BG_Villa_Fan

Not even close tbh.

Surely the game plan against Bournemouth is to get it out wide and keep crossing the ball. They’ve been doing it over and over again and it’s not like they’re under a ton of pressure so it must be deliberate. How they’ve looked at the players and consciously decided to do it is beyond me. They must have stolen the opposition game plan and tried to apply it.

Ehh I'll go against the grain on this one and predict this will have a positive effect on the performance of both Mings and McGinn. I expect John to step up and have a great season.

This is true but it might not be as simple as Smith vs Gerrard, might be due to the stage the club is in - under Dean we were a newly promoted club that had to buy a whole new squad, rebuild with younger players and survive, whereas now we're an established PL team that needs to make the next step. Whether they're doing it right or wrong only the future will tell. It's certainly a more risky strategy but one could argue that had we continued building slowly with young players the path to top 6 would have been nearly impossible, especially seeing that certain snakes would leave unless you bring instant success, thus setting the club back over and over again. I'm not sure the younger players at the club are ready to step in the way JJ did. First of all, most of them are still under 20 and they all definitely need a year of playing regular football somewhere, bar KKH perhaps, who's already done that. I don't see signings like Augustinsson setting back the development of Chrisene and the like because I don't think they're ready at all. The Augustinssons, Youngs, etc. are just placeholders for the young guys who need to mature physically and mentally in order to be able to step in. Besides, there's a difference between JJ being given a chance in a team that had finished 17th the year before and these guys growing into rotation players for a team that appears to have ambitions for 6th/7th or so. Perhaps not, we can't know this, but their continued spending on the youth setup is a good indicator that they're in it for a long time, not for just a quick shot at it like Lerner. Personally I'm not worried about this at all. Critchley seems more than capable enough to replace Beale. In fact I'd be more worried that he's overqualified and would be poached as well. We've performed badly against the top teams under all managers for the last 30 or so years, it's not much of an indicator at all.

They measure both standing and vertical leap. That said, there's long been conspiracies about players suspiciously measuring lower on standing reach ( no idea how that happens ) in order to stand out on the verticals. Keon Johnson, being one example but there have been others in literally every draft.

I like the fixtures. Balanced, no horrible run of difficult games, always an appropriate game around the corner to end a bad streak, etc.

I agree.

It was always coming back. Entirely UEFA's fault though , because they were too afraid and weak to punish them properly.

no he's not.

If they're paying 13 mil for Burn then Targett's worth 30.

While I don't want to see any of the best players leave it's encouraging that Villa now receive proper offers for their players. Shows what a good job they've done building this team from the nearly empty shell that Dean managed to promote. If they can move players like Luiz and Cash for premium prices and replace them with players they think would fit better then fair enough, I trust them to make the right decisions.

Not an exciting signing but a sensible one on a free. I'm surprised it's not a loan but a long term deal, Gerrard must rate him. Wouldn't be surprised if he's sold to a Burnley or a promoted team within a year and a half for a tidy profit.

Even with a flicker of hope they'll still not spend a penny in the transfer window to help themselves? They need at least two players to have any chance of survival.

Phew! Definitely taller than Tommy Elphick then.

That was offside didn't even bother to check it.

So another ex Barca player? When do we finally announce Messi? I know I know, too old, no resale value, etc.

You don't say.

It's becoming a tradition to get players from Barca. Proper feeder club we have.

Sure, but let's hope it'll work for us

A very interesting question indeed. It did seem at times as if there were two separate hubs of decision making when it came to transfers, sort of similarly to how it was under Sherwood. Probably not the best set up but then again, considering they've had to completely rebuild the whole squad, they've done a very good job overall. Some mistakes were to be expected but I'd argue that even the less impactful ones ( Wesley, Heaton, Trez ) played a role, weren't complete duds, and were unlucky because of terrible injuries. Now, apparently it wasn't all great because Suso did lose his job and took the fall, but the scope was enormous when we were promoted with half a squad under contracts.

It's as if you didn't read or didn't understand my post. I'm not blaming Gerrard. I'm not defending Smith. I don't think there'd have been much of a difference between them in terms of the big picture. We had something good going at the club, something that might have been able to carry us above our weight, but they've allowed it to slip away and now we seem like a club that has no identity or direction.

Soulless team. Dean Smith and Grealish were the soul of this club and it's been ripped off. It'll be difficult for Gerrard to do much, regardless of slightly positive or slightly negative performances.

All comes down to refereeing again. Last season Watkins had quite a few occasions when he tried playing through contact in the penalty area and wasn’t given a penalty for genuine fouls, say at West Ham, simply because he stayed on his feet. More recently he’s been trying to fall down when there’s contact but he looks so clumsy because it’s not natural for him, and he’s always rejected again. It’s up to the referee to set a standard for what a foul is and what a penalty is but we see again and again there’s little consistency when making a decision.

This is absolutely true, however, refs are at fault for another widely accepted misconception - unless a player falls down there’s no foul/penalty. It’s still incredible how 4 or 5 refs, with all the benefits of technology, can still get so many decisions wrong. A random decision generator wouldn’t do worse.

Really? What gave it away? Do we have to write 'imo' after every sentence on a message board in order not to be mistakenly taken for an ITK? Fwiw I also believe Purslow and Gerrard wouldn't have the snake back. To clarify - I haven't personally talked to them, just imo.