KMitch

5 minutes ago, DJBOB said:

They said give Gerrard a pre-season but give Unai a pre-season and the team are already light years ahead of where they ended a strong season.

Amazing watching the squad play out from the back and keep possession.

It's amazing to see the team where we are now when 90% of us were ready to bin the entire squad after Gerrard.

Just now, lexicon said:

Continues to concern me. You compare the positions taken up by Watkins to Archer and you can see a massive gap there. Got a lot to learn. 

Needs to get minutes on film for Emery's coaches to analyze and coach him on better decision making.  In the Championship, he could just use his pace to run at people and most of the time things would work out for him.  That strategy hasn't been effective against the Premier League & Italian sides so far this preseason, but it just means he needs to make changes to his positioning and timing.  Writing him off at this stage of the season is the wrong thing to do.

Very good performance tonight.  Getting closer to full fitness and match sharpness.  Can't wait for Newcastle now...

48 minutes ago, ejs1111 said:

The media links to Adams must be drivel.  As a previous poster said- I'm an American also and have seen him play many times.  He's a younger version of Nakamba.  All hustle, press, and tackle.  Can't pass progressively to save his life.  He would be a poor fit overall here given the system change we have gone thru at Villa with UE.

Maybe I'm wrong- perhaps UE can teach him how to pass better- but I have my doubts personally.  IMO we are much better off keeping Donk who is an taller and stronger player in the same position, albeit less mobile.  Money better spend elsewhere for me.  UTV

I've jokingly called him "Tyler Reo Coker" many times because he's a very similar player.  Same strengths on and off the pitch along with the same weaknesses. 

6 hours ago, villan95 said:

I'd say we've done pretty well so far compared to most

Not looking at fees or anything like that, we're in the same class as the traditional elite clubs while everyone else is trailing by some quality.  I'd put us in the same category as Arsenal and Chelsea (on paper at least).  Newcastle's business looks poor so far because I think Tonali will be a huge bust and Barnes is very overrated, Spurs will lose Kane in the next few weeks and because of that they'll be significantly worse, Liverpool still need midfielders to play behind Mac Allister which they might not get depending on their supposed budget problems, and Man United are struggling to find a starting striker. 

2 minutes ago, maqroll said:

It's funny how even with the three massive signings we've made so far, most of us, (including myself) are not remotely satiated. We must have more, much more!

I think it's because we know how thin the squad was during the run in last season.  We had 3 goalkeepers on the bench, FFS. Our 3 signings improve us, but we need another 3 upgrades just to continue to challenge for Europe again AND be competitive in the cups. 

26 minutes ago, Kiwivillan said:

Your Buendia shtick is beyond tiresome though. It's so ridiculous looks like trolling but don't think it is

TBF, you could say the same about most of your comments this summer.  You've become the angriest man on VillaTalk, laying into other posters more than providing anything to spark debate, which is so ridiculous at times it looks like bad trolling. 

7 minutes ago, Kiwivillan said:

Why did he look poor in WC and at Chelsea. I honestly don't understand the hype for price tag and wages

He looked very good for Chelsea considering the circumstances.  Fat Frank kept chopping and changing the formation and lineup every match. 

2 hours ago, Zhan_Zhuang said:

In terms of players for attacking positions would it seem the preference is (one of): Felix, Torres, Doku?

Personally I think Emery wants João Félix.

Felix has the potential to be a world class talent, just not at Atletico.  The problem is that he would be a massive gamble for the price he would cost us in transfer/wages.  Doku is a livewire, but already has injury concerns and his career is just getting started.  Torres getting written off by Barca fans is like Man City fans writing off Grealish after his first season.  He's a very good player who would be a huge coup for us in terms of the cost if we can pull off the signing.

Honestly, we need consistency in the squad.  How many games were we crying out from a performance from Bailey or Buendia last season?  Diaby will help with this, but having another like Torres or Felix will only strengthen us further. 

37 minutes ago, Indigo said:

I often think Gregg Evans gets a ridiculously hard time of it and the needless personal insults only reflect badly on the people making them, but it's more than a bit mad that he's admitted to not watching games when it's still part of his job to cover Villa. In that case it'd probably behove him to actually watch them play to get an idea of how the team will be setting up, where new signings fit in etc.

My gripe with GE is that I know how good the quality of reporting is that others at the Athletic put out and in comparison, GE's work is ridiculously poor.  It's supposed to be the premium flagship sports reporting source, and it is for a lot of teams in a lot of different sports, but not Aston Villa.  Hell, it was a shock when he originally moved to the Athletic from the Birmingham Mail because his coverage there was mediocre at best.  Compare his work there to that of Matt Kendrick, Ashley Preece, or now John Townley.  All three of those guys write circles around GE and would absolutely kill it at the Athletic with their additional budget and resources the reporters get.  It's insulting to us as Villa fans to see him being the main person covering our club for this long.  Hopefully this new Southampton writer can help up the standard of Villa coverage and GE can get a move on packing his bags to Scouceland. 

Dan Bardell  has Gregg Evans on today's 1874 Podcast again today...  Gregg admitted that he never watches Villa's friendlies.  Imagine having a job where you follow one club and write about it a couple of times a month, and you aren't even bothered to watch matches that the team is playing.  So glad this waster is fooking off to phone it in for Liverpool now. 

Pretty confident he’ll not only stick around this season, but pass Bailey in the pecking order by January. 

On 30/07/2023 at 08:32, Enda said:

Not Villa related but what were your favourite monument/museums?

I’m a sucker for good museums and historical sites. My favorites in DC are the Air and Space Museum, the Holocaust Memorial, and the tour of the Capital (need to get tickets from the government ahead of your visit). 

16 hours ago, villaslash said:

Where did you sit KMitch? Behind the Villa goal?

Yeah, but I was 2 sections over from the group trying to sing. It was a more relaxed group of supporters in my area, which is why the couple of drunks boiled over on some of the old timers. 

The best striker I've seen for Villa since I started following football in 2006.  Benteke was a monster who could create something out of nothing better than anyone except Grealish and Young in his first spell for us.  He kept us up for several years on his own before we sold him off to Liverpool.  That transfer never made sense to me at the time because Benteke won more aerial duels than any other forward in Europe for us in his last season, but went to Liverpool, who crossed the ball the least of any Premier League team under Rodgers.  Tactically, it didn't make sense to try to slot him into their system and you could see his confidence drain completely after a dozen games when Anfield became fed up and would groan every time he mistouched the ball.  When he went to Palace you'd have bet on him to rediscover his form, but he looked like he completely fell out of love with football all together. 

No idea why some Villa supporters don't include him in their "greatest players" lists because he's in that conversation for me. 

1 hour ago, villa89 said:

Double barrelled surnames really grate on me. Pick a surname and stick with it. Nobody gives a shit that your parents split up, either pick your mother's surname or your fathers and that's it. 

What an incredibly ignorant comment. 

"How dare people do things differently than what I think is normal!!!"

2 minutes ago, grantholtgolazo said:

they’re not even attempting to fix the audio on the peacock feed. I don’t miss the commentary just want game sounds 

Refresh your stream. It fixed my issues. 

JPB!!!!  Well deserved and a great finish. 

Damn!  Archer misses again… He’s starting to get in the game at least now. 

PENO!  Archer was going to bury that. 

Passing out of the back has been poor. No idea why Carlos is the one trying to force all these passes forward when it’s the best part of Pau’s game. Mings/Konsa would normally recycle until they see an opening, but it looks like the defense out there doesn’t look confident enough to do that yet.