weedman

Cahill wasn't ready for our 1st team when he was sold, bags of potential and a good squad player, but not a 1st choice defender for a team pushing for the CL, he'd been on loan a few times and wouldn't go again IIRC, a "play me or sell me" deal, so we sold him for the good of his career, I don't think he'd be the defender he is today if he'd stayed

I think you still need to "register" (for want of a better word) the ticket with a real person before hand. So you couldn't just buy a random over 6 ticket. You'd have to buy it for, say, your grandad/father and then upgrade it if anyone else wanted to use it.

My mum is over 65 (officially, unofficially she's in her 40s I think, she may even be younger than me), I'm sure she's always dreamed of sitting in the Holte End! Great advice cheers guys

Also - would that apply to away/cup games also? Just buy the full priced ticket for that game using my mum's ST?

It's easy to upgrade your concession ticket on the day or in advance. Probably better than posting about fraud in public [emoji4]

So you're saying if you're not sure you can make all the games but want a ST for the extra benefits like cup and away games, buy the cheap one then simply upgrade the games you can make beforehand? Interesting

The Newcastle game should be one big party but with an edge!! Do it a bit like Charlton with balls being thrown on the pitch but maybe as the players come out then just have a massive singalong supporting our club not the current gutless rocket polishers who play for it. I also think we should take as many fans as possible without ticket to Arsenal and just have a party. 10-15000 Villa fans just going to the ground would make massive headlines and show we are a big club and will be massive next season. 

As I remember Newcastle fans did that at VP when they were relegated, thousands of them outside the ground, always had a lot of respect for their fans for that

Don't get me wrong, he's been woeful this season, but isn't keeping players fit to play pretty much exactly why the club employs coaches?! I mean if we take it from a "it's only a job" perspective, Gabby turns up to "work" every day, presumably does as he's told by the coaching staff, as every other player does. Surely as soon as his fitness levels start to drop shouldn't the coaches address that, rather than doing nothing and keeping their fingers crossed he does it himself in his spare time?

Also IIRC he generally used to work hard over summer times improving something and was fit throughout seasons until that summer he bulked up and got a shed load of abuse for it. Maybe he decided at that point he wouldn't make these decisions himself from then on and do what the coaches say instead?

I mean is it simply a coincidence that our team in general is lacking fitness while a team like Leicester is full of super fit athletes? It's not luck it's down to coaching

Going out drinking etc isn't helping of course, but 60% of players in the PL do that as well (completely made up % based on a semi-educated guess) and their fitness doesn't suffer half as much, I mean, honestly, what exactly do they do at training?!

I really don't understand this "having a relegation on their CV" thing. It's not like football is some organisation no one has ever heard of and knows nothing about. Do we think if say Moyes took the job today, then, top of the Championship this time next year he applies for another job and they're gonna go, "na, generally his records good but he did get Aston Villa relegated". The only time waiting for an official relegation before deciding anything would be relevant would be in a computer game

As a player you can't wave a magic wand and make yourself better, you can't choose to be a better player than you are, all you can do is give 100% every game and play to the best of your ability. I think most of our team could learn a thing or two from Hutton, he's no great shakes, but what you see out there is what he's got, made for life or not he gives everything, and he deserves a bit of respect for that (in an ideal world that would be the minimum we expect from players, but let's get real for a second, even players straight from our academy barely break a sweat out there)

He's not particularly good, but given the rest of our team (barring Ayew who looks like he's about to burst into tears all the time) stroll around without a care in the world when they could be so much better I'm happy to cut Hutton some slack and personally I'd keep him here next season, even if he's not starting he'd be an experienced player who's actually a positive influence on others, somewhat of a rarity at VP

It cannot be easy to simply sack a player though, look how long Portsmouth were stuck with the 72 year old Kanu. Signed in the PL for like £100k and was still there in League 2 after they'd been in administration 18 times and only had about 4 players left

Hungry manager over a past it one? Yes please.

Moyes is a well respected manager who players will listen to, especially our youth players. Grayson wouldn't be heard above the likes of Gabby, Richards, hell even Grealish and our senior players would continue doing whatever the heck they want like they did with Lambert, Sherwood and Garde. As much as we would want to simply get rid of the senior players, it's just not going to happen especially in 1 transfer window so we need someone who can come in and control them somewhat which will filter down the ranks until we eventually have something vaguely resembling a professional team

Hinges? 

That's what you hang doors on

we're an accident waiting to happen.

 

We're not waiting for anything

Surely Karanka if he leaves Boro? Plays the hard pressing game that we, as fans love to see, had Boro challenging for promotion 2 years running and there's some decent players there I'd fancy us to poach off them if they don't come up this season

Just a thought for the campaign, there's clearly a number of fans who just won't leave the game after 74 mins and at the moment that's leaving a bit of a divide within the fans - there must be fans out there who want to be involved but don't want to leave the game early. Would it be worth trying to extend the OTD to say something along the lines of "we fully understand that not all fans will want to leave early, and to those fans we ask would you stay behind for 18 mins singing against the board with Lerner out etc", that way no one really has any cause for complaint and everyone who wants to protest will be able to, in their own way. Not a different idea just a footnote if you like within the same plan. It would also be a nice way to get both the 18 and 74 in there.

I understand everyone has worked so hard on this and it may be too difficult to push through at this stage, just thought I'd put the idea out there for the organisers who have done a great job so far

They've taken a lot of stick, but Guzan and Lescott have kept us in that 1st half. I don't get why bother playing Gabby and launching balls to his head?! Get Gestede on at least he looks a threat when the balls in the air, could be a decent foil for Ayew

Guess it's that time now, so I just wanted to say good luck, we're all counting on you...

