El Segundo

thanks again. I would rather go to a formal one, but I guess the next one will be in 2-3 months time? I've emailed him anyway.

Thanks I will email him. When is the next one?

True I suppose - I may not put it in such terms if actually at a "Consultancy" (or Whitewash) session but I would not hesitate to point out the dishonesty and lack of transparency and factual bases in pretty much all of his communications with us - e.g. Terrace View, Holte Suite and now the delay to the redevelopment - so far and ask him why we should trust anything he says.

Indeed nothing screams "box ticked" more than the phrase you highlighted.

I would happily go and I would happily tell Heck exactly what I think of him (politely of course)

The whole things comes across as an exercise to try and demonstrate they are genuinely consulting fans when they are actually just doing what they think is right and ticking "fan consultation" boxes with lip service. He may be commercially astute in US terms, but I'm afraid Heck comes across as a blatant liar with little or no understanding of, nor care for, English Football fans, our club, it's history and traditions. The "200 unsold seats per PL game" as a sign there is insufficient demand is a case in point and sums up his approach. Take a minor, insignificant stat and spin it to suit your argument. It is utterly unconvincing, disingenuous. It's an insult to our intelligence. Here's just a few reasons why it's bollocks: 200 seat is less than half a per cent of capacity. A proportion of these are marked as restricted view, which many people, including me, will not pay for. The vast majority will be single seats - most people do not want to go and sit on their own. Getting hold of unsold tickets either online or by phone can be akin to breaking into Fort Knox. If my experience trying to get an extra ticket for the Sheffield United and Burnley games is anything to go by, unsold seats are not all released at the same time, nor in good time. Very late in the day a raft of tickets became available for the Sheffield game which were nearly all on the back row of the upper Holte. At a point when most people had probably given up. Where did they all suddenly come from? The website often shows games as "sold out" shortly before further tickets suddenly become available. A Season Ticket waiting list in the thousands, possibly tens of thousands, can never, ever be outweighed by by a piddling dribble of scattered unsold seats per game. To even think it can is hilariously arrogant. Everything he has done has been unpopular with the fans yet he spouts on about how consultation with us is at the centre of his strategy. The guy is utterly untrustworthy and a Charlatan as far as I'm concerned.

Diaby's a strange one because the first few games he looked like he'd taken to the PL like a duck to water. A bit like Bailey's debut against Everton. Since October he's looked like a fish out of water and someone who's struggling to adapt to the pace and physicality of the PL. A bit like Bailey from that Everton game until the second half of last season. He's been almost totally ineffective for a couple of months now. Zaniolo seems to be developing in the opposite direction, starting out pretty awful but seems to be getting better. I suppose the upside is that we have yet to see anywhere near the best of either of them.

I think you're missing the point here. As many have said results wise, it looks pretty decent. The real point though is that the performances have not deserved or justified those results, and more importantly, if the level of performance does not improve then the level of results is not sustainable. Our away performances are the reason we cannot consider ourselves genuine title contenders, and the probable reason why 5th, or at a push 4th, is our ceiling this season.

I've got two issues with Carlos. Twice now, Bournemouth and United, he's played a sloppy pass into centre midfield that have led to goals. He needs to stop doing it. Second, he makes stupid unnecessarily risky and overly physical challenges in our final third leading to dangerous free kicks. Arguably the one he was carded for on Hojland wasn't even a foul but there have been plenty of others over a few games where he's been like a bull in a china shop trying to wrestle or to go through the player rather than jockeying and timing a challenge like Konsa and Pau do. Yes he's a big strong bloke but a bit of subtlety and finesse wouldn't go amiss.

