MrBlack

3 minutes ago, alreadyexists said:

 

I know we’ve briefly discussed this… but does anyone have a clue why Frimpong is in a Villa shirt? 

Present from Diaby. 

The fact is someone at the club carefully worded a section of some minutes, to state moving from villa park is not part of any plans.

The fact is we have a formal club announcement on our website (Still available) saying we are building a new North Stand.

It is entirely possible that neither of these things are now true, especially so as we already know one of them isn't.

This doesn't mean we are or are not moving and this doesn't mean we are or aren't now doing a major redevelopment.

Noone knows, and pointing to anything the club have said in the past to guide what is happening now is pointless. Especially so when pointing to some minutes that were so very specifically worded so as to remain true as of the time stated whatever happens in the future.

2 minutes ago, ender4 said:

You are correct, for some reason they only updated us before renewals opened but not after renewals closed. 

Unsurprisingly there wasn't much movement between the two updates given the fact it covered a time period when sales weren't even open .

6 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Anyway of checking where someone is in the list ?

5 minutes ago, ender4 said:

They send you an update email at the end of each summer, so you should have been told around August 2023.  Your position won't have changed since then, only after this summer when people don't renew and new people get offered it. 

I had an update in Sept 2022, then I got a random update in April 2023, but not had one since.

14 minutes ago, duke313 said:

Seems like Arsene Wenger convinced a lot of people that winning the "4th place trophy" is more important than winning actual trophies.

I think what's being discussed in this thread has two right answers. 

The importance of the money the champions league brings is real. It let's us sign an extra player we otherwise couldn't, or hold on to a player we'd otherwise have to sell. Let alone factoring in the players we might lose who want to go and play Champions League.

But the memories and enjoyment brought by winning a competition and getting some silverware are massive in their own right. It has simply been too long.

Weighing up which is more important will be different for everyone. Some will look longer term, and believe the CL qualification brings the possibility of bigger and more sustained success, but no guarantees. Some will prefer the guarantee of success, and with that the possibility of further/ greater success at a sightly lower probability. 

For me, I'm the latter. Obviously, I want both. 

But winning the UECL, guaranteeing entry into the Europa League (Emery's playground), and the fact it leaves Emery something more to achieve with us for a longer time (and hence more likely he stays with us) is just winning if I was forced to pick a preference.

I'm not though,  and I'm sure we can do both. 

2 hours ago, LondonLax said:

It’s worth considering that the nations which get the two extra Champions League places this year will then have a disadvantage when competing for who gets gets the two extra spots next year as their coefficient will be divided by an extra team in Europe. 

And the main factor that that extra team will (in all likelihood) be worse than the others that would have made it.

40 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

Rotherham sacked Leam Richardson so think we can rule out them taking anything v SHA. 

Does it make any difference really? They've been rubbish with him in charge, maybe the combination of relegation confirmed and rubbish manager gone will free them up. 

If there's any club that might struggle against them it's Birmingham, although I don't think Rotherham stood a chance with Richardson, and not sure it makes much of a difference without him. 

9 minutes ago, bobzy said:

It wasn't just Juve, was it?  Didn't Fiorentina get dropped down the leagues?

 

Maybe that was a different Italian football scandal  

A few other teams did but they had their relegations overturned. It certainly wasn't just Juve but trying to work out who did what is a murky business. 

As @villa4europe said, people went to prison, but the final report conclusion seems to be that their actions didn't affect the sporting integrity of the competition. Its like the final report is purposely unclear.

39 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

Juve have to be the biggest cheats of all time, surely, because of Calciopoli.

I tried to work out what happened there and got totally lost. They got relegated for it and had their title stripped, so as a precedent it's what I'd like to see happen to Man City.

But the post trial stuff seems to suggest they didn't actually do anything that impacted the season. Sounds like they might have done things that might have affectes it, but there's no evidence of it, so it's considered a regular season. Really confusing.

