NeilS

Well, Finn has made great strides up the divisions since he arrived here. I don't think we could have expected any more. Hopefully he can raise his game another level and smash the Championship. Does anyone have an idea of the new contract length? If I was guessing, he must have signed a 1 year extension so would now have 2 years left on his contract with us. Does that sound about right?

If anyone is thinking of buying a shirt, training top or Villa gear and you bank with Halifax then they currently have a 12% cash back offer on their online banking app for use on fanatics.co.uk or kitbag.com. The offer is on until 5th September.

I have a feeling they could be like Leicester. Sold some key players long term players, not replaced them with anyone of quality yet and a disgruntled manager. It could be a tough season next year if they make a bad start and Lopetegui walks or is sacked.

Yes, that sounds much better.

Yeah, that deal isn’t happening. I think the best Burnley could hope for right now is a loan deal. Why would we sell off one of our most exciting youth prospects, especially for the paltry sum suggested.

Yep, we could have been stuck in a massive hole without those players. They knew the level well and what was required to get us back up. I would also add Chester and Uncle Albert to your list, Albert Adomah weighed in with some valuable goals during his time at the club .

JWP is perfect for Moyes West Ham, they will utilise his set piece delivery well as they are a big physical team. Like others have said, JWP’s all round game is ok but certainly not better than anything we already have here at the club. I highly doubt we would be looking to buy him now. Firstly, he wouldn’t be good value having signed a long term contract. Secondly, Dougie has stepped his game up to a whole new level, thirdly Kamara looks like he will be top quality with a season now under his belt. That is before I even get on to how much McGinn improved last year and how we now have Tielemans. We haven’t been linked have we? That makes little sense.

My ticket confirmation and e-tickets arrived at around 9am.

I bought two tickets yesterday at around 6ish, not had a confirmation email or tickets yet. It looks like I am not the only one though. I guess they will probably get sent in next week or so.

Yeah I imagine it costs a lot of money to demolish and then remove and dispose of the rubble, and that is before you even start to think about the cost of starting again from scratch with foundations and utilities to the new building. I think this option is probably a lot wiser way of keeping the cost down in these tough economic times. I think the warehouse looks good in the mock up, and will be a fine alternative.

Sadly I agree, we need to regularly finish above Chelsea before we can be truly seen as competitive with them. At the moment it is easy to brush off Chelsea’s last season as a blip, and vice versa, outsiders see us as taking advantage of that blip. They still have recent history of winning trophies on their side, whereas ours are a distant memory for most. Hopefully the former is about to change under Emery and we can win some silverware in next couple of seasons.

I have seen some posts on Instagram over the past few weeks which show that he has been back a little earlier than some of the others doing rehab work with weights etc.

Haha, that was what I was picturing as well. The old style Adam West Batman Ker-Pow fight bubbles, as per about 11-12 seconds in on the youtube clip below. Batman Fight Scene

Gabby been on the Shisha pipe again And former Villa captain Gabby Agbonlahor believes his old employers could do a lot worse than to consider offering Pogba the chance to kick-start his career after a couple of seasons ruined by injury. “100 per cent yeah,” Agbonlahor tells talkSPORT (12th July, 9am). “If he got back to fitness, he could break into Villa’s side.

This could be a good move all round. I don't know how Swansea are doing for cash, but we may get a fee for Davis? The link gets a mention halfway down the page, and links originally reported in the Swansea Independant. Keinan Linked with Swansea Another attacker linked with Swansea this week is Aston Villa’s Keinan Davis. Swansea Independent say that Duff is keen to strike a deal for the 25-year-old who spent last season on loan with Watford in the Championship.

Agree, I think we as supporters and club will need patience. We are not at the level yet where too players would jump at the chance to sign for us. We need to cement a top 6 place and maybe CL place before that happens.

Yeah I can think of plenty who have come with great reputations from Serie A but have struggled in the PL. There have been some successes over the years, but they are quite a while ago now. Henry and Bergkamp being two that immediately come to mind. I do think Chiesa could do well here if he is over his injury problems. He was the standout player for me in that Euro winning Italian team. I would definitely be excited by him signing for us.

What is up with the fielding by England in this series, Root dropped a couple in the first innings as well as Bairstow. Those drops have cost the team big time in this test match. England used to be pretty switched on in the field in recent years.

I would have thought that the prep work can only start once the season has finished, as the stand won't be able to be in use with fans attending while they are diverting drains and electrics. I would think that would make a health and safety nightmare otherwise. Having re-read the quote I am surprised that the prep work appears to be carried out before demolition of the old stand. I would have thought that demolotion was stage one, then prep work was stage 2 and then new stand build as stage 3. Hopefully someone with a bit more expertise in construction can clear that one up?

There is also a little bit of an explanation in that article about the reason the North Stand development is going to take a while longer to build:- North Stand Redevelopment details from Birmingham Mail "Prior to the stand being demolished, up to seven months of preparation is needed to divert new drains, high voltage electrics and matchday safety systems, while hundreds of cables will also need to be replaced for broadcasting. It’s a huge undertaking before Villa can even begin building a completely new stand. Knocking the stand down is viewed as the most efficient way to deliver a new North Stand, instead of building it behind the current structure, like other clubs have done across England in recent years. Building a new stand behind the current North Stand would prevent construction workers from accessing key areas of the build."

It looks like Mr and Mrs Torres are currently on Safari for their honeymoon. He has just posted some lions on his Instagram story. Could that be a sign?

Yeah you are right about the date, looking back it looks like I picked up an article from about 2-3 weeks ago. I do still think it will take a long time to construct though, as there is lots of preperation work to do, removal of old debris etc. I think the timeframe quoted will be based on under-promise with the aim to better that timeframe. If we beat the two years quoted, then we could start selling match day tickets for the last 2-3 months of that particular season.

I think the two years comes from this article on Birmingham Live. You have to go quite a way down the page to find the below quote. North Stand Redevelopment

Thank you. I wasn't too far out with my estimates in the end. Just out of interest, do you know how many of those capacity figures would be hospitality boxes etc? The reason I ask, is that hospitality packages are not for your every day fans budget. Which will reduce the availability of normal tickets for the average fan further.

This was something I was concerned about. My Dad and I have a membership only, so I am thinking that after the next season it will be nearly impossible to get match day tickets due to the reduced capacity. I think I read somewhere that we have 30k season ticket holders, although someone may correct me on that figure. So take out the North Stand and I would guess that probably reduces the capacity by 6000 or 7000. Take out the away fans allocation which is probably 3000 and the available tickets remaining will be around 3000-4000. I think this may be the last season I can take my Dad along to matches, as he is now 78 albeit he is still fairly spritely for his age.