I remember a few years ago being at villa park when Wigan beat us 3 nil, we had herd, Holman, Bennett & Ireland playing, and as kone added the third for Wigan I shook my head in disbelief at the worst football side I've ever seen Aston villa have in my life time

looking at the team today, I get the same feeling

I remember that game well, after months of effort trying to convince my Mrs that footballs not all bad, and she should give it a chance, she eventually succumbed and decided to come to a game with me, that was the game. Since that day she's never watched football again and I'm stuck in the garage watching or on my tod at VP when I'm "lucky" enough to go to a game. I'm not even bothering to try with her until we look capable of winning games again!

Being lightweight isn't the reason Gil is struggling, although it exacerbates things, he struggles because PL defenders are excellent defenders, they know where to position themselves to win the ball and they'll get specific training on how best to cope with specific players and they are professional enough to see those instructions through every time. Championship defenders are not as good, therefore Gil will fare far better against them than he is currently, he'll be able to find pockets of space more often and in more dangerous areas and should be able to make himself a few yards to make his passes more easily.

I like Gil, but I don't think he's good enough in his position for the PL, I said before he's basically a left footed Maloney and I still haven't seen anything that goes against that. He's young, and could (hopefully will) improve, but as things stand his level is the Championship which is handy for us next season as I think he could end up really effective for us. Hopefully it'll give him a platform to improve and mature into a PL attacker

lol, jesus chill out.

Getting beat by our own kids is nothing short of embarrassing, and the whole world is rightly laughing at us.  There's no over reaction in accepting it for what it is, our senior players getting stuffed 3 goals to nothing by our youth team.

Surely with Gabby, Kozak, Gestede, Bunn, Richards, Okore, Lescott and Cissokho not playing any part, a "1st team" that includes about 7 players not in the first team and the "youth team" having at least 2 first teamers in it it's about as far from a "first team beaten by youth team" situation, it's more of a "team with Ayew in it beats team with Richardson in it", which is hardly a big surprise

I'm not a ST holder and don't use Twitter so I'm not much help, but I just want to congratulate all involved in this effort. I'm one of those "don't really see the point" people, but if I still had my ST I'd walk out with you guys just due to the incredible effort you're putting into this, really top job guys

I am self employes and dont even make a 6 figure turnover p.a.

I've changed my sub-contracted management team as of 01.01.2016 in an effort to increase turnover.

My very first concern about making this decision was:

Service quality must maintain its level and have the means to improve.

Otherwise, making changes would be of no benefit at all.

I wonder if other businesses in a continually changing market think this way, especially multi-million pound industries that have a lot more to lose than me and my humble livelyhood.

It's only smaller companies that genuinely care about the end product, large companies only care about profit. In some instances improving the end product improves profit so they do it, most of the time they cut down on one thing or another cutting down costs but charge the same amount, meaning more profit. Look at Pringles. Those packets used to be full, now you open them and they're half empty but they still cost the same.

That's what they've tried at Villa, cut some costs here and there without changing the prices they charge (tickets, merchandise, sponsorship etc) and unsprisingly it's backfired and now the income is about to plummet. I'd hope they'd see the solution now is to improve the end product, which will improve the income and therefore profits, but God only knows what they will actually do.

Honestly - I don't know. I think its perhaps I hope we bounce back and a winning Villa is good to watch.

That is a very big hope though. I guess I'll be interested to see how the start of the summer goes. 

I'm a bit like this as well, haven't had a season ticket for a few years as I now live 150 miles away and it costs too much to get there and back (and I'm on my own, so I miss out on a lot of the "fun" and rely on the football to entertain me) but I'm really considering getting a ticket next season.

I mean, I know the chances are still pretty low, but assuming we're down its probably the best chance we'll ever have to actually win something with any position from 1-6 potentially going up as well as the usual cups to play for. It'd be fun to be going into the final games of a season thinking "what do we need to get promoted", or "how many wins gets us in the playoffs" as opposed to, "who is going to be shitter than us and go down instead". It could all go pear shaped and we're equally crap down there but we've got a far better chance of having a good season and winning some games in the Championship than the Premiership, just hope we're not down for too long!

Can you imagine if he signs a new 5 year deal at the end of the season, the club making sure there's no relegation wage drop in order to keep him, then he gets crocked again 5 mins into the new season and is never the same again meaning we've just got to stump up his wages and he never plays. Would be just our luck really

But they steelin r jobz

Dey turk our DURR

I'd be intrigued if anyone comes up with a formula that has us staying up without beating Newcastle at home.

For me that simply is a game we have to win so if you bank on us doing and add the 3 points now then the task is much better, 5 points off Newcastle with 12 games to go.

They still have many tough fixtures home and away left but we simply must capitalise on weekends when they lose whoever we're playing otherwise the gap will just stay as it is and the games will run out.

I like this way of looking at things, if we finish above Newcastle we'll stay up IMO

Yeah but the issue was our approach made it easy for West Ham to camp in our half. Gabby should have been on the half way line, rather than mid-way in our half.

I think the idea was to always leave them the defenders as their 'out' ball, but mark the space well and prevent any/many options for the forward pass. Worked a treat in the 1st half as it forced West Ham to continually slow the pace and play the simple ball back to their defenders. Only chance we had though was from set pieces as there was no one left forward enough to push them back. 2nd half they started trying to make things happen more and dragged us about a bit, then after the goal knew they could leave men forward for a counter attack which they did from the corner.

Unfortunately Ayews stupidity and some utterly baffling refereeing cost us this match, there wasn't much more the 10 others out there could do