KentVillan

I disagree with those like @rodders0223who say he was pure shit the entire time he was here, but in fairness to them he probably never had much of a future at Villa once we stayed up. I’m more inclined towards @Zatman’s take that his physical size makes people expect a completely different type of player, and then when you realise what type of player he wants to be, he lacks the pace and technical quality to really play that role at the highest level. He had his success in Belgium playing in a 3-5-2 where he could drop off a more advanced striker and link up the play. If you play him as a lone striker or as the advanced striker, his natural instinct is to drop deep, and I’m not sure how easy it would be to coach this out of him. He likes the ball to feet and really only uses his physical strength in that context. He‘s *okay* in the air in duels, but he isn’t the type to attack crosses with his head and score bullet headers. We did see some decent performances from him, though. The ones that stand out are Everton at home, Man Utd away and Burnley away (sadly the game where he got injured). In these games he bullied defenders, covered a lot of ground, linked up intelligently, and slotted a couple of finishes away very calmly. I would have expected pre-injury Wesley to have caused a lot of problems in second-tier football, despite not being good enough for the Premier League, but sounds like he really is just playing for the pay cheque now after a crippling injury. Anyway, let us know if he improves at all…!

It worked particularly well against Argentina because their defence is quite small. Just Googling their heights - Lisandro Martinez 5'9, Otamendi 6'0, Romero 6'1. Not sure who exactly was on the pitch when van Gaal rolled the dice, but Tagliafico 5'8, Montiel 5'9, Holding midfielder Enzo Fernandez 5'10. It was the smart move in this game. In the Premier League I don't think you get that match up so often, but I agree it's a good option to have.

I think White was taken for his ability to play RB, RCB and CB, and it makes sense to have a utility defender in the squad. I don't think he was competing with Mings for a place. The weird thing is how Southgate has taken so much cover at RB. I would have taken one of the specialist RBs out (as you still have White and Saka to cover injuries to the first two), put Mings in ahead of Coady, then you've got an extra slot for a striker or left back. In fairness to Southgate, it's possible his thinking was Walker might get injured and Trippier is LB cover, and Coady is just there as the hype man. Still doesn't really explain why he's left us so light in attack. If we're honest with ourselves, the reason not many Villa players are featuring in the WC is Steven Gerrard. I think Mings, Watkins, Dougie, Buendia, Digne and possibly a couple of others would have had a decent shot at a WC place if Emery had been here a bit longer. They were all getting caps relatively recently. Never mind, we'll have a well rested squad for the second half of the league.

Cut them some slack tbf, probably been fed pure nonsense about what they were actually doing... "we're a wildlife sanctuary that looks after sick animals that can't go back out into the wild". Travellers get caught in this all time. Elephant sanctuaries, turtle sanctuaries, bla bla, which are just a cash cow. Be good if they come out and apologise for it at some point, though.

Yep I like to think Emery is enough of a football obsessive to have a good eye for where that next Champions League level talent is. And we can definitely attract that second tier of transfer targets now.

I think in football it is easier (with VAR etc) to do it properly. It’s not quite the same as a murder trial with a death penalty where you are relying on eye witness testimony, although I take your point, if the ref isn’t sure he should err on the side of not cautioning.

In that case I would hope he has a mare tbh. Love him, and don't care much for international football, but I want England to win.

Game management is such a standard part of a top coach's repertoire that it's hard to single anyone out. Time wasting isn't always cheating - it can mean safe passing patterns, sitting deep, launching the ball into touch, holding the ball up in the corner, etc. None of that is cheating. If the referee handles the game properly, "cheating" always has a cost anyway, so you could argue it's all within the confines of the rules. We get most annoyed with cheating when referees don't book a player for a cynical foul or don't clamp down on shithousing.

The Van Gaal hate is massively out of order. Think his comments about Messi have been taken completely out of context, and basically it all boils down to Riquelme and di Maria hating him when he was their coach.

I think we have the manager and the budget to make a realistic push for those spots starting from next season. Outside chance obviously, but at the very least the Europe League is attainable. We'll see. I don't mind if we lose him for a massive fee, but he might give us a couple more seasons before that happens.

Me too, but that's his game, and we all loved it when he did it to Bruno at Old Trafford.

I think we can give it to him in the next 2-3 seasons if he sticks around. He's only 30, which is young in keeper years, and he hasn't had loads of injuries. Probably got another 8-10 years ahead of him. And if we do lose him, it'll be for big money on our terms.

We're lucky to have a player with this personality. A complete word removed when he wants to be, but he's our word removed.

Yeah but I think people are just commenting here on the general quality of the football on TV between sides they don't care about. It's not as if everyone saying this is 12 years old. We've all seen a few World Cups...

I'm 38, so yes anything before 1990 I can't remember

The last World Cup was awful. Most of the teams looked completely spent towards the latter stages. The France/Belgium side of the draw was very good, but the England/Croatia side was pants.

2014 was decent, but had a pretty boring knockout stage (including the final)... there were a few 0-0s yeah, but not loads. The hot humid weather in the north of Brazil wore down a few teams. I think this winter format produces better football, as all the players look fresh. Plus the refs stopping the watch more often has meant you get a lot more drama towards the end.

That's bollocks tbh, it's been a classic, and in my lifetime only 98 and 06 have had a similar level of drama and quality

Or just no drinking in the stadiums, and not that many places to drink outside the stadiums

Tbf, I respect those people for demonstrating their values. I have completely ignored my values to watch hours and hours of quality football. It's been a thrilling World Cup, but it absolutely stinks that Qatar are hosting it.

Over the years, this has been the go-to rumour for so many different people without any basis in fact. It's such an obvious rumour that anyone can just come up with it on Twitter and it spreads like wildfire. He may or may not be gay (he has a wife I think) but I strongly doubt anyone putting this out knows either way. Most likely he just has a sick relative or something, and they don't want to put the details into the public domain.

I agree, having a striker who is *all* aerial threat / holdup play like Keiffer Moore is very different from having an all-round striker who is quick, good with his feet, but also offers an aerial threat. The only problem is that type of striker is generally always playing for a Champions League side. It's the very elite strikers that you named. I can't think of many below that level who have that profile - but hopefully we can find someone.

The SNP are just UKIP on a smaller scale

It was me, my source has moved on unfortunately

There is a story here, but yes I originally had the one @messi11now uses, and then changed it due to being accidentally exposed as an ITK on a famous transfer, at which point we did a Three Amigos