Same as it ever was. It’s written in the stars. Villa **** up boxing day. Villa throw it away against United from 2-0 up. Again. Non-scoring team suddenly look like prime 1970 Brazil. Non-scoring striker scores against Villa. It was so obviously going to happen that I even put a bet on Hojland scoring, confident that my worse than dismal betting record would jinx the Bastard. Looks like I need to buy a lottery ticket. That said we got what we deserved today - didn’t play well and probably did not deserve to be 2-0 up from a couple of set pieces. But given that we were why did we not just keep attacking them? They can’t defend, and we could have buried them. I said to a United supporting mate at 0-2 that next goal decides it – that if they got it, they would get minimum draw. He scoffed at the idea. I’m guessing a Newcastle style fatigue played a part. Dougie and McGinn looked sluggish, Ramsey looked half a yard and half a second off the pace, and Dendoncker and Bailey disappeared after half time. Carlos was a runaway train on acid, a liability, who gifted them a way back into the game. The Momentum was almost solely with united so I can’t understand why Unai didn’t change thing up sooner. Ten Hag had obviously put a rocket up them at half time and they were pressing for dear life. We couldn’t deal with it. Fresh legs were obviously needed. I think Unai got it wrong today until it was too late. I just hope we put 7 past these words removed in the home game.

It's like watching the Macheda game again.

The first team to make United look decent in months. Carlos has had a mare. Ramsey is not match fit. Emery should have changed things. We should have carried on attacking them, they are shit in defence. For **** sake get Carlos off.

We're totally bottling this

Diego is like a bull in a china shop sometimes. Why does he make stupide challenges like that?

Gifted them one

Blimey I wasn't aware of that incident - absolutely blatant non-accidental hand to ball handball. How could VAR not call that? Unbelievable.

Fair enough it's quite a big increase. But, even then, what other possible locations within the Birmingham area would be immune to such challenges, and why hasn't it stopped Liverpool going to >60k? If there have been major transport and access upgrades around Anfield fair enough but I'm not aware of any.

Wasn't our capacity something like 48000 before the Holte End got replaced in the early to mid 90s? You know, after Thatcher had already destroyed public transport and when there were already plenty of two and three car families? It's hardly days of yore. Aren't there other, bigger stadiums with similar challenges? It's many years since I went there but I don't recall Anfield, for example, being surrounded by great road or rail access. Yet that's already 55k+ and due to be 60k+. What other locations in the West Midlands do you think would alleviate this issue, without major development work?

I've been attending VP since 1965. My Dad was going since the early forties, my Grandad from the WW1 era. His older brother, my Great Uncle, probably since the 1900s. A family tradition covering well over 100 years of the 125 years we've been there. As the StagMan said there is a "Trigger's Broom" element to the stadium, like there is with a lot of stadiums. But the location is still the same and the spirit and aura of the place, especially the Holte End, has never gone away in my view, nor has the feeling of walking up Trinity Road or Witton Lane in anticipation, passing the familiar landmarks, hearing the familiar sounds, smelling the familiar smells of matchday. And the memories of doing that with my Dad and Grandparents. For those reasons I would be extremely sad if we moved. But then I also recognise the need to move with the times in order to compete. I suppose you'd call it mixed feelings. Ideal outcome would probably be the Compulsory Purchase option allowing a state of the art stadium in the same location.

I'd prefer him to say what the real reasons and real plans are. Did he even mention construction costs? Even if he did, how is that situation going to improve by delaying a rebuild? It isn't. As has been said the proposals were already accepted regardless of the upgrade to Witton Station. So why is that suddenly an issue? The transport situation throughout the West Midlands is a disaster, both public transport and on the roads. Moving to a more central site may move us nearer to three stations, but will there be enough trains to serve a 60000 capacity stadium. Will there be enough parking even assuming you can get anywhere near the stadium by road? If park and ride is the plan why can't that operate in the current location? It was said that NSWE had a 5 year plan to get us into CL/Europe. If so, it means they would or should have been expecting/planning for European football revenue round about, er, now. And next season. And the one after. So why plan a new stand at all if loss of Euro revenue was a consideration? And I still don't see why it would take two years to build. Like I said the reasons given don't stack up for me, so why come out with them? Plus his previous comments and actions don't exactly scream "Honest Chris" as a potential nickname, except with the greatest of irony intended.

