weedman

2 hours ago, WaccoeOnline said:

 

You see this is the stuff that “sensible” voices kept saying at Leeds.  And then it turned out - repeatedly - we were way more ****ed than even the worst worriers were worried about.

Looking back those saying “no proof so far”, “too early to be certain they are lying crooks”, “it’s all conjecture and conspiracy”, “I’m willing to give them a chance” were as wrong and as damaging to fan unity as those who cynically threw in their lot with the varied ****ers who were ruining us.

It made ramping up the pressure to move the scum who wrecked us on much harder and allowed them to get away with degrading  our club for that much longer.  It also fed the idea that those who wanted change were somehow disloyal to the club - “just causing trouble”, “support the club or **** off home” and the idea that somehow journalists teasing away at the truth had an agenda to damage the club (when often the reverse was the case), etc.

Im sure those “sensible heads” got a whole load of satisfaction from showing how much more mature and stable they were than those desperately worried about the future of our club.  Looking back, they were the idiots getting it very wrong.  Although as ever these types in time move on without shame to find other things to be smug and superior about on their forums of choice (though hopefully in our case with our crises seemingly over, stuff that is less important to the future of our club).

 

 

This is nonsense. Not every financial problem is comparable to bloody Leeds, some may be, most probably won't be. Automatically assuming worst case scenario doesn't make it right, anymore than it makes those who don't wrong or "idiots" 

We may be totally screwed and another Leeds waiting to happen, but by the same token we may be nowhere near as bad as that and a couple of player sales and high earning wasters off the books over the next couple of years and we're fine. The point is nobody really knows as of yet, jumping to conclusions (whichever side that happens to be on) is wrong, even if it turns out that you're right. 

You think people who wait for facts before making judgements are doing it to be smug, but those that blindly pick a side and literally come on to other teams message board years or decades later to brag about how "right they were all along" are the sensible ones? Jog on mate 

3 hours ago, Rob182 said:

As if someone has taken the time to make this.

Aside from it not being remotely funny, it doesn't even make sense. Is there one of a teabag and a teacup. That'd be just as funny a 'match'.

Surely it'd work better with Hutton on one side and Villa Park on the other? Rather than a random contract? 6/10 idea, 2/10 execution...just like Hutton himself! 

Just kidding, I love him

On 09/06/2018 at 15:54, Cjay said:

If you look at Marseille in context he improved there league position, he made them some money, one of his signings for £1mil was sold to Spurs for £11mil after one season, he signed Lucas Ocampos who at the time was one of the mostly highly rated players in the world (youngsters) and last season was one of the clubs top performers. 

And he quit because after his 4th placed finish, hoping to build, he found 5 of his key players sold, 23 goal Andre Pierre Gignac, 11 goal Andre Ayew, Florian Thauvin, Gianielli Imbula and Dmitri Payet (who wasnt keen anyways and subsequently forced a move back there). Thats like you not having Jonathan Kodjia, Robert Snodgrass, Jack Grealish, Albert Adomah and Connor Hourihane last season, and replacing them on the cheap.

 

Most of this could easily be said about Steve Bruce. Came in, improved our league position, made us some money and (potentially) quitting after a 4th placed finish and having to sell all of his better players...

If Hutton re-signs for us does that mean the prophecy was for the 18/19 season all along? 

2 minutes ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

- Onomah being one of the worst players I have seen in a Villa Shirt behind Carlton Cole

Onomah will be a good player, he's got good feet and can drive forward and even grab the odd goal, his main problem is he doesn't look for a pass quickly enough in some situations and can get caught out when players close him down quickly - this is mainly as he's come from youth football where you generally get a bit more time and space, another year or 2 playing competitive football either in the championship or prem and he'll iron that out and then he'll be sought after, to get him in a deal with Grealish (if we must sell) would be good for us (and probably him, assuming Spurs aren't planning on playing him), he'll be a Prem player in a few years and if we aren't then at least we'll have another saleable asset to help improve our team. Still wouldn't take less than £20m + him for Jack though 

On 01/06/2018 at 08:34, hippo said:

Jedi had a mare in his first game at CB against sheff wed. However he played a few other games there towards the end of the season and did ok. Don't see many options at CB. Terry, Samba, Elphick all look set to depart. Don't think we have any starlets in the position either. 

I was thinking this, apart from that first game he's been solid at CB and I think would be good with Chester (Chester for the composure and Jedi for anything above shoulder height. Pace is an issue but he's replacing Terry, hardly Usain Bolt

35 minutes ago, omariqy said:

Really weird comments about Terry and Chester by Jokanovic. Is he cracking?

What did he say? 

1 minute ago, srsmithusa said:

I find it somewhere between amusing and frustrating that, as a Bruce critic, if I post anything critical right now I get a flashback that “this isn’t the right time, the playoffs matter too much and I should give it a rest.”   If I agree and keep silent I get psycoanalyzed, trivialized, and straw man arguments constructed to assert I’m foolish or naive or deluded or unrealistic or scintilated or in some other way to be dismissed.  