19 minutes ago, bobzy said:

 

In fairness, Arsenal had won 10 of their last 11 games (the 1 game they didn't win was a 0-0 draw away at Man City) and had comfortably beaten Liverpool (3-1) and Newcastle (4-1) at home in that run.  Similarly, our away results against the teams around us have been a loss at Man City (4-1), a loss at Liverpool (3-1), a win at Spurs (1-2), a loss at Newcastle (5-1) and a loss at Man Utd (3-2) and we were coming into the game having almost gifted Brentford victory at Villa Park and (IMO) having been the second best side against Lille.

The bookies had us at around 9/1 to win which is pretty high odds for a one-off game and the vast majority of us wouldn't have expected to win at all.

It was a pretty surprising win.

Good facts, but the point remains, if it was Man United or Chelsea in 4th, coming off that of results, it wouldn't be considered a shock.

Like I said, give us a season or two with this form and I'd expect the narrative to change.

47 minutes ago, sidcow said:

It's really pissing me off this narrative that we've pulled off an impossible victory that was actually forgone conclusion. 

We've already beaten them once this season.

We were in 4th place. You'd think we were adrift at the foot of the table the way it's being perceived. 

Shock defeat don't you know. 

If one of the other sky 6 clubs beats another away from home, it's never a shock.

We're still not considered part of the cartel. Need to sustain our position for a few years. 

23 minutes ago, Rightdm00 said:

Put in an absolutely massive shift. He was still sprinting the length of the pitch at 80+ minutes. If he's happy with 35 appearances and maybe 15 starts sign him up. Still think he moved back to seria A and tears it up next season. 

You might be talking about him sprinting up the touchline, but we probably want to be careful we're not playing 12 players given he was subbed off on the 79th minute.

Imagine being able to play Mings and Konsa on a Saturday, then Torres and Carlos on a Tuesday/Wednesday.

Next season's going to be fun.

When his future dad inseminates his future mum, we're going to have a real prospect on our hand...

14 hours ago, VillaChris said:

Spurs-Chelsea got cancelled when the league cup final was on. We also played the weekend when FA cup QFs were on.

Spurs actually have a 15 day break now. Kind of feel that will be an issue for them as you'd want to get that defeat yesterday out of their system as soon as possible.

We have a chance now to be 9 points clear of them by winning our next two home games. I really couldn't see them reeling us in from that far back even if they would have games in hand.

Even more significant is that if we are 9 points clear, even then winning all 3 of their games in hand they'd probably still be behind us. So we'd have points on the board as well as it still being in our hands. That's a massive demotivator for them. 

I guess maybe you could argue they'd bottle it if it was in their hands (as we both seem to be managing to throw away the advantage almost as soon as we get it), but if we beat Chelsea and Bournmeoth it is definitely ours.

However, I can see winning both of those would be hugely tricky. Bournemouth will be our 4th game in 11 days, and Luiz will still be suspended. Chelsea are an enigma of a side that could be exceptional if they all turn up,  and with the chance of them overtaking United and making Europe I think they'll be in it for the rest of the season.

Going to be tough, but if anyone can do it, it's Emery.

26 minutes ago, Nigel said:

Amazing performance. Genuinely thought we were the better side all game, even in the first half where we kept them at arms length. Thats what you call control!

Thought Zaniolo was magnificent in the first half, such strong skillful running to relieve the pressure to give us the base to attack in the second half.

Diego was at his best too, hes so strong and fast that when his concentration is there he is nearly imposible to get the better of.

Bailey just added that cherry to a demoralised Arsenal, we broke them early.

Sky commentary said "This was the perfect away performance"! What game were they watching? This was no smash and grab!

It can be the perfect away performance without being a smash and grab. We won, and deservedly so, and kept a clea  sheet. It doesn't get more perfect than that. The commentator did also call it an immaculate performance by us. Not caveats in any way either.

1 minute ago, ozvilla28 said:

Did we hand city the title lol.

They'd have won it anyway. It won't be a 3 point gap they win by.

"Immaculate performance from Aston Villa". Well recognised Dury.

Not 9, just the 8... really.

Great tracking there Youri.

How much injury time they going to get given? I recall a couple of injury stoppages. And two goals. Probably 9 minutes then