WallisFrizz

The atmosphere is v good at Elland Rd.

6 hours ago, Peter Griffin said:

The squad needs to be constantly refreshed and if so, the stale feeling will never happen. Gerrard will; need to sell players in the next couple of years that Villa fans think should not be sold. The likes of Mings, McGinn, Targett and Luiz will need to be moved out with hungrier upgrades brought in

All parts of this are oversimplistic. High turnover of players is unlikely to foster team spirit.

I’m not against selling players if they underperform over a long period or become complacent/arrogant/toxic and I don’t think we should keep fringe players on high wages but I also think we should value those who genuinely care about our club, put in huge amounts of effort, are positive dressing room influences, are fine ambassadors for us. Treating players like they’re commodities to be disposed of at the drop of the hat will not breed a good culture at the club.

26 minutes ago, Zhan_Zhuang said:

It's possible that De Bruyne, Greal-hiss and Foden could be out for this game.

Still a big ask for us but you never know?

On Friday, Pep said that Grealish and Foden were back in individual training making good progress. KDB had some minor Covid symptoms and they were waiting for a negative PCR so all could be out or available. I’d say they’d have at least one of them fit.

2 hours ago, Don_Simon said:

Will Jack be back?

If so, in fascinated by the reaction he will get.

I’d rather no reaction at all. With Deano going, that era has well and truly ended. He’s irrelevant to us now and booing anybody just brings negativity to an atmosphere which should be very positive after our last two results. There is no need that this match should be anything about him.

Just now, Mark Albrighton said:

I am probably wrong here and one of the stattos may have to point out where I’ve missed it, but I think no Villa manager has won his opening three matches in charge (league or cup, I think). Eric Houghton and John Gregory seem to have come the closest to doing so.

I was going to say it would be rather nice if he achieved that, thinking we had Leicester next (which would be tricky enough). Just realised they’re the game after…

Yep…no chance…but we can dream

Steven Gerrard has explained his two changes today with Leon Bailey and Ashley Young in for Emi Buendia and Danny Ings respectively.

Gerrard said:

Leon Bailey obviously came back late from international duty, who's still finding 100 per cent fitness if you like. He's trained ever so well and he's looked dangerous and we're going to need that at times.

Danny Ings has had one or two little moments, little niggles, so it's more of a protection with Danny.

If any one player has picked up all of our information really well who's applied himself top it's Ashley Young who deserves his start.

4 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

Not sure about Young starting on the wing. He was awful first game against Watford there. Not much creativity in this starting 11.

I like the idea of dropping Ings and Buendia though. Gerrard has high demands and expectations, you need to live up to them. 

Can’t say I’m that impressed either. Will be delighted to be proved wrong.

12 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Where did he say this mate? All I heard was he fully trained and will be in the squad. 

SG has apparently said that he’s not quite there in terms of fitness but been trying hard in training and that the decision to involve him in the match day squads was for his morale as he has been feeling so frustrated. 
I like that both in terms of man management and that SG seems willing to tell us more about it where players are in terms of player fitness (gave also detail on Trez and Dougie) than Smith. Smith used to be so cagey and often misleading for no real benefit to anyone.

5 minutes ago, ferguson1 said:

Unfortunately the problem could be young players seeing Bellingham playing first team football for Dortmund and England, and they expect the same?  Carney is the same age as Bellingham.

His agent could now be in his ear saying that he can play regularly for a top team in either the Premier League or Europe?

Be a real shame if we lose him but it happens.  Even City lost Sancho because the pathway to the first team was clouded.

I could understand that if he’d shone when he had featured but he got a bit lost.  Obviously the more game time he gets the more he’ll grow but we’re not in a position to take those kind of risks. If it’s really about game time, he should go on loan. 

Seems not everyone is a fan! To be honest that quote is grim.

1 hour ago, blandy said:

Fair enough. The Club is doing some thing with Non Fungible Tokens. It's done some things with Season ticket holders and passing on tickets, it's done some things (or not done them so much) around consultation, it's done some things around the pricing of tickets...

He's polished, intelligent, knowledgeable, focused, well educated - lots of good stuff. But, but from time to time I come across people like that at work - talking about "delivering value", and efficiencies and leveraging shareholder blah blah...

The only ones who actually make things better overall, as opposed to collecting a ton of money for themselves and then moving on, or being moved on, are the ones that "get" the essence of what they are involved in. I guess he'd say he does exactly that. Does get "it" and Villa. But part of me wonders how much he or the club feel they want to keep us lot happy around stuff like the details that affect us directly. They basically don't live in our world. Maybe they'd say they want to keep the paying customers happy and coming back for more. But at the same time they want to achieve their aims around TV money, income and all the rest. Much of that stuff runs against our interests or experiences.

Which top clubs have owners that “get” their football clubs whilst also doing the best for it financially? Leicester maybe? Man City but they are in a different stratosphere financially.

Liverpool, United, Chelsea, Arsenal all have issues with their owners and finances in one way or another. Have you seen what Chelsea have done with their season ticket prices?

