So, there I am, on holiday and for some reason I suddenly can’t access the administration part of the site, meaning I couldn’t write or even approve moderated comments.
And then, I get home and suddenly the site’s working again for me. Very strange.
Anyway, first off, I’m shocked to see Austin Macphee has left to coach for Scotland. That’s bad news for two reasons, in that I was going to write about what a marvellous job he’d done in the short time he’d been with us.
Some old hack, whose name escapes me said set piece coaches, attacking coaches and defensive coaches etc are a daft idea. Well, he’s obviously talking out of his proverbial, because the difference it made for us was obvious.
Cash’s throw-ins were testament to that, as was the fact that instead of just banging the ball into the box, we were aiming at the front post, looking for a flick-on.
Now that’s pretty obvious stuff, that you would have thought we’d already been doing, but it would appear not.
I wonder if that fact was something to do with John Terry and O’Kelly leaving?
And then it’s obviously bad news because losing 3 coaches in about the same amount of weeks really doesn’t look very good at all.
I miss him already, but hopefully the players will have learned from him and take his teachings forward.
Next up, it’s Barrow tonight and they’re an unknown entity to me, as you’d expect. I read up about them on Wiki yesterday and they’ve had a torrid time of it over the last twenty years or more and only recently got promoted.
They’ve had a lot of money trouble too and I was pleased to see they’d sold out their ticket allocation within five hours of them going on general sale. Unfortunately, the ground only holds 5,000 odd, so it’s not going to be the money-spinner for them that I was hoping it was. That’s a shame, as their fans can turn out at certain times.
They’ve taken over 7,000 fans to away grounds on more than one occasion quite recently, which is very good for a club in such a remote place.
You’d have to expect the likes of Chukuemeka, Philogene-Bidace and other young lads will get a game and that makes it difficult to predict.
No doubt we’ll have a few senior players in the side and as such you’d expect us to have enough to get the win.
It wouldn’t be good for us, but if they could get us back to Villa park, that would be a money spinner for them, so they’ve got every incentive.
I don’t see it happening, but you never know with the Villa. We do have a nasty knack of losing games we’d expect to win.
And then, Newcastle.
I know many thought Newcastle were abysmal, but I thought they weren’t that bad.
On reflection, I definitely think they’re going to struggle over the season. Their fans detest Steve Bruce and Mike Ashley. It’s a shame what’s going on there, as contrary to the media that seem to think there’s some serious emnity there, I think they’re a decent club.
I’ll wish them luck, but not too much, of course.
Chelsea it is and its away. That will find the men from the boy’s.. Cup Match ..
I’ve just seen an article about us giving the money to Barrow.
Fair brings a tear to my eye it does.
It’s pennies in the scheme of things for the Villa, but means the world to a small club struggling to survive.
Absolute class, as per usual from the club and I can’t believe we don’t see a lot more of this from other clubs.
I know the Prem money is shared out, but…
Ronaldo available for 28-30 million? Get it done! He would still blow 99.9% of all other PL ‘stars’ out of the water. He would blast us into the Champions League or maybe more. A snip at 30 million. The resulting media interest and subsequent interest in AVFC would mean most if not all of the fee is payed for. A born winner with impeccably high standards. You’d get at least two 20+ seasons out of him! One can only dream.
Agree.
Say £30 mill and two year contract at £500k a week = £82 mill ish.
Shirt sales would be enormous and the step up publicity-wise for the club…
But why would he want to come (wages apart, of course)?
I thought Man City wanted him?
It’s a nice thought. And who would we drop so he can get a game? 🙂
Not a chance without champions league football
The great Zlatan didn’t play CL football for United and was two years younger than Ronaldo at the time. So the maths says Ronaldo can afford to ‘waste’ a year to get Aston Villa into the CL and become a living legend. I know it won’t happen, but there’s no reason why it couldn’t, in my mind at least.
He’s got absolutely nothing left to prove in terms of Champions League and doing the business for the ‘elite’ clubs. If we was to catapult a former European giant back to into the big time, that would cement his legacy as the ‘GOAT’ and put to bed the ‘Messi v Ronaldo’ argument once and for all.
Make the call, Mr Purslow! 😉
…not to mention the windfall from CL qualification, Badger.
Oh, I’m with you BFR.
But 1) I don’t think we’d go that far, as much as our owners have been excellent.
And 2) unfortunately I just don’t think we’re currently big enough for him, although I do get your “he could lead us” point.
It seems he’s decided to leave. I wonder why?
I’ve seen Pele and I’ve seen Cruyff down the Villa. It would be great to see CR7 too, with his current stature, especially playing for us.
He’ll appear out of nowhere in a puff of smoke – like Ings!
On a more serious note, if he does go to Citeh the EPL becomes even more one dimensional and Grealish quickly becomes ‘yesterday’s man’. But then the fans warned Grealish he would become just another addition to their player collection cabinet.
Wesley having medical at Club Brugge ahead of season long loan.
I wish him well and hope he can rebuild his career.