El-Reacho

8 minutes ago, Lord Willard said:

Spurs are only 5th due to their incredible form at the start of the season. I’m not worried because from game week 10 we’ve been the better side. 

Yeah their form from Game 11 to Game 33 (now) has them 8th.

1 hour ago, Therailboy said:

 

Lol - Purslow straight under the bus there!!

3 hours ago, viivvaa66 said:

The chances for that to happened is about 20%, so nothing really wrong with prediction. 

Yeah statistically you can't argue with it, but it does suggest we're nearly over the line when all it takes is a couple of results to turn it on its head.

1 hour ago, Wainy316 said:

 

Those prediction percentages swing massively with every result at this stage of the season. If Chelsea beat us and Spurs beat Arsenal, which is not implausible, that 80/20 would probably flip back in Spurs' favour. 

2 hours ago, Zatman said:

Doubt Wilder will, he seems prefer the big lumbering types

Sheffield are supposed be in bad financial health and getting the money back might be better for them

Apparently they owe lots of teams money for player transfers where they haven't adhered to the payment terms. Don't know if we're one of the clubs.

4 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

He's 30 years old with how many years left on his current deal? 

Unfortunately I think Saudi money now means this kind of logic won't be the case in football but an added couple of years security at Villa is worth being paid less for, as a calculated risk he stays with us until he's 34 on a reduced salary rather being paid more for 2 years then trying to secure a new contract elsewhere at say 32 years old 

I can genuinely see that happening 

The flip side of that is as good as he's been this season do villa really want another 4 years out of him? Personally I think the nonsense around his wages is overblown

Pretty sure there’s only a finite number of squad places for marquee European players on those Saudi squads. After the flurry of last summer there’s unlikely to be the same demand again this summer.

6 minutes ago, Pinebro said:

Liverpool out of the title race by the time we play them would be so ideal for us 

Having said that the way they’re playing right now I’d fancy us to beat them even if they were still in it.

Toney is actually better suited to England under Southgate as he’s a blunt force instrument that requires no instruction. The likes of Foden, Saka, and now Watkins are used to coaches who’ll give them clear tactical instructions for each game which they just don’t get with England.

6 hours ago, Stephen_Evans said:

Heskey on the left was clearly ahead of its time!

Big ‘eck and Don Unai two very similar footballing minds in fairness.

Is the whole gambling thing resolved with him?? I'd sign him permanently all day long.

Love how he baits players into coming towards him when he has the ball on his own goal line. Such a well drilled tactic that we've benefited from so well. Dean Smith tried to do this too but it was never as good as  it is now.

We'd a great chance in the first half when Emi and Pau kept passing it along the inside our box and about 4 of Arsenal's front line kept getting closer to them. We managed to pass it through their press via McGinn and Rogers I think, Oliie missed a good chance.

2 minutes ago, Alakagom said:

Given how big of a success top 4 is for us, they had plenty of success. When did we reach CL final recently? Success doesn't mean just trophies, they were a midtable team like us with around same revenue 20 years ago, now their revenues are x3 higher than us. Much more successful I think 

The income they’re getting from their new stadium is huge. It’s far higher than they had projected it to be.

The mistake for their second was dreadful but given the reaction he'll have got from Emery and his teammates I reckon it's the kind of mistake you'll only make once. I think he's getting better and better - will be very interesting to see if we sign him permanently.

6 hours ago, Zatman said:

Doubt City would approve us signing a player from Girona on the cheap

Farcical that they can have that level of power across Europe with their various clubs. How that's considered to be within the rules is beyond me. I realise that NSWE are aspiring to the same business model but they should outlaw it.

19 minutes ago, JPAngel said:

There have been a couple of comments about the form of ourselves and other teams in this thread which have been a bit off base. You might be surprised at how well we're doing compared to others...

Above Man City, Tottenham and Man Utd is not a bad spot to be in at this stage of the season. Also, the folks concerned about Brentford, and I'm by no means discounting them, should take a quick peek at their ranking.

Looks like we're in similar form to when we played them before Christmas. Think we'd just come off the back of the Forest defeat a couple prior to that game. I honestly would've had City, Spurs, Fulham and even Wolves ahead of us in the form table. Must be a negative disposition I have!

29 minutes ago, VillaJay said:

Very, very tough game tonight, but unlike my usual nerves watching Villa, I'm really excited about tonight's game, what an opportunity for us to go and win the game and get a grip on 4th place.

Incredible season and what a job Unai has done, like Unai said last week this isn't pressure, it's a fantastic opportunity for us and I think we could win tonight, pressure is on city.

Very similar circumstances to the 1-0 before Christmas. It's a midweek game on TV and is the standout fixture of the week. We don't have the same momentum as we did before Christmas but we seem to have a bit more confidence about us than a few weeks ago. I'd take a point all day long!

