Teale's 'tache

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"If you love someone, set them free"

Balls to that, lock him up until he signs a lifetime contract.

If he really loves us he'll sign it and he'll never leave...

12 minutes ago, withes_shin said:

Hopefully, fingers crossed, not wanting to jinx things or anything, but if we are in the Champions League next season can we can legitimately have a star above the badge as we are a previous winner of the competition.

If we do can the little white star be removed from the European shirt - so giving us another crest to argue over!

Is it possible to mock up a crest with the European star above @Teale's 'tache?

14 minutes ago, Made In Aston said:

The new badge has disappeared

 

 

Just to clarify it is Kaizen Gaming website that is using the new crest, not the Villa website.

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https://kaizengaming.com/aston-villa-and-betano-announce-principal-partnership/

Betano joins Aston Villa on path to glory with front-of-shirt sponsorship deal

Aston Villa and Kaizen Gaming, the leading global GameTech operator, are delighted to announce a new long-term partnership that will see Betano, Kaizen Gaming’s premium brand, become the Club’s new principal and front-of-shirt partner.

Chris Heck and the AVFC Official accounts have tweeted out the exact same graphic, but with the Lerner crest, which is likely correct according to our branding as it is right now.

I would guess we've sent Kaizen two graphics, one with the Lerner crest to be used now and one with the new crest to be used later, once the new crest has been launched, but Kaizen have uploaded the wrong one to their website. That is just a guess though based on the graphics looking otherwise identical.

This is the problem with keeping everything 'on brand' you have to rely on other people to do their jobs correctly. If we just had one crest this kind of thing wouldn't happen.

2 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Buy the land from Witton Lane to the river - build a new stadium on it and use Villa Park while you do - there's room for both - then use the space where Villa Park is now to build the facilities that make it a benefit to the community and a place where you want to be on matchdays whilst opening up the links through to the park and Aston Hall.

I've been looking at the same area thinking it does look about the right size, and obviously right next to where we are now, but there's an awful lot of people that would have to be moved, as well as a school potentially.

Not going to be cheap or easy to get hold of that many properties.

9 minutes ago, PeterSw said:

IF we do move, I wonder if Villa Park would be renovated into apartments etc. like Highbury was.

 

This crossed my mind as well, I can't remember exactly what happened with the Emirates, but I think there was something about some of those Highbury apartments being used to sweeten the deal for residents who needed moving for the new stadium to be built, I may be misremembering, but if we were looking at buying say everything in the area between Witton Lane and the railway, then temporarily rehousing many of those people somewhere with the promise of eventual apartments built on the current site could make it more of a possibility.

This would also allow us to use Villa Park whilst building a new stadium 'next door' on a bigger site essentially, and then the old ground gets converted into apartments like Highbury and the old residents move back into shiny new apartments. It's a more morally acceptable way of moving some people than the way Liverpool handled it, but not perfect for everyone I'd imagine

I'm just spitballing obviously, no idea what the plans are going to be, but it's good fun guessing.

39 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Agreed. For me, it's less that we've suddenly acquired a new set of tools, More that we seem to have gotten them all out of the garage and asked Dave next door if we can borrow some of his. Whatever we're up to, we're definitely putting together a crew for it.

In my experience getting new tools and borrowing some more still leaves plenty of room for procrastination and the project being delayed until next bank holiday, let's hope Villa are much more efficient than me when it comes to DIY!

Well, this is all very interesting and exciting.

It seems Heck is off the hook for the North Stand 'pause', considering the people and investment being brought in close to the owners, it seems very unlikely he'd be the driving force behind it and not the owners themselves. 

Certainly looks like we have grander plans now, whether that is on the current site or elsewhere. That decision might not even have been made yet, we may be looking at building multiple business cases for both.

My gut feeling is they want to stay on or near the current site, but a lot depends on how much room their plans will need and how much of that we can get at a reasonable price.

I think the main thing to take from this is that our owner's ambitions aren't limited to just on the pitch, they mean business.

55 minutes ago, Captain_Townsend said:

I don't get it either. I want to soak in the football and the atmosphere not have it in a beer induced haze.

I had drink once at a sporting occasion while invited to a box and said I would never do it again.

