Blimey, the news has come thick and fast today and I hardly know where to begin.
The Sinclair deal looks about done with a fee in the region of £3-4 million, depending on what you read.
I’d have been tempted to keep him, myself and indeed it seems the player wasn’t pushing for a move and the manager didn’t really want to lose him. The price was obviously right though and it’s no doubt another hefty wage off the books, hence I wish him well in a league where his quality will surely stand out.
Then there’s news that Carlos Sanchez could be on his way to Fiorentina. I reckon this link might have some legs to it and he’s another I’ll be sad to see go, as much as I know many other Villa fans don’t rate him. The slower pace in the Italian game should suit him better.
An interesting story is one that suggests Gabby might actually be on his way, after he wished the players good luck for tomorrow and the rest of the season on his Instagram account. It could of course mean nothing, but it does strike me as an odd thing to say. We can but hope.
Andre Green has signed a new 3 year deal and one of the young lads, whose name escapes me has gone on loan to Cheltenham.
There’s news that the Albion are after Jordan Ayew, although I don’t see him leaving after Xia’s previous comments.
Then there’s the brilliant comment from Dr Xia on Twitter, where he says we’re after 7-8 players, have bids in for 3 and are negotiating for 2 on loan. This is great news and we may just see the major squad overhaul we’ve all been asking for, after all.
And then to cap all that, we have the first game of the season today at Sheffield Wednesday!
Which is where I don’t know what to think.
I’ve never set much store by first day games, as I can recall some strange results over the years. Anyone remember a recent opening day 3-0 victory at the Emirates, for instance?
Fulham beating Newcastle on Friday was typical, in my opinion and although it seems Newcastle looked poor, I think we all know they’re going to be thereabouts at the end of the season.
My Wednesday fan workmate isn’t worried about facing us and
I had to confess I know nothing about them, save that Barry Bannan plays for them. My friend says he’s been great and would anyone bet against him scoring tomorrow?
You would think we have enough quality (as poor as we were last season) to win this one, but I still have nagging doubts about our ability to create chances, with the squad as it stands.
Watching Ross McCormack should be interesting, as I’ve read that if he ends up getting deeper in chasing the game, he becomes ineffective. We really need to get the ball in the danger area and let him do what he’s best at.
Which has just reminded me of another story where we’re apparently chasing Abel Hernandez from Hull.
Like I said, it’s all happening.
I see a one goal victory either way and the optimist in me says we’ll get it.
0-1 to the Villa.
Here we go ! What villa will turn up today ?
There’s only one villa that can turn up its the shit one
Gardner and Westwood both very very lucky to still be on the pitch!
Shut up and go away Stubbs. You are an embarrassing asshole!
Didn’t even no Westwood was playing Gardner needs to come of at ht or will be sent off
Damn that looked bad for Fletcher and Elphick
Di Matteo has definitely picked a midfield that is non existent along with a forward line that is static and a defense that panic every time the opposition attack.
League 1 here we come.
Di Matteo out.
Agree Stubbs. Better in the middle of defence with Elphnick but clueless going forward. Going to be too many draws as RDM is as defensive as they come. He will play not to lose rather than win
We’re playing really well 2nd half.
We’ll score soon.
Get Grealish and Green on for Bacuna and Westwood.
We should go for this now, we have them wobbling.
Have to say Elphnick is top class proper leader motm just what we need
Agree oohah. Looks like we have another Shaun Teale on our hands.
Credit Di Matteo for signing him.
Good move, McCormack doesn’t look near fit enough yet, plus grabbed his thigh after attempting that shot 1 on 1.
Typical villa another defensive error in last 10 mins nothing’s changed
Release the groundhogs
Same old same old.
We are shit with or without Elphick.
Di Matteo out!
There are signs of encouragement. You can’t legislate for a hashed clearance. We were on top and looking likely to nick it. Bring in some new signings and we will be in the top 3.
You can legislate we shouldn’t be making defensive cock ups in last ten mins. We’ve learned nothing. Like I said midtable at best unless 3-4 decent signings come in
Why dosnt anyone listen to us Stubbs. We are not negative just realistic. Elphnick is definitely an improvement and best CH at vp for a long time. But rest of the team devoid of ideas. Ayew gets into good positions but can’t deliver. Westwood is conference league, Gollini looks like Guzan with his error, bacuna not bad, Hutton decent going fwd but not good enough defensively. Every one else average at best
hutton is decent going forward,bacuna not bad get a brain scan man,they are hopeless not good enough for sunday league
we need 7/8players that he promising now
Here’s one reason people don’t list to you and Stubbs Oohah:
Stubbs 5.59
Get Grealish and Green on for Bacuna and Westwood.
