OxfordVillan

I don’t think any newly promoted club can expect to beat anyone, and I don’t. I also don’t think any team is unbeatable. It wouldn’t exactly be a shock if Villa beat Wolves or Man UTD at Villa Park, or Chelsea. Nothing is set in stone.

You don’t know that we won’t beat all the teams around us, neither do I. We might. Who expected us to win 10 consecutive games last season to move from mid table to a guaranteed playoff spot? Nobody. Anything is possible. Nobody knows.

Now we’re back training I think it’s certain the season will start again and play to a conclusion, or to a point where the bin dippers can be awarded the title and PPG implemented to decide final placing. Given that, I think Villa should be going full tilt to gain any possible edge in terms of fitness. If we have full size indoor pitches then I’d be getting the players into contact training ASAP out of the gaze of camera lenses, as you can be sure that some other clubs will be seeking to gain similar advantage. Some clubs have been back training for a couple weeks already. Hitting the ground running will be huge upon restart, we must not be found wanting in terms of fitness. Get the lads doing their individual social distance drills, then get them indoors having competitive contact training asap. We could train at Villa Park, couldn’t we? May as well get them acclimatised to playing at the stadium whilst it’s empty of fans, utilise every possible advantage. Leave no stone unturned.

I was critical of Wesley during November and December, very critical. With the benefit of hindsight I was an arse. He has to be allowed to grow into the club and the culture in a 2nd season. It is the clubs fault, and some poor luck with timings of injuries, that Wesley had no other forward to come in and relieve the strain when he was struggling during those dark months. Keinans hamstring injury was very untimely. I do think we’ll see a much more effective Wesley in the seasons ahead.

We’re in a fortunate position where we have owners with big wealth, and a player with 3yrs left on a contract. This is a potential deal where we don’t have our backs to the wall. I’d personally slap a figure of £100m on Grealish if UTD come calling, informing them that if they paid £80m for a CB then one of the leagues top creative players will inevitably cost more. Simply state it’s the asking price and no negotiation. And mean it.

“ first and foremost he keeps us up”! Do you see the problem in those words? It comes across as the other players looking to Grealish to get results, rather than themselves. That’s a huge problem as far as I’m concerned, and needs to be eradicated with haste. Ffs, where is the personal pride and responsibility?

Agree with this. The 1st games to be played must involve those clubs with a game in hand.

It’s odd how neutral venues are not being discussed or considered at all for Championship games if football restarts? All the talk is that if football restarts then Championship clubs play BCD at their own stadiums. Why are neither the police or pundits raising this inconsistency? That police chief talked about the police being overstretched if they had to police the possibility of a few fans turning up. My question to the police is how busy are you now compared to three months ago? Because hardly anyone is out these days, shops & bars etc are all closed, roads are near empty. So what are you policing that makes you so overstretched? There is literally next to nothing for the police to do in the current climate, not when compared to the load they would have been under a few months ago in “normal” times. IMO there’s undoubtedly an agenda somewhere. I’d actually question the BCD scenario under the latest guidelines. Could stadiums not have fans back in with 2mtr distancing employed? Have gaps of two seats between supporters, you could still get somewhere in the region of 10-12k at Villa Park with social distancing in place. Fans would have to arrive at stadiums in plenty of time to filter in, and take a while getting back out. No refreshments to be open in stadiums at all, toilets only. Don’t take this as me advocating reasons for football to continue, as I’m not. I think football should be sidelined until it’s safe for every fan to attend stadiums again if we’re to complete the 2019-20 season. I’m merely pointing out some significant inconsistencies in all the talk surrounding project restart.

Don’t bother engaging with the . Quite clearly not a Villa fan. Ignore every post.

I can’t help thinking that if the season is called as over then they’ll relegate us. I don’t see void being something they’ll do now because of the hysterical media push for Liverpool to be crowned. We’ll just be acceptable collateral damage.

#suspendcrusty

I said a while back that the very real likelihood is that if there’s no more football this season then we will likely be relegated by calculation. It’s neither right nor fair, but it appears the precedent is being set by other leagues doing it.

