Greenfly

You could argue JT is doing it the smart way. When he does go for a top job himself he can say he's learned the ropes from experienced and respected coaches in Smith and Shakespeare, and was part of a setup that won promotion it's first attempt. I'd wager his overall managerial career will end up much better than Rooney's, Lampard's or Gerard's for that reason.

I doubt the owner's nationality has any bearing on it at all. We have followers in Egypt because of Trezeguet and (to a lesser extent) Elmo, not because of Sawiris.

Better yet, imagine two McGinns. I pity anyone trying to play through us.

Looking on WhoScored, he seems like a predominantly defensive player so I can't see him being a direct Hourihane upgrade exactly. He seems more like a midfield enforcer type, which is arguably the sort of player we're missing.

Same with Revan - unless he absolutely bosses it, it's unlikely we'll ever see him in a Villa shirt again. Good luck to them both.

Grealish, while hamstrung by having to deal with Bruceball, still made Neves look silly in the 4-1 win. He was always the better player. Not saying Neves is bad, of course.

I don't have BT so I couldn't watch. Am I right in assuming this result says more about Wolves than it does about West Brom?

I was about to ask who you think they'd jump ahead of, but they're currently 1-0 up somehow, so you could be right yet.

The Baggies are without Johnstone, Diangana, Phillips, Grant, Gallagher and Townsend against Wolves. That's basically all of their half decent players. They'd better hope Snodgrass has a screamer today. Also, if Wolves don't win this at least 3-0, then it shouldn't count.

From the last paragraph in the article: "After his team’s failure to score in their past 10 hours of playing time, Bruce has not been greatly concerned by the new protocols on player celebrations." I love the fact they felt the need to write that.

Ramsay already seems to be ahead of Hourihane in Smith's thinking, but Carney is probably some way off.

To be fair, £30m is about the average price for a loaf of bread in Chelsea, isn't it? The selfish part of me doesn't want to see Conor go - he's one of my overall favourite players in the last few years, constantly proving his haters wrong time and time again, so often delivering when we needed him the most. The realistic side of me knows he deserves to play regular football though, and if he does go, he goes with my thanks for what he's done for the club. I'll watch the rest of his career with interest.

You're supposed to keep those things quiet. Didn't you get the memo?

I looked at their forum and there's a few on there speculating that the whole saga was a plan to get him here, claiming we used Barca as an interim to avoid the tribunal. So in their minds, we're simultaneously a smaller club than them, but we're also big enough to use Barcelona as scapegoats and middlemen.

Louie Barracuda?

We saying double figures then?

He has been training with the first team regularly throughout the season, as have a few of those who played the other day. For whatever reason, he hadn't been training with them for a week or so before the outbreak.

I'd say it is a little different in the West Midlands. Earlier this season during an interview, John McGinn said that before he came to Villa, his understanding of the rivalries here is that everybody just hates us. I've noticed this amongst a lot of local fans. Blues are obviously the major ones, but Baggies fans consider us the "true enemy" despite Wolves being their derby rivals, and even Wolves seem to have now decided we're their biggest enemy despite us usually having a pretty amicable relationship in the past. They'll deny it forever, but the only reason I can think of for this is that we're the biggest club in the region by every conceivable metric and they can't abide that. A lot of them seem to genuinely hate us; they're almost unified by it. Only envy can cause that sort of situation. As for us, while I can't speak for every Villa fan the general consensus is disdain for those clubs, but general indifference towards the fans themselves. Let them fester in their jealousy if that's what they want to do, it really doesn't matter. It's lonely at the top.

I know what you mean. I don't want to get ahead of myself either, but he's definitely firing us to the PL title this season.

Agreed. They've proven they know what they're doing every step of the way so far. I trust they know what the best thing to do with Louie is, too.

I'm no scientist, but that second save defied the laws of physics.

All I know is, it is just banter for everybody I know. I don't know anybody who genuinely hates any fans of any club. Even the thread you referenced about which fans we hate the most, you'll notice the word hate is in quotation marks; nobody in their right mind actually hates these people, only in the context of supporting football clubs.

It's just banter. We're football fans, we have a good old chuckle at our rival's misfortunes, they have a laugh at ours. There's no real malice in it (for most people). I know plenty of baggies, blues and Wolves fans and they're all good people. I would never put any of them down. But the club they support? Of course I will. It doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, does it?

The worst part is this isn't even a joke.

I had a look. He spouted off that tired rhetoric about him being a diver and "he'd be good if he stayed on his feet". Then he said "I'd love him at Leeds though. Bielsa would coach the cheating out of him." Has he not seen Bamford? Or Ayling?? Stones and glass houses, etc.