Popular Post NurembergVillan Posted January 27 Moderator Popular Post Posted January 27 I was asked to take part in this Villa Confessions podcast with Claret n Blue and it made me wonder what the confessions of the VT congregation might be. What are your hot takes, niche opinions and otherwise shameful moments as a Villa fan? 5
Jas10 Posted January 27 Posted January 27 Listened to this earlier, as entertaining as the previous episode (same topic) I believed we’d signed “our Batistuta” when we got JPA and that he’d tear up the league season after season and fire us into the higher league positions… that it’d bring about the start of a “special period” for the club… and we’d build a side full of superstars Thought Alan Thompson would score screamers for us, as he seemed to do fairly regularly for Bolton, but… he was a bit shit really… Believed Ginola was going to be much better than he turned out to be… That we may win the league under JG and not fall away so badly… That O’Leary would be good for us and do similar to what he managed at Leeds… nope Horrified and alarmed at the signings under Lambert from the off (Bowery, Bennett, Westwood etc.) and knew we were staring at and stuck with relegation battles and shite football… when other fans urged me to “believe”… Thought N’zogbia would be good…. Thought we’d be coming straight back up with the money splashed on signings by Xia (who I never suspected as a fraud) and under Di Matteo… that Gollini would be class… That El Ghazi would be much better and score the sorts of crazy goals he did at Ajax… That Grealish wouldn’t leave and wouldn’t stab us in the back (and that he never pushed for a move beforehand ) Berty to just get better and better after an impressive debut season… Buendia and Bailey would be amazing straight away… Hated Gerrard early on and disliked the appointment… desperate for it to end… Expected Martinez to be an amazing signing… after seeing him shine in lockdown for Arsenal and lead them to two trophies… I’m sure there’s plenty more but I’ll leave it there for now 1
Captain_Townsend Posted January 28 Posted January 28 (edited) Agree with the John Gregory one. He did get to spend a lot and he did under achieve. I do have a few confessions but, would need more anonymity to post them! Edited January 28 by Captain_Townsend 1
Jas10 Posted January 28 Posted January 28 6 minutes ago, Captain_Townsend said: Agree with the John Gregory one. He did get to spend a lot and he did under achieve. I do have a few confessions but, would need more anonymity to post them! I don’t really agree with the Gregory one… I think that point is much more applicable to MON actually… he spent and wasted a lot and kept sticking with the same players and sidelining and ignoring the rest, if not treating them like shit. Bought some proper dross too… too much power. MON was a horrible guy as well… petulant and stubborn… JG just loved the club and wanted us to fly high… JG was so passionate and invested and, unlike Doug, he wasn’t complacent… a bit more support could have pushed us to another level or two and we could have achieved something to be proud of… I won’t criticise John… always admired him… considering where he was plucked from (he never expected to get the job nor had an ego coming into it) and his lack of top level experience… I think he did a great job… he could’ve achieved more if not for Doug imo… I know this is one I’ll have to agreed to disagree on, with many… but I’m unlikely to change that stance… 3
Captain_Townsend Posted January 28 Posted January 28 (edited) If you look at our spending 1998-2002, we were a top spending club. Cheque book was out. But we didn't replicate what Ron Atkinson or Brian Little had done. Steve Stone, Alan Thompson, Steve Watson, Bosko Balaban- - the guts of £20m on those four! O'Leary is despised but he came along in 2003-2004 and got us back to 6th after spending £6m on McCann, Sorenson and Solano. Edited January 28 by Captain_Townsend 3
Jas10 Posted January 28 Posted January 28 (edited) 10 minutes ago, Captain_Townsend said: If you look at our spending 1998-2002, we were a top spending club. Cheque book was out. But we didn't replicate what Ron Atkinson or Brian Little had done. Steve Stone, Alan Thompson, Steve Watson, Boston Balaban- - the guts of £20m on those four! O'Leary is despised but he came along in 2003-2004 and got us back to 6th after spending £6m on McCann, Sorenson and Solano. I don’t deny that mistakes were made (maybe we couldn’t go for priority targets either… worth considering… I would have loved Juninho to join, Carbone to stay and a few more of those River Plate players just imagine if we managed to sign Vieri! ) but… it’s hard to find any manager with a faultless record… I guess I can just say that I enjoyed the JG days and was really invested… the shite after MON was difficult to bear and quite depressing… thankfully, NSWE and Deano came along…and now we have the supreme Unai Emery maybe and hopefully, the best is yet to come - at least for those of us that didn’t witness the past glory days… Edited January 28 by Jas10 1
YLN Posted January 28 Posted January 28 I'm not sure if it's a confession really, but I can’t stop masturbating to that video. Does that count? 1 1
nepal_villan Posted January 28 Posted January 28 Totally agree with the JPA one. I love the guy, but he gets far more adoration than his performances deserve. My shameful moment was being so engrossed in a Villa match and continuing to watch it even when learning of a close relatives' death midway through it. 1
Vancvillan Posted January 28 Posted January 28 Thought Villa would dominate after signing Collymore. Literally saw him as the Brummie Ronaldo. Made this statement publicly but now deny all knowledge. 2
Popular Post Delphinho123 Posted January 28 Popular Post Posted January 28 Here’s one. I don’t like the we play under Emery. I find it tedious and boring. 4 1 3
chrisvilla4 Posted January 28 Posted January 28 I was pissed when we first played Blues in the prem and lost 3-0. I tried to call 'you're on sky sports' and let rip but couldn't dial properly. My next big idea was to burn my shirt in the back garden, my wife told me off and sent me to bed. 1 1
