tom_avfc

He could genuinely be a good signing to be fair. Another option to play in behind the striker or on the wing. Would imagine signing for Villa would bring out the best in him as well with his desire to do well here. Also what a great story it would be for him and also for VT!

Yeah, it might have been better to have your mate call up before he went on holiday and arrange for a paper ticket to be available on the day. I'm sure if you know your mates client reference, address etc. it wouldn't be difficult to ring them up and sort it.

I like this but I'd have Lansbury in rather than Hourihane. Just think he's a bit more suited to play in a 2 than hourihane.

Whelan? He's playing a holding midfield role. I'd have thought the two wide men and the attacking midfielder should provide most of the supply alongside Lansbury from midfield. I don't think Green or Grealish are consistent enough at this stage and would like a bit of competition for both of those places. With regards to Elmo, then yes he should supply some goals and his link up with Hogan in Germany was a positive sign for me. With Elmo and Adomah I think our right hand side is pretty well covered. I think Hogan would improve if we had a similar level of players on the left and in behind.

I think what he's saying is we don't need another striker. I'd largely agree. If we get one then I hope he does well but actually getting a good supply up to our current strikers is more important for me at the moment. I'd rather a left winger or a number 10 to be honest - I think we've plenty up top already.

The quotes I read were more him saying he'd regret it if those 3 points were the difference between him winning the title or not which I can't see any issues with. At the end of the day he did let him back through and in my opinion he does deserve full credit for doing so.

Could this be an attempt to increase cashflow in the immediate future also? By announcing it a month in advance they could be aiming to encourage as many people as possible to renew in August to beat the price hike. Obviously not sure what the reason for doing so would be but it's the first thing that stuck out to me given that they've made every attempt to ensure that everybody is aware of the rise a month early.

I think it completely depends on the quality of what they show but assuming it's any good £6 a match seems pretty reasonable to me and I was expecting a bit more. Put into context, I have one of the cheaper season tickets at Villa Park and it works out at roughly £18 per match. So someone watching on this new platform would get 3 matches for the price a season ticket holder is currently paying. That's also assuming that you're the only person watching. Got a couple of mates/members of family who are also into watching/supporting Villa and it'll become £2 per person. It strikes me as wanting something for nothing if £6 a game is being considered too expensive. Just my opinion though and don't mean to offend anybody.

This is how I saw it too. What I don't get is the comments saying it's his own fault or he's not strong enough. In almost every game he plays he gets kicked around and he carries on. Questioning his attitude and if he's really injured seems odd to me. Additionally, he's a player who tries to play the game. I'd rather see him protected a bit more than him getting crunched by opponents at every opportunity. Yesterdays challenge was pretty poor by cleverley I thought and somewhat unnecessary in a pre season game. On that note the number of times it threatened to boil over was a bit odd yesterday with players squaring up etc.

Looked fairly bright today in the limited time on the pitch albeit still with the tendency to take too many touches. If we're going to persist with this formation we need him fit as we're really short of options for the man in behind the striker.

I thought he started pretty well today and looked as good as he has for us. Then when Jack got injured he moved in behind the striker which is where I thought he was supposed to play and looked dreadful. Strange one. I think I'd be starting with him and Whelan in the middle just not sure what I'd do in front of them. That attacking midfield position is where we're really going to struggle this season I think as well as left wing as I'm not convinced green is good enough at the moment either.

Where have you taken £70k a week from? I'm pretty sure he won't be on half of that to be honest. Added to the fact that he played a fair few games last year and did alright I'd say he's not the best example of wasting money. If you'd picked Micah Richards I'd be more in agreement. He's probably on at least £40k and genuinely offers absolutely nothing.

Yes, all profits to charity. I just think it would have raised more at a better price point rightly or wrongly.

You'd like to think so. I'd hope Bruce will be taking it pretty seriously a week before the season starts and with a good testing opposition. Hopefully we see a pretty strong Watford team too to give us some indication as to where we're at. As an aside, I think the pricing on this is ridiculous. I reckon that even just knocking £5 off the adult price would have made a large difference. I don't know why but a tenner for a ticket seems a lot cheaper than £15 to me for some reason (might just be me!). I'm going anyway so yeah hopefully we see a decent game and a fitting tribute even if it is an empty Villa Park!

I think the TV show has lost the premise of the books at this point to be fair. The books may be slow but they do a lot of world building, similar to something like Lord of the Rings. The TV show probably suffered for trying to stick to the books a bit too much and has now become a much faster paced show than in previous series but has lost a lot of its depth (characters such as Euron not really being given a back story etc.). Does this make it a better TV show? Probably yes for most people. Its been more exciting for the last series and the start of this one. I think I preferred having characters who I cared about though. The newer characters (Sand Snakes, Euron, Yara Greyjoy etc.) have not had the time given to them to make me care as much. It does mean that there'll be plenty worth waiting for in the books though (if they ever come out!).

