rubberman

I like Tony.

Current feeling: Optimistic. Need to get amongst them early and not fall into our usual trap of sitting too deep when they press us. Same team please RDM. And same result, ta.

Surely can't be any worse than last week... Name Home Team Away Team Guess Villa 2 2 Huddersfield Draw Brentford 1 1 Forest Draw Brighton 2 0 Rotherham Brighton Burton 0 2 Wednesday Wednesday Leeds 0 2 Fulham Fulham Norwich 2 0 Bristol Norwich Preston 1 2 Derby Derby Wigan 1 1 Birmingham Draw Wolves 1 0 Ipswich Wolves Barnsley 0 1 QPR QPR Cardiff 1 0 Blackburn Cardiff Newcastle 1 0 Reading Newcastle rubberman

I'm like a mood sine-wave. Optimistic > pessimistic > optimistic...etc. No idea what'll happen.

I have no doubt there are plans in place and work going on in the background to make this happen at some stage.

Me too.

I can see why he was chosen to buy the club. Yes - the ambition is a bit crazy and I'm sure he wasn't a villa fan from childhood, but he is truly bought into this club. He has shown passion, steel and humour. I hope he is gracious and magnanimous in victory and defeat. I'm sure he will tone it down over time but I hope he keeps up the enthusiasm and that it is infectious throughout the club.

Are there any actual links to Ravel, other than his following of all things Villa on social media?

Yeah - I'm sure he knows more...just pointing out where the £10m came from and how many different numbers there are out there.

Pulis said they'd made £2m profit on him, from a reported £8m purchase. Transfermarkt says they paid £9.6 and we paid £7.9, so that's numberwang.

25 goals and 8 assists from 61 appearances in the Championship and should still be getting better at 23. What's not to like? At least we should be scoring goals this season which would be a novelty.

OS got his name right too, so it really is a massive change throughout the club.

Phew!

It's all getting a bit busier now, isn't it.

Is Baker going to be fit for this? Please don't say we're going to have Richards at CB again....

I'm kind of on the fence with this lot of rumours. Are they better than what we have - definitely. Are they good enough for where we want to be - probably not. So I can't really get that excited. I hope they come in and help us get promoted - if they do I'll be grateful but also expect that we will need to upgrade again pretty soon. One step at a time I suppose.

After last night I imagine Tony and RDM sat down and had a long chat about what the hell they need to do to get us back on track quick. Tony said do what you need to do, hence 3 quick signings and the Bennett turnaround to give a lot more defensive options.

He'll go well with Elphick then, etc and so on.

Yeah - I'm sure he'll do a job. I'm sure he's better than most of our current options. And I'm happy we're spending and addressing the (many) problems. My comment was more a general 'football WTF?' once again in relation to how much some players go for these days.

Football has truly gone mad. I know we're desperate but more than £8m for a defender who wasn't good enough to get in the West Brom side?

Was away last week so first set of random guesses for me. Expecting to be as effective as our defence... Name Home Team Away Team Guess Brighton 2 1 Forest Brighton Villa 1 1 Rotherham Draw Barnsley 0 2 Derby Derby Brentford 1 1 Ipswich Draw Burton 0 2 Bristol Bristol Leeds 1 0 Birmingham Leeds Newcastle 2 0 Huddersfield Newcastle Preston 1 1 Fulham Draw Wigan 1 1 Blackburn Draw Wolves 1 0 Reading Wolves Norwich 2 2 Wednesday Draw Cardiff 1 1 QPR Draw rubberman

How depressing to be going into a game against Rotherham feeling nervous and hoping we won't lose. Rotherham FFS! The only tiny sliver lining about being relegated was the thought we would start winning again, but lo and behold we get served up the same shite as last season, but against even worse and more embarrassing opposition. Don't know how we'll line up, but whoever it is, someone in defence will make a stupid mistake that leads to a goal, the midfield will be over-run and the forwards won't get any service. And I'm usually one of the more optimistic ones!

I think that's for the best for all of us.

If I were Dr Tony, I would offer Steve Peters a Rooney-level salary for the next six months.

On the plus side, things have been going well at the Olympics. I hope that is the end of clean sheets for last year's players. Massive black mark against RDM for substiutions - up there with Tim's finest. Very worrying.