weedman

Nice of him to dress up for the picture

This is my go to gif when there's any tension in any group I'm involved in, even if it's minor

As good as Vardy is, he HAD to go to lower teams first as well. When he first signed for Leicester they were mid table in the Championship and most of their fans rated him as a decent player to come of the bench and use his work rate. They all said they'd need better if they were to want to get promoted. Had a PL team signed Vardy instead of Leicester he wouldn't have played barely at all and wouldn't have developed in the phenomenal way he has. Signing these types of players is easier the lower down the ranks you are. If Brighton sign 5 players for £5m each and they finish 8th-16th and eventually sell one of them for £25/30m that's a great achievement for them, if we did that our owners wouldn't be happy as they have more ambitions than that

Think he's off to Newcastle

She's not a victim, but if, from a group of about 20 men, only 2 are respectful that doesn't say "more about her than them", it says a lot about them, and basically nothing about her. The "costume" she's wearing is clearly because she's in some kind of pageant in the photo. You are allowed to be respectful to attractive models you know, you don't have to treat them like shit. On topic I'm glad to hear that our Phillipe was respectful, although not really surprising given everything we've seen and heard from him since he's been here, doesn't bring any negative publicity to the club, a non story from a Villa perspective really

Ugh the Wesley bashing Vs Wesley praising is tiresome. He wasn't that good for us, really bad in spells and decent in others with a few good moments. He was done after a few months for us so we'll never know for sure if he'd have improved or not. He was becoming more comfortable with the PL before his injury, not to the point of being a brilliant player or anything (although he did look v good in his last game), but enough to be able to think he may have had the potential to be a PL player. He was a gamble that the management obviously thought was worth the risk, even with the inflated fee for work permit reasons. In hindsight it was clearly a terrible deal, a hugely inflated fee for pure potential for a player that could only play for 6 months before basically retiring due to injury. There's no way we could have predicted that injury happens, so you can't really apportion "blame" for Wesley to anyone. For example, if someone signs Chuckwemeka for £15m tomorrow and he gets a career ending injury in January that will be a terrible deal too. It wouldn't mean the team buying him is stupid for doing so. It's just an unfortunate part of football, that stung us hard due to the fee Realistically he's never playing top level football again, so we need to just take it on the chin, stop arguing about things we'll never know and move on

Also there are pro's and cons to managers and head coaches. Fergie wouldn't have lasted so long if he was a head coach, he consistently refreshed the coaches which stopped players becoming complacent and focused on the management. Gerrard clearly does some coaching, but by leaving the bulk to his team, it means its a lot easier for us to refresh that team from time to time rather than having to constantly change managers. Although I think that'll be a moot point as if he is successful here it's unlikely he'll stay and build a dynasty like Fergie as we know he'd go to Liverpool if the opportunity arises

Especially so if you're fit, young, and rich

Agreed. It seems that our policy has moved on from picking up decent up and comers in the first team to getting established pros for the first team while filling the academy with top class youth players for the future (or future profit). Very few teams can succeed with a young team (regardless of talent) so ensuring our future through the academy while focusing on older players for the now seems a pretty good approach I'd say

Thank you!

Please can someone tell me this as well...surely it should be JR?!

I understand that point, but no one is actually using it as a "badge of honour", people are saying that we're 9th since he arrived, so it's actually not too bad and now we're improving the squad further there's a lot to be positive about moving forward. Being told that judging Gerrard since he arrived is bullshit is, well, bullshit. The difference between us in 14th and whoever was in 8th is negligible. I know that "you finish where you deserve", but it's so tight between those 6 teams (including us) that a small swing in luck or a refereeing decision can actually shoot you up (or down) the table pretty easily. For example bringing in an actual DM would help us being so vulnerable on the counter which would mean we'd pick up more points against the Watfords or Newcastles last season, stop us throwing away leads so easily like against Wolves or City or even Leeds I agree that he's clearly decided the formations he likes (4312 or 4321) and has stuck with it despite probably not having the players. He's now adding the players that fit it which can only improve our performances next season. Given that it's so tight in this cluster of teams, and our squad having some real quality but a real problem with balance, the players added already should really be enough to push us up a few places at least I think he'll be judged to high standards by the owners next season. The moves we're making aren't the moves of a team trying to get into the top 10, we're in the cluster of teams 8th-14th now, his job next season will be to challenge the top 6, finishing ahead of the cluster we find ourselves in now. If that's finishing 7th just a few points from the top 6 and clear of 8th then that's acceptable I think. If we're still in the same group of teams, even if we finish 8th rather than 14th, I think he'll be in some trouble because there's no real progress there, and no-one can argue he's not being backed