I think the point is it shouldn't be either/or, those that want a beer should be able to get one without missing any of the game. I'm sure we'd sell a lot more food and drinks at games if it didn't take so long. If we want to maximise revenues at Villa Park then the service is one of many things that need to improve.

Where Bailey and Torres are concerned, we don't know what kind of injuries they are carrying or how close to the 'red line' they may have been, in Torres case certainly we seem to be managing him since his last spell out, so I don't think whatever that injury was has fully cleared, and it probably won't until it can be properly rested over the summer. So we are going to have to manage him carefully.

I think Unai probably thought a draw was possible if not overly likely with the team he picked and the subs he intended to make in the second half, he believes in the players he put out there, unfortunately, losing Martinez was a big blow to our plans (though Olsen did great, it's the presence and organisation we missed), and we conceded at bad times (just before half-time, just before making the subs), all of that took the wind out of our sails and the machine that is Man City smelt blood, it happens.

The scoreline was not ideal, and he won't be happy with the goals conceded, but getting minutes to some that needed it is good, good showings from Iroegbunam, Duran, Rogers and Zaniolo are encouraging, and Olsen too.

At some point, we really need to rest Dougie, but Kamara's injury and McGinn's suspension have made it very difficult to do so. It will be interesting to see how Emery approaches that going forward.

Nobody likes to lose, Unai especially, but he's realistic enough to know it can happen against very good teams when we aren't anywhere near full strength.

3 hours ago, 6065_Villa said:

Always disappointed to lose but last night was a perfect storm for us to get through.

City getting stick after not scoring against Arsenal - tick

Pep revving them up - tick

Pep using fresh legs and players bursting to make an impact - tick

Ref playing his part by letting city foul us when on the break - tick

Villa without key players and others needing a rest - tick

 

So whilst pissed off at the defeat I've put things into perspective (probably what Unai did before picking the team), and can see the bigger picture that our squad can't cope on two fronts with so many injuries to key players. If only the Premier league would allow us to start working our way to 115 charges of cheating...

Agree with this, certain things need to fall in place for a team like us to beat City, such is the gulf in quality and depth.

• They need to have a bad day, they didn't
• You need to have your best team available, we didn't
• You need the referee to be brave enough not to give them everything -  Meh ref wasn't the worst, or the main problem last night, but he wasn't much help either.

We simply didn't have the personnel available and it was a bad time to be playing them after the Arsenal performance.

It is all about perspective, we might not win against Brentford but we undoubtedly have much chance than we ever did against City and keeping players fresher can only help.

20 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

I thought that's what Lange did at villa, he brought in data analysts to support traditional scouting

we will use both and no doubt we will have an absolutely insane amount of data 

on top of that we will then have our team tracking our own players

That's my understanding as well, I think most clubs use the stats/data to narrow down quickly where to look, but you still have to go and look to validate and to find out the intangibles that the data can't give you. Data alone isn't enough, and going searching without the data isn't going to be anywhere near as productive.

Data will also be used to track our own players as you say, both in terms of performance and fitness, during training and matches, and their nutrition probably as well.

As the likes of Brighton and Brentford have shown, data and how you use it can give you an edge over those who are lagging behind in those fields, with the need for value in the transfer market becoming only greater with FFP issues it would be very foolish not to be collecting and using huge amounts of data in recruitment and other areas.

To me, Konsa picking up 5 yellows in 11 fouls does kind of make sense. He doesn't make a lot of fouls, in fact, he only fouls when he has to, which is why the ratio is so high. When he fouls, it's usually of the professional, definitely going to be yellow-carded, kind. Which is not a bad thing at all, it shows how in control he usually is of his emotions and his awareness of game situations.

On a broader scale, I don't think there's any conspiracy going on, the bigger teams get a bit more leeway, always have and always will and that's as much down to human nature than anything more spurious.

For the rest of us, it seems pretty random. That's why it is so difficult to take any of these stats all that seriously, referees are not consistent in-game for the same team, let alone from team to team, game to game, or referee to referee. It's all so wildly inconsistent it's difficult to know what really constitutes a booking anymore. The whole Tonali and Paqueta sagas do make you wonder if there's a bit of spot-fixing involved on the player side, and who's to say a ref hasn't been given a quota of cards to be given out in a game, it's happened in other countries, there's no reason it couldn't happen here.

