philgetaway

AVBs contract is up this season at Zenit, and is currently considering his next move. I sit next to a Porto fan at work, and he keeps going on about what a legend he is and Porto fans want him back there. I see the Rodgers links have gained some momentum on the web...

The nest was signed-off in 2003 - Big Tone would have been 26, and his Wiki page says it was studying at Oxford in 2002. You'd have thought the planning and architectural design would have taken some time before this. Stadium opened in 2008 - Tone would have been 31. Not being ageist, but its hard to believe his involvement was significant - the dates don't add up.

Sheff Wednesday finished 6th in the play-offs by winning 19 games. Imagine winning 19 games? Imagine maybe 10 of them at home.... would be amazing! Burnley won the league with 26 wins.

Start by re-opening the trinity.

Championship Season starts August 7th - in just over 13 weeks. Before this time we need to: Get a new owner. Get a manager + staff Offload some players. Buy some players. Have a good pre-season - starting in 7 weeks, assuming we want a 6 week pre-season. (Who's arranging this btw? Usually we know where we are going to be based by now). I predict a slow start due to the amount of changes that need to happen. If we can stay in touch up to Christmas we will be in with a shout. What I think will happen is that the predicted slow start will result in pressure, hostility and it will make things harder. New players will be written off too early, and old players will be reminded of this season. Glad i've just re-newed my ST! UTV.

Every time I look at the midweek CL fixtures, there always seems to be a full round of Championship fixtures. The prem kicked off the same time as the Championship this season due to the euros, here's our top 4 players by appearance compared to top of the table Burnley in Championship. We need a large squad, and players who can show twice a week. I haven't seen Gabby, Okore or Clarke put a run together for ages. Fair play to Gueye and Westwood for showing every week despite the stick. R Player CM KG Apps Mins Goals Assists Yel Red SpG PS% AerialsWon MotM Rating 1 Idrissa Gueye 26, D(C),M(C) 174 66 29 2538 - - 7 - 0.9 85 1 3 7.30 2 Brad Guzan 31, GK 193 94 25 2250 - - 2 - - 53.2 - - 6.62 3 Ashley Westwood 26, DMC 175 67 25(1) 2180 - 1 6 - 1.2 83.3 0.2 - 6.54 4 Joleon Lescott 33, D(CL),DMC 190 89 24 2116 1 - 2 - 0.5 74.6 2.4 1 6.76 Top three all 39 games! R Player CM KG Apps Mins Goals Assists Yel Red SpG PS% AerialsWon MotM Rating 1 Ben Mee 26, D(CL) 180 74 39 3498 2 1 8 - 0.5 64.8 4 2 7.29 2 Scott Arfield 27, AM(CLR) 178 70 39 3406 7 6 4 - 1.3 74.9 0.7 2 6.86 3 Tom Heaton 29, GK 188 85 39 3510 - - - - - 44.9 0.4 2 6.85 4 George Boyd 30, M(LR) 186 79 35(2) 3028 3 4 1 - 1.1 68.9 0.8 - 6.81

Agreed. Remember Paul Lambert got back to back promotions with Norwich, and kept them in the Prem, and look how that turned out. It would be a coup if we got Moyes in. Or Brendan Rodgers. We need someone we can trust with the money that we have, as that will be key this pre-season. Someone who has had money to spend before. Moyes has this experience. Steve Bruces record of spending money is horrible.

It doesn't make sense mate - its a tedious link/comparison. Plus isn't the saying is right manager at the wrong time? From what I read, people suggest this about Garde for many reasons. If he was hired a few years back, when there was a budget, he might have been given the time to create a football identity, and get us playing football - so the legend goes. Now was the wrong time as he wasn't a mid-season, fire fighting appointment, for a relegation battle. Th wrong time is considered due to external factors - no support in Jan transfer window, new to Premier League etc. Mourinho was at Chelsea for a second spell, and the previous season won the league after signing his team that included Fabregas and Costa etc. The many factors in Chelsea's poor season include the fact that he gave them extra time off during pre-season (even though the league kicked off earlier) so they started slow. He caused unrest with the staff internally in the first game - blaming the physio for the draw v swansea. Then going on to humiliate first team players - the Captain Terry at City, Matic against Liverpool, Hazard in the CL. It wasn't the wrong time for Mourinho, he just messed up and lost the dressing room.

