Villarocker

Dean Smith wants to be careful when the half time whistle blows. The ref will probably second yellow him for leaving his technical area to go for a cuppa.

Dean Smith wants to be careful when the half time whistle blows. The ref will probably second yellow him for leaving his technical area to go for a cuppa.

Definite penalty, Mings made a complete hash of trying to shoulder the cross clear. It'll be tough to get anything out of this game now. A very good team would still manage to scrape something against a third bottom team but we've not looked good enough tonight so far so don't hold much hope of a turnaround.

I must admit, I was thinking the same when viewing all those empty seats on TV tonight, for their game to get back into the play-offs.

That was something like their first defeat in 11 or 12 games. Doesn't matter how they come, victories are always sweet!

It's now well and truly in our own hands. We can only blame ourselves if we don't make the playoffs so we need to make sure we stay focused now and win the next four to ensure the chance of getting up.

Sheffield Wednesday probably won't be that physical against many other teams, he just probably got them wound up because they were playing us.

Made mistakes but it was some ball he played out wide to Green that led to the cross for our first goal, although Green did brilliantly to get it back in for McGinn.

Tiger Roll - what a racehorse that little fella is! Drifted out to 4/1 and 4 of the first 5 home were in the top 20 in the betting, which is now the norm for the National. It meant my spread bet returned a profit of £139.02

Kingman, what do you make of Jury Duty in the National? Not really a stamina horse historically but coming in for a lot of market support. Also, do you agree that Scheu Time looks a bit of a good thing in the last race?

Cheers Kingman but I've already had a Trixie on those races, albeit to a much smaller stake. I've picked: 1:45 Theclockisticking - 14/1 2:25 One for Rosie @5-1 3:00 Ornua - 5/1 Not saying mine are any better than yours mate so I'll dabble a bit each way on yours too - just in case you are a better judge of gee gee rhan I am

If any of you guys have skills in excel and can knock up a spreadsheet with a couple of formulas, there's easy money to be made on the National tomorrow - if you are an existing Bet365 account holder with £250 to spare for a couple of days. Basically, Bet365 return half your stake on each way single bets on the National from 00:01 on the Thursday before the race until midday of the race, to a maximum return of £125. So, you place £250 worth of bets and get £125 returned to you. What I do is, I place a bet on every horse in the race proportionately to guarantee that whatever the outcome I will make a profit, unless there's less than three finishers. If at least five horses finish the race tomorrow, I am guaranteed to win a minimum of £322 - £72 profit - and a maximum of £377 - £127 profit - (at current odds but could be more because of best odds guaranteed rule). I still get to enjoy the uncertainty of the race as my return is higher if the horses at the top of the betting come in. You can do it without a spreadsheet, as I did tonight, but it's much quicker and easier with one. As for what I think will win, I would love to see genuine good to soft ground that wasn't soggy as I think that Minella Rocco would relish that and have a great chance of winning. If it's softer I think it'll be wide open. There are more quality horses in the race these days. Pleasant Company would have beaten Tiger Roll last year if he hadn't ploughed through the second last fence. The year before, Pleasant Company was beaten 28 lengths by One For Arthur and at the weights, if One For Arthur was anywhere near the horse he was 2 years ago he would win again, he's certainly one of my favourites for the race. Rathvinden has a great chance if taking to the fences. There's been a big gamble on Joe Farrell in recent weeks and he won the Scottish National last year. Personally, I'd like to see One For Arthur or Minella Rocco win it but I do also have a soft spot for Tiger Roll because he's only a little horse and he could well be the first horse to win back-to-back Nationals since Red Rum. A big priced outsider is General Principle, last years Irish National winner.

Bristol City and Boro have the easiest set of fixtures so definitely need a draw from that game. Got to hope that the mid table teams compete against those two and that we take care of our own business by winning at least from of which one has to be the Bristol City game. Derby will bottle it - they've got Keogh in defence and I guarantee he'll personally cost them at least once in the run-in. The others have tougher fixtures and will fall away.

Win the next 5 games in a row and the play-offs are ours. Win all 7 and we go into the play-offs as favourites after a 12 game winning run. Does anybody know what our longest winning run is?

Derby, Preston, Forest, Brentford and Bristol City are perrenial bottlers. 'Boro wouldn't beat Villa whether Grealish is playing or not. Pulis is too defensive and that plays into our hands. Sheffield United give us a decent game but they do not have the quality that we have and no way does Billy Sharp score three against us again! Albion are our biggest threat to promotion. Although, a baggies-supporting colleague at work reckons they're nowhere near the same team without Harvey Barnes - reckons he was their Grealish and they are nothing without him. However, it would be local pride at stake as well as promotion so playing them would be tough. I'd personally like Albion v Boro in the play-offs with Pulis getting one over his old team and us to play Sheffield United in the other. I'd be extremely confident of winning a final vs Boro.

