MrBlack

There is var, and it was onside

Defence looks like they don't want to be there. Shocking

As I said, it sets expectations. You know you're getting a permanently reduced concourse with (hopefully) temporary terrible service for however long. You can decide whether you want to put up with that or not and renew accordingly. Then you can't moan because you know what you signed up for. Same applies to the Holte suite. It doesn't stop it being harsh on legacy season ticket holders, but it does give them an informed choice

It lends itself to the occasional visiting fan. Season ticket holders less likely to buy if they know they can't make certain game slots and there's only a 50:50 chance they'll actually be able to make a game. Or they sell the ticket on and the club get an extra cut. With an extra televised game there's more TV money for the clubs which massively outweighs and potentiation loss in fan match day revenue (and as above they'll probably make more anyway). There's zero incentive for the clubs to reject these kind of proposals, especially when they're playing on a Sunday anyway thanks to all the European football (of which there will be even more going forwards).

Didn't know whether to react with a laugh at how bad the customer service is, confusion at how unbelievable the cross referring of email addresses was, or cry at the fact you couldn't get this sorted. I went with confused as this service, which they're clearly only doing in order to make money, is surely something they'd have got the infrastructure in place for to take the money when it's being offered to them. Utterly bizarre.

Communication. Upfront and open communication. That's all it needed. Set expectations, then you won't get people in uproar. The only reason you don't do that is if you know its going to go down badly and mean you lose money. Once the money is already in the bag, it doesn't matter to them so they communicate afterwards. Slimy af.

Really unimpressed with the shady way they've done this. Announce to those renewing season tickets that they're refurbing the Holte suite and it's temporarily closed. Don't let them know what service they'll be getting in the upper holte prior to the renewal. Take away from the upper holte enders half their concourse without informing them that they won't be getting the fast serve kiosks that make the lower holte a viable place to get a drink at half time. Re-open the holte suite and charge them a further £60 to use it. The offering itself isn't horrifically overpriced, and had they not been so underhand about disguising their intentions, it probably wouldn't have grated quite so much, but this is really shit from them. It's not like they needed to hide it from the people renewing, there's enough waiting list to pick up the slack of those on the edge... but no, try and eke one more season out of them by pseudo-lying to them. Increase revenue... f%£k ffp.

Exactly what I meant... he's not CL quality yet. To be fair to him he scored though, so did better than I was expecting... but the fact he's starting for them, with no other real option is a sign they are ****. They put up more fight than I expected, but I'm more surprised that they only lost by one, than the fact they lost.

Reguilon, dalot, pelistri, and Hojlund... none of those should be playing champions league football. I'd argue they're barely even Europ league standard. I will be amazed if they win.

Makes sense. The wording is fairly ambiguous, but I inferred it did include alcohol. I imagine they'll also put a fair usage type wording into the final agreement and of course they'll reserve the right to refuse service etc.

They need to change the way its implemented. Give more margin for error, in a way that favours the attackers and automate it so it can be done in seconds. No-one wants these marginal calls that take minutes to be made.

With the 10 minutes+ of injury time, you're looking at the game finishing about 8:30. Getting out the stadium to your car, getting out the gridlock in another 30 minutes (ha!) getting back to brum after a 4 hour drive by 1am in absolutely ideal conditions But it's all about the fans.

Another offering All you can eat street food, drinks, and a ticket for £120...

I dont know how much money the council make from it (if any), but as for something for the council to sell, it absolutely makes sense. How much premium could they put on it to sell to Aston Villa? For us, an opportunity to own the land the other side of Trinity Road and maybe make expansion an easier prospect. Link in with the club/stadium to make it an even more attractive offering as a wedding venue, link the revenue to villa for FFP purposes... this sounds potentially very promising.

So then, does the ultras block have hospitality in it or is it a conscious effort to get all like minded chant-obsessed fans in the same place using the cheapest GE tickets available? In any case, sounds like a change they made to help the atmosphere. My point is that in the redevelopment of villa park, rather than going "all hospitality" to play catch up, and find our atmosphere killed only to backtrack a few years down the line like Arsenal and United have done, why not get it right from the off? Maybe it's a journey you have to go through to break the glass ceiling...

