Fight Like Lions

Did anybody actually see the MOMS flag anywhere? I know it was banned inside the ground but apparently it was delivered to the Green Man to be paraded before kick off. £3,500 of fans money and no sign of it? Was it in the Green Man?

I'm more interested in how Sherwood proposes to solve it. Raiding relegated teams for players is clearly not going to be a good strategy if he wants more winners in the team so looking forward to seeing who we are going after.

I think we have to credit Tim for the work he's done with the players to keep us safe in the league. The cup run was a welcome distraction from the dross we put up with for the majority of this season, it's just a real shame that our players weren't able to perform on a day when Arsenal played out of their skin. If you look at the amount of injuries we've had over the last few weeks it's becomes more apparent what a close shave we've had this season. Our starting 11 yesterday had several players who had suffered from injury over the last few weeks (Okore still playing with one), so it comes as no surprise we looked well off the pace. Richardson as an example was never capable of playing 90mins yesterday, so that was one sub confirmed before we'd kicked a ball. It worries me that we've never had the luxury of strength in depth, a couple of injuries crop up and we are forced to use players out of position or turn to the weaker squad players for regular games. I can understand Tim trying to be dogmatic and start talking about the big clear out of players (of course, in an ideal world that needs to happen) but I do hope this isn't where his naivety will start to show. Realistically, unless he has already been briefed about an imminent takeover, or Randy has assured him of £20m + Benteke money I think he's in for a rough summer. Not only will it be difficult to offload his 'losers', we need to replace them and probably add another 4-5 players on top. We've just finished 17th in the league, we're not in London or Manchester and we have a wage cap. How on earth is Tim going to attract these players???

As if it what I witnessed on the pitch wasn't bad enough we were distracted by Villa fans turning on each other in the stands. Whoever the low lives were in rows 7 and 8 of Block 529 I hope you're proud of yourselves this morning. I did my best to ignore you but it looked like it ruined the day for a couple of young fans, couldn't have been older than 7 or 8 who were in tears at half time due to your behaviour next to them.

I've had the same email- block 529. Disappointed but will at least know to take my own, was going to leave it in the car!

If I'm in Block 529 and have a friend in 549 (both upper tier) will we be able to meet up on the concourse pre-match? Didn't venture that far at the semi-final but it seemed pretty open. Presumably segregation is just to separate rival fans?

If I'm in Block 529 and have a friend in 549 (both upper tier) will we be able to meet up on the concourse pre-match? Didn't venture that far at the semi-final but it seemed pretty open. Presumably segregation is just to separate rival fans?

Hainan Airlines then, new Beijing route from Birmingham starting this summer.

Adam Henley at Blackburn looks a promising RB, be a good young player for Sherwood to bring in. No idea what he would cost though?

I read that if it's to be the right dimensions to be approved for the North Stand that it will have to be cut down so it will just have the 'Aston Villa' bit at the bottom.

I can't see him at Liverpool. He'd be going for money and no other reason. Rodgers position isn't stable and he'd be arriving knowing Sterling had been sold (only way they could afford him). You look at the rest of that squad and with the exception of Coutinho and possibly Can if he's played in the right position there's not enough quality there for a serious challenge for Champions League football. If Arsenal come knocking we should be worried. That's his dream move and with Sanchez playing the free role number 10 he'd be the main man upfront. They got it wrong with Welbeck and Giroud isn't consistent enough. Benteke could see them challenging Chelsea for the title next season.

I was with the majority that stayed until the end. I'd like to think that was Vlaars last performance in a Villa shirt. Hopeless doesn't cover it! Whilst I'm not going to put too much blame on Shay, it winds me up how he goes walkabout off his line. Got totally punished by Shane Long. Not good enough for a player of his experience. Hope we get the funds to bring in some new blood and find a way to ship out the crap we have in the squad. The summer can't come quick enough now.

