45 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

 

Apparently one of the articles says the son has " absolutely nothing to do with a life of crime " and is squeaky clean etc 

As @AntrimBlacksays this is quite a clusterf*ck for him, if his daughter is dating the son.

On the flipside, if the board were looking for a reason to sack him without feeling " guilty " I see why this could be used.

Once the UK media pick up something they tend to milk and overblow it 

To be honest, the UK media would have their work cut out in order to milk and overblow a relationship with the Kinahans. They’re wanted globally by various law enforcement bodies.

This isn’t a member of the royal family marrying a woman with black genealogy. It’s a very prominent PL manager associating with members of a cartel, the main players in which are wanted globally.

50 minutes ago, TRO said:

I agree with the 4-2-3-1

but managers do what managers do, its their job on the line.....I would hope the opposition, would influence, how we set up.......but its down to the players to deliver.

I don't remember, from the past, managers being criticised as much about formations......IIRC didn't Dean play 4-3-3, before he settled on 4-2-3-1 and that didn't end well either did it?

If Dean had stuck with the 4-2-3-1 instead of trying to crowbar Ollie and Ings into a team and a 3-5-2 then it might have ended better for him. 

5 hours ago, sheepyvillian said:

That old chestnut doing the rounds. 

It wouldn't matter what players he had at his disposal, Dyche would still be channelling his inner Bobby Gould.

Look at the players Jack Charlton had at ROI. 

Dyche playing ticka- tacka, more chance of seeing a Rocking - horse shit.

I don’t know. Dyche always said his hands were tied by the players he had at his disposal/could attract to the club. I’d just be interested to see it but as I said, not here.

And as for Charlton, he never intended to play any other way. He always said as much. 

10 hours ago, slovenian said:

Jan Oblak should be haunting every Villa fan since the day the left Olimpija Ljubljana... our scouts were out there to watch him, but 1.3 m was too much for Villa but not so much for Benfica... our scouts prefered Orjan Nyland ffs... Oblak likes life in Spain but loves the Premier League... just like Handanovic, if he moves, he moves for a reason... Manchester or Atletico forever

Oblak move to Benfica in 2010. We signed Nyland in 2018. In what world did our scouts prefer Nyland?

7 hours ago, sne said:

Be extremely deflated and disappointed if we scour the world of football and land on Sean Dyche as our manager to lead us to European football and global growth as a club.

Probably be a solid choice if the aim is to avoid relegation thou.

I’d like to see what Dyche could do at a club with resources like we have. He’s obviously a very good manager and players like playing for him. However, having said that, I don’t want it to be here. 

1 hour ago, Spoony said:

No one really scores free kicks anymore. They all get skied or hit the wall. I’m not really sure what happened. 

They’ve got to be perfect to go in because the keepers are so much more agile than they used to be. To achieve that perfection the margin for error is very very small. You’ve got to get it over the wall and down under the crossbar with enough power to beat a keeper who doesn’t have concrete boots on like they did 15 years ago. 

2 hours ago, villa4europe said:

I don't see the FA sacking Southgate, they'll point at his tournament record and not actually watch his football, the FA delegate will be too busy being balls deep in hookers, coke, champagne and caviar on some oil barons yacht in Qatar to pay any attention to how bad the football is

And when he does call it a day for the national team he'll move upwards, they'll put a suit on him and make him the new Trevor Brooking, no one knows what he actually does there but they make sure the TV cameras tell everyone that he's there 

Right, never mind the Villa job or the England job or whatever. How does one apply to become a FA delegate?

10 hours ago, MotoMkali said:

Disagree. Mings was exaclty as good as this since he's been named captain. He had a poor run of form for like 5 weeks (and wasn't helped by Konsa being dead weight all last season) and people have said he's been shit ever since. Crazy. 

I was being facetious. I won’t be giving Gerrard credit for that decision. 

