NeilS

Just now, Talldarkandransome said:

So not a disaster then, reading some of the stuff was like reading Nostradamus again

 No not really. I guess it depends on how much value you put into the Villa life aspect of the plans. That part of the plan may well happen in a few years anyway, depending on how things work out in the next few years.
 

I think people’s angst is caused by being  let down in the past on these plans. We need to remember and repeat to ourselves, NSWE are not Doug, Randy or Dr Tony. 

8 minutes ago, Talldarkandransome said:

Have I missed an announcement about this, I thought everything was going ahead next summer? Am I wrong

A brief update from my pov. There was a letter from Villa that was put on twitter by a fan a few pages back (see near top of page 223) on this thread. There have been some alterations to plans, and the Villa life section has been sidelined temporarily and the old stumps building retained in the mean time to be the Villa Life part of the plan in the short term. The Villa shop is to be incorporated into the new design of the North Stand. I think it is all due to start next season.

18 minutes ago, jacketspuds said:

Let's go all out for Goncalo Ramos.

Forward options of him, Watkins and Archer, with Duran going out on loan, would be top class.

Is he the guy who replaced Ronaldo in a match for Portugal at the last WC and promptly scored a beauty before going on to bag a hat-trick? If so he looked great in that match, so I am on board with this suggestion.

16 minutes ago, gaz90 said:

It isn't as simply as buying better attackers to get more goals. The build up of play, breaking teams down by keeping possession and working opportunities is much more important than in years gone by.

Signing Torres gives us much better distribution. This is key in a system like ours when we aim to frustrate teams by keeping possession, forcing mistakes and building out from the back. Torres could be one of our most important attacking players, should we sign him.

100% this! Pau Torres is known to be progressive and bring the ball forward as well. Which will in turn hopefully draw opponents out of position towards him and freeing up space in the gaps left for our midfield and attack to exploit.

7 minutes ago, Kiwivillan said:

Relative to all the other teams Tielemans in says we've done good business so far

https://www.premierleague.com/transfers

Yeah, looking at every other teams signings so far the only decent player that we haven’t signed is MacAllister to Liverpool.

I think patience is going to be required this summer, as top players are going to be harder to prise away from their clubs without overpaying. Monchi hasn’t even started his role with us yet, so I am not sure what people are expecting right now.

1 minute ago, stewiek2 said:

It wasn't a penalty. How VAR didn't look at it is beyond me.

Yeah I wasn’t sure either tbh. It’s one of those, starts outside the box and falls in the box. We would want it checked if it was against us. It may have passed a quick check, or they couldn’t be bothered as the match is done.

The Customary Kane Penalty, and he didn’t have to dive to win this one for himself! 

9 minutes ago, imavillan said:

love the quote 

''normally i take two bottles of valium to watch Villa, but i havent felt this optimistic for while''

 I think we can all relate to that quote.

1 hour ago, villa4europe said:

Its not a purslow problem, it's been 10+ years that we've done this bullshit

And I say bullshit we still have the issue that the contracts run until July 1st so we can't launch the new shirt yet

Yes, this problem was being discussed back in the Randy Lerner days and probably even the Doug Ellis days. I have no idea why we seem to be down the list on the release date of kits, it doesn't seem to have changed with the owners or when we have changed the kit manufacturers?

41 minutes ago, blunther said:

Not sure improving the station will help transport issues that much, unless there are extra trains and I thought the bottleneck with that was New Street?

I am not sure to be honest. I just recall it being mentioned from the results of the fan questionnaire that there were issues with the station and it being dangerous to catch a train out after the match due to crowding. The train won't help everyone, but every little bit that can be improved will hopefully have a knock on effect.

13 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that our planning permission was granted without any additional stipulations, and that whilst the upgrade to the station is important to the wider planning of the area around Villa Park, we can go ahead and build the North Stand without it.

Yes I think we could easily go ahead and just start to build the new stand. I do think the club are very aware of the transport issue getting worse as a result. Therefore I reckon we are just holding fire on announcing a start date to keep the pressure on the council to agree to stump up funding on their part for the station which will ease match day traffic and improve the links into the area. That is why we saw the article I posted yesterday where Cllr Lee Marsham and Cllr John Cotton are highlighting the financial benefits of the outlay to the wider area if we win the bid for the Euros. A clear message of £30m outlay now could bring over £100m to the local economy in the near future.

Interesting, this may be a key to why we haven't heard a start date for the project yet. Hopefully the funding for the upgrade to the station will be approved shortly so we can get cracking on the project.

Villa Park holds key to £117m city cash boost as railway station plea intensifies

Leader of Birmingham City Council John Cotton spoke with Aston Villa chiefs last week to discuss stadium development plans

Aston Villa will find out in September if their home, Villa Park, will host the UEFA European Championships in 2028. And should the UK and Ireland’s bid be successful, leader of Birmingham City Council John Cotton believes it will boost the local economy by £117 million.

Villa Park is one of ten stadiums which are part of the UK and Ireland’s bid to host the tournament. Others include Wembley, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, St James’ Park in Newcastle and Hampden Park in Glasgow.

It’s understood Villa are awaiting funding from the West Midlands Combined Authority which, in 2021, funded the £30m redevelopment of Perry Barr railway station ahead of the Commonwealth Games.

Speaking at Birmingham City Council’s full meeting on Tuesday (June 13), councillor Lee Marsham (Nechells, Lab) put pressure on Mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, to stump up the millions needed to upgrade Witton Station in line with Villa’s grand plans to improve their stadium in the months and years to come.