Paul Casey has to be pretty frustrated for me. Three very good rounds ruined by his second day 77. He had the worst of the weather to contend with on that second day too.

This is predictable. He probably dodged a Nick Clegg style bullet by just falling short in the election! I said at the time that it's too easy to make wild promises and that the idea of a costed manifesto was fantasy in reality.

A starting salary of £22k isn't bad to be fair. I agree with you there's a lot that makes teaching a bad career but £22k as a starting point isn't far behind jobs such as accounting (£25k from a quick google) and doctors (£22.5k again from a quick google). You also don't need to do a four year degree - there are plenty of universities which offer 3 year degrees in teacher training. Minor points but yeah, I wouldn't want to do it so I agree with your general point.

He's good at Championship level in my opinion with the potential to improve. If he does improve then we're going to regret not taking him at this Summer's price is what I was saying. Additionally, if he doesn't improve he is still better than any other keeper we have at the club so would still be a good option as backup unless we are going to sign both a starting and sub keeper if we get promoted.

I think it's inevitable he won't have fulfilled his potential yet. He's 24 years old with less than 100 games in him. I thought he had a good second half of the season and looked as solid a keeper as we've had in a while. My worry is that the £3-4 million which we would have been looking at paying this summer is going to look incredibly cheap next summer if he has a good season and we go up. I don't get the loan rather than buy for that reason. It wouldn't have broke the bank to buy him and if he didn't improve as we'd like he's still a good backup to a better keeper we could have got next Summer.

This thread has echoes of the Barry Bannan thread for me in that due to one person's over the top praising of a player everybody else has gone overboard on him the other way. He had a decent season last year and looked decent in the majority of the games he played. He gives us a bit more energy in the middle than anybody else we have and gives his all on the pitch (sometimes getting a little carried away e.g. linesmen and freekick incidents). I'd say he was unlucky not to get more game time with the performances that others put in. I'd say he'd do a good job at a Championship team and potentially a lower end Premier League team as a squad player. I'd also suggest that things like the overblown Champions League comments have meant that he is now a face that doesn't fit and he'd do well to move on. I could see him excelling in new surroundings, again similar to Bannan. He's only 25 and I think he could still go on to achieve a decent career given the right support.

Yeah I think this is where I'm at too with this one and I've been behind the majority of Bruce's signings. I'm also not convinced he'd be a utility player for us. He'd only really be an option at right midfield you'd have thought with the number of right back options we have already. Is he even an upgrade on Bacuna who has performed decently at right back in the Premier League at times? So for me he'd be back up to Adomah on the right and I'd rather we were looking at wingers that could replace Adomah to be honest. I just think if the ambition is there we look at improving on what we've got rather than bringing in back ups on decent wages. There has to be better value out there and this just strikes me as a bit of a lazy signing if we make it. I actually wrote off the link as lazy journalism but it seems there could be more to it.

This is fair enough but surely that's just taking the extreme and there's comparable societies in any political party. I suppose it depends if by Tories in your first post you were referring to members of said societies or anybody who voted Tory at a young age. I actually think there's a large number of younger people who would vote for a more central leaning Conservative party but not a particularly right wing one (hence the mass turn off of May's government when compared to the Cameron government). I think I've probably just misread what you were saying to be fair so sorry for that!

This is absolute rubbish to be fair. I know it's the done thing to criticise tories and it's got likes from the obvious people on the forum but to accuse any youngster with Tory leanings of being extreme right is nothing short of ludicrous. I sometimes hate the black and whiteness of politics. Let's not allow anybody to support the conservatives without labelling them bat shit crazy! As an aside I voted Tory aged 18 but couldn't vote for the Tory party under may at the last election. Sorry for being "to the right of Genghis Khan". I guess it would have been more acceptable to be supportive of the oppression of white people than to vote conservative. I'll consider myself told!!

Another criticism which I don't really get. There's 5 Welsh, 6 English and 4 Irish players. If we look at the Welsh players in the team we have: Faletau - surely nobody is saying he should be dropped. Davies - one of the better performers on tour particularly last week in the first test Warburton - O'Mahony struggled last week so can't really argue with this one. Williams - Probably wouldn't be in the team if Hogg hadn't got injured but did well last week. AWJ - I wouldn't personally have him in the team but he's experienced. Took a knock last week and was ineffective but I still thought Kruis was the weaker of the two. So I'd have 4 of the 5 in the team as pretty much no brainers. To be honest I think Gatlands done OK but it's a tough ask to beat one of the strongest New Zealand sides in history. I do wonder if he wishes he hadn't taken this tour in as the criticisms he's had have been way over the top and largely based on preconceptions. Yes we probably will lose but if it's anything like last week it'll be down to all black brilliance rather than Gatland's failings.