The Hawk

10 hours ago, GingerCollins29 said:

Very disappointed chilwell is not playing. Guy is absolutely rancid

I’d swap him for either of our left backs in a heartbeat

12 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

Nope. Let's win a European trophy. We are 4 games away. This is what you'll tell your grandkids about, not about Villa finishing 4th. 

Fair enough, each to their own. 
 

I’d rather see us kick on and establish ourselves in the top echelons of both English and European football than win a 3rd tier trophy that West Ham won last season.

Am I the only one thinking that the Conference league has to take a back seat after England’s results last night all but ruled out a 5th Champions League spot?

Brentford on the weekend now has more importance than this game in my eyes so personally id be starting the likes of Iroegbunam and Duran this evening.

Every week we complain about how rubbish the referees are in the UK and that they favour the big sides. 

But i've never seen a more incompetent refereeing performance in my entire life. He wasn't biased, just blatantly incorrect for an unbelievable amount of decisions. It was like watching the referee from Balls of Steel... 

41 minutes ago, turvontour said:

It's a really weird betting market for FA cup winner. 

Chelsea and Man U second and third favourites, ahead of us, Liverpool, Arsenal etc.

Chelsea 10/1 and us at 20/1 is bizzare. Unless they think we won't be interested. 

I think that’s exactly what they think. 

As much as I respect the FA Cup, our current league position (and even the conference knockouts) is far more important in my eyes.

19 minutes ago, MrBlack said:

Even if we ignore the slightly reduced transmission rate, the bigger argument for the vaccine is that the vaccinated population probably won't need hospitalisation. So even if the spread of 5 vs 6 is still virtually the same (as above, it isnt), the percent of those that end up in hospital will be much lower, and you don't end up with the situation where people die because there aren't enough beds/staff to cope.

Madness to think the vaccine doesn't help. Not madness to be concerned with potential long term side effects... that said I have a friend who had covid before vaccine existed, and 15 months later they still can't taste anything. Worse than nearly any remotely likely side effect of the vaccine.

 

Edit: on topic,  I cant see any logical reason why any of our first team would resist having the vaccine. The most logical concerns on the vaccine are in pregnant/due to become pregnant women, and even they are very much debatable. For our men's first team, who have really short careers, aren't women, and could have their short careers ended by a bad reaction to covid, it is weird why they wouldn't want it.

And saying there has been slow uptake of second/booster vaccines is even more bizarre. That's just laziness and any player falling into this bracket is a moron.

Agree on the hospitalisations argument, much more compelling than the transmission argument. 
 

How likely is a professional footballer in their 20s to end up hospitalised with Covid? It does happen, but in exceptionally rare numbers. On that basis, if a player doesn’t want a vaccine because they are concerned with long term effects for example, I personally don’t believe the circumstances deserve vitriol and hatred.

32 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

And believe me, despite what you say, the difference between an R of 5 and an R of 6 is absolutely massive .

The difference between 9 million and 60 million is huge in that context. And framing that misinformation as a reason for not getting the vaccine because it doesn't stop transmission isn't just wrong, it's dangerous

With all due respect Stevo, that is not how it works. It caps out long before reaching such numbers as the previously infected aren’t continually reinfected. 
 

Nor did I frame this as a reason not to get vaccinated. I framed it as a reason to not blame all of our COVID woes on the unvaccinated. Those sorts of irrational accusations belong in the post-match threads

7 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

I don't know where you got these numbers, as they sound wrong to me. But saying the difference between an R number of 5 vs an R number of 6 is absolute nonsense.

 

If people have an R number of 5, that means they pass the virus on to 5 people. Then those 5 pass it on to 5 more people each, then all of those pass it on to 5 people etc etc. If it's 6 then they pass it on to 6, then those 6 pass it on to 6, then all those pass it on to 6 etc

If everyone had an R of 5, then after 10 stages of transmission, you would have about 9.7m people with Covid.
If the R number was 6, then after 10 stages of transmission you'd have over 60m people with Covid

That doesn't sound like an irrelevant difference to me.


That being said I have never heard of the R number for Covid being anywhere near as high as 5, vaccinated or unvaccinated. As i remember it Covid was said to have an R number of 3 if nothing was done to stop the spread.

You’re correct in that the initial virus was roughly 3 as you say, Alpha strain roughly 4-5 and Delta 5-8.

The difference between 5 vs 6 is irrelevant because in both scenarios, everyone will still eventually be infected, which isn’t necessarily the worst thing if we can manage severe outcomes (hospitalisations/deaths) via treatment protocols. 

Like other viruses, if the above pattern continues then over time it will become more transmissible but less deadly. Circling back to why I agree with the likes of Villalad, based on the above it isn’t going away and we must learn to live with this. Freaking out over cases and shutting down is an outdated approach.

