icouldtelltheworld

With a sizeable pay off in hand. Nice work if you can get it

I remember being shocked by this at the time. As I understand it, Riley has Jewish heritage but was not raised within Judaism - fair enough then for her to take an interest in antisemitism and speak out where she sees it. But for her to then accuse a Jewish intellectual with actual lived experience of antisemitism (not to mention time spent living on a Kibbutz) of being a 'spreader of antisemitism' struck me as being particularly nasty and distasteful.

Agree with this. Think he'll go down as a bit of a cult hero once his time here is done, has his limitations but works hard and has scored some massive goals for us. Seems to really care about the club as well. Remember Newcastle game earlier in the season when he came back into the team, so much excitement every time we got a free kick in a good position

From the Guardian: "But true to themselves, Villa played the denouement immaculately: seeking territory, clearing to the corners and using the backside of John McGinn to shield the ball if nothing else worked. Full-time brought only more tension, more awful waiting. And then, finally, release." He's back and so are we!

statue on trinity road

An absolute star. I hope he stays but understand if he's off. Thanks Jack - you didn't have to give us 3 seasons in the Championship and we would have been relegated months ago without you. I'm in my late 20s and he's the best I've seen play for us by a mile - if he does leave he'll always get a good reception off me. Legend.

I like Trez, has his limitations but always tries his hardest and has scored some massive goals for us this year. Must have one of the best goals/minutes played ratios in the squad

The first match my dad took me to was the 3rd round match against (then Division 2/League One) Fulham in the FA Cup about a month after we'd been top at Christmas under Gregory. We barely won a game again all season after and finished 6th. I can literally say that it's all been down hill for the Villa since the day I rocked up. Sorry lads it's all my fault. If I'm honest, I've had some of the greatest moments of my Villa supporting life this last year or so under Smith. Grealish getting punched and scoring the winner against SHA. Hutton's wonder goal against them at our place. Super John McGinn. Beating Baggies over two legs (on penalties!!) and going up as convincing winners at Wembley after a club record league-winning streak. All that with a team reliant on loan players and people about to retire with a boyhood Villa fan captain in the form of his life. Smith got us up and has taken a young and inexpeirenced side to a League Cup final (that we gave a good account of ourselves in) and has us 90 minutes away from staying up, and he's barely been here 5 minutes. I supported him for most of the year but had accepted a few weeks ago we were mostly likely down. I think almost all of us would've taken being in 17th on goal difference going into a final day game against an (almost) mathematically safe West Ham at the start of the season. He's made plenty of mistakes, but credit where it's due - by any measurement he's doing better than any manager probably since O'Neill.

Looks like he's getting back to full fitness - could be massive for us in the last few games if he can stay in good form

Vast majority of our fans are a good bunch, but there were some seriously bad takes on the club's FB post about the players taking a knee yesterday. Noticed one or two mentioning they won't support BLM as it's being funded by George Soros/new world order etc... "I'm not racist, here's some antisemitic tropes to prove it"

I quite like Lambert and think he generally did a decent job in shit cirumstances while he was here, albeit ultimately losing the plot towards the end. That said, the League Cup was ours to win that season, losing to Bradford over two legs was unforgivable. A microcosm of the **** of being a Villa fan over the past 10 years

not going to be our day here

His pass for our disallowed goal was filth too

Excellent in each of the last two games, has all the attributes to be an impressive PL midfielder if he can keep improving his passing.

Thought he was superb tonight and that it finally looked as though Grealish finally had a midfield around him that were on his wavelength. A lesson for us all to give such young players time to develop.

Brilliant tonight

Tells me that they have a settled team who know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, whilst we have a side who have barely played half a season together working under a manager who got us promoted when he had no right to do so, winning a club record number of league games in a row in order to make it possible. But we all read things differently, I guess!

Agree completely, Trez adds pace but seems to lack a bit of composure and end product. Nice problem to have though

Got very lucky, had to book for 7 people, had 3 devices open, 2 of which would have had waits of well over an hour, but the other one was pretty much straight in after about 2 minutes. All within a few seats/rows of each other. Very happy boy tonight! UTV

Just spotted him drinking in spoons in Mere Green. Hes really got no future here has he? Also, if I was on footballers wages I wouldn't be drinking in spoons

Was Betfair but looks like they've shrunk massively since this morning. Took a punt at 17/1 the other day, since taxi-gate am feeling quietly confident

You can still get 7/1 for Pardew to be next Prem manager sacked. Surely he's gone if they lose today?

I'm really not sure what we should do at this point, but I feel like things are likely to get worse before they get better. Bruce can't get the best out of the team, and it's going to take a lot of coaching for anyone to get us performing in a coherent and consistent fashion. My gut feeling has always been that the "promotion at all costs" approach could end up hurting us and was the wrong way to go about things given the utterly shambolic state the club was in when we went down. Instead of accepting that it might take 2 or 3 years to come back up, and building a vibrant team with a clear identity and ethos, we've continued to focus on the short-term, which is largely what got us into this mess in the first place. In this sense, Bruce and our current troubles are merely a symptom and not the root cause. We have a top heavy team, many of whom would need replacing even if we do go up. Next year the parachute payments dry up, and then what? We have a large wage bill, with much of the squad nowhere near justifying the money they are on. Ironically, the focus on promotion in as little time as possible could now lead to us spending many more years in the wilderness. I can't help but feel the club has missed an opportunity to finally become a well run unit with an actual plan. Now, if we don't go up next year we could be in real trouble. Something needs to change pretty quickly, but I'm damned if I know where we should even start

Yep, that would also be racist

...fast as ****