The_Rev

RIP Benjamin. Saw him in the wild once, somewhere on the Kings Road in Chelsea and I’ll admit to being a tiny bit starstruck.

He, um, had a good World Cup.

What if he was the one who took the photo?

Just because I’m a nerd, scheduled trains to Birmingham New Street from: Witton: 19:23, 19:34, 19:43, 19:53, 20:04, 20:23, 20:34 Aston: 19:27, 19:32, 19:40, 19:57, 20:02, 20:12, 20:27, 20:32, 20:38 Some trains from Witton won’t call at Aston because they are booked to pass through the station without stopping or they are routed into New Street via Perry Barr. Some trains from Aston won’t have called at Witton because they’ve come down on the line from Sutton Coldfield. The ones that do call at both I’ve marked in italics obvious caveat: it’s a Saturday evening on the run up Christmas during a week when ASLEF have been taking industrial action and the Villa are at home so don’t expect a largely Birmingham based group of drivers to be queuing up to do overtime. You should also be able to get the number 7 bus to Snow Hill from Witton Road (link)

Away form as it stands after the Bournemouth game. We've been to Liverpool and Newcastle who are top of the home form table (we've got games in hand at home if you were wondering). Today was a decent point. Bournemouth's last game was a stroll in the park against Sheffield United. That was the day before we played Spurs and obviously they didn't play in midweek when we did. Their next fixture is against Palace. I think it's fair to say that they were going to come into this game fresher than we were and they'd be able to expend more energy over the 90 minutes. I'll consider this a point earned.

I'll take a point there. We were very good for the first half hour and the last ten minutes, out done by a lot of running in-between. We missed Kamara, Zaniolo just doesn't look up to it and the right hand side needs looking at as it's weak when we rotate. Positives? Kept ourselves in the game when we could have folded. Decent point considering.

That had been coming. We were not at all phased by conceding first.

Suicidal.

That’s assuming Kane would have turned down Bayern to go to Manchester United. I don’t think that was ever likely to happen.

For most of the 2010s I figured HSV were Aston Villa. I guess they just had their Peter Enkelman moment.

Anyone got the two minute version of what’s happening in the away end? I’m right in the corner of the Doug Ellis and the Holte and can’t see it.

The names of the panel have been leaked: Noel Gallagher. Ricky Hatton. Shaun Goater. Mayor Andy Burnham. Curly Watts from Corrie.

For countries it's based on how many clubs they have competing in the competition. England have 8, so our score is divided by 8. AIUI it's there to provide an "average" for the country which can then be given to a club, like Aston Villa, who haven't played in Europe for a while and therefore haven't built up their own coefficient. Basically it's complicated and boring and we probably don't need to worry about it until March or April.

I figured Shane MacGowen was immortal, kinda like a 1980s version of Keef Richards.

Coefficient as it stands. Right now Turkey and Germany are the top two. England are 6th. Table gets updated after every match day so it won’t look like this for long.

I see people making that comparison a lot but I can’t see it myself. Zidane was an absolute magician with the ball at his feet, his range of passing and his close control were off the charts good. Bellingham is more of a killer, he just hurts the opposition with everything he does. Some of it might be just how the game has gone, I think if Zidane had been around today he’d have probably played in the opposition box more than he did in his heyday but I dunno, Bellingham doesn’t really remind me of him.

Bellingham’s assist for Real Madrid’s 4th. He’s the best player in the world right now.

On the flip side, Man Utd getting clogged up with Europa League fixtures is really good for our chances of finishing above them for the first time in about 35 years.

Loads of people do. It’s that you’re either with us or you’re against us mentality.

It's about expectations, some people expect media to be a fan channel and if it isn't then it's clearly against them and everything they stand for. This isn't just about Villa, it's not even just about football but anything that covers any kind of tribalism from active wars to what brand of phone you bought last year.

Pundits were drooling over it on MotD. Obviously it's not going to get the headlines that Garnacho's overhead kick did but it was a delicious finish. The quick feet made it, Vicario was not expecting the shot to come as early as it did, he'd taken half a step to his left when Ollie controlled the ball with the outside of his boot and by the time he'd got his foot planted the shot was heading towards goal and it was too late.

There's a large Polish diaspora in the West Midlands, I suspect a lot of them will be Legia fans and will just go to hang around with their people in town anyway. I know if I lived somewhere in Europe and Villa were coming to town I'd go find the Villa fans before kick off regardless of whether I had a ticket or not.

He's already on the longest term contract in Villa's managerial history. The club haven't put a number on it, but we've had quite a few managers sign four year deals so unless the press release at the time was a lie then Emery is under contract until at least the end of the the 2026/27 season. I think it's clear the club are committed to him in the long term, in the 13 months he's been here there have been a huge number of appointments in key areas which are geared towards making Emery feel at home. We bought in scouts he's worked with for years at previous clubs (link) we've bought in his old partner in crime Monchi (link) and we look set to announce a partnership with Real Union, a third division Spanish Club from the outskirts of San Sebastian where Unai Emery grew up and now owns (link). Unai was out in Milwaukee during the international break with Wes Edens (link) and while I can only speculate over what they were talking about, I'm guessing it wasn't all basketball. The club's commitment to Unai seems rock solid right now.

Scored again today after missing the last two Madrid games and the England internationals with a shoulder injury. Still top scorer in La Liga and he now has the most goals (14) after his first fifteen appearances in the history of Real Madrid. For context he's ahead of Cristiano (13) Di Stefano (13) and Puskas (11). I don't think it will last, partially because I think Madrid will buy a centre forward next summer, but right now they really aren't missing Karim Benzema and who would have said that in August?

He's new to the league. His team plays exciting football and he seems like a decent guy. He's also good copy, which journalists love as he will give them quotes they can work with. I'm sure metrics are involved too, Spurs have 3 or 4x the number of followers across social media channels as we do, a lot of that will turn into clicks. Obviously it's not a one to one thing and Spurs might have inflated numbers because during the decade where Social Media really blew up (2010-2020) they were having one of the most successful periods in the club's history, even if they weren't delivering trophies, whereas we were slumming it with the dead men. There's been loads of pro Villa stuff during the international break, did you not see it? There's no circus around Unai either, so column inches aren't being generated by drama, nor is he a guy that neutrals could sit and listen to for ages. Some of that is his personality, he seems pretty chill but some of it is just because he has a thick Basque accent too and it's not easy on the ear. I don't care either way, the Villa stuff is out there if you know where to look, just don't expect the BBC, Sky or whoever to start acting like a fan channel.