NeilS

9 minutes ago, avfc1982am said:

I'm just of the opinion that whilst Mings is out and Torres is trying to settle, add in the fact we've looked defensively frail, we shouldn't be tinkering with the defence for a while. At least until we find some defensive form of sorts. It's early in the season, players are not over stretched at the moment so we need to settle the side down before going heavy on rotation imo. 

Agreed 100%. Get off to a good start, then rest your players when you are feeling comfortable.
 

It feels like as a team we have regressed defensively back to where we were in January. The injuries to Mings and Moreno have contributed to that. I do feel we will get better again once the team gels again, but they need to play together to do that. I would have kept the back four as Digne, Pau, Konsa and Cash for last night to try and gain that time together. Lenglet and Chambers could have come on after an hour if all was going well.
 

The number 1 rule in Europe is to silence the crowd early on, we did the opposite and gave them something to shout about in the first few minutes.

I feel this is Unai’s first big error. He will sort it out though, so I am not too worried.

1 hour ago, Tom13 said:

Shouldn't be starting for us in either position IMO - very poor in both.

Agree, he is not good enough in reality. At his best he is a lower level PL player/upper championship player. He is a useful utility player off the bench, but should not be starting games for us.

I felt this is our best chance of winning some long overdue silverware. I am deeply annoyed we have changed half the team and messed about with our he defence in such a tricky first away tie. I am not against rotating, and understand the necessity, but 5 is too many changes to the starting line up in my opinion. All is not lost though, we have just made our job harder going forward and have left less room for errors from here on. Still annoyed though!

This is why you don’t underestimate the opposition! It annoys me when people say we should rotate and rest so and so. Get the job done first, then rotate. We have made our life more difficult for this competition now. So frustrating!

1 minute ago, AstonMartyn88 said:

Since when has Nanny MacPhee been part of the Scotland set up?

I think he started work with Scotland at around the same time he came here.

Nice pass from Bellingham.

1 hour ago, Philosopher said:

Why isn't Haaland on this list?

The tweet has a total of 6 pages of candidates, so that is just one page of the candidates.

2 hours ago, Pinebro said:

At this point it's time to stop saying can't catch a break and come to the conclusion that this is just genetics and he is predisposed to injuries.

Yeah sadly it looks like his body isn’t capable of holding up to the rigours and physicality of playing professional sports. He is a big lad and that will put a lot of strain on his body especially in a sport like football which relies on explosive speed and turns. I had hoped a change of lifestyle and climate may work out for him. Unfortunately It is looking less and less likely for him now.

Poor old Kienan can't catch a break. It looks like his career in Italy has stalled before it has even started. Sadly I think the amount of injuries he has suffered during his short playing career show that he is unlikely to stay fit for long enough to build up his confidence and some momentum in his career.

Davis Injured

The Italian newspaper cover the situation on Monday, pointing to the statement released by Udinese regarding their new striker.

Davis has yet to feature for the Serie A club since his arrival from Aston Villa, and there was hope he could do so after the international break.

However, that will need to be put on hold due to a calf issue, where, ‘according to first investigations’, there is a fear that some muscle fibres ‘would have broken, caused by excessive stress’, meaning too much exertion.

It’s explained that this happened during some running drills ‘precisely to evaluate the physical conditions of the new arrivals’.

They point out the player certainly didn’t arrive from Aston Villa ‘in good shape’, and it was understood he would need a good month to get back to fitness.

This plan has now been ‘ruined due to this injury’, and they will now have to ‘evaluate the conditions’ of his left calf nearly ‘every day’, with the belief he could be out until potentially November.

I might be misremembering but think we were linked with Klinsmann and ended up with Fashanu, Klinsmann then went on to join Spurs.

Also, a strong link to Bergkamp from Inter Milan, ended up with Savo. I think we were linked with a young Pires , pre Arsenal as well.

Christian Vieri and Junhinho were strongly linked back in the 90’s, but again neither signed for us.

Ha, we use Corpay at work for our currency. It used to be Afex, but they were bought out last year or so. I might have to contact my reps and see if they have any free tickets going although I think we are probably small fry in the scheme of things now.

5 hours ago, ChicagoVillan1983 said:

Pau shouldn't have been playing big minutes yet - unfortunately he's right in the thick of things.

Exactly, the plan would have been to ease him in to the physicality of the PL. instead an awful injury has taken that opportunity away and it’s straight into the fire. 

53 minutes ago, ferguson1 said:

Conceding eight goals in two away games, albeit against two top sides, is a concern and will be for Emery.

We need to find a way to toughen up and become hard to beat again. We’ll do this against the bottom ten or so sides, but Emery needs to work out quickly how we should do this against the top teams.

What’s happened to defending with a back six and soaking up pressure like we did so well against Spurs and Brighton away last season?

It is a definite concern. I think Unai’s plan was to start the season with a very similar team to that that finished last season, while slowly integrating the new signings. Sadly that plan was scuppered over the summer with injuries to JJ and Buendia, quickly followed by Mings. Mings and Buendia being big losses due to the timeframes involved.

