MarkLillis

3 minutes ago, Leeroy said:

We need to get that revenue figure up. It's what f*cked Leicester when they were in a similar position to us.

I agree totally with the first part of this sentence - we need the revenue up.

However Brendan Rogers not qualifying for the Champions League when in pole position for a couple of seasons is what fcuked Leicester up.....i little like Martin O'Neill's failure during his tenure here.

First of let me be clear we need all the fans we can get.

But it will be strange...

Fans watching corners through their phones.

Chinese guys in half and half scarfs

Villa Talk will be full of African guys getting angry about the strangest things.

Kids in Manchester asking there Dads to buy Villa Kits.

Those same Villa Kits on sale in JD sports

The changes will be endless because if Spurs can go where they have gone, there is no doubt in my mind if Villa get it right (by that i mean win things regularly because Spurs haven't even done that and they are massive!) we can do similar....

3 minutes ago, Villatillidie95 said:

Everton have won the appeal against the red card for DCL so he will be able to face us 

Why does VAR get involved if they are going to direct the referee to give incorrect decisions?

So who is right the ref?.....the VAR panel?....the appeal board?

I really do despair for football sometimes!

He will do “a job” for them mate!*

*Said whilst taking deep breath through teeth,adjusting belt position and taping index finger on the table 

 Dion seems quite out of touch to me.

Im not sure his generations style of play would work very well in todays game however he still suggests 1990/2000s tactical solutions to 2020s problems.

Its the biggest problem with ex players becoming pundits and even managers.The games moved on but they haven’t.
 

Leeds

I cant stand that intense desperation that is present in their stadium when things aren't going well.

It stinks of an entitlement that is given to them by a fawning media who have convinced them that they are more than a provincial club that wins things occasionally (rarely even).

On 29/12/2023 at 22:59, chrisvilla4 said:

Would rather any Midlands club be promoted than anywhere else in the country. 

After their last spell in the Premier league the “pride of the midlands” can go **** themselves!

On 01/01/2024 at 23:22, MrBlack said:

The Duran incident was a soft penalty. By the book, I'd argue its a penalty as he got kicked, which stopped him getting on to the ball he was running on to.

But if it wasn't given on the pitch I wouldn't expect VAR to overturn it. The fact it was though, I don't want VAR overturning that as its a subjective call that looks different viewed by a different person. 

 

I agree it was soft.

I agree its a penalty

I also agree that VAR shouldn't overturn it.

The problem with it all is they DID make the referee in the Sheff Utd v Wolves game go to the screen and inevitable change his mind for something very similar (I'm sure Wolves had another similar thing happen against Newcastle too).

Things would be so much better if they all interpreted the rules in the same way!

4 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

Of course he would. He'd be our best player

This.

6 hours ago, TRO said:

They came at Newcastle, like a pack of Hyena's....The urgency, and intesity, was class leading.

 

Yes they were very impressive 

5 minutes ago, Mantis said:

Give it to this guy

He's going to be the Head of Sports Science apparently.

1 hour ago, nick76 said:

Why do we fall away? 30 points from 18 games.  

 

I think its because everybody thinks we will fall away.

I'm not saying they are right, but the narrative is overwhelming in the media its everywhere. I watched a 45 minute podcast about the title race in which they barely mentioned us apart from to say we where having a "good run of form" and that "our squad was a bit thin"

Sometimes there are games that we just have to get through with the points 

Today was one of those.

Nervous- yes

Confident we would do it-no

Look at Anfield or the Emirates for atmosphere when things aren’t going well…..they are quiet and apprehensive too.

The guys are doing the right things late winners or equalisers in three out of the last 4 games.

We aren’t going away and the boys will need us to be there later in the season UTV

Quality player would like him in the centre back alongside Pau though.

Having said that…. In Unai we trust UTV

My MOM today.Was a constant threat on the wing.

12 hours ago, VillaChris said:

This felt a bit like all those endless games we couldn't win last season to just get in the top half. Then we beat Chelsea, got into top 10 and kicked on from there.

