The_Rev

It’s not a modern phenomenon mate. People were having this exact conversation when the amateur game was turning professional.

It's an interesting point but probably an oversimplification. Tielemans being free obviously makes him more attractive, especially when you are at a club without oil money but recruitment is as much about opportunism as it is about analytics. Sometimes you get a player in because there's a relationship with an agent, or he's settled in a geographical area or indeed he's out of contract. It might be the case that Tielemans has run down his contract because he's had a verbal agreement somewhere for a year or more and where he goes next is a fait accompli but I think it's widely accepted that he'd improve any squad in the league with the possible exception of Manchester City and to not even be interested in that simply because we don't plan to build a team around him or have him slot into a gaping hole in the squad seems kinda short sighted.

Thing is West Ham splurged big in the summer. They dropped, what, a club record £51m on Lucas Paqueta, £35m on Scamacca, £30m on the Moroccan lad Aguerd, £20m on Cornet from Burnley and a similar amount on Emerson from Chelsea. Even with all that money spent in the summer as you said, they were down there with the dead men in January and had to buy Danny Ings to get them out of trouble.

It's transfer silly season right now, rumours everywhere but barely any deals will get done for a couple of weeks while players and managers are on holiday. However, I think it's obvious that while we've got a very good first XI at the club the squad is sorely lacking in depth. How much do we actually need to be competitive? Looking at the season just gone Aston Villa played 41 times. 38 in the league, 2 in the EFL cup and 1 in the FA Cup. Early exits from both cup competitions really did mean we could focus on the league from January onwards and I think the run of incredible form in the second half of the season benefited from that. However we might end up playing a lot more football next year. As a point of reference West Ham play their 57th (I think) game of the season tomorrow night (38 in the league, 1 in the EFL cup, 3 in the FA Cup and 15 in Europe. Manchester City play their 60th (38 league, 3 EFL cup, 6 FA cup and 13 in Europe) at the weekend when they face Inter in the Champions League final. I presume Emery and his staff are planning to go deep in the cup competitions next season. The club must be expecting to play 50+ times and with Europe there may be some far flung away trips too. West Ham didn't seem to do too badly on that front this season, they played Danish (two clubs), Belgian and Dutch opposition but they did have to go to Romania and Cyprus too. Emery must know the kind of mix he needs between experienced pros and youth/fringe players to play such a schedule given he's basically done it his entire career but it's food for thought when we are getting linked with players who aren't necessarily better than those who are already here. I guess that's obvious when you've already got a good team but is this the point where we raise the floor of the squad instead of the ceiling?

Two years ago you'd have said he was one of the most promising midfielders in Europe. Today I'm not sure he'd get into our starting XI. Obviously he's going to get linked with a lot of clubs this summer, no way would he be staying in the Championship even if he had time left on his Leicester contract but on a free? He's gonna get loads of offers and I can totally see why were are interested. If he does come here then it's going to be for depth and he's going to be competing with either Dougie or John McGinn for a spot in the first XI.

It's not a new law either. People were getting nicked for wearing the infamous Cradle of Filth 'Jesus' T-Shirt back in the 90s.

We’ve all seen it before, but David Beckham to Ronaldo:

The fee isn't something the club will haggle over. I suspect that a number had been mentioned when he went out there on loan in the first place, they were in the Playoff places when he signed and obviously going for promotion. If you're Luton you'd be daft not to try and sign him, he's part of the group who came up and he's a relatively experienced Premier League player given his three years and 60 ish games in the division with us. To me this seems like a deal where everybody wins.

Where would he go? I don’t think Martinez will ever be worth more than he is right now given his recent successes, his award from FIFA and the fact he’s got four years left on his contract. If he’s leaving then it needs to be a club who will be prepared to pay a fee that is right up with the world record fee for a goalkeeper and how many clubs are in a position to do that that are also in the market for a goalkeeper? I can only think of Manchester United if they don’t renew De Gea.

My watch hated me.

During the lap of appreciation after the game he must have let about eight penalties in a row in against Tyrone Mings, Emi Buendia and Ashley Young's kids. No offence to anybody but the kids were probably all still at primary school and quite frankly he should have been saving the lot of them. I say we sell him in the summer.

The atmosphere today was incredible, my ears are still ringing two hours after leaving the stadium. I'll need to watch the game back but I felt Unai's in game managment was excellent again, we aren't afraid to shithouse when we have to and we can play football too but it's the little on the pitch adjustments which often prove the difference. Brighton were playing through us time and again in the first half and I'm not sure what was said at half time but it didn't happen once in the second. We should have probably scored a third goal, on another day we probably would have done but 7th and Europe from where we were under Gerrard is incredible. I'm excited to see what we do in the Summer and I think I'm going to have to try to get to an European away game even if it's against some club I've never heard of in Bulgaria.

Steve Bruce looking visibly annoyed at being called away from the kebab shop to come and rescue him.