In response, Cllr Cotton said: “Now, clearly we want visitors to have the best possible experience so improvements to Witton Station are important, not just for this tournament but for the local community and for Villa fans who are travelling for games in the future.

Tielemans will be a great signing for us if Unai can get him back to his best. I am fairly confident of that having seen him turn around the form of current players this season. Welcome YT.

Steve Hodge from when I was younger, We have had numerous from the relegation years later on.

30 minutes ago, MrBlack said:

He looked very at home in the world cup helping Argentina win the thing. I think there's a quality player in there. Doesn't mean he'll work in the rebuild that is going on at Liverpool though...

Let’s hope not, nothing against MacAllister but I hope Liverpool crash and burn and we go sailing past them. 

8 minutes ago, PieFacE said:

Am I the only person who doesn't think MacAllister is actually that good? Not really sure he's the player Liverpool need. 

I might be wrong as I haven’t seen a lot of him but I also think the same. However, it could be the case that he is a bit like James Milner was for us in his last spell here. To an outsider looking in he is not a fancy name or overly exciting in what you see on the tv highlights, but you appreciate him fully when you watch him in your own team pulling the strings week in week out.

Just now, MrBlack said:

Did you see the comments from (Mings or McGinn?) about Emery's preparation and instructions for the Bournemouth game? Playing a team that was at the time in the relegation zone and generally playing rubbish, and he drilled the team to fully believe Bournemouth were a quality and dangerous side. Arguably they are, but it would have been easy to see us be complacent in that game in years gone by. Not anymore. Not under Emery.

We won that game 3-0 by the way. 

I did not see those comments to be honest, but I did go to that game. That is good to know, and why in the past I have always thought it best to spend big on a decent proven manager. We are in good hands for the foreseeable.

Just now, Tom13 said:

Tbf even that one Rooney nudges him just before it if I remember right. And Mings is looking at the play. Only he knows whether he did it or not but of course oppo fans will hold it against him.

You could be right and It is hard to say for sure for was going through his mind in the brief seconds during the match. We will never really know unless Ty does a Roy Keane style autobiography when he retires.

32 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Remember when he had the " stamp " ( Accidental ) incident and some people decided he had a violent and nasty streak in him where he might enjoy maimimg players? Lol

My viewpoint on Mings is that I think he meant to Ibrahimovic one where he was out for revenge after he had been elbowed earlier in the match. I don't think he meant the one against Reading, I think that was just unlucky and more clumsy than anything but had a worse outcome for the Reading player. I think the Ibra one being fresh in the mind, gave the impression he was always doing it on purpose so the image had been set.

42 minutes ago, MrBlack said:

I don't think there's any chance of us not taking the competition seriously. 

We might have to rotate our squad more, which will hopefully see Digne, and a few others of similar quality coming in to the starting line up but not materially weakening us. Obviously, we might choose to do that in the premier league games or the Conference league games depending on the opposition. Either way, but will be given the proper treatment by Emery 

I feel we need to have a core of at least 15 outfield players that are all of similar quality for it to work without form suffering in the league. Currently I think we have quite a drop off after around 12 outfield players, much like West Ham this season.

I think we will as well, but I am still scarred by a number of times we have fallen foul of so called lesser teams over the years. I am still raw from the defeat to Stevenage, but also remember being knocked out late by a late sucker punch goal by Helsingborg in the 90's, losing to Trabzonspor at VP after beating Inter Milan the previous round. That is before we even mention Bradford and Peterborough. I think I just like to ground myself and not getting carried away by vocalising my thoughts, and I don't like it when I see Villa fans dismissing the opposition sometimes as a gimme win.

I do think we are in better hands now at Executive and First Team management levels than we have ever been during my time of supporting Villa, so I think we will be ok. I just don't want the players or fans to be over confident and take their eye off the ball, lets bring the atmosphere for all of the matches at VP even if it is against so called minnows.

I agree that we will be in a far better position with our rotation options come the end of the summer, if Unai gets his targets. I am fairly hopeful that we will see some top quality signings arriving in the next few weeks to improve that.

I would love for us to give this competition a real good go next season, I don't want us to play a really weakened team with wholesale changes at any point in this competition next year. 1 or 2 younger players like Archer or Tim if they are not on loan somewhere then yes, but alongside our stronger 1st team players as a supplement.

You can see from the players and fans at WHU how much it means to win this trophy. I want to experience that as well. We haven't won a trophy for so long, and I don't expect this trophy to be a gimme, but we stand as good a chance as any in this competition next season. Winning trophies becomes a habit, and we need to start somewhere. It has been too long!

Obligatory YouTube video

I know we looked pretty solid towards the tail end of last season, but to go higher in the league you have to look for more depth and marginal gains. The nearer the top the more marginal gains you need to make to progress. Sadly this means some of our players we love may be replaced or supplemented along the way.

Pau Torres is also hitting the prime of his career. He looks comfortable on the ball, and looks to be a better passer with progressive passes than either of our current two first choice Centre backs, this is what I would call a marginal gain.

I also think there is still a big doubt over Carlos’ full recovery and getting such a serious injury at his age leaves a big question mark on him for next season. With the additional matches to be played, that is too big a risk in my opinion. Carlos may well prove to be over his injury, or could suffer a set back which then leaves us short should the worst happen.

I say if Torres is willing to come, Emery wants him, then why not get him in. Chambers and Hause move on leaving us with 4 quality centre backs we can rely on, and like others have said Konsa can play RB very well.