Abacus

Shot!

Two and a half years? Obviously looking to save a bit on the compo.

Agreed. It still makes me laugh that Bruce was thought of as hard to play against tactically because even he didn't know what he was up to.

Taking that at face value, he probably knows his body better than most by now and that there would likely be another breakdown if he pushed it. So maybe he doesn't trust himself either. He's certainly a conundrum to medical science In which case, the fault doesn't lie in him, more on the club for not moving him on and a couple of posters pointed this out at the time. But then again, at the time he wasn't sold we weren't really in a position to replace him as it now looks from a financial point of view, so maybe there is no real fault. But I still can't help be annoyed with his lack of availability - I'm just not going blame anyone in particular for it, which would be nice and cathartic to be able to do. I do think the best thing for both him and the club would have been less of a workload and maybe a warm weather environment for a smallish fee had there been, say, Saudi interest. Maybe he'd then have had an outside chance of staying fit enough for the odd England game last summer. But hindsight is a wonderful thing. As it has turned out, he just adds to our squad problems, which I'm a bit tired of thinking about.

Osula played well when he came on, Joelinton as well all game. Very good and we had the best chances as well.

Personally, I don't think that's the choice. Isak has had chances and fluffed them this season due to being rusty and / or injured. That's not Howe's fault. Previous to that, he's been banging them in when fit, so he is normally deadly in a Howe team. Find this debate a bit strange, but hey. That's the beauty of a forum.

It was an important sentiment at the time, when we were rotting from the inside out and apathy was setting in. It's still important now, in that I don't expect us to win anything but I'd like to go into a match with hope and ambition, rather than all the delusional Geordies expecting to win rubbish.

It could be that we adopted a pressing style at first with the players we had, who might not all have been very good, but could at least run around. As we've added players like Bruno or Tonali, we've tried to shift the playing style, but landed somewhere in the middle so far, and I'm discounting much of last season because of injuries and Tonali's ban. Or, it could be that we just bought good players opportunistically, failed to sign a few we wanted which has left us unbalanced (Botman's injury has been huge) and just haven't found a way to make it all work yet, notwithstanding we're mid table anyway. Or it could be that after a less than perfect pre-season, we've played a lot better in the last few games, the results haven't yet followed and there is an overreaction to a defeat away to Chelsea that almost everyone expected us to lose or be battered in anyway.

I haven't bothered watching a champions league game after the first round I don't think. What do they matter? If you're a Villa fan for this season that might be different so I don't mean to do it down, but for anyone remotely neutral it's just games for games sake, with the same teams likely to get into the knockout rounds. So I won't bother to watch those either, except maybe for the final. And I'll probably not be bothered about who wins that.

Send that offer to Neilsen

I assumed that some American companies have been banking on ever expanding worldwide TV income in a relatively closed league to grow their assets. It's no real surprise they were generally more in favour of the ESL to the horror of most real fans. I do wonder about when and whether the saturation point gets reached, though. I can't be bothered to watch much of the CL league qualifiers this year for that reason - too much football in a stale format. You wouldn't think that as a Villa fan this season, but I wonder about whether that will be the case should the novelty wear off for them. I guess, though, I'm not the target market, it's more international fans. Even there, though, it can't grow forever and many of the remaining untapped markets are poorer and don't have the money to assume it will grow forever. In the meantime one of the reasons the pl is the most watched league in the world has been the unpredictability, rather that the procession it has become, and the atmosphere at the grounds which are in danger of lessoning just because the match going fans aren't the priority.

We played well, with some better finishing from an understandably rusty striker we would have won that game against a top half Brighton team. There are signs things are clicking into place recently, I think. So, I think the criticism of Howe is OTT. But it can't be denied we're an unbalanced squad who are no longer over-performing - not sure whose fault that is re the squad, but we're in a straight-jacket with the legacy squad and PSR. The squad needs additions first and only then if results don't follow would I start looking towards the manager.

I think if the last transfer window taught us anything it's that there are very few PL clubs we can deal with. Really need a couple of players to freshen the squad up and it's pretty obvious where - we needed them last summer to be fair and that seemed to be the messaging at the start of the window - so hopefully Mitchell is on the case for January looking in Europe and further afield instead. January will be a pretty big test for me as to whether this transfer relationship with Howe and Mitchell will work.

Philosophical question; what is premium mince? Anyway, I've always found the much coveted British chicken balti pie is always sold out early on match days.

0-6 Just for balance.

I don't particularly think this result is on Howe - we did enough in that performance to win it, normally. What I wonder is where the footballing vision is coming from. With Staveley gone as a driving force, I'm basically pinning my hopes on Howe now as being the man with the original plan. Lose him, and what are we? He needs backing in January for sure, like he should have had in the last two transfer windows. I realise the financial reasons as to why that wasn't possible of course. But we're kind of in difficult third album territory after all the highs of the 4th place finish and the CL campaign. Time for Mitchell to step up, maybe.

It's been a frustrating stop-start season so far. Signs of progress, but always lots of off-field distractions and daft international breaks. That said, we played pretty well yesterday particularly in the first half and on another day, or with a non-rusty Isak, we go on to win it from there. But with the second half in particular, we didn't have that magician to break down teams when the press isn't working or is nullified. I also unreasonably blame Wilson for his constant injuries far more than I should do. However good he was when fit, it still winds me up that he hasn't been replaced.

This is true, but he's better at pressing on the RW and more natural in that position than any of our other options imo.

Think that's our best lineup with who we have available and the likes of Willock and Barnes to come on and cause havoc

Think he saw TBG's t-shirts and bottled it

Not in the squad, cancelling my order

Had to be, with Gordon on the left. If Isak tires or breaks down, there's the option of Gordon in the middle and Barnes on to replace him at LW. Gordon isn't convincing at RW.

I'll take twelve.

And, do other teams fear them and come up with ways to counteract them? In this case, I'd guess no. I'm not digging out Longstaff there. Did really well in the 4th season when he felt his way into games and was carrying an injury for a chunk of last season. And as of now, he's a useful squad player - take him out and we'd look pretty thin right across the park.

If some people and/or the FA are 'embarrassed' about appointing a non-Englishman as England manager, then good. Only way it'll get fixed is by improving the supply line, and until it is in the meantime it's surely better for the current players to be working under a manager who gives them the best chance of winning something. Not their fault for developing when the managers haven't and so they shouldn't be hamstrung by having a clogger in charge. Think Tuchel is a great choice. I wonder if the reaction would be any different were the manager to be a Scot or an Irishman rather than a German, but that's by the by. I wonder if being German just brings it into greater focus for some like the press - it's obviously going to be the main angle on their stories. Anyway, not sure how you improve the supply line of English managers with top class trophy winning experience, with the PL being money dominated and more likely to employ proven winners wherever they're from as a result. And in return, English managers (in general) seeming less willing to go abroad to learn and adapt. Or at least if they do, they mostly don't do it very well.