MNVillan

7 hours ago, Mantis said:

I think some of the extreme doom and gloom is a bit misplaced.

Defeat at Spurs - was always going to be a tough game but we defended well for most of it

Defeat to Bournemouth - were the better team on balance but undone by a couple of stupid errors, and the officiating didn't help

Win over Everton - played well and won deservedly

Defeat at Palace - played poorly, but literally the only reason we didn't get a point here is because of corrupt or incompetent officials

It's a long season, but so far I've not seen anything which suggests we're not capable of staying up.

I agree with pretty much all of this, especially that we are capable of staying up. My worry is that we can see all the encouraging signs we want, but soon they’re going to need to turn into points or it means nothing.

I am slightly concerned right now. You’re right, it’s a long season, but out of 4 games this year we have only come away with something in 1 of them. Until we start tallying points on a more consistent basis I won’t be comfortable.

Wonder why the 3rd kit is getting pushed back so late. It must be a September release at the earliest, as I can’t imagine they’re going to release it tomorrow if they’re not wearing it for the match. How far in advance are kit choices for a match determined?

Whoops, wrong thread.

6 hours ago, kurtsimonw said:

Kevin Garnett, Randy Moss, Joe Mauer, Marion Gaborik... had some real quality over the years.

With, unfortunately, 0 championships. The 1998 and 2009 Vikings seasons still give me nightmares.

6 hours ago, villalad21 said:

By rotating everyone you are disrespecting the cup and treating it like a pre season game. I find it appalling.

Same starting XI which started against Everton except Nakamba, Elmo and El Ghazi in.

I guess I don’t see it that way. Dean will start an XI that is capable of winning the match, and I am sure he will have the boys in a winning mindset.

I think there is a difference between starting a rotated squad that is still expected to win against lesser opposition and “throwing in the towel” by starting a rotated squad against strong opposition that will likely lose. I want a strong cup run as well, but the goal in cups is to win and advance. There isn’t a difference between winning 2-1 with Davis, Hause, Konsa, Steer, etc. playing vs. winning 8-1 with our strongest XI.

As long as you are playing to win the match, which I’m sure Dean will, I don’t think starting a rotated XI is disrespectful.

Mildly surprised that some people are calling for Deano to start anything other than a heavily rotated squad. I do see merit to the idea that our new starting XI need more time to gel, although I think for me the risk of injury outweighs the 90 extra minutes of game time. I would vote to sit the vast majority of our starters.

If the hope is that our backup XI are capable of satisfactorily stepping in and playing a role in a Premier League match for any starter who has picked up an injury, we should be capable of beating a League 2 side with a rotated squad in.

1 hour ago, New_Hope said:

Anyone know when the 3rd kit is released?

The club said it was was going to be released in August, so it must be this week. I was actually expecting it to be today because I thought it would make its debut tomorrow against Crewe. Nothing so far. Last year they teased the kit launches, and so far this year they really haven’t. So maybe the club will just drop it on social media out of the blue sometime this week.

I’ve only been following football since 2013 and stopped paying much attention to the Prem once we went down, but Man U seems to be one disappointment after another. I respect their pedigree and history, as opposed to new-school big money clubs like City, but in my eyes they are 6th out of 6 for “big clubs” in England.

3 minutes ago, MNVillan said:

Well that helps. Man U doesn’t win and Palace stays below us.

This didn’t age well.

Well that helps. Man U doesn’t win and Palace stays below us.

I’m not sure whether I should take delight in Man U completely messing this up, or be annoyed that a Top 6 team can’t help us out by beating a team below us in the table

I think Villa debuted their 3rd shirt in a cup match last season. Maybe they do the same thing this year and wear it on Tuesday? Doubt the club would release it on a weekend, so that would leave a Monday or Tuesday morning release. We’re starting to run out of days in August.

What a player. I don’t know England’s depth, so based on competition at their respective positions this comment may be off, but I think he may get a call up to England before Jack.

I certainly think he’s been our best player so far this season.

YESSSSSSSSS!! Winning feels so good.