Gerrard‘s plan of giving McGinn the captaincy so that both Mings and McGinn become better players is coming to fruition. Just need McGinn to start playing well now. 

He just won two headers in a row. This is not a drill.

6 hours ago, Spoony said:

TBH I thought he didn’t qualify as I assumed he was well over 21 but I equally I think James Milner played for the England U21s until he was 32. 

Milner was also nominated for young footballer of the year last season. 

6 hours ago, Ginko said:

Those certainly didn’t help, but in my opinion we still should have been more comfortable.

Fair enough you’re entitled to your opinion, but my opinion after reading this is - you’re a crazy man!

1 minute ago, Ginko said:

Begs the question: why couldn’t Deano get us flying high in the Championship? I know he took us on that amazing run, but we really should have been challenging for the top.

As for Ramsey, I’m glad to see him doing so well. Love to see him and JJ as regulars in the starting eleven in a couple of seasons time.

Might have had something to do with the league position when he took over and the fact that 50% of the squad that he inherited were right backs. 

1 hour ago, Zatman said:

Oh dear, he is going to have another one of his mini pre seasons

 

That should accelerate the sacking process in terms of games played though, because every time we’ve come back from one of his mini or indeed full pre-seasons we’ve looked worse than we did before. 

5 minutes ago, MCU said:

Right decision to cancel the football. I'd cancel all Premier League/EFL matches until after the funeral. Good on The Amazons for cancelling their gig last night too.

After our start, I’d void the season out of respect. 

8 hours ago, trillvillan said:

I wish. I'm trying to work on my Uefa B currently. A scout at Villa would be a dream. 

Cool. Good luck with it. Can you send the course details on to @paul514 so that he can get the papers to back up his expertise?

1 hour ago, jacketspuds said:

Not that it’s likely anyway but we have to scrub Pochettino off the list.

He will be Chelsea manager before the year is out.

Could be before the month is out the way Chelsea are going. Although, who is making the footballing decisions at the club? Tuchel is probably the most senior footballing employee there. Will he sack himself?

EDIT: He’s gone

4 hours ago, foreveryoung said:

Ohh, comon. We say it was a pice off piss for Gerrard up in Scotish land. Now you want to take Postecoglou cause he's doing the same?? Sometimes, fans???

Rodgers is tipped to be the next man, I have no doubt. Unsure how his pay off would work if he comes straight here. Though I think he will have to s*** on the pitch in front of the CEO, for them to sack him and pay him 10 million to leave.

There’s a world of difference between what Postecoglou is doing and what Gerrard did to be fair. He knows exactly how he wants to play and most importantly can get the message across to the players of how to play it. Gerrard has a vague idea what he wants the team to look like and the communication skills of a mute who doesn’t know sign language.

It also took Gerrard 2 years to get Rangers going. It took Postecoglou 2 months to turn Celtic around. 

1 hour ago, Peter Griffin said:

Are u ITK? Do u have a link/evidence to back up that assertion? 

It’s 2022 - the age of throwing opinions on to the internet and not having to back them up. If you can’t beat them, join them. 

10 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Average squad age in PL

https://www.transfermarkt.com/premier-league/altersschnitt/wettbewerb/GB1

Little known fact. A year ago, all our players were a year younger than the are now. 

13 hours ago, viivvaa66 said:

What he did with Östersund, is like getting St Ives Town FC into Premier League

Opens FM -> start new game -> new career.

I’ll show the people of Östersund what a proper manager looks like. 

I’ve been a big critic of him tactically. However, when I saw the selection today I thought - he’s at least picked a team that had a bit of balance to it and with a bit of luck we’ll get something today. It’ll be interesting to see what he does against teams that “we should be beating” though. 

24 minutes ago, AshVilla said:

 

I'd swap number 2 and 3 around.

From which list?

13 hours ago, Lord Willard said:

Congratulations, you're now an 8 

Big transformation from a CB two or so seasons back.