#suspendcrusty

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2020/05/07/premier-leagues-project-restart-takes-toxic-turn-rebel-clubs/ As suspected, it’s getting extremely dirty. Threats of point deductions for clubs that fail to fulfill ties in the event of a vote to play BCD at neutral venues. Clubs being told that it’ll be far more expensive to not finish the season than it would for relegation. Clubs higher up the league refusing an expanded Premier League as they don’t want to share the money. For some reason there is a head police officer berating the club’s that are questioning the neutral venues scenario, whilst not referring to the naked greed at the heart of anything else. Obviously a Leeds fan. The pressure is being piled on to those clubs in the lower end of the league to accept the proposals currently on the table, it does seem to be the case that they’re essentially being told to vote for the proposals or they’ll relegate the clubs currently occupying the bottom 3 places. It would appear a no win situation. The three bottom placed clubs have to hold their stance and force the governing bodies to come up with the solution. If they relegate us without playing another game, so be it. We’ll see you in court. There’s a bigger picture here though, isn’t there? And that picture is what I feared last season, that the Premier League is an all encompassing greed machine with no moral at its heart whatsoever. It’s a cesspit. It’s strangling all other football to feed itself, no matter the consequence. It just keeps needing more and more. Gluttony. Those who won’t help the head clubs continue to feast get thrown overboard. I didn’t want to be part of the Premier League last season, but we all know how important it was for the club because of the money to help the club survive. But now, if there was any doubt before, we are being shown the huge wound that has been inflicted upon English football by the Premier League. I want nothing to do with it. I want nothing to do with it to the point where if we were relegated, and then subsequently finished in the promotion places the following season, I’d want to refuse promotion. Just sell the promotion spot to someone else, the highest bidder. I’ve had enough of the Premier League and the greedy few at the heart of it. Time for someone to make a stand against it.

I’m not sure you can say we dominated that match. Won it, yes, but dominate we did not. If memory serves me well I remember Heaton playing a blinder.

A lot of talk always alludes to six clubs fighting against relegation. I have to contest this assertion, you can comfortably go up to Newcastle at least as clubs of that are still in the relegation mix. In 3 or 4 ties those in and around 10th/11th place could be down in the relegation places. And that’s not inconceivable.

Don’t forget that a number of players can be registered with the U23s, and so we aren’t strictly limited to 25 man squads.

Nothing has changed?? McGinn will be back and at the same level of match fitness as anyone else. Even the much derided Drinkwater will now have the same level of match fitness as most. Ditto Keinan Davis. They are not insignificant changes, and they’re all positive changes.

The problem is that 6 votes won’t be enough, 7 votes required to vote down proposals.

I wouldn’t disagree with that, we WERE on a spiral down at that point. We’re not anymore. Cup final run/loss long removed from the system now, and both players & manage had time to take stock and reflect/reset. I honestly think we’d much improved upon a restart, it’s basically 2nd season for a lot of our new overseas players.

Disagree completely. With 6 home games and winnable away games at NUFC & WHUFC, Villa are far from done for. We’re 2pts from safety with the game in hand, how you can say we’re relegated without cancellation is beyond comprehension.

Can someone just permanently suspend this clown please? We all love a bit of baiting banter from time to time, but Crusty here has just become an arse. #suspendcrusty

Everyone should be thinking about the likelihood and outcome of a vote which would almost certainly follow a vote against proposals in the next few days. Don’t misunderstand me, there is no way that Villa, or any other club in danger of relegation, should vote for a proposal that takes away advantages that others have enjoyed. But someone, somewhere, is going to feel hard done by when this reaches its end. The only way to facilitate everyone is to complete the season under the same circumstances as it started. That’s very unlikely to happen. The next best way, IMO, would be to offer promotions across the leagues with no relegations. And even then you’d have some clubs in and around the playoff places who would argue they’ve been robbed of opportunity. We know that the authorities want some sort of finality in the next few weeks, so an outcome has to be found. As things stand I believe they could well end up voting to use PPG if playing the remaining fixtures proves impossible. And at that point I can assure you that there’d be 17 Premier League clubs who would vote that through.