I don't think we are particularly dirty, or clumsy (though tiredness of so many games may excuse it). We are an easy target in many ways as we don't seem to try and pressure referees as much as some other teams/players, but I'd imagine that partly comes from Emery and his no-excuse culture. Our players aren't allowed to use poor referees as an excuse. I'd rather play that way than have a team of Odegaards/Hendersons endlessly harassing a referee. We try to let our football do the talking and that is fine by me.

I just think the standard of refereeing, in general, is awful and getting worse, and VAR is not helping, it's only shining a light on just how bad it is.

That Atletico Miniero kit with the Betano sponsor a few pages back brought back memories of one of my old favourite away tops, so thought I'd chuck together a mock-up for it...

6 minutes ago, Jas10 said:

 

Hmmm... that black and red third kit looks awfully familiar... 

5 minutes ago, bickster said:

It doesn't matter, the times are still similar and most WCML trains do not go through Brum. The point isn't about the exact times though in my experience those times are more or less correct. Liverpool is almost as close to London in travel time as it is the Birmingham. Shall I drive to Birmingham - 2 hrs or get the train to London - just over 2hrs. The point is that Birmingham will never replace London as an event destination no matter how much Birmingham exceptionalism you apply. The sheer mountain of industries you'd have to change to achieve that is insurmountable. Birmingham would obviously get a few events, it already does, a new stadium increased capacity stadium with multi roles isn't going to change that. The versatility would be wasted money. Birmingham already has the NEC for a very large, well connected high capacity indoor venue, it doesn't put on that many events of the nature we're talking about

https://www.birmingham2022.com/venues/the-nec

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The National Exhibition Centre (NEC) is the NEC Group’s flagship venue – where brands are born, products are launched, and networks are made. It is the UK’s largest exhibition venue and one of Europe’s leading event destinations. It welcomes around 2.3 million visitors and over 45,000 exhibiting companies to more than 500 events every year.

That's a lot of events and a lot of visitors.

If anything the competition the NEC would represent to a multi-use stadium is more of a reason not to go ahead than to say there are not enough events.

20 minutes ago, bickster said:

How long does it take to stage a Stadium concert? It's not just rock up on the day like it is at a traditional concert hall. How long does it take to set up one of those motor cross type events they also hold in stadiums, it's not just dump a load of dirt there. Days before the event and days after. It's not possible for a top flight football club, especially one that has an ambition to be a top European club, it really isn't compatible.

Honestly not that long, the pitch at the Bernabeu takes 6 hours to retract which can be done overnight, then you have the entire day to set up a stage, everything else is pretty much in place. Then the next day take it down and bring the pitch back out again.

Granted motor cross, American football, baseball or things that require that level of set-up would be restricted to summer months, but concerts, conventions, comedy gigs, basketball, tennis, and plenty of other events should be hostable in a reasonable time as long as the stadium is designed for multi-use.

8 minutes ago, bickster said:

No I'm saying the idea of a multiuse stadium that can be used for masses of other events is an absolute fantasy for a top tier football club, especially one located in Birmingham

There really is only a small window of opportunity each year for a football stadium to be used for other events and there really is a lack of events that would be interested in a Birmingham location

I think a lot would depend on how 'multi-use' it would be, if you had a retractable pitch and roof like the Bernabau, then that window of opportunity just grew to every time we aren't playing a game, and not just for concerts but any kind of event you could imagine.

There are plenty of events going on in Birmingham pretty much every single day of the year, having another large arena is only going to attract more. If anything it's the competition from current venues in Birmingham that would be more of a problem. I take the point that London/Manchester is ahead of Birmingham in terms of attracting the biggest events, but if Birmingham is ever going to catch up then it needs more high-quality venues to accommodate them.

For what it is worth I don't think it's going to happen, I just don't think it's completely fantastical. Real Madrid has proven it is possible with enough vision and investment.

16 minutes ago, El Segundo said:

I don't think people who want to stay at VP are ignoring the issues, just that the same issues might be just as bad or even worse if we relocate.  The references to other clubs spanking new stadiums failing to overcome similar issues illustrates the point. 