1 minute ago, villalad21 said:

You guys are acting like the vaccine gives you immunity. 

My dad is double vacced and contracted covid a couple of weeks ago. 

Covid has become a part of life just like the flu, and we have to learn to live with it and not call off every single game everytime there's been an outbreak. 

Covid isn't going away anytime soon. 

If you can assemble a first eleven you play. That's my stance on it. 

I never thought I’d be entering a vaccine debate on VillaTalk let alone agreeing with Villalad21 but here we are. 

Some frighteningly simplistic viewpoints being put forward in this thread eg false equivalences comparing all vaccines as the same - they’re not... 

The more traditional protein-based vaccines in most cases provide sterilising immunity whereas mRNA Covid vaccines barely reduce transmission and are more of a therapy designed to reduce symptoms.

A close associate of mine develops vaccines and believes the basic reproduction number (R nought) of a COVID vaccinated person at the height of their immunity period (note: these vaccines quickly wane) is roughly 5 whereas for an unvaccinated person it is 6, meaning an unvaccinated person is likely to pass on the virus to one more person than a vaccinated person at their peak immunity. Exponential mathematics show the difference between 5 vs 6 is irrelevant.

Bill Gates himself says so below.

I’m all for vaccinations, but blaming the unvaccinated for all our problems is a lazy, uninformed and divisive stance. We need better vaccines (or other therapeutics) before that argument stands up.

26 minutes ago, dudevillaisnice said:

These “freak results” seem to happen to us far too often to suggest they are anything but freak in my opinion.... we just aren’t clinical enough as a team and until that changes teams will always have a chance against us even if we go 1-0 up.

Is that why up until tonight we and Leicester were the only remaining teams that had a 100% win record after scoring first???

What a load of nonsense.

1 hour ago, MrBlack said:

My speculative take on it, assuming we don't have an option to buy...

 

I imagine we definitely asked about an option to buy but suspect we got told that there is no option but an enforced we must buy, at a price beyond what we were prepared to accept given the uncertainty at the start of this season.  Then probably got given the "you can have RLC  with an option..." to which we (rightly) decided that loaning Ross without any ongoing agreement is better than RLC in any shape or form. 

Then it comes down to do we cut our nose off to spite our face by going back on a comment we made under totally different circumstances,  arguably about totally different scenarios (Abraham, Tuanzebe...). Or, do we take advantage of a situation that gets us a top 6 teams player, that will be worth more to us in first team improvement,  than the opportunity cost of having a worse player in his position. Not to mention the benefit our own players get from having an experienced "seen it all" number 8 to learn from.

Great piece of business  that I'm still shocked we managed to pull off.

Spot on

2 hours ago, The Fun Factory said:

Have we not learnt anything. We need stability in management and style of football play regardless if we stay up or go down. If you run your club correctly there is no reason why you can't go back up again and establish yourself in the Premier League. Look at Dyche and Burnley. 

In less than 2 seasons Smith has got us promoted after winning 10 games in a row, and got us to a major cup final. He has also had to deal with rebuilding his squad in about 2 months and how because of this pandemic (which has cost his father his life) he has lost the advantage of 6 home games left in our last 10 games.

He plays progressive football and his coaching his childhood club and loves being here. This season was always going to be very hard  as statiscially most teams who go up in the playoffs get relegated regardless if they are Aston Villa or not.   

Woah woah woah... 

Careful bringing those sorts of realistic expectations and rational thinking here, this thread does not tolerate it.

32 minutes ago, sir_gary_cahill said:

Do you know of anyone we could poach? Dwight McNeil perhaps?.

He would be expensive

Triple post

Double post

15 minutes ago, kurtsimonw said:

Sheffield United signed more players, for less than half the money. This was a squad that's foundations were built in League 1.

The idea that £140m isn't enough, or that we had a mostly Championship squad, just doesn't wash with me.

Their foundations were built. 
Ours weren’t. 
We needed to buy a whole new team.
They didn’t.

8 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

The post that I commented on  - which wasn’t from you - said that we achieved promotion a year ahead of schedule. So that made clear that the poster thought the board had determined the year in which we would get promotion. My response was that you can’t programme these things and we should be doing everything possible to consolidate the promotion we have gained.

This is not “missing the point”. I wonder if anyone arguing the bizarre line that this is not true can actually say clearly what their “point” is.

What Smith has seriously failed to do is create football that would secure our premier league status.

It’s well documented that Purslow said that the expectation/aim was to be promoted within two seasons once Smith took the helm. Setting a goal is not the same as “determining when we will get promoted”. Boards set goals, that’s a basic fact. Smith achieved the goal set for him and the club in year one, hence it was ahead of expectations. 