*disclaimer: I only got to see the last 30ish minutes*

- Wesley was immense. I love his feisty spirit. Sticking up for his teammates shows he cares about his teammates. Seems like that is something we’ve had under Deano that had been missing for years.

- I dare say, Mings has been our best player so far this year.

- I thought Jack played well, and I’m not all over him for his play so far this year. However, I wish he would shoot more. Although I know he is more of a facilitator, there was twice in the last 10 minutes where he walked into the box and passed it off. Wish he would’ve let one of those go towards goal.

- This team certainly can compete, and will only get better with more time to gel. We just beat a good Everton side. I hope this result calms the nerves of the fans who were getting ready to press the panic button.

- Villa Park is a magical place. Every time I watch a home match on TV I find myself thinking “I absolutely have to get there.” The atmosphere tonight was immense.

Anybody out there who has joined me in the misery that is being a Minnesota sports fan?

Duplicate.

Haven’t touched the series since AC3, but the wife got me Odyssey last year for Christmas. I fell in love with it, spent about 75 hours completing the entirety of the 3 main story lines. Now I’m almost done with Origins, which isn’t as good as Odyssey but still very solid. Syndicate is up next for me.

Quote

Aston Villa’s home shirt has proven immensely popular, with unprecedented demand in the first few weeks of going on sale.

This season sees us team up with Principal Partner, Kappa, as two iconic brands join forces.

https://www.avfc.co.uk/News/2019/08/17/unprecedented-demand-for-kit

According to the club, demand for the home shirt is double from last year and the away shirt demand is up 500% from Luke’s white kit.

26 minutes ago, Farlz said:

The lines are weird, but it’s the 3rd kit so I’m all for trying something crazy. I like it.

Would love to get a point just to get something on the board to boost the boys’ confidence. Sooner or later, praising good performances that still result in losses needs to stop. Everton are good, but on our day and especially at VP we are very competitive.

I’ll be curious to see what Dean does with our fullbacks. Guilbert and Targett were solid in preseason, so it makes no sense to me why they haven’t even been available as bench players the first two matches. I say start both of them, if nothing else just to see what they offer. I find it hard to believe they aren’t superior options to Elmo and Taylor, but something seems to be going on behind the scenes that is preventing them from getting the nod.

51 minutes ago, rubberman said:

Cut out the individual mistakes, have a bit more luck with deflections and referees and get a bit more clinical with our shooting. We're not far away - xG had us ahead for today and over the course of a season we'll get points out of games like this. 

Keep the faith

 

Quite like this post. I agree and think most people who watched the match could see that it was there for the taking. A few bad bounces and refereeing decisions that didn’t go our way played a part in handing us a loss. It wasn’t our day, and that’s football.

Only worry about what we can control. Eliminating the mental lapses and finishing our chances would have flipped the result today. Those need to be addressed for future fixtures.

If anything, today showed that on our day we can and should be competitive in the Prem.  However, we can only tout moral victories and good performances for so long, and at some point those need to start translating into positive results. I’m confident they will.

3 minutes ago, thunderball said:

It seems wrong to say “apart from conceding 5 goals in two games our defence looks decent”, but there, I’ve said it.

Tbf, they were only at fault for 1-2 of the goals out of 5.

Not sure whether to be encouraged by the performance or frustrated with the result.

Very nervy start today. Understandable, but it killed us in the end.

Need to clean up sloppy mistakes or we’re going nowhere in this league. If we can avoid those, though, I think today showed we can certainly be competitive.

Fair play to Taylor for his performance against Spurs, but he doesn’t do much for me. Hoping to see someone else starting in his spot going forward.

Much better from Wesley today.

McGinn all over the place again.

Trezeguet seems to be like a solid signing.

At the end of the day, it’s points dropped in a very winnable match at VP. Still not nervous, but can’t afford too many more of these results.

I’m encouraged by the last half hour. They’ve capitalized on our mistakes, and we haven’t taken advantage of our opportunities. But the opposition in this league is not too big for us.