That has taken away the chance of gradual integration of individual players against the weaker teams, and thrown the organisation and understanding built up during the previous campaign out the window. Unai is almost back to square one with a lot of new players getting to know each other and their roles within the team. I trust given time we will see this improve again, but will admit it is concerning. We need Pau Torres to get up to speed very quickly now, and hope Carlos isn’t too badly injured.

It is concerning how poor we look against the better teams. Last year we have all bar Man City a game, Mings with his power and pace is the biggest lost.

53 minutes ago, GingerCollins29 said:

Why did he come off? Is he injured?

Emery said that he mentioned some mild pain at half time, so they didn’t want to risk him second half. Hopefully nothing too serious. 

Martinez injury concern

I haven’t seen the first half, so will watch it back later. I am glad to see we put out a strong team for this one though, it means the job done and we can have luxury of rotating the squad a little more in the second leg now.

On a side note, it is good to see Ollie get off the mark for the season. Hopefully he will go on from here and bang a few league goals in.

1 hour ago, NurembergVillan said:

https://theathletic.com/live-blogs/transfer-news-live-latest-updates/jIBhhbQHDEL7/z3j1tThZSjan/

I have watched it back, and I am pretty sure that if he would have looked up, the ball would have gone behind for a goal kick. Sometimes you just have to put it in the right area at that speed.

Besides, I seem to recall him setting up a couple of similar goals towards the tail end of last season in the same manner. I remember Dougie and JJ scoring side foot finishes from Bailey pull backs in the run in on our charge for European qualification. I think it was the Bournemouth and Spurs matches from memory.

We had other similar goals from others players assisting as well, it must be Unai driven tactic. They are so hard to defend or save if the forward gets a clean connection.

10 minutes ago, chrisvilla4 said:

Might be worth tapping up.

He may plug a gap in the squad after all the injuries we have suffered.

8 minutes ago, sne said:

Would Benjamin Pavard be a totally unrealistic target? Bayern want about €40m apparently and the move to Inter has fallen through as they only want to pay €30m.

RB/CB. hybrid. 27 y.o. He's pretty tall so works for the posters on here with a fetish for that. 

He is someone who crossed my mind earlier in the window and he would be an upgrade on Cash for sure, but I read recently that Man Utd and Arsenal were battling for his signature. So probably an unlikely signing for us.

On 14/08/2023 at 13:35, KentVillan said:

Great managers have bad games. Especially first game of season. Emery will be fine.

I understand some of the panic about certain players and about the injury situation, but people turning on Emery have lost the plot. His record speaks for itself.

100% Agree, even Fergie and Wenger were on the end of some thrashings some times, and they are the two most successful managers during the PL era. Unai will bounce back, and so will the team.

1 minute ago, VillaParkAvenue said:

Football Twitter is mostly 12 year old boys posting about various clubs "cookin".

Ok thank you, I don’t feel like I am missing out on anything there then. It all seems like a massive waste of time and energy. 

3 minutes ago, The_Steve said:

Twitter is the god damn worst 

I have never signed up for Twitter but I get the impression it is the modern equivalent of a group of gossiping grannies all tittle tattling about what they have hear Marjorie down the road has been up to on her holidays. 

25 minutes ago, TOTTI-THE-GOD said:

Yep this is the one i watched, also turned it off after about 4 minutes, actually chuffed someone thought exactly the same as me 

Thankfully @alreadyexists has posted a shorter and better highlights Youtube video on page 59 of this thread. It has made me feel a little better about the transfer, and with that video only being 4 minutes long my concentration span wasn't tested too much.

1 hour ago, TOTTI-THE-GOD said:

Maybe I've watched a lousy highlights reel but he looks a bit on the clumsy side to me.

You Tube Video - This is why Aston Villa want Nicolo Zaniolo

Was it this one? If so I thought the same as you, he dribbles the ball alot but nothing seems to come of it other than he wins fouls in the middle of the pitch, or gives the ball away, has a pop from distance that hits defender or flies over. I did get bored after 4 mins of the same thing in the video though, so maybe the second half of the video is better? 

The injury concerns are another major worry, my gut feeling is this won't be a ood signing. I hope that I am wrong though, and to be honest it wouldn't be the first time if I am wrong, I thought that Jordan Ayew would be good once he settled in the PL.

5 minutes ago, duke313 said:

What position does he play?

Khedr on OS

It says he is a winger on the OS, although not sure if he has a preferred side.

Aston Villa is pleased to announce the signing of exciting Egyptian talent, Omar Khedr, from Zed FC.

The 17-year-old winger has put pen to paper on a pre-contract agreement with the club and will join officially on 1st July 2024 when he turns 18, signing a long-term deal.

Khedr’s arrival marks the first signing since Aston Villa and Zed FC entered a collaboration agreement earlier this year.