Right now, I just wanna focus on getting promoted

so, how do you think Bruce will prepare for Fulham’s strengths?   What weaknesses do you think he’ll try to exploit?   How?

I reckon he'll do similar to Boro in that Hutton will go up against Sess and be told to pretty much do to him what he did to Adama, I'd say Terry should be able to handle Mitro and Jedinak and Hourihane will buzz around Cairney to pretty much cut out their main supply lines. That should allow Adomah, Snodgrass, Grealish and Grabban to break forward at pace.

Boro restricted us somewhat as well, but thats a Tony Pulis team, we'll have more joy attacking against Fulham than Boro. Main problem is they are better going forward and we're highly unlikely to restrict them to no chances like we did Boro, they'll have a few, as will we. It'll be a tight game and I fear for us if we concede first as it'll be harder to counter which is our main strength.

I really think that our front 4 (Grabban, Adomah, Snoddy and Jack) should high press them as much as possible and wherever possible force them to play longer, it doesn't suit them and Mile will eat those sort of balls for breakfast - thats pretty much what Blues did and it worked out pretty well for them, obviously some luck will be required but that goes for them as well as us. It'll be a close game, we've both got the ability to hurt the other - arguably them more than us, but we're more solid at the back, if I were a betting man I'd steer well clear of this myself as it really could go either way. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that they lost to Blues as the pressure got to them, all they had to do was win against one of the poorest teams in the league to get 2nd place - Wembley pressure will be far more than that, and we have far more experience in that regard which could see us through (I'm forever hopeful!)

4 minutes ago, VERB27 said:

Anybody have any idea where the tickets get posted if you use your own ID and buy another ticket on another's ID?

I think they'll send them to whoever bought them. I got 3 using different ID's for the Semi and they all came to me

1 minute ago, Giro said:

The queing system is a joke

 

Me and my mate at work both signed in at half four to get tickets. He had a six minute wait and i had a 50 minute wait. Just got him to get my ticket

 

Buzzing for Saturday now!

To be honest I like it, if you get there early it just puts you in at a random place, sure it sucks if you're low on that list, but at least its fair to all

43 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

 

How neither of the Boro players were booked for that is a complete mystery, 3 attempted professional fouls by 2 players and if Grealish had gone down for any of them it's an automatic booking, and people wonder why players go down so easily these days! 

7 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

30k tickets sold so far. Suprised its that low. Think some are waiting to see what the score is firat leg before buying. 

That can't be right can it? So many areas were sold out or virtually sold out I had to go in Upper trinity so surely there aren't still 13,000 tickets left? 

1 hour ago, Demitri_C said:

I'm concerned alot of boro fans are snapping up tickets. They have been moaning about lack of tickets for away league

I dont think this game should have gone on general sale

I don't think it is a proper general sale, I booked 3 tickets and wasn't able to use my reference number for all three but had to split them between 3 references so it seems it's "booking history" rather than "general sale", don't know why they didn't just say that tbf

1 minute ago, Sam3773 said:

Just came on here to see this 

6 minutes ago, mykeyb said:

So he wasn't in the starting eleven because his wife had given birth but was at the ground in his training kit.................hmmm

Didn't Bruce say he hadn't trained because his wife was giving birth, would explain not in the squad but still at the ground? 

1 hour ago, bobzy said:

Played as well as he did during our run of form without Jedinak.  No brainer against poorer teams, but we may have messed up our chances of automatic by not playing him tbh.

 

 

Was also amusing that, whilst his goal was beautiful, he had another 3 shots that were utter garbage.  

He should have stopped shooting after the goal, the subsequent shots were so bad it just made it seem like a total fluke! 

He played well though in general, pretty much all our play started with him, helped no doubt by Reading showing absolutely zero interest in closing down even before the Red card

On 17/03/2018 at 20:06, blunther said:

Not when relegated teams come down with massive parachute payments. Teams like Bournemouth with their capacity of 53 will be able to massively outspend us. 

 

Premier League isn’t happy with just making itself a shit league. Wants to ruin the lower leagues too. 

Again this with parachute payments, it isn't just the FA going "ah you poor souls getting relegated, here's £40m to help you bounce back", the money spent by even a shit PL team is astronomically higher than a Championship team, and the parachute payments are there to help with the running costs (infrastructure/wages/staff etc etc) so there isn't such a drastic cut off and huge overhaul straight away. It helps the business keep ticking over until the club can be run on a more even level. If it wasn't for those payments getting relegated would absolutely ruin teams as they just wouldn't be able to cut costs fast enough, especially these days when there's such a massive financial difference between the two leagues. 

