MrBlack

@lainux in addition ... A lot of people have suggested that there is room for extra seats in the current footprint. There used to be more anyway, so why couldn't they be reintroduced? Profile/rake can be modified, and concourse gaps can be filled. There is 100% the possibility to add 700+ seats without moving anyone out their current seat. There may well be the opportunity to add even more. I dont think it's a given that they will force anyone to move. Call me naive, but I reckon the ~1300 Heck mentions is mostly new seats. It aligns with the total capacity they're claiming we'll have, and aligns with his latest comments about keeping costs the same for everyone currently there, but increasing them for those that are willing to pay a surplus. The relatively small percentage that isn't moving people, will hopefully be those seats that usually go on general sale. It's easily done, and I really think Heck has learnt his lesson from the lower grounds debacle.

He seems to have done nothing at spurs because he keeps getting dropped for no apparent reason after a pretty good performance. Emery, having worked with him and extolled his virtues before, seems to know he's a brilliant player. If we go back in for him, I trust that it's because Emery thinks he'll improve our squad, and Monchi thinks we'll be able to get him for a relatively decent price. If we dont sign him, then fair enough, but if we do it's because he'll be a good value addition to our squad.

And the weirdest thing about what he's done is that the leaked badge and the AU500 have absolutely fk all in common. They're totally alien to each other. On brand? My arse.

Are you regularly premature? . Of course, I really hope you're right, what scenes they would be.

I assume the restrictions we placed on them made it the way it was as a whole package. It's grown on me, probably due to the success, but it does lack vibrancy for sure. Lack of gold highlighting maybe an issue. Whatever, its definitely mistakable for others when monochrome. Having seen their other works and what they're capable of, I'm loathe to place the blame on them. I'd love to see some of their concepts that perhaps stretched the brief to its limits or beyond, bet they'd be great.

I assume the brief was to keep the old lion (due to decades or familiarity and ease of reusing merchandise/labels/etc), so we can't use the new lion. It was also presumably to incorporate our full name in place of AVFC, keeping the star and adding the year. And I'm guessing the final requirement was that it must have the same core colour arrangement to retain the sense of familiarity and association with our recent past. Freedom to change the shield shape, but it has to be a shield. It leaves little room to improve it. If the brief also said the yellow must be the same yellow then there was never any hope and whoever set the brief should be fired. But assume there was room to play around with the shade of yellow, then they could easily have made it darker, and kept the Aston Villa text at the top and it would be miles better than what was leaked. I really don't understand how they came up with what is so fundamentally flawed and brings back all the issues that we had with it that caused it to be replaced in the first place. If someone wanted to offer a revision using my guidelines above (but not keeping the same yellow) I'd be intrigued to see how good a designer could make it look. (Also, the succes we've had with the new lion should mean we are glad to be associated with it and should now take precedence, but for now assume its going the way of the dodo)

Defintely does. That's why we paid Dragon Rouge a fortune to design it.

Agree that it doesnt look great but I'm curious what a design expert would do to fix it. Use a different font where all letters have a similar size so space between letters doesn't need to change? Have the letters all spaced equally but then the lion doesn't sit in the middle of the physical space? It's the same issue we have with a circle, and the name not sitting equally around both halves of the circumference. What's the answer?

I'm sure he will do, he just wasn't announcing it exactly. But the fact he said 1000 first means it isn't much over the halfway mark between 1000 and 1500.

1300*

He said 1000, closer to 1500. So I'm inferring that means 1300. Still a lot of seats to magic up, but a big chunk will come from converting current boxes. And I imagine there will be some reprofiling done also that adds in an extra row or two. Then, maybe, converting some standard seats to premium on top, but you'd hope this isn't seats dedicated to ST holders already.

I'd be happy with both, but don't think they're a profile we can afford. Unless we sell someone from the first team.

Same. Its funny how all of a sudden its not really important who we sign. Good times hey! Who (if anyone) we sell might be important, but that's not something to be worrying about now.

1 - maybe a little one but that would be expected. Inflation is still high but about 4% instead of the 10%+ we've seen in recent years. I think most would be OK with a few percent given our success, and I read similar to mean not the same. 2. Probably easily (albeit with an immediate cost and not a huge amount of upside)... fix the toilets, keep them clean, put in the self dispensing drink aisles in all stands, hire competent servers at food kiosks.

Sounds like he's learnt from the experiences of the Terrace View and lower grounds. He knows there's a majority core that will not budge, but there are those that will upgrade for premium on occasion or as a means of getting in. And there are going to be more wanting to get in next season. So if the only option is a premium seat, people may well be ok with that. Recogisng that the core needs to improve (yes it was obvious but he's now said publicly that he'll do something about it) is good too. Another step in the right direction Mr Heck. Keep them coming. And please make the next one a badge that isn't what's been trademarked.

Why is it even yellow. Why do we not use a golden tone like the gold used by @Ingers (welcome to the forum). If we insist on keeping the old lion, and the old yellow on blue on claret combination, then just make the yellow darker. It's still wrong because we aren't blue and gold, or gold blue and claret, but it is at least visible from a distance. But no. A drop shadow. In 2024. F@#k me

It must be horrible for his family. A constant reminder of the tragedy and all the clubs care about is money. Let it go Cardiff, you scumbags.

And the weirdest thing about this post is that I wouldn't put any of those ideas beyond the realms of what the FA or FIFA might come up with.

Sky showed a stat just before that goal saying the the first touch after a set piece had been an Everton player from all of Everton's previous set plays. I think it was 5 or 6 in a row. Liverpool hadn't won a single first ball. Was a matter of time. Virgil was blocked from getting to the ball, but he's definitely not the commanding centre back he was. Doesn't seem to have the legs to do his runs now either. They're a club in decline.

I agree... they're seemingly not very good. Consistency is an issue, and their bias is always going to be a hard one to ignore. Luton fan should never be reffing a game of their rivals. Can't say I envy them though, the job is under such scrutiny and on a lot of calls you're going to get two different opinions if you ask the fans of the two clubs.

Yes I did see that. Maybe his Luton bias did impact the Forest call...

Kind of hope they do to keep it interesting and keep them all needing to beat spurs. But I think their dominance will start now with all the players they've got that have been rotated throughout the season relatively fresher than the Liverpool and Arsenal players. They'll win their two in hand and probably not look back.

It got referred to the ref. I assume it was deemed he didn't see it happen and so was told that there was an apparent elbow he might have missed. Rather than the ref having seen it and judged it not to be a foul on real time that VAR wouldn't then overrule him on. Which really just makes you wonder why the ref wasn't asked to take a look at the last of forest's non-penalties where Young didn't win the ball despite the ref clearly thinking he had.

Would mean spurs not beating them and having one less game to make up the points they need to overtake us. I'd take that.

We can't benchmark it as there isn't really a club that's done similar. Newcastle would be the closest but their deals are skewed by related party shenanigans. I dont think it would be a hard sell to explan who our owners are, their track record of successes, that Unai Emery has consistently delivered European success at every single club he's managed for consecutive years in different leagues with lower relative budgets. You then use that alongside our current form and explain we are more able to sustain it than a Man United that are quite evidently toxic and struggling, an aging Liverpool about to go through a period of uncertainty, and a Chelsea that will find themselves having points deducted if they continue to fail to qualify. He's had a job to do there, and he's done it, but you can't ignore the helping hand he's been given, or the relativity of our position at the time the contracts he's replacing were signed.