Theres no way you can say Mourinho was the wrong manager at the wrong time.

Yes fair point. Makes it even more shocking really. He's wasted some serious cash on this, and made a lot of average players and staff, multi millionaires. Here's the link again as it didn't work last time. http://swissramble.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/aston-villa-this-house-is-circus.html

Decent analysis as always by the swiss ramble. Interesting that Lerner is averaging the same money spent as when we were in the top 6. Highlights even more how badly the club has been run, paying off managers, and out of their depth CEOs. If he keeps up the investment, and the new board seems to click, maybe there will be some good days to come?

This thread is fantastic. We will get back to these days at some point, lads.

Neil Lennon

yeah initial sold out... can't blame people travelling for that shower. I'll be there though, like I was today.

Bet they're gutted the took the extra allocation. They're now advertising it on the villa website "back the boys in Wales".... first time I've known us actively chase away support!

£5M on paper seems like a good deal. We got him for free, it hasn't worked out, so sell for £5M. However, the experiment of playing him CB, and all those early games trying to give him the game time to come good, is one of the factors why we let many goals in. Confidence then dropped, leading us to losing our league status and millions of TV revenue. This transfer isn't the only reason we're going down, but for a club who finished 1 point above the drop last time, and losing their CB and captain Vlarr, it was criminal to put all our faith in this guy. Sunderland will be relegated as well. So I doubt he'd end up there.

Obviously it is early to do this but it shows there are enough games to get out of this, so let's be positive and support the lads. The below would get us 17th on average over the past 10 seasons. Current points4Tottenham V Aston Villa 0Aston Villa V Man City 0Everton V Aston Villa 1Aston Villa V Watford 3Southampton V Aston Villa 0Aston Villa V Arsenal 0Newcastle V Aston Villa 1Aston Villa V West Ham 3Norwich V Aston Villa 0Sunderland V Aston Villa 3Aston Villa V Crystal Palace 1Aston Villa V Leicester 0West Brom V Aston Villa 1West Ham V Aston Villa 0Aston Villa V Norwich 3Aston Villa V Liverpool 0Stoke V Aston Villa 1Aston Villa V Everton 3Man City V Aston Villa 0Aston Villa V Tottenham 0Swansea V Aston Villa 3Aston Villa V Chelsea 0Aston Villa V Bournemouth 3Man Utd V Aston Villa 0Aston Villa V Southampton 1Watford V Aston Villa 3Aston Villa V Newcastle 3Arsenal V Aston Villa 0Total37

Forget about the other teams, what we need to stay up statistically. Here's the average points for the position over the last 10 season PositionAv Points15th40.616th38.617th37.218th35.119th32.420th24.8

Can someone with a ticket tell me what stand the villa are in? Cheers

Broadcast selection announcement dates August- September: Next 5 days October - November: July 6 December: September 17 January: October 19 February: November 17 March: Second working day in January April: February 3 May: March 23

Classic tabloid tactics.... morning of a big game write a story about the best player leaving... Don't worry lads, what will be will be....

OK current club captain….. Song?

We really must get a song for this guy. Future club captain, signed a new deal, he was loving the win yesterday more than anyone…. and all we had in the away end is the Benteke song, "one Jack Grealish" and thats it. Can we get a song for him…. is there one? UTV

Sanchez was frustrated (like most of us in the away end) that the one-sided Probert didn't give one blatant free-kick against Danny Rose who went through the back of Joe Cole and arguably another free-kick against Delph in the lead up to that foul. If the referee had done is job this would have never of happened. Appreciate Sanchez shouldn't react like that but I don't blame in at all. He played well yesterday. The ref on the other hand needs to look at himself. His job shouldn't be to help Spurs because we have the ball in the corner, Danny Rose went through Joe Cole.

I think we will stay up. We will get a point somewhere along the line. Theres only the City game really thats a definite loss. Spurs away could be a point.... they will no want Europa league etc. Annoying thing is that Palace werent good on Saturday. Why didnt we just have a go? We had a 3 at the back marking 1 player all game and 2 up front getting no service. We needed more in Midfield. At the end of the day we will stay up but its likely that 2 of the 3 promoted teams will finish above us.... the same as last season. Due to this, (plus a bunch of other reasons) Its a matter of time before we get relegated.