Needs a goal in the PL to find his scoring boots. But he doesn't need a goal to continue being a key component of our attack. It's the defence that is struggling more at the moment, but I think that's a conscious decision from Emery to be more threatening. Its generally working, but struggled away to a very good Liverpool and got upset by a freak injury against Newcastle. Watkins will find the net soon, and get back to his xG average. Meanwhile the rest of the goalscorers who are exceeding their xG will probably drop down. As long as we keep playing as we are, the team, as a whole, will keep scoring.

Agreed. They did make them thicker than they were after it first came in. But I feel the margin for error is still not being accommodated given the speed with which the ball moves and the frames being used to determine offside or not. When it's that close, you should allow for the fact the cameras aren't precisely calibrated to pick up the exact moment the ball leaves the foot. Before then you even add a slight allowance for the fact the game should probably favour the attackers in those situations. Where the feet are level and its just the shoulder that's ahead...pfft. Diaby got robbed there. Thankfully, I'm sure we'll see more of those types of goals from him in the near future.

Which large grounds get the atmosphere right? Man City and Arsenal are infamous libraries with their atmosphere. What's the atmosphere at spurs like? Judging from Heck's comments, we're trying to force hospitality into all areas of the ground. But it seems that in doing so we're forcing out the fans that bring the atmosphere, which is already getting questioned. Does Liverpool, with the Kop, leave those seats free for GE fans? Do Old Trafford with the Stretford End? If not, does the atmosphere still work and if so is this just an unfounded concern? Edit: did a quick check and seems old Trafford did suffer thanks to putting hospitality in the Stretford end... but they're taking it out from next year... Athletic article on the above

But he had a terrible game and we're worse with him in the side. Don't even bring the distance he progressed the ball into the conversation. I want my defenders to defend. /s

Arguably mis-sold the season ticket, but I imagine it was never put in the terms as an actual benefit. They do seem to not care about the consequences of their actions, provided they result in more money. They'll be disappointed when they see the majority of the waiting list joined it when we were bottom half of the PL and the season ticket was much cheaper, and won't stomach the price hikes that even the existing ST holders who refused to renew couldn't. On the topic of the meeting, it sounds like a really poorly organised affair. If they've been provided an agenda beforehand, they seem to have willfully ignored it to deliver the message they clearly wanted to. Very tone deaf. Hopefully the promised improvements arrive, but the fact that it's going to take 3 weeks to unblock some toilets and clean up a mess that they've had 13 free days out of 14 to tidy up already, doesn't fill me with confidence.

Yeah, it does look that way with every one of our 8 in the group stages. And probably high expectations that us and Man City will go quite far in our respective comps.

What makes you think it might stay as 4? With City winning the champions league i'm almost certain England will get another spot based on coefficient this year? @DJBOBignore the above, the coefficient will be based on how they get on this season... and West ham qualifying for Europa League is actually bad news for it as now we have one more team that can lower the average (although they do seem a bit more competent this year)

I clocked that. Barely even seemed remotely happy that we'd scored. Not the usual Ollie in that respect.

This lad is going to be a lot of fun to watch over the next few years. What a goal that was. The confidence (and ability) to hit a rising ball so sweetly is a very rare trait indeed. Very few strikers have produced finishes like that, Drogba, Benteke, even Haaland esque. But, unlike those, he is 19 and is far from the complete forward at the moment. Comparisons to them aren't helpful, and although I'm doing it, it's the media starting to do the same that causes the pressure to build. Cant help but hype him up after that, and can't wait to see how he develops. Had doubts about relying on him as backup striker (but more so if Ollie got injured rather than how he's currently being used) , but those are largely beginning to fade. Trust Emery, he knows what he's doing.

I'm not certain but think that was being trialed in a different competition by fifa initially. Pretty sure the rule in the PL is unchanged. They did increase the width of the line they draw for the comparison to increase the margin of error in favour of the striker, but that might have been last year anyway.