This will be a good lesson tonight for the team mentality.

I wouldn't say there was pressure but there was expectation we'd comfortably win the game to go top and we didn't come close to seizing the opportunity.

Hopefully it's not the last chance we get in next few weeks but a useful reality check all the same as what's for certain is they'll be far more high pressure games than this in the next five months so we need to be ready for them.

I’d say we were pretty close to seizing the opportunity tbh.On another day we win that match comfortably.

it’s not like we lost 3-0….(anyone remember Wimbledon in 1990?)

Of course new fans are welcome. We were all new fans at one stage.

Of course technically they will be glory hunters because they wont have followed Villa without the relative success we are having.

My story is that as i young kid my playground pals Dad had travelled to see the 1977 Cup final and when he came back he gave his son the scarf he wore telling him Villa were the "champions"

Gary then proceeded to convince me and others to support Villa and i have never let it go since then. Not sure what Gary is doing now of course.....

So I confess i am a Glory hunter!

17 hours ago, Pongo Waring said:

What the Heck
 

 

This is something I've been waiting for.

Getting to and from Villa Park HAS to get easier. Its the first thing that needs to be done nothing will work without it.

1 hour ago, MWARLEY2 said:

We have always been one sustained level of success away from being a truly big club by whatever metric you want to measure it by. If and its a huge if we can cement ourselves and achieve success for the next decade then all the little brummies who would have supported Man City  and Arsenal will support Villa. Chris Heck might be stupid but he isn't that stupid. All of his data will be screaming at him saying that we should be so much bigger than we are. 

I think deep down we have always known this it just sounded so stupid when you say out loud so most of us didn't.

Over the past 12 months its sounded less and less silly.....

We have a massive potential fan base that are already Villain's, any kind of success will bring them out of the woodwork.

A sustained period of success would have us right up there with the likes of Spurs and Arsenal.

13 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

To be fair pundits and opposition fans of clubs around us have been very complimentary about us and if anything are putting us in the title race more than our own fans are.  

Yes i do agree MOTD and others have said a lot good things.

The "poor away form" has slightly got under my skin though. Mainly based on a comparison with a 100% home record and swayed by the fact that we had played one less away match than most of the teams around us in my opinion they should really have applied more context than they did.

Football has changed a lot since the last time we were in this position in 1998.

What hasn't changed is back then (like now!) nobody thought we could win it.....and they were proved emphatically right.

I cant get that season out of my mind, pre Xmas and post Xmas were night and day. The second half of this season will NOT be like that this time.

I believe we will keep getting results and i believe pundits will keep trying to find reasons (like the imaginary "poor" away form) why we wont stay the course.

All we can do as a club and as fans is enjoy the moment and live in it.

So ignore all the WBA, Blues and Wolves fans telling you to stop getting carried away and carry on dreaming!

25 minutes ago, turvontour said:

This I what I still don't think a lot if people in the media have picked up on. 

Danny Mills came on talksport this morning and said to Gabby, "how is it Villa are so good all of a sudden?"

We've been the 2nd or 3rd best team in the Premier league really consistently for about the last 14 months, the day that Emery managed his first game. People still think we are on a good run this season.

Yes......there a clear blind spot where Unai Emery and Villa are concerned.

Another cliché is the away form is bad. They roll that one out enough times.....

Jokers

I do think that our performance at Spurs has been underestimated by the media.

We didn’t play well.

Spurs we’re on the front foot and very hard to play against.

Yet the more the match progressed the more “control” we gained.

It wasn’t pretty but we ground it out against one of our peers in a way that is absolutely needed if you are to succeed in this league.

Spurs didn’t get a result but they are being awarded a moral victory for “trying hard” and being plucky underdogs because of their injuries.

Spurs will be very hard to beat at home this season.

Unai will be very pleased 

I’d back Everton to get out of this…..what are the bookies odds on them staying up I wonder?

5 hours ago, Pinebro said:

If Spurs are in it we certainly are

the only people that think that Spurs are in a title race are.............actually scrap that there's nobody that thinks Spurs are in a title race is there?