Craigslist- dodgy Western Union- cast iron dodgy Neither are traceable in any way and I can't see why anybody with a genuine ticket would use either of them. Plenty of pictures of genuine tickets all over the net, so absolutely no way of knowing if the ones he is offering even exist. You'd be wasting travel time and money on a trip to Devon as he would have a sudden change of circumstances which would mean he can only post them. At this stage of the game unless your prepared to deal with some sort of travel company that have a physical address and can pay credit card with some protection, or can obtain a ticket through word of mouth off a genuine fan that suddenly can't attend then forget about trying to get a ticket in advance. Your best bet is to chance it on a ticket from a tout outside the ground.

The club aren't doing anything. 2 weddings booked in and a company has apparently hired the pitch for something.

I see Villa have extended the range of merchandise for the final at Wembley to include limited edition shirts. Anybody purchased anything or planning to? http://shop.avfc.co.uk/wembley2015/index.html

^ Yep, JustPark is what I used for the semi final. Anywhere around Kingsway (HA9) is good. 5mins from the stadium, right side for Villa fans. You walk past the Green Man on the way and can cut through the residential roads to get back onto the motorway easily after the game. £15 seems to the going rate.

How did you get tickets in the lower tier today? Very annoyed! They've been releasing more seats, looks like some a certain amount of each criteria held back for each day. They were £120 ones along the side of the pitch rather than behind the goal by the looks of it.

Yes of course it's the FA's fault that we have a reduced allocation. Personally, I think every fan who attended the semi final should be able to go to the final. Having said that I find it baffling that anyone is willing to pay stupid money to a tout for a potentially dodgy ticket when there was the opportunity to purchase 4 more games that would have added to their booking history. West Ham, Everton, Southampton and Burnley cost me a total of £106 and allowed me to be eligible yesterday. Even if someone couldn't actually attend those games but were sitting on a 3 game booking history prior to the criteria being announced they could have booked them to be eligible today. Looking online, it seems there might even be a chance tomorrow for those on 6+. Would I trust a tout to supply me a genuine ticket for £600? No way, boycott the touts, get the beers in and the BBQ going and put the money to better use.

Just Villa splitting the allocation days across a wide time period so they can cope with the admin! Yesterday was the first proper day for non season ticket holders (unless you'd been to every round of the cup and several league games). It's expected to sell out today.

Personally I don't see there's any more to read into it. He's not ready to commit and wants to concentrate on his club football. As we've got some important games coming up and the Ireland games are friendlies then he'll probably get away with it as far as the media are concerned. Next time England or Ireland come calling he's going to have to make a choice. Seems to me that the lad has his head screwed on and getting good support from his family and Villa. Hope he manages to stay this down to earth as it's becoming more of a rarity in football these days.

^ Me too. Bloke I used last time told me to book with him direct for the final. Just confirmed my space for £13.50

How did it work for you online? I cannot get past the basket screen. I assign the tickets and click proceed to payment and then "error". Oh, it has now kicked me off altogether and I am back in the queue. Lovely. I'd taken an iPad down with me and my phone. My phone was slow but got connected on the iPad within about 5mins. I didn't get any error messages, once I'd put my card details in and it went past the security screen there was a slight delay for it to load the confirmation, otherwise it seemed ok. Maybe their card processing has gone down? Just checked my emails- had 3(!) confirmation emails, all timed at 09:10am. Got to be IT issues with the amount of traffic hitting the site at once. Hope you get sorted soon!

started queueing at 7am, got online whilst in the queue and got the tickets! Still had about 75 people in front of me at the time. I went down because I didn't trust the website to grant me and my mate the right privileges and wasn't sure how the website would hold up. Seems daft living 10mins down the road not to go and queue if it meant guaranteeing me a ticket should the web fail. Would have done whatever it takes to be there on 30th May with such a daft allocation and the first proper selling day for those of us without season tickets. Block 529 here we come!

Fair play once again to the ticket office staff- opened at 8am.

Queue is unreal, got to be about 500 here snaking around the car park and growing all the time. Hoping they open up early like they did for the semi final.