blunther

Buendia our best player as usual. We at least had some shots on target but we're just....poor.

I'm enjoying the SSC/VT mashup of late.

When we're drawing they let man city score from ten yards offside. If we try and win we'll get our goal chalked off illegally. What's the **** point. Bent as ****.

Would have thought he could do better than the Scottish second tier tbh.

only the same as a boxing day match I guess.

How do you know this? Do you really believe Chelsea have guaranteed him game time? Moneywise, maybe they offered more than we did, maybe they didn't. But we can't go offering ridiculous contracts to 18 year olds who have achieved very little. It'd be a terrible precedent to set. He has potential, but that's it. Until he's proved himself in the senior game he shouldn't be getting paid like a senior pro. If that means we've lost this player but avoided setting a poor precedent for the future, so be it.

By all accounts he was offered a very lucrative contract as soon as he was eligible. He didnt want it. Guarantees of playing time?? **** that! You earn your place on the pitch, the same as everybody else. He had plenty of chances to make himself undroppable and don't take them, which is fine because he's young and no one should expect too much. He'd have had more chances this year. He didn't want that, so we got £20m for him. We'd have got nowhere near that through a tribunal. Very smart business. For what it's worth I've never been that sold on him being a guaranteed superstar. He's so physically ahead of most kids his age, which is a massive help in kids football. It does you no good in the step up to men's football though. He's got a long way to go and I wonder if he'll have the drive a top player needs now he's got a six year bumper contract and is set for life.

Are the club offering season ticket resale this year, for games ST holders can't make?

Good decision by Gerrard. It's not 'spite' at all - if it's not clear that he wants to be here, then why waste development time to develop a player for someone else. I wouldn't even have him in the U23 setup personally.

Any villa ladies in the England squad?

What a **** shithole

More fun too. Sod 4th, I want that Conference League and some great away days!

Yeah **** it why not

You knew if we shipped one we'd lose. Didn't expect it within five minutes. Ridiculous capitulation, showing real mental weakness. Poor end to a disappointing season.

Yep, no love for the owners from me. You don't get to be a billionaire without being a cold-hearted person who isn't afraid to hurt a few people on the way up. That's the world we live in. They are what they are but they aren't running this club for the pure love of the sport or the club, and they don't give a **** about the fans as people. We're just a revenue stream. That's just how the world is. There's no room for love or sentiment in football anymore. Which makes me wonder... Given its now a global entertainment business with billions riding on it, is it actually still football? Or just one step removed from WWE?

We mostly fixed it before with lads with big backpacks of beer dotted about serving people all over the place. Then they disappeared.

I'm a bit out of the loop with 'membership' and the like but just looked it up - so I need to pay £40 a year for the chance of paying £40-50 for a match ticket if I don't renew?? WTF, we really are just gouging people aren't we.

Yeah with a 12 month then it just becomes a 'permanent' cost, you kind of stop noticing the money is gone in the end if it's every month. Over 8 months there's a big chunk of change missing that you had in your bank the month before. A 12 month recurring ST basically becomes a subscription service. No idea why they haven't done that, saw on the Twitter Q&A that they have no interest in even looking at it.

Just Because others are doing it doesn't mean we have to though. The vast vast majority of our income is through TV money. These changes will raise a couple of million a year, we could probably make more than that by getting a sponsor for the Doug Ellis and leaving ticket prices as they are, or having one less player on the books that never actually plays. Lower Holte facilities are absolutely awful. The Holte Suite cuts into it so most of the width is a narrow corridor. It's impossible to get food/drink at half time without missing part of the match. Going for a piss takes ages. What's more, there has been absolutely no improvement in the facilities. We keep being promised it, but the prices goes up and up and guess what, the facilities are the same now as when it was built on the cheap in the early 90s. Again, just because they do it doesn't mean we have to, but even so, London is much wealthier than Brum, their wages are higher and they have the population to sustain it. Also the very expensive clubs like Spurs and Arsenal at least have the facilities to 'justify' such costs - our ground offers no more than a non-league ground in terms of facilities. A couple of bars, some undercooked overpriced food and far too few toilets, and that's it. I don't agree that they did have to shift the pricing eventually. We're all so conditioned to the idea of £50 being a fair price to watch a game of football, but it doesn't need to be that way. Instead of comparing us to clubs like Spurs and Arsenal, let's compare ourselves to clubs in Germany or Spain. They have competitive football, offer a better experience in terms of facilities and still manage to charge less. Despite having less TV money. Pricing out kids is so short-sighted it hurts. I genuinely hope we don't expand to 50k+ because it's going to be embarrassing down the line when most folk are priced out and the kids all support TV teams due to never having gone to a match. I know I keep banging on about this but I'm really hurting, if I don't renew it's the end of an era, it's part of my identity, who I am and what I do but this game just isn't right anymore and eventually I've gotta draw a line.

All I can think is they've realised that with 24,000 on the waiting list they're looking to get more full-priced adults in instead of concessions taking up seats and paying the cheap prices. Very short-term thinking as if the kids don't get down the match and fall in love with in-person football, they'll all just watch the 'big' teams on telly, and there'll be no one left to go down VP in 20-30 years.

Chatting with the fam and it looks like the three of us with about 100 years of unbroken season ticket between us are out. A bridge too far along with VAR, crap "matchday experience" (I don't care when it was all spit and sawdust but for the Megabucks I expect more) and general 'the game's gone' stuff. Old man's ticket went up 63% (concession in L5). Capped to 50% this year but that's still outrageous. I'm sure someone else will have the ticket, but unless we get some quick success they may well get bored before reaching the sort of history we've got. Still time to change our mind but seems there's a bit of consensus among fans I've spoken to of this being the straw that broke the camel's back.

Crazy. TV money should make tickets cheaper, not the opposite. Genuinely don't know how we have so many people who can still afford it these days.

Gonna be a lot more vocal disappointment when we pay for European football and finish 13th next season then.

£270 to £440 in L5...

I'd pay an increased price if they increased what they offered. I'm not talking about football, that's the nature of the game. But give me somewhere to watch the early/late kick off, that serves decent beer and food for a decent price. Reconfigure the ground so I can go for a piss at half time without scrumming for ten minutes in a cloud of pissy air. Charge premium prices then I want a product that's better than the one that used to cost far less for exactly the same offering.