

That training was just 5 a sides and zero tactics, left to john robertson and steve walford has been said before, but seems like we barely trained at all.

Not surprised he threw a strop over milner asking to do more fitness, he always had a brittle ego, and the petty response of sticking some poles out, making the players do some laps, and then storming off, sums up his bitter character.

A management style still rooted in his playing days; chuck the best 11 players on the pitch, tell them they're great, and hope for the best.

What a word removed.

O'Neill basically replicated what Brian Clough was doing.

Trouble is that worked in the 70-80s but he was losing his touch with those methods in early 90s and so was relegated in his final season as a manager.

MON still trying it in 2010....

Players talk with others at different clubs and I remember John Terry after we lost to Chelsea in the FA cup saying he knew we'd fall off fitness wise around the hour mark.

Also wasn't there some talk of a fall out with Milner?

BBC Sport - Football - Bolton 0-1 Aston Villa

He was on the bench for this game in April 2010 which fits in with the timeline Warnock is describing.

I didn't rate Houllier's brief spell but you can tell he had no chance coming in and straight away prescribing intense training and probably double seasons when the mentality of the squad was to have half the week off. 

53 minutes ago, MaVilla said:

amazing that Spurs have beaten Man City the last 4 times at home, without Man City scoring a single goal, what the heck is with that!?!?

Also beat them 1-0 in the CL in 2019 although that might have been at Wembley? Man. City also missed penalties in a couple of those games.

They're generally a tricky match up for Man. City with the pace they have in final third but can't see anything but an away win in this as Man. City are different animal in last ten games of a league season to before xmas.