Might, but it is very very far from definite. Is there any harm in looking to see if there's anything better? Where there's more room to expand and a council more sympathetic to our needs? It might not even exist, but we'll certainly never find it if we never look. So others with new grounds haven't dealt with the traffic/travel issues very well, it doesn't mean we won't. We might do better.

Surely we all want the best for the club and the fans? If our site is holding us back why not look to see if there's anything better?

Or you know, we could try and fix the problems with the current site instead of just accepting them because other places might have similar issues.

I don't see the point in ruling out either option.

1 hour ago, El Segundo said:

I don't think anyone is claiming the current site is perfect,  just that there are already some advantages to it over potential alternatives.    Does the perfect site even exist?  Where has the transport infrastructure been designed specifically to cater for 60,000 + crowds every couple of weeks ?  Etihad and Olympic Stadium possibly,  but do they actually work any better in practice than other venues?   The NEC, on paper, looks a good bet but the M42 is a nightmare at the best of times.   The lack of trains and carriages could be addressed between the club and the transport authorities, and if it was maybe fewer people would go by car.      

The club has tried to address this multiple times over a long period of time, but dealing with councils, especially ones that are now broke is not as simple or easy a solution as it sounds. If it was that easy, it would have been done a long time ago. I'm not sure where we are at now with the Witton Station refurb or how much difference it is going to make 

I'm not saying other grounds don't have similar issues, or that a different site won't have the same or other issues. 

What I'm ultimately confused by is that I want to find solutions to these issues so that we can stay on the current site, but the people who want to stay at Villa Park seem to be the ones who want to ignore them, and just say everything is fine when it quite clearly isn't.

We can't keep increasing the attendance with things as they are, the matchday experience will become ruined for everyone eventually if we do. We aren't going to sell corporate seats if it takes hours to get to and from the ground, sitting in traffic is not an experience people pay for, and we aren't going to able to update the ground to 50/60k if we can barely handle the 42k people we are getting in now.

I don't care what Spurs have or haven't done, I don't care if other stadiums have similar issues, I just want a better experience for everyone who goes to our ground and I am exasperated that others don't seem to see it.

I'm no town planner, but having some police directing traffic, shuttle busses (for a reasonable fee) from the city center, making some streets one way on matchday, there has to be ways of fixing it in the short term, but also longer-term finding ways of investing in the area to create more safe parking etc. even buy some a bit away and tram people in, stick a helipad on top of a stand... I don't bloody know... put a metro station under the ground that goes straight into town... just something!

Sorry, I'm having a bad day... I just want to be able to take my Dad or my kids to a game and it be a nice experience for them, I think that should be the minimum requirement, and the traffic/travel issues around our ground really do put that in jeopardy.

15 minutes ago, GlobalVillan said:

I did read your post and no need for the slightly aggressive tone. My point is that you can spend as much as you want on a new stadium but there will always be problems getting people to and from it.

Wherever it is.

I don't believe this "goldilocks" location even exists (apart from right in the city centre which can never happen) never mind it being viable to build a stadium there.

I genuinely think VP is in one of the best places possible in terms of transport networks. 

As for uber, you are never getting an uber with 40,000 plus people around.

Football, festivals, gigs, whatever.

If you do, you are bloody lucky.

 

 

I don't believe a 'goldilocks' location exists either, but then I don't believe Villa Park has perfect transport links, again you're glossing over the difficulties between those links and the stadium and indeed every point I've been trying to make.

Have a good day, I'm going to go and shout into a void for a bit.

14 minutes ago, GlobalVillan said:

Again, Spurs have just built a billion pound stadium and ALL those problems still exist for them and more.

I mean, well done to them...

I didn't say a new stadium would fix these problems, or that another site might be better, or indeed that I want a new stadium. In fact, it seems like you didn't read my post at all. I'm simply stating the site we are on isn't perfect. Burying your head in the sand and dismissing this isn't going to help to move along the conversation.

Having good transport links is pointless if they can't be used correctly. Increasing the capacity on the current site with these problems still existing is only going to make matters worse. It heavily limits what we can do with the site we are on.

What we need are solutions to these problems, not people saying 'Well there are good transport links so everything is fine'. It is not that black and white, things rarely are.