Good enough to be playing in the Champions League next season with a club who aren’t Real Madrid.

I think you’ll find he is to be referred to as “Big Meeks” these days.

Not sure if this is thread worthy or not but here goes: Why are there no murals of past and present Villa players in the areas surrounding Witton and Villa Park? We see it at plenty of other clubs and there’s clearly a good pool of artists in Birmingham, you only have to spend five minutes in Digbeth or Southside to see that. The club do want to put a stamp on the area, we’ve got banners and flags up everywhere so surely a good way of honouring cult heroes and club legends would be throwing a few paintings up? By their very nature they are ethereal so you can do things like having Unai Emery up now or players like Mellberg, Ugo or John Carew without having to deal with the permanence of a statue. It’s a good way of showing the story of the club and adding a slash of colour to parts of town that can look more like an industrial estate than a sporting destination.

Villa fans much more relaxed now we know where we stand but I don’t think Unai or the players will be complacent. I hope we hit them early and are, say, 7-0 up by half time.

How long was his new contract for btw? All the reports at the time were just "long term" but never gave an expiry date. The club press release still just says long term. I know they aren't obliged to state expiry dates but it's unusual for it not to be public knowledge.

Slight tangent, but how many players have you just seen out and about? I saw Danny Ings on Carrs Lane in town about a week before we sold him and would sometimes seen Dougie in town too, I think he lived in The Mailbox (possibly with Wesley?) when he first signed for Villa. Going back a bit further I've seen a fair few players were I work (Moor Street/Snow Hill) off the top of my head I can recall Alan Hutton, Carlos Cuellar, Ugo, Steve Stone, Andy Townsend (after he'd retired) Dion Dublin, Alec McLeish (a bloody nice guy, I can see why he got the job if he interviews as well as he does chit chat with passing fans) Jlloyd Samuel, Jores Okore and David Platt when he was assistant manger at Manchester City. Said hello to all of them but never really much more than that.

Just checked it and on the list of his ten most similar players stats wise is Timo Werner. I think we should sign Werner instead because he's younger and he knows the league so he'll definitely have an easier time settling in.

I'm not sure I accept this one. It's been talked about to death, mostly because it was the first game back after a hundred days without any football and the entire country was watching but it's importance has been overstated. People like to talk about it as if it were another Aguerooooo! moment when the fact of the matter is that it was in the first half of our 29th game of the season. It had as much of an impact on our points tally than the ref in the Palace game earlier that season having a meltdown and disallowing Henri Lansbury's 90th minute equaliser against Palace because he wanted to book Jack Grealish for diving even though Grealish had passed the ball and assisted the goal. But that wasn't on TV so it got forgotten about.

It's definitely not on Sky. Everton vs Bournemouth and Leicester vs West Ham are on Sky. Leeds vs Spurs is on BT Sport. The other Sky channel will just be going where the stories are, and while that might be at Villa Park there's no way to guarantee it before kick off.

It might not be much faster tbh. Departures from International to New Street on Sunday. Departures from New Street to Aston Basically there are 6-7 trains an hour on both routes so it really is just turn up and go. You can buy tickets on your phone while walking to the platforms so no need to even bother queueing

I'm referring to the best group at Villa so I'll stick to the players I named. In terms of absolute quality I think McGrath stands alone. Again, in my time as a fan he's one of a handful who you could say really were world class. I think you'd add David Platt, Dwight Yorke and Jack Grealish to that category of player, maybe Ashley Young was for two years under O'Neill and other players here and there have had their moments but like I said, the group of best centre backs at Villa since the 90s now does include Tyrone Mings. Another season or two of this form and you could make an argument for him to be in our "best XI" of the Premier League era. edit: @MaVilla you are right that Southgate came as a midfielder. We spent most of that summer trying to sign Chris Coleman to play in central defence too but he ended up joining Blackburn Rovers (they could offer more money and Champions League football) and I remember being gutted about it. Then Coleman got injured and had to play the rest of his career in the lower leagues. I think we'd planned to go with three at the back and Southgate just ended up filling in there initially but played so well he was in the England team before the season ended.

Ditto. In my time as a Villa fan (late 80s/early 90s onwards) I’d have a list of maybe half a dozen centre halves who are in the absolute top tier. I’ll say McGrath, Ehiogu, Southgate, Mellberg, Laursen and Mings make that list. A lot of people like to hate on Southgate because of how he left but he was magnificent for us on the pitch for six seasons. Mings has now been here for four and a half. We wouldn’t have been promoted without him, we wouldn’t have stayed up without him and he’s now demonstrating he belongs at the top end of the table, it’s been a hell of a journey and he’s been there every step of the way. That’s why I’d put him ahead of Laursen whose time here is as much defined by long periods of injury as it is by heroic performances on it. That might be harsh on Laursen but Mings has been Mr Reliability.