est1874

Have you ever tired to iron a Kappa shirt? Melts like tar in a heatwave But welcome Ollie to our majestic and storied club. Enjoy the ride, and please don't be shit!

Got twice as many minutes as I predicted since his call-up... I suppose that's something. Oh well. He's survived his first cap unscathed, he can sign his new contract now and all will be well. Right?

8-1. jesus wept.

No, I think it probably went a little bit like this: Jack (2018): Hi Gaffer, thanks for taking my call. As you know I'd love to play for England some day and I just thought I'd get in touch to ask what I need to do to break into the squad? Southgate: Well Jack, it's like this. I know you love Villa, and that's commendable, but sometimes you have to do what's best for yourself and your career, and I really think a move to a bigger club would work wonders for you. Jack: You mean like Middlesbrough? ............ Hello...?

Love Freddie.

Getting to a final is not winning anything - as we Villa fans well know. As for the cup he won, he won the exact same cup playing for Villa just a few years before. IMO he will never be justified for the way he left us, and he's done nothing to endear himself to us since. The twunt.

The point is he deserves it. Anyone who's watched Jack play as much as we have know that he's worked his arse off for the last couple of seasons, he's gotten better all the time, he's earned it a hundred times over at this point. It's also better for Villa to have our captain starring on the international stage. It raises the profile of our club for potential future recruits. With respect to our new additions I don't want to be shopping in the EFL forever.

I thought maybe after posting this I had gone too far, said too much. I wish I'd gone further

Villa, drinking from the well of the EFL again:

I've been fairly sympathetic to selling clubs on transfer fees previously but that is a huge amount of money to be asked for by Brentford, and the pressure on Watkins to perform will be huge. We've seen this before with 'big-money' signings, so hopefully if the deal gets rubber-stamped, he'll get the right service also. Watch us now get quoted £40m for Benrahma (or any other winger of similar quality). Glad to see a fee finally agreed, all the same, however steep. Get this done now Villa.

Regardless of whether Jack features or not tonight, Southgate can get to f*ck. Patronising waistcoat-wearing wally. I now recall him about as fondly as Alpay Ozalan in my memory bank of sh!thouse centre-halves from over the years who wore the claret and blue with about as much pride and honour as a cheap turd. How on earth he's been so lucky as England boss I'll never know, because his club record is a far better indicator of his level as a manager. The preening twunt.

THE day

That's enough internet for me today.

We've certainly put him on a pedestal, but we're not exactly flush with strikers who've scored 20 goals a season for us in recent seasons. In the Championship, yes. I still reckon he'd do a massive job for us, and I think the triumvirate of Lange Smith and Purslow would be insane not to bid big money for him. Of course that's just my opinion, and whether he'd come or not is another story. Probably not, but hopefully we've at least tried.......

Villa Fans, 2010: You know, we're really close to this Champions League thing, I reckon a little bit more investment and-- The Universe: Sorry, your chairman has decided to stop backing the manager and wants some of his wasted fortune back. Villa Fans, 2016: Okay, that was rough, some bad times in recent years culminating in relegation but hey, a flash new owner! Time to smash the Championship and-- The Universe: Sorry, Dr Tony is a broke fraud and you can't even pay a routine tax bill or player wages. Villa Fans, 2019: Whew, close one! Finally, proper money behind us, back in the Premier League via the play-offs, could be a lot worse, now time to make a real go of this Premier League thing and-- The Universe: Sorry, FFP. Injuries. Covid-19. Take your fvcking pick. ... Villa Fans, 2020: Wow, that was a lucky escape! But hey, now that FFP is slightly relaxed to account for lost revenue due to the pandemic, we can finally spend real fees and wages to bring in quality players and-- The Universe: Sorry; the movie Goal! The Dream Begins is a 2005 sports drama directed by Danny Cannon and tracing the rise of Santiago Munez, a young man with a rough background who is offered the chance to trial with a club in England, and it's not Aston Villa.

I love that he talks about wearing the "Iconic Number 9" at Newcastle, while wearing #27. Did he mean 9 x 3? Does that mean he thinks he scored 24 goals last season?

The season starts for most clubs in 5 days. We got "lucky" in being drawn to start off with a club that won't kick a ball until week 2, buying us an extra few days to recruit sensibly, but to pretend like we've got it all together and sorted and we can take as much time as we need is daft. Buying only gets harder and more desperate at the end of a transfer window - not easier and cheaper. But we've added a right-back, so everything's OK.

Don't understand the logic behind our transfer strategy anymore. We're very selective about whether or not to apply our own apparent criteria for new players, our valuations and bidding pattern appears to be random, and our scouting appears to be as poor as ever. There is still time, but the available evidence so far has left me slightly confused as to why we brought in a new Sporting Director at all. I'm sure Dean was capable of drawing up a shortlist and submitting enquires for Cash, Benrahma, Watkins, Wilson, Diangana and Abraham on his own.

It's not the fault of our owners or our negotiators if a player is a moron and thinks playing for Steve Bruce's Newcastle (or any Newcastle for that matter) is better than playing for Villa. On the other hand I'm still not at all convinced our interest in Wilson was as serious as what's been reported. If it's true we were/are refusing to pay £25m for 24-year-old EFL Player of the Year Ollie Watkins, it doesn't make sense to me that we would bid £21m for 8-goal Callum Wilson. He's fine but he wasn't the answer to our problems to begin with, certainly not at that price. I suspect there are fibs being told to the press (shock horror!)

Agreed. Regardless of what the year is, who the owners are, who the manager is, who the sporting director is, our scouting is always sh!te.

He knows nothing mate, like 99.9% of all ITKs. A quick look at that Twitter page shows me he's just re-tweeting all transfer news marked #avfc including the claim that we'd signed Romero last week with fee and terms all agreed, I doubt there is any insider info there at all.

Please don't. Don't give my heart this pathetically, desperately slim hope. I will let it in, knowing full well it will crush my dreams again.

A far superior detective.

The whole story has surely been bullshit from the get-go, likely fabricated by Wilson's agent to force Newcastle to meet Bournemouth's asking price. Why on earth would Villa get involved in a public bidding war for Wilson and then suffer the embarrassment of having to withdraw a higher bid because the player preferred to go to Newcastle of all places (in the North-East, when he's currently living and playing on the south coast?) The story doesn't make any sense, particularly in light of Villa not wanting to get involved in a bidding war for Watkins elsewhere. I'd say we file this under bullshit and move on.

Bjarnason misses FFS had to be an ex-Villan to take the pen didn't it.