15 hours ago, thabucks said:

He’ll be halfway through his 6 year deal this summer so £50mill left to amortise - can see them accepting a small hit on him to get his £300k + wages off the books. If he were to do a Coutihno and accept a vastly reduced salary to facilitate a move and then if Emery wants him back I’d be all for it. They say never go back but Cowans played for us on 3 separate occasions and Grealish is up there with our best ever talents we’ve ever produced and could become a club legend if he were to return and shine. 

Have always felt Grealish's languid style is ideal for Emery. The way he carries the ball up the field is exactly what Emery has encouraged our players to do since he's been here. He'd be perfect when we're up against low blocks.

Don't have a great deal of sympathy for him but he's been treated harshly by City.

25 minutes ago, stewiek2 said:

And also both goals today he wasn't involved with so we can score without him.

We were also really good second half - particularly when zaniolo came on and really amped up the press. Arguably better as a team second half than first. Great to have such a good striker but not be solely dependent on them.

14 minutes ago, Pinebro said:

United getting out played again.

We all know what that means 

Injury time winner for them.

Felt a bit sorry for the Ajax guy that got sent off just after Ezri. He was as hard done by as Konsa was - the ref would never have booked him if he hadn't just handed out a ridiculously soft second yellow card.

On 04/03/2024 at 09:22, Dante_Lockhart said:

Reminds me of Watkins when he first arrived. Got the foundation of a good player, needs the time to develop.

Watkins scored a perfect hat-trick against Liverpool within a month of signing for us - he didn't need too long to develop!

1 hour ago, allani said:

Everton spent a lot of time buying players from "lower" clubs - they just spent over the odds and on questionable players.  At the end of the day the reason they've had to sell their best players rather than their worst players is because they paid way over the odds for their worst players and put them on big salaries.  Everton are in the position they are in because of their mismanagement not because FFP has failed.  They are a bad example to use.

I agree with your main point - I just take issue with using Everton as a victim of it.

It's more the fact that Everton found themselves in the position of having to sell Richarlison within a certain time period to comply with the rules (which they subsequently didn't even do). They maintain they'd have got £20m+ more by holding out until the end of the window like most teams do, but weren't allowed to. So FFP rules have essentially done them out of a potential £20m - how is that in anybody's favour except for richer teams like Spurs? Levy will have known that Everton needed to sell and used that to negotiate. The same thing happened with Brennan Johnson - Forest wanted to keep him for another season to increase his value even further but weren't allowed to to the benefit of Spurs.

It'll likely be the same for us this summer if we're tight against the FFP limits. The big 6 will be lowballing us for Watkins etc. knowing we need to sell by a certain accounting date. The rules are clearly designed to give those teams an advantage over anyone who's trying to catch up with them. The rules were drawn up in response to City throwing money and buying their way to the top. None of the traditional top teams want to see that happening again. 

43 minutes ago, paul514 said:

The solution has always been obvious, bonds.

You want to go past your limits? Ok sign the 50m pound player, give him a 5 year deal on 10 million a year..... fine.

But you are going to have to stump up 100m now in a bond that gets drawn down on to pay for the player. That way it doesn't matter and you can invest.

That's the obvious solution but it allows the likes of ourselves and Newcastle to gatecrash the top six party. The fact that the current rules prevent (or make it extremely difficult)  for us to catch up with those teams makes it pretty obvious what the real intentions of FPP are. Also the fact that Everton and Forest have had to sell their best players to a club higher up the tree (Spurs) for discounted transfer fees, just to try and stay on the right side of FPP is also ludicrous.

1 minute ago, choffer said:

Beal. Sunderland. 
See any connection? 

Lol - I remember him doing the media rounds after SG was sacked saying how badly the players had let him down and that the squad lacked any real quality.....

1 hour ago, Keyblade said:

I remember people making excuses for Gerrard like "well Smith didn't play him either, he must be crap", meanwhile he was injured for 95% of his time with Smith.

Has a manager ever been so universally disliked by players and fans alike as Gerrard? Even our worst managers have had redeemable qualities but Gerrard just seems to be an utterly unpleasant arrogant idiot. We've had managers in the past who were well out of their depth at Villa Park but still were still likeable to some degree even though everyone wanted them replaced (I'm thinking Lambert/McLeish/DiMatteo/Bruce). It's one thing to be aloof and ignorant toward the players if you can actually achieve results. Capello was that type of manager - Gerrard definitely not. Sherwood was way out of his depth and his ego was off the charts but he seemed to have a good relationship with most of his players and I don't remember him throwing them under the bus like Gerrard. Not one of our players has had a good word to say about Stevie G.