Misled in terms of the money but, we should be able to create our own laws and dictate who can come into the country and when. The only time I want to be in Europe is with the Villa or on my summer hols. That doesn't make me racist - I have many foreign friends. I just want my country of birth to be able to take care of its own business and not be dictated to by a bunch of businessmen in Brussels. Having said that, we need the clowns in parliament to sort their shit out before that could ever happen.

Leave had the higher vote so therefore that became the democratic decision. However, I'll be amazed if it ever happens.

2 X 35 + 1 X 13 = 83

If you do the bet365 site offer of half back you basically get to place £375 of bets for a layout of £250, which means you can bet on every horse in the race with a guaranteed win. Only trouble is, Tiger Roll is too short and really poor value considering it only won be a head last year. Personally, I really can't wait to see what One For Arthur does. It hacked up in the race 2 years ago and the weight it's carrying now would not be enough to stop it if in the same form. But, he's had the long injury lay-off and also unseated in both starts this season. The ground is also turning against it as the horse wants soft ground. A horse I really like the look of is Rathvinden. It won a 4 miler at Cheltenham festival last season and interestingly been set up for the National this year. It out-battled Ms Parfois in that race last year and they meet on similar terms so that gives Ms Parfois a squeak too bearing in mind she stays all day. Only issue for her is the drying ground too but I think Rathvinden won't mind it too much. One horse that stands out a mile on good or good to soft ground is Minella Rocco. For me, that horse has it all. It won the 4 mile novice chase at the Cheltenham festival 3 years ago, beating Native River (won a Gold Cup, Hennessy and Welsh National since), Vicente (won 2 Scottish nationals since), Vieux Lion Rouge (4th in Grand National) and Pleasant Company (2nd in Grand National). He also came 2nd in the Gold Cup (again ahead of Native River) 2 years ago. He's had injury problems since but largely ran on unsuitable ground and is now rated a stone lighter than after the Gold Cup 2nd. He's still only 9 years old and lightly raced for his age. If he's in good health and gets his ground, for me, he's the best horse in the race. Jonjo O'Neill and JP MacManus are plotters and it wouldn't surprise me to see that they've campaigned this horse specifically for the National. If the ground is good to soft and it's dry on the day, my first two would be Minella Rocco and Rathvinden.

My point is she may have included certain red lines but the big sticking point for many is that the agreement means we are worse off in the EU than we were previously. She's taken what people already thought was a bad deal for Britain in Europe and made it worse. Even Gina Miller says that and she was all for remain.

In response to your questions: 1. They would never have thought they would need to. Cameron refused advice on preparing for a "leave" outcome because he was adamant it wouldn't happen. 2. The government agreed a date to leave - March 29th. That is no longer the date. In fact, a date is now unknown. There's still time for your 2nd referendum. 3. The EU are not trying to help us leave the club. That's why the withdrawal agreement contains us having to rely on a vote of all remaining nations in order to leave the single market. Fat chance they'll ever agree to that. Hence Raab quit his post. 4. I'm sure the deal was sorted by the UK with interventions from the EU. No way did we go there with a proposal without it being accepted exactly as we proposed. 5. Makes no difference who we vote for anymore. Democracy is dead in this country.

If May was such a good negotiator for the leave side, why agree to something that kept us in the single market and where we can only leave at the agreement of all remaining EU nations? As if they will ever vote to allow us to leave. She's agreed to a deal that ties us to the EU indefinitely.

That's all well and good if you believe that a "Leave" outcome wouldn't be overruled by rigged voting. There have been voting scandals all over the world in the past so I wouldn't put it past this government, or even moreso, this bunch of MP's, to rig a result in their favour and say that we've voted to remain. I do not trust any of our current parliamentarians so that is why I believe the original vote should be honoured. I mean, I wasn't happy that the Tories got in a the last General Election but I didn't go running around screaming for another vote on it. The leave vote should stand. The problem isn't that we were lied to. The problem is that the corrupt government, aided and abetted by the corrupt MP's, have failed to prepare our country for a no deal scenario. The EU knows this and it's their bargaining chip against us and has allowed them to propose a really shitty withdrawal agreement that ties us to them indefinitely. If we had a leader who was pro-brexit we would have had plans in place immediately for a no deal and the EU would have had to take a much softer stance in the withdrawal agreement. We've been cheated and lied to by our MP's and government.

You know, the Queen has to be close to leaving her post and handing control over to someone else. It wouldn't surprise me if her final act of power would be to dissolve parliament and call for a general election. It's clear to see that the people of the country have no faith in these MuPpetS anymore so Lizzy must be seeing it too. Obviously, if the above did happen, it would give the establishment a great chance to rig another vote and arrive at their ultimate destination of keeping us in that vile EU institution.

I think that Chris is an inspiration to us all in that he has not allowed such a serious illness to beat him or get him down. It's fantastic that Chris can continue doing what he so obviously loves. My Mum suffered a life-changing stroke when she was alive but she never allowed it to beat her either. Good old Brummie fighting spirit. Mum was a Villa fan too