I think we’re in a pretty good place with our ownership and whilst yes, they do look to the money making opportunities within the fan base, I don’t think its entirely unreasonable. Obviously Purslow is a business man rather than a football man first and foremost but I think I’m ok with that as long as he’s a decent human which I believe he is.

9 minutes ago, Tom13 said:

I'm gutted Bodymoor1 hasn't accepted my follow request.

How did someone get to know about this being set up anyway?

The club told John Percy who wrote an article about it in the Telegraph. Im not even joking.

5 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Maybe that’s the plan and it’s full of fake tactics and team selections. 

So they have real training sessions which go on the public Insta account followed by fake training sessions that go on the private Insta account in the hope that someone will hack the private insta and set up their team incorrectly against us? I wish we were actually this inventive

2 hours ago, samjp26 said:

Gerrard + the coaches have set up a private Instagram account for the players to watch training videos, see statistics etc whenever/wherever they feel. Obviously there are more specific platforms for doing that but I think it’s very smart to integrate it with platforms that the players are already familiar with.

Small things like this could easily go unnoticed but it’s forward thinking IMO.

This account is so going to be hacked at some point!

53 minutes ago, osmark86 said:

We will obviously lose some too under Gerrard. But if he gets us playing with better pressing and passing and defensive shape over the next few games I'll be happy. No manager is a miracle worker, but it's ok to be a little excited no?

Agree.

1 hour ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

The extremes will never go away mate. Couple of defeats and a lot of the same fans getting over excited will probably be the same ones attacking him. 
 

But you have to admit there definitely seems to be a bit of a feel good factor slowly returning to the club.   Get a good performance / result against Palace and the players will be going in to the city game with a lot of belief. 

You’re definitely right about the feel good factor and I really enjoyed the win on Saturday. I also agree that those building him up like a hero will be the first to take him down after a couple of iffy results/performances. I’m fully behind him but maybe don’t feel the need to get carried away just yet. I also won’t knock him if we falter at various points.  
 

I tell you what tho, if he can take even a point off City next week or Liverpool at Anfield, even I will be waxing lyrical.

1 hour ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

If i'm honest, I don't think Ollie is as " naturally talented " as some, his thing is more hard work and making himself a nuisance.

Basically, he's not an elite or top tier " striker " IMO, but an all round very good player if that makes any sense.

If/when we go up another level, he could soon become a squad player.

I do love him though, but there are things he obviously needs to work on, but i'm not sure the deficiencies he does have, can necessarily be " worked on " at this stage.

Having said that, I think it's desperation to get a goal which triggers some of that " decision making ".

If we want to be really critical, we could say, on another day, that gets saved, or goes wide/high, potentially costing us points.

However, the thing is, Leon could possibly have fluffed it as well ( Unlikely from the advantage of position to be fair ).

Anyway, happy with how it turned out.

Great assessment of Ollie. I think he’s his own worst critic and is so desperate to prove himself that he doesn’t always do the right thing. Hopefully the goal gave him some confidence. You could tell he was delighted and I think it meant something to him to get that connection with the Holte End. 

37 minutes ago, samjp26 said:

He really likes it here tbf - lives with his brother  (who is a really sound guy) and I think we will see him pen a new deal before the summer. 

Hope so!

4 hours ago, MaVilla said:

i wonder if he is running down his contract, only 18 months left?

I suspect he might be. There was talk of him being offered a new contract and nothing announced. If they can’t get him to sign a new one, I imagine we’ll sell him in the summer to avoid him leaving for free. I like him, hope he does extend his contract but I think he might have only ever seen us as a stepping stone. Not sure he’s shown enough to prove he is next level though. 

21 minutes ago, Made In Aston said:

I think people are too quick to write Buendia off. To put it in context, Benrahma was the best player in the championship and spent the following season on the bench most weeks for West ham, as he wasn't up to speed. This season he is a regular starter in a very good hammers side. Buendia has the same underlying quality and maybe it will take him a while to adapt, but when he does he will be a very good player for us. 

Good comparison.

19 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Not read back to see if anyone has mentioned it but thank god for the demise of the long throw. 

Was a moment yesterday when the ball went out in long throw territory and Cash quickly threw it to someone who shifted the ball then put in a cross that led to a half chance. 

Said to the lad as play continued that we would still be waiting for the throw to be taken normally. 

Chalk a point up to Gerrard for getting rid of that nonsense. 

I don’t mind the odd long throw if it could actually benefit us but it was being massively overused and getting a bit embarrassing along with the hoof ball. 

7 hours ago, villanmac said:

Absolute shite reception for a new manager. Pretty shite atmosphere full stop. After the sacking of Deano it seems like our fans need some winning over, hopefully today went someway towards it 

I think the atmosphere was reflective of how it has been all season- tense and nervy. We haven’t been playing well and there is a fear of getting sucked into another relegation battle. I wouldn’t say we only sing when we’re winning but the sheer relief when we score/win is palpable. To be fair, judging by his post match comments, I think he got it.