TomC

This feels like one of those matches where, if we get one, the floodgates will open, but getting one won't be easy.

Can't believe that they didn't sub for Bailey...he's limping around...

We're playing pretty well. If this were the first leg and we were only down 1, nobody would be worried. Lots to do, but I like what I'm seeing.

Pau should have cut out that cross

Ugh

Bright start

6 minutes ago, Aston_Villan4 said:

I assume they’re mocking Emery?

No...just an error made between the Greek alphabet and the English. The Greek "B" makes a "V" sound, so Villa is spelled "ΒΙΛΛΑ." Someone got confused.

Very funny given that the correct version is right there in the logo.

Wonder why Chambers isn't on the bench...not that we want to need him, but he did play briefly against Brighton on the weekend. Did he get injured too?

Pure madness, but I wonder if he'd try Diego as a DM and push McGinn further forward...

8 minutes ago, Tom13 said:

Don't think he was? Red Star didn't win a European cup in 84 did they?

You're right. Red Star won in 1991. So whichever club he was talking about, it was wrong.

So like StewieGriffin said...sell him immediately!

On 07/05/2024 at 12:49, StewieGriffin said:

1984?! Sell him immediately!!

He was referring to Red Star, not Villa.

19 minutes ago, fightoffyour said:

Yes, the man who waited 10 years fighting for a first team chance at Arsenal and then fours years at Villa playing his own way into his dream of Champions League football is suddenly going to jump ship to play for *checks notes* 7th-placed Chelsea. Good one.

Agreed. Emi has made clear that he's a "true believer." And like you said, we will be in the CL, they won't. He's one I'm the least worried about right now.

Next piece of advice for future pilgrims...definitely take the stadium tour. Locals might want to, too.

For whatever reason, we couldn't print our tour tickets and they wouldn't show up in the AVFC app. No worries...they have your name on a list and you can get in if you're on the list. The entrance is on the Doug Ellis stand near the North End. No harm in arriving early...when you go in, there's a bar right there and you can order a pint and snack food. You can stay after and drink/eat too.

The tour is not just "here's the locker room, here's the tunnel," etc. Our guide did a good job building the tour around the players' matchday routine and explaining the routine as you go to different parts of the stadium. There's certainly a little salesmanship involved..."this room can be rented out for weddings, parties, and business meetings!"

The highlight was definitely going out the tunnel to the pitch. You've seen it on the telly so many times, so it was cool to see it in person. Seeing the directors' suite and box was fun, too. The directors' seats are quite posh. My wife was quite happy when the guide pointed out that she was sitting in the same seat where Prince William sat on his previous visit.

I thought it was kind of cool how they preserved some of the windows from the old Trinity Road and incorporated them into various place inside the new one. Not that it absolves Deadly Doug for what he did to the old one.

You get a discount at the store afterwards (can't remember if it's 10% or 15%), so if you're planning to stock up on merch, do it when you do the tour.

If it fits your schedule, I would recommend doing the tour before a match instead of after. It's good to learn your way around before you arrive for matchday.

Anyway, it's recommended.

On 06/05/2024 at 07:24, VillaJ100 said:

Thanks for the write up! Brum survived quite well in WW2, it was a town planner called Manzoni in the 50's and 60's who decided most of the Georgian and Victorian architecture should be pulled down in favour of 'modern' ugly concrete shit. In the last 25 years a huge amount of money has been spent on the city centre trying to repair the damage.

I do remember hearing that the city planning was atrocious and that the Queensway was the worst of it. Now that the Queensway has been broken up, it's a little confusing for a tourist until you realize that there are multiple Queensways as a result...

On 07/05/2024 at 04:08, MrBlack said:

If he gets back to full fitness, I predict he'll be in the starting 11 far more often than not. 

Buendia and Mings are my favorite players, so I will be happy if he's back in the 11, but it's not going to be easy to break into this team.