Popular Post villa4europe Posted January 28 Popular Post Posted January 28 I support Aston villa because my gran told me I'd earn more money playing for them my dad is a baggie as it 80% of my fanily, my mom is a QPR fan as she lived near them, my brother is a Leeds fan*, I genuinely have no idea why my gran is a Villa fan though never asked her My step dad was a Wolves fan, once took me to Wolves vs Barcelona in a preseason friendly to try and convert me... I got a barca shirt for my next birthday My height of attending villa was actually towards the end of our PL drain circling, got my first ST under Mom, gave away my last one under Bruce, was going home and away most weeks I fell asleep in a lot of grounds, Swansea away where they put us on at 5.30pm and about 1k villa fans were in port talbot by about 10am...theres a day's worth of stories from that game alone but I know a photo of a group of us asleep during that game, think we lost 4-1 I/we had a 3 and out rule, Villa went 3 goals down and a group of us left and went to the pub, was at Southampton away meaning I left in what the 18th minute or something like that when mane scored his hattrick? Villa fans were still talking in as I walked out - I've never done this at hime, earliest I've left was that Liverpool game Most embarrassing moment as a fan I went to Blackpool for the weekend, pretty sure it was wigan away last game of the season, I was in flares in 2pm in the afternoon, long gone, cans on the bus at 8am day, stomach went... They had no seat on the toilet, that wasn't beating me, they had no lock on the door that wasn't beating me either, unfortunately I noticed too late that they didn't have any bog roll.... As a side to that I once counted up my tickets (I've still got them in a box, kept all of them) I went on a 42 away game streak without seeing a win... Broken by us beating Liverpool in the FA Cup semi final and then carrying on after that including the championship, might have to do it all properly one day but I'd say in about 100 away games including league cup and Europe I've seen less than 10 wins Very specific to me but I went to the peace Cup in malaga, made a mess of booking my tickets, I sat in the upper tier behind the goal with my ex, literally just the 2 of us, I booked the wrong end, all the other villa fans were behind the opposite goal, they even gave us 3 stewards to look after us, didn't say a word to me just let me sit there in a completely empty stand, spent the 2 group games there before moving for the Porto game That Liverpool semi final is the best game I've seen as an attending Villa fan, probably ajax at home 2nd *but the Leeds 96 game is obviously my favourite game of all time I hate Wembley, always see trouble, playoff final vs Fulham I was in the prawn sandwich bit and still saw an unbelievable headbutt on one villa fan to another I chanted for Paul Lambert at Norwich away The mcleish days were bizarre in the upper Holte, loads of ST holders seemingly took weeks off (no doubt myself included) and there were pockets of space everywhere so I could text mates and just go sit somewhere else together I hate Doug Ellis Mon was a stubborn word removed who hindered us come the end, I wanted him out in his last year, from memory it was mainly because he didn't play Luke young, I also didn't rate Reo Coker but did think MONs gabby should have played more for England I was arrogant enough not to travel to Vienna as the group games would be better, twice 12
tomav84 Posted January 28 VT Supporter Posted January 28 10 minutes ago, villa4europe said: I chanted for Paul Lambert at Norwich away along with the whole away end to be fair 1
villa4europe Posted January 28 Posted January 28 2 minutes ago, tomav84 said: along with the whole away end to be fair Yeah that's how I remember it, we wanted him (kw)
tomav84 Posted January 28 VT Supporter Posted January 28 (edited) i'd have been happy to have seen dougie luiz sold in each transfer window until emery came in and transformed him oh and probably a bigger confession that i stand by to this day: whilst ultimately we let him go at the right time, i believe steve bruce did a good job for us overall. Edited January 28 by tomav84 1
CVByrne Posted January 28 Posted January 28 I was all in on Martin O'Neill, I believed he was the messiah and the season after season collapses from March always hurt so much. In retrospect though you get to review something without the emotion and while he was clearly a good manager and was effective ultimately we could have done better, if we had a different coach given the money we spent. I kind of think now if any decent manager was given the funds he got they would do no worse than he did. I think his failure was he tried to build a squad of players he trusted but kept failing at that we signed a lot of CBs and CMs but never created the squad needed to go the full season. It's taken a long time to do a real reflection as there were so many great days 2
Popular Post Spoony Posted January 28 Popular Post Posted January 28 7 minutes ago, tomav84 said: i'd have been happy to have seen dougie luiz sold in each transfer window until emery came in and transformed him oh and probably a bigger confession that i stand by to this day: whilst ultimately we let him go at the right time, i believe steve bruce did a good job for us overall. Totally agree on both points. On Bruce in particular. People seem to forgive others for the shit going on behind the scenes but not him. And he was facing incredible personal battles. And he did very nearly get us promoted. I thought he was professional throughout and the hate he gets is just from prior connections and his all-round journeyman aura but in a long line of shite managers I don’t think he’s one of them. 8
nick76 Posted January 28 Posted January 28 21 minutes ago, villa4europe said: Yeah that's how I remember it, we wanted him (kw) Yep I was there doing the same thing, we all wanted him at the time.
ChesterDad Posted January 28 Posted January 28 39 minutes ago, tomav84 said: along with the whole away end to be fair And rightly so at the time. My own is not really caring how we did under McLeish - I wanted him gone so badly. Even the Bolton game didn’t bother me ( sorry my bad )
Popular Post mattyvilla Posted January 28 Popular Post Posted January 28 when i stood under the floodlight on the holte in 1986 as a 13 year old i underestimated how much this was going to cost me 8
Recommended Posts