The_Rev

Every Villa fan’s favourite YouTube channel, but moving from a system where the full backs bomb on to one where they tuck in and the 8’s push forwards kinda makes sense with the squad we are building.  With Cash and Moreno in the squad we can now do both.  
 

If there is a fall guy here it’s likely Konsa or Diego Carlos, but there might not be anybody who loses out. 

I'm absolutely going to the Guggenheim, I bloody love museums and it's a must see.  Food is going to be weird, we eat halal so it's probably going to have to be a case of sticking to fish and/or vegetarian stuff and given that I'll have a couple of fussy kids in tow then some of the better restaurants in the area just aren't going to work for us.   No booze either (holidays must be easy if all you want to do is sit by a pool with a book and drink for two weeks!) but I wouldn't mind finding a beach somewhere at some point. I know Bilbao is inland but the Metro seems to go a long way towards the coast so is there anywhere on it which is good for finding a beach?    Also the Spanish fixtures get released in July and I'm kinda hoping I get to a Bilbao game with the boy while we are there.   There was an outside chance that Villa would be there in the Europa Conference (August 24th) but Bilbao lost against Real Madrid on the final day and ended up missing out by two points.  

I was going to do a "new kit bingo card" to post this morning but never got around to making it.  It would have had the usual gubbins on it, stuff like "love the new badge"  "hate the new badge"  "prefer this kit that someone on Twitter made on their iPhone" and so on.  Never in a month of Sundays would I have guessed what the club have actually done today. 

I’ve ended up just going with ten nights in Bilbao, it’s just easier with kids in tow. Still plan to go to San Sebastián, it seems a bus/coach is the best way to do it.  Any advice @viivvaa66 ? 

That seems like the sort of thing you’d say when you are 27 but not do by the time you’re 35.  

2 hours ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Disaster of a result for Wales.

Page went gung ho and it backfired big time, we have really poor defenders so leaving them exposed with only Ampadu helping out was not a good decision, in hindsight. 

That Armenia decided to score some absolute belters didn’t help either but we’re definitely witnessing the start of a massive decline in Wales’ fortunes again.

From what I saw of the game Wales were gash. The first Wales goal shouldn’t have counted as they won the ball back with a tactical foul, but the main crime was just how much time and space Armenia were afforded in the final third. Give international footballers that much time and space when they are in shooting range and you’re gonna get punished. 

That’s assuming you’re standing at Wembley Park station, that the next Met Line train isn’t terminating at Baker Street, staying in a hotel on Threadneedle Street and it takes you zero seconds to change lines at King’s Cross St Pancras.  I’m being more realistic. 

7 hours 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’m not sure what the plans for Witton station are, but I’m in the industry so I have a certain interest in how things can be done.  You could absolutely improve access to the station and reduce bottlenecks. Longer platforms would be the obvious move, extend them towards Aston and have a new entrance/exit there so the flow through the station is more efficient. If you had a tunnel beneath the tracks then access to the stadium from the Aston bound platform would be miles better and you could go over the river towards the Academy too.  Plenty of room to put people, reduce dangerous overcrowding and just be more efficient with what capacity the railway can currently offer. 

They are all incredible, No Country is an amazing adaptation of the book, certainly better than The Road was but yes, Blood Meridian hits hard.  It’s a tour de force. 

Of course “the shires” doesn’t include Solihull.  

I'd second the recommendation to use Rickmansworth or Chorleywood, simply because: 1) you'll be heading in the opposite direction from most of the crowds at Wembley Park which means things will be faster and 2) I stand to gain from this arrangement financially and could really use the money.    

I'd add places like Pinner, Watford or even Ruslip and Uxbridge if you want counter flow stuff.  They aren't the most exciting places but they are on the "country" side of Wembley, probably a bit cheaper and have good transport links to Wembley.    

Stations near the stadium are Wembley Park (which will definitely be the busiest, it's the one at the other end of Wembley Way you see on the TV on cup final day), Wembley Stadium, which is the closest to the stadium and has the fastest trains back to Central London, plus trains out to Buckinghamshire and Birmingham.  A bit further out you've got Wembley Central, which is in on the high street a mile or so from the stadium which has the Bakerloo Line and overground trains or Alperton and as @tomav84 mentioned, Sudbury Town on the Piccadilly Line which are the best part of two miles away, definitely a half hour walk (minimum) but will be far far far quieter than the madness surrounding the station. 