He would play one of the advanced midfield positions or the wing/forward position alongside Watkins. For those three slots, you have Buendia, Tielemans, Rogers, JJ, McGinn, Bailey, and Diaby: that's 7 players for 3 slots. And that's assuming Zaniolo leaves and that we don't sign anyone else for those positions. Right now, the first four (and Zaniolo) are hurt and McGinn is playing as a DM, so it seems like we're short, but if we're at full strength at the start of the season, the competition is daunting.

Those are also 3 slots where subs are commonly used, and we need rotation with CL (or EL), so he will certainly get playing time.

15 minutes ago, ender4 said:

Who the hell is better??

Well after Gerrard of course…

According to them, 1. Guardiola. 2. Klopp. 3. Xabi Alonso. 4. Ancelotti. 5. Unai.

You can argue the order, but they're all in the discussion, clearly.

19 hours ago, pete101 said:

21 minutes of football since he left, we are well and truly landed with him

I'm not sure if we let him go because he wanted playing time or if it was because of FFP, but if it was a charity case because he wanted playing time, it has come back to haunt us. We really could use him right now. [Edit: And it's come back to haunt him, because I guarantee that he would have gotten more than 21 minutes here.]

If it's FFP, well, we did what we had to. Rogers is more important in the long run than Dendoncker.

31 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

That Arsenal game was 5 games ago in fairness and since then we have lost a further 4 players to injury.

This. Tielemans and Rogers were the straws that broke the camel's back. Now we're down to two true midfielders. End of story.

13 hours ago, picicata said:

I think Morgan would be more the back up striker than either Bailey and Diaby. 

I'll reserve judgment because I haven't seen him play that role. If he can do it, great, that's one less thing to spend limited funds on.

5 hours ago, ROTTERDAM1982 said:

We miss Ramsey, and his pace, more than we miss Luiz when they are not playing.

 

Except that Rogers has many of the same attributes as JJ...

45 minutes ago, MotoMkali said:

We've still not really been linked to any rbs yet. Which seems mad considering how desperate our need for one is.

Maybe they think Nedjelkovic is ready, however unlikely that seems.

1 hour ago, DJBOB said:

That's why I think people will be disappointed by some of the CM names we will be linked with because I think Unai will still prefer a ball playing CM over a purely defensive CDM.

I'm not so sure.

He wants to attack with at least 7. At first, that meant leaving the RB at home and advancing the LB while both Doug and Kamara joined the attack. That said, at times we've seen him keep Kamara in the back 3 while both fullbacks advance. He's not completely closed-minded to a "pure" DM.

I've been back from my Villa pilgrimage for almost a month. Given how much good advice I got from other pilgrimage threads, I feel obligated to give my impressions and some advice of my own. That said, I've been procrastinating. Rather than do one long post, I'm going to break it up into a bunch of smaller posts so it doesn't seem so daunting.

The moderators have created a pilgrimage tag for threads like this. So far only three threads have it. I recommend that anyone doing a pilgrimage start with this one...

Unfortunately, because it's in an old match thread, it's closed for more posts, but it's full of good advice.

A couple other threads that I found useful but that don't have the pilgrimage tag are...

My shopping list is short:

Defensive midfield: #1 priority. Kamara won't be back until at least November, probably January, and we miss him. I don't think Doug will be back to full form until we have a proper DM with him again. Unai doesn't think Tim is ready. The only question is, buy 1 or buy 2?

Right back: We need a true RB as cover for or to move ahead of Cash. The question is whether Nedjelkovic will be ready (he's only 18, plus hurt his knee this year). If so, this isn't as high a priority, but Unai seems to be cautious in bringing youth up, so we could use someone for 2-3 years until he is ready.

Backup striker: We're screwed if Ollie gets hurt. Duran is still raw, and Bailey and Diaby are not true strikers.

Sure, we have other positions where we could upgrade, but it would have to be a true world class player. I see no point in buying just to buy.