I think a lot of the negative reactions - certainly mine - are not because of what's been said and done but because the message comes across as disingenuous. The reasons given do not stack up and it smacks of hiding some other agenda. Like the messages about refurbishment of the Holte Suite were hiding a different agenda. I could understand this approach if the real agenda were a veiled threat to the WMCA/BCC to get their fingers out upgrading the infrastructure in Aston or they may lose the economic boost to the region of the Euros. But hosting the Euros seems secure even without redevelopment and expansion, so that seems unlikely.

I've just watched the video and I have to say I wouldn't trust this bloke as far as I could chuck America. Actions speak louder than words. So much blather about how it's all about the fans, working with them, spending 6 months getting to know what they want, and getting the feel for the history of the club. But his actions so far have been to 1) turn the "refurbishment" of the Holte suite into a repurposing with paid for hospitality coupled with a reduction in season ticket benefits. I don't know many fans who wanted that. 2) "Interpret" a survey question about whether the fans would like enhancements like better wifi, better food service, better toilets etc. to conclude that "the fans said they wanted a chargeable enhanced experience". Making a chunk of Holte end seating and concourse unavailable to ordinary supporters in the process. And the rest of it worse than before. Did many fans really want that? 3) Calling a halt to the stadium expansion so they can "explore alternatives that benefit ALL fans not just one stand". What utter bollocks. A bigger ground raises our profile, gets us more supporters in the ground, increases our revenue - it benefits us all, whether we are North Standers or not. Treating it as a separate entity is nonsensical. Are many fans agreeing with this? By all means plan for a new stadium or nothing at all if it genuinely makes better commercial sense in the long run. But at least have the balls and decency to be up front, transparent and honest about it. Spare us the shedload of patronising bullshit about it being all about us.

Heck has already shown that any decisions he makes will be based purely on commercial factors. He's obviously been given the mandate to increase and maximise revenue and any sense of tradition, history, or feel for the club and the fans appears to be irrelevant. See plonking a couple of shitty corporate hospitality features in the middle of the end where the more passionate and voiciferous "old school" fans congregate. Personally I wish we'd kept Purslow. I don't buy the transport and infrastructure argument, I reckon it's a smokescreen/excuse. All that should and would have been covered in the project scoping and proposals which were accepted. And as others have said VP has dealt with much bigger crowds than 50,000 in the past, and other stadia in similar urban settings manage ok too. Frankly it reeks of bullshit. I also don't buy that doubts over whether the waiting list is sustainable is a reason. I don't recall West Ham having a massive ticket waiting list when their capacity was about 32000, but since their capacity increased to 50,000 + they've pretty much filled it every game. Similar happened in jawdeeland in the 90s. If you build it they will come. My guess is Heck is taking a punt on raising ticket costs as much as he can to increase revenue in the short term, and test just how strong demand really is. If it holds up, maybe we'll expand, or more likely he'll push for a new stadium. If the former, we'll lose revenue for a season or two at a later date and it's just kicking the can down the road. Which is why I think he'll push for the latter. Part of me wishes he'd just **** off, but part of me thinks maybe this is the only way we'll get to compete at the top table in the longer term.

Sports psychology could help deal with factors like unfamiliar surroundings and hostile environments. Also with our tendency to start each half sluggishly and ship goals in the first 6 or 7 minutes. Even at Burnley we conceded 2 minutes into the second half. But there's also the different mentality and approach of the opposition when they are at home compared to at VP. Mostly they are more confident, more front foot, more aggressive. We maybe need to find a way to prevent that knocking us out of our stride so much and then control games more like we do at VP. Maybe the aggro at Brentford was one way of trying to do that.

Results wise we're doing pretty well away, but the performances don't really justify the returns in my view. I'd say the only away performance where we were convincing winners was at Burnley. The other performances have all featured a fair bit of sloppiness at both ends with our defence being carved open way too easily (I'm not counting the offside ones), and individual errors. I'm not convinced our opponents will continue to fail to take advantage of that as much as they have so far. It would be nice if they do though.