Just to confirm, judging Steven Gerrard and including games when he wasn't our manager is fair, but judging Steven Gerrard and only including games that he's managed is bullshit and cultish. Gotcha

There's no way those badges are lasting the season with regular use and washing

An English 24 year old attacker who is integral to how they play? When they are under pressure he's the guy they turn to to hold the ball up, relieve pressure and bring the whole team up the pitch. Sounds like exactly what they need for a season where they'll be clear favourites for relegation

Yeah it's not like they've just guaranteed themselves £170m or anything

Yeah but it's apples and oranges isn't it? The reason we're all generally happy to sell him is because we don't need him. Therefore obviously we wouldn't be interested in buying him for a premium. We bought Coutinho for £17m. If we already owned him would Barcelona have paid £17m to buy him from us? No, because they don't want or need him, so they would consider it a waste of money. Whether or not we would spend £15m on Davis is a nonsensical argument because if we would then we wouldn't be selling him. Every player ever sold to a smaller team is worth more to the buyers than to the sellers Edit, to clarify as well as I wasn't clear, when I said I agreed, I agreed with the first part where you said you were in the keep him camp but would sell for £15m. I don't think we should keep him as we've outgrown him now really (and whether he develops into a top player or not, he definitely won't if he stays and doesn't play for us) but I like him but think £10-15m would be a fair sale price

I like Davis and I'm in the same boat as you, £15m would be a good price for us and Forest The bold is a crazy argument. Rather than think about us now and looking to get into Europe, think about us the year we first came up and needed to rebuild the squad to hopefully avoid relegation. We spent £25m on Mings with 1/2 a good season in the championship and a terrible injury record (including getting injured in the playoff final). We spent £12m on El Ghazi. We spent £15m on Trezeguet. £12m on Samatta. £25m on Wesley. If, when we came up, we had the current version of Keinan Davis on loan to us and was an integral part of the team as well as a fans favourite, would you spend £12-15m on him THEN? Because that's where Forest are, I think they'd be crazy not to All signings are gambles, but signings that are already important parts of your squad are less so. Forest have lots of loans and are in a not too dissimilar place to us when we came up, their first priority should be converting as many of those loans into permanent signings to keep some semblance of squad continuity to go with their shiny new PL signings. People on here have suggested selling him for £1m. It's laughable

The best gif of all time

I mean there are limits to what you can realistically expect a coach to do. Their job is to make the team better at those metrics that you dismiss. More solid defense, more dangerous attack. Different managers will have different priorities and different ideas on how to best improve and what style will give them the best chance, but much of the rest comes down to players and their decision making/ability. We've seen a marked improvement on both xGA and xGF since their arrival, whole that hasn't translated to a drastic improvement in results, with Gerrards player pull you'd realistically be able to argue its only a matter of time before that work brings some rewards

I mean, he's improved the defense while also making us more dangerous in attack, sounds like good coaching no? How much of that is on Beale and how much is on Gerrard and the other coaches is unknown though

We improved our xG a fair bit in that time as well

Has anyone actually said that? From what I've seen it's some people saying "bite their hand off for anything over £5m" and most other people agreeing that £15m would be a good deal for all, he's a good player who will likely never reach his potential at Villa as we've got better already and are likely looking to improve further

I mean it's generally because he works hard (and we've had plenty who don't bother) and his all round game is very strong, he just doesn't get into scoring positions often (if you think about it, Grealish didn't really post good numbers of goals and assists until his last season and we all gave him virtually a free pass because the rest of his game was so good, Keinan is like a worse version of that). He still has plenty of potential given that this is pretty much his first consistent run of games since Steve Bruce took over in the championship. He's been majorly hampered by injuries and being too good to sell or loan out, but not quite good enough to play for us, so he's just been sitting on the bench not developing I agree with the rest though, he's not likely to ever be good enough for us (although I think he could be a mid table PL player in the future if he can get over his constant injuries) and his stock is high enough now being a key part of a promoted team and its probably best for all parties if he was sold this summer. I think we should be getting £10-15m selling to a now PL team. Some of the figures being banded about here are crazy low

The issue with this is that most people know their size but not their measurements, even though those sizes change a bit between brands, so I know on loose fitting clothes I'm an L, but things that are tighter I need an XL. Brands like Superdry I'm either an XL or an XXL depending on what side of the bed they woke up on the morning they made it. With Kappa, I don't know. I bought 2 shirts, both XXL and 1 fits fine and I is still a bit tight overall I get that the fashion is for tight fitting kits (and clothes in general), but surely most designers know once you get past a large the tight fit becomes a bit too tight for the body shape and they should really be loosened incrementally from there. It's one thing being Tyrone Mings and wearing a large shirt which is skin tight, it's another thing being Big Dave and wearing an XXL that's skin tight