You then started suggesting that other people were suggesting that the board “did not want promotion in year one” and that they were thinking “oh, now we got promoted we should get relegated and start again” which is just nonsense and not what was being said at all. 

44 minutes ago, TRO said:

And i do get that, i really do.....and I am as grateful As the next man.

but i am not taking for granted their money or the opportunity they have presented us.

I am merely highlighting my anxiety to get self sufficient.....and to do that, we must be better at signing players who offer us REAL value.

What’s your blueprint for achieving this? 

Collectively the dynamics of the players we bought (different leagues, nationalities etc) was a dogs breakfast but as individuals nearly all of our signings fit the bill of what you are saying. 

1 hour ago, kurtsimonw said:

So if he goes down, he's failed then, yes?

If the logic is that Year 2 was the aim for PL, if we go down we're in the Championship in Year 2 and therefore it's a failure.

Sure, if you view failing to achieve promotion from the championship for two consecutive years the same as getting promoted in year one and then getting relegated. I dont. 

As for this season alone, relegation would be a failure of very fine margins. The difference between this season being a “success” and a “failure” could be a last minute goal on the final day. In either scenario, I’d be giving Smith until Nov/Dec before considering the sack.

3 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

Just to say I haven’t missed the point completely.

No football board can determine when its club is going to get promotion. 

The only “realistic expectation” I have as a fan is that the manager should set up the team to achieve as much as it can given the abilities of the available players.

This is what Smith has failed to do.

Thank you for pointing out that a board can’t see into the future with complete certainty. This nothing statement alone proves you’ve missed the point. 

What a board CAN do however is make an evaluation of their current position and set a realistic target/goal for promotion. 

As for your comment about your realistic expectation as a fan - fair enough and I agree to an extent. The board want attacking football as in the long run it’ll give us greater opportunity to reach the heights that we want to versus playing defensive survival football. Smith has committed to this, it hasn’t worked out, and you can definitely argue that he’s been stubborn in his approach to changing this despite the change in formation.

I firmly believe however that the damage was done with our summer recruitment and that even if we shifted to a more defensive style we would still be rubbish. We bought players from completely random nationalities and leagues and made the task of integrating a new squad together even more difficult as a result. As the season has gone on, our confidence has completely disappeared which has led us to our current predicament. 

It’s not necessarily a matter of “Smith has taken us backwards”, people need to realise that.

54 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

Not targeting you in particular, Z old chap, but I keep seeing this argument and I just want to say I think it is bizarre.

First, no club can determine when it is going to get promoted. The world just isn’t like that. You have to seize the opportunity when it arises and make the most of it. It’s particularly odd to say the club had a plan last season not to get promoted when the previous manager was sacked halfway through for failing to put us on course for promotion - the same manager who had cabbages thrown at him for failing to get us promoted the previous season as well! Where on earth does this odd idea come from that we didn’t want to be promoted last season?

But just suppose it is true., having got promoted by accident, do you just say “oh, we got promoted too early, we had better get relegated and start again”? That’s an even more puzzling idea. Having got promoted we needed an approach that was focused on premier league survival and building for the future from within the Pl.. In my view that includes having a manager who has the nous and experience to create solid and pragmatic football of the sort that gets you mid table stability. I’m afraid Dean Smith isn’t the man for that.

Reflecting the discussion about Potter as well, he isn’t the man either. Down here in Brighton where I live, there are growing calls for him to be sacked, very much on the same grounds as those aimed at Smith.

No one is suggesting this, you’ve missed the point completely.

The board set a realistic target of promotion within two seasons which Smith achieved within 1 = overachievement. 

That early promotion thrust us into the premier league with barely half a squad and a complete rebuild to do which is a ridiculously tough task in any league let alone arguably the toughest league in the world. This has ultimately put Smith’s job at risk because the majority of our fan base have absolutely no concept of realistic expectations nor patience.
 

14 minutes ago, sir_gary_cahill said:

Why do you think they abuse him? His nationality?

More a case of fans seeking to make sense of a bad situation by attributing blame to something or someone - a scapegoat. 

Trez is an easy target as out of all of our players he has the worst touch and “footballing brain” which makes him stand out. 

Like I said, he’s not been great but he’s certainly chipped in with some important moments. He’s not been that far off an £8.75m signing. 

1 hour ago, sir_gary_cahill said:

Trezeguet only cost £8.75m, he’s played 41 times for Egypt. He has also scored against Liverpool and Leicester City, I don’t know what people are expecting for £8.75m. £8.75m is nothing in today’s market, I think on the whole, he has done well and yet he is a target of abuse for fans  and he is quite good looking too (yeah, I know I say that every player but it’s true in my opinion) 

Agree with you Gaz. 
He hasn’t been great, but the abuse he gets needs to be tempered and put in perspective.