The City is a looooooong way from Wembley. Probably more than ten miles and it will take you the best part of an hour on a good day.  

I'm not sure how you'd quantify such a topic beyond just random guessing, or what threshold you'd put on what actually counts as a fan.  Does somebody have to think about their club every day to count?  Do they have to be able to name at least five current players?  What the last result was or next fixture is? I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who will say they support Liverpool or Manchester United if you ask them, but that's practically the only time they'll think about it on a month to month basis.  Villa are definitely the most popular team in the region, but like a lot of areas with a high immigrant population there will be a huge bunch of people who just support the most successful sides, mostly because they didn't have a father figure who'd take them to their local club when they were kids.  I'm married into such a family and as children of the 80s it's very much Liverpool Liverpool Liverpool despite none of them ever having lived there or even been to Anfield. 

3 minutes ago, Mark Albrighton said:

but he doesn’t strike me as that sort of guy. 

I wonder if Villarreal fans would feel the same way?

16 minutes ago, BOF said:

My concern with him gone is that we've lost probably the only person in our off-field hierarchy that knows English football.  That's a calculated risk.

Another concern is we are losing the separation between church and state, so to speak.  More and more power is being concentrated under Emery and obviously his position here is tied to results, too bad and he's gone, too good and he's poached.  As you say, it's a calculated risk but the point of a club structure like we had with Purslow is to enable a smooth transition between managers. If the manager holds all the cards then we are basically screwed when it's time for the manager to move on.  I feel like NSWE are savvy enough to realise this and we do have contingencies in place, but Purslow leaving does generate more questions than answers. 

The Ashley Young role. Experienced pro bought in on a smaller contract.  I’m in the camp who will believe it when they see it, but get why it makes sense. 

21 minutes ago, villarule123 said:

He could be a straight swap for Young on the wage bill, guessing they're on similar money. 

That’s highly unlikely.  Ash signed a one year deal with us at the age of 37 to be a utility player.  Tielemans is coming in as a guy in his prime with no shortage of offers.  One would have been amongst the lowest earning players in the first team squad, the other will be towards the top.  

4 hours ago, chrisvilla4 said:

I'll be watching and looking forward to it. My son supports City

You do know you can disown him, right? 

Yep.  It’s straight out of the Manchester City playbook.  

On 30/05/2023 at 16:28, Vive_La_Villa said:

Met Nigel Kennedy on Sunday. I didn’t know who he was until somebody mentioned it. Lovely bloke.

Used to see him on the reg in the Holte End when it was standing.  He was a left side boy who'd usually be underneath the scoreboard near the corner flag where it met the Trinity Road stand.  This was at the height of his fame when he had that Jag with the crazy paint job. 

3 hours ago, MachoFantastico said:

Got a lot of respect for Conor, so happy to see he'll be part of the Villa setup next season. Interesting he's taking it on as a secondary role.  

It's fairly normal for a player to do their badges while they are still playing.  Seems that's what's happening here with Conor.  It's win win as far as I can see, he's doing the schoolboy age groups because they train in the evenings anyway so it doesn't mess with his duties at Derby and they get a guy who played at the highest level and is still active.  Hopefully it's as successful as we all want it to be.  

You're risking upsetting the squad dynamics with those kind of numbers.  

3 hours ago, MrBlack said:

But do wonder who the other European club offer was from..

I would presume it was Newcastle United but Messi has nothing left to prove in football so I can see why he went to MLS. 

16 minutes ago, duke313 said:

I would imagine if you played for a club for 20+ years, you would be somewhat emotional when you leave them? He doesn't owe Barca anything, he followed the money, nothing wrong with that.

I can see him living in Barcelona after retirement.  He moved there at such a young age (12) that it's basically his home town, his kids were born there, I dread to think how deep his roots in the city go. However, I get why he didn't go back.  No matter what he does it won't be as good as it was before, he'll be compared to the 25 year old Messi who'd score 50 goals a season and he's just not that guy any more.  Two years in Miami, which is basically a Spanish speaking city, would be an amazing experience at this point in his life.