The advantage relegated teams have is they are likely to have 1 or 2 higher profile players that can command Prem level transfer fees which should give them a little more money to play with, the downside being they will inevitably lose their best players and have to rebuild, which is rarely a smooth transition 

5 hours ago, The_Rev said:

 

League table since new years day. Wolves will move up to '6th' should they beat Leeds tonight, but I'm sure the form of Cardiff, Fulham and ourselves is starting to be of concern to them, they were supposed to be winning the title at about the same time as Manchester City not so long ago.   

Interesting that even a Wolves win tonight means we woud have gained 7 points on them in 10 games...and we'd be 10 behind with 11 to play. Beat them and we've gained 10 points in 11 games, and we'd be 7 behind with 10 to play. I don't think we'll catch them, but I'd say it's far from a certainty at this stage, if we both maintain our recent form it all pretty much comes down to our match with them on Saturday

Couldn't tell who was down there and was panicking for a minute until I realised it was only Whelan, phew! 

8 hours ago, JamesBCFC said:

Of all teams in the league, Villa should find FFP a problem least.

Parachute payments give yourself- and the other relegated sides- a distinct advantage as that's 40m odd the others don't have.

You also have bigger crowds than most teams, which adds up too.

 

What it is that's "strangled" you is the obscene wages players were on prior to relegation.

I really don't like this attitude to the "parachute payments", you do realise that they aren't just some hand out so that relegated teams can out spend everyone and come straight back up right? They are literally there because that's how much extra teams spend on wages for largely the same players in the PL, they are there to help with those wages while teams either find buyers for those players or their contacts run down. 

Its not mismanagement either (well, you could argue for us and Sunderland it was, but we're the exceptions really), take someone like Hourihane, moving to a top championship team he's probably on about £25k a week (ish), had he moved to a low end PL team instead of us that exact same player would probably have cost them £50k a week, soley because they are in the PL where £10m transfer and £50k a week would probably get you a decent backup player.

The £40m parachute payment is not just chucked onto the budget, it's instantly absorbed by bloated player wages, leaving relegated teams with no discernable advantage over current championship teams. For example, of the 3 relegated last season, 1 is bottom, 1 is in a relegation fight and only 1 is close to the top 6, although miles from top 2

On 28/02/2018 at 09:12, Lord Willard said:

At the start of the season I'm talking first 3 games when we looked a shambles, he was one of our better players. He has put in a shift once or twice since but other than that it's been like we're playing with 10 men. 

I agree with Josh that he should only be a DM, he isn't talented enough to play any further forward. 

I think he's far too casual on the ball to ever play DM. He gives the ball away far too often and it's not in the "trying killer passes so bound to have a low pass %" kind of give the ball away its generally because he's dallying on the ball and has no awareness of what's around him so gets it pinched off him which would be suicide if he was our deepest midfielder

I think if we must play him, it has to be further forward, simply because on those rare occasions he finds himself in 5-10 yards of space he can actually look pretty dangerous, and when he inevitably dallies on the ball and gets caught out I'd much rather that was 10 yards outside the oppositions box than 10 yards outside ours 

Ideally he just wouldn't play at all though, if he can sort out his positional awareness he could be a decent player, and if he were one of our youngsters I'd be wanting him playing more just to help him progress because I do think he's got some potential, but he isn't and in the here and now he's simply not good enough for our team at the moment

14 minutes ago, Michael118 said:

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/624006/Chelsea-Adama-Traore-Middlesbrough-Antonio-Conte-Eden-Hazard-Costa-rumours-gossip-news

The Daily Star? Well that settles that then 

Michael, a few of those players are OK (generally the ones that are are not suited to English football like Amavi and Gil), Gueye is a good player. Even Ciaran Clark is one of the better ones and he wouldn't get in our team at the moment ahead of Terry or Chester

But most of these names, my god that team A would be where Sunderland are now, I can never tell if you're on the wind up or not so I'm going to dip out of this thread now but please don't become a scout, if you must become one, may I suggest Birmingham City as a potential job 

1 hour ago, pacbuddies said:

Face facts guys. When we play shit teams like SHA we win. When we play half decent teams like Fulham we lose. We won't make automatic promotion with a dinosaur like Bruce in charge no matter how much you messiah hunters think we will. If we do then I will eat my hat and humble pie.

This is the EXACT type of comment that wound people up earlier in the season. Its too early for a "I was right you were wrong" debate, and I think a lot of people were mostly on the fence, judging Bruce by how the team was performing, hence so many people losing faith by the end of December, but it was the absolute certainty displayed such as here which caused so much friction. This comment isn't a "I don't believe we'll get promoted" which is fair for anyone to say and a fair debate can ensue on the back of it, it's a "we DEFINITELY will not get promoted. Bruce is a dinosaur that simply isn't capable, and anyone that disagrees with me is a moron", and as far as calling out posts like this as wrong, it's not too early to do that, because whether we go up or not no one can definitively say yet what will happen, these type of comments and people that make them are wrong, whatever happens