We should go for this now, we have them wobbling.
Stubbs 6.20
Same old same old.
We are shit with or without Elphick.
Di Matteo out!
We need to improve that’s for sure. Amavi will be a big upgrade on Cissokho. Get a better full back than Hutton and get McCormack match fit, plus one or two others and things will start to look brighter.
Poor kick from Gollini which is a shame as he is clearly a lot more comfortable with the ball at his feet than Guzan.
Green is the man to deliver crosses for Gestede from the right, and Amavi from the left. Ayew needs to learn there are other players on the pitch in his team and pass to them a bit more.
Overall I’m not too disheartened because Wednesday are one of the better teams in the division. After the first half we matched them. I’m sure we will get better
Ps RDM out
Gutted to lose like that.
Some promising signs, but overall the squad needs some time to sort itself out. A win against Luton might boost morale, but there are real questions about how we set up the left and who plays up front.
Well done lads. Foundations are starting to be laid. There was a desire to get something today from all the players. Rome wasn’t built in a day. You win some, you lose some. The mentality was right. Just need to add to the quality of the squad. It’s a long season and we have to stick with the team. Very unfortunate from the keeper that looks a big improvement on last year. I feel that when this team starts to click we will be hard to beat. This ain’t premier league. Even Bacuna looked good today !
But we still lost…again! Result is all that matters
Can you turn to page 2? Tell us what it says in the “Manager’s book of Excuses” for a second defeat.. Then we will be ready for the next game.
Some new faces deffo needed it’s still early days with the rebuilding gutted for the loss Rotherham the next challenge time to look Forward.
What a load of crap! (Talking about Oohaah and Stubbs comments now).
First half Wednesday were better but Villa denied them a shot on goal. Second half we were the better team and lost!
I think it was down to bad luck and bad refereeing. Bad luck as a poor clearance from Gollini could have gone anywhere but it pinballed off a couple of players straight to their best attacker. Ref should have sent Hutchinson off not once but twice!
Wednesday is a hard place to come to and we did okay. Hope we do better against Rotherham and Huddersfield though.
UTV
Huddersfield won’t be easy trust me. Bottom line is the only improvement I saw today was in central defence because of Elphnick. The rest of the team are average at best
Sorry but i just cannot see any positive signs, we ultimately have the same team as last year which was by far and away one of the worst teams i’ve seen at VP for a long time.
Why are Bacuna, Hutton, Cissokho and Westwood still in the side?
Elphick looks great but one defender will not stop the rot and the rot is still there, we haven’t strengthened at all like we should have done.
RDM is out of his depth and to play Gestede with no wingers to provide him any service means we may as well play with 10 men.
Nothing has changed and we are still the utterly shit team we were last season, at least with Newcastle you know they will find their feet and start to win games, we will just keep going backwards.
Spot on guest RDM is not a good manager I’m afraid. And like you the only improvement today was Elphnick in central defence. But we are still 4-5 regular decent players short if we are genuinely going for promotion. That team is mid table to bottom half imo.
Oohah
Your view that RDM is not a good manager is some way off the mark. One competitive match gone and he is damned😭.
He changed the team approach at half time and brought in subs. I think these two points drmonstrated competence.
Regarding the picking of players none of us overtly rate, there are still more transfers / loans to occur. Once these players have come in and had time to gel, then judgements can start to be made. I reckon November for all new players to work effectively together.
It was nice to see Dr Xia at the match!
He still picked Westwood that’s his fault. Gardner was woeful how he started was beyond me IV yet to see him play well even for ten mins. Starting 3 strikers was never going to work and no width for Gestede what’s the point in playing him! RDM is not the right manager for this division imo
Full backs combine again! Cishithouse doesn’t and can’t have the ball anywhere and mutton not paying attention to what’s around him! Add in losers Bacuna Donkey Gestede and Westwood and you have the recipe for constantly losing!
Kind of what I expected tbh, a tough game where a draw would have been credible but as per usual Villa shoot themselves in the foot. No surpise though, confidence is still fragile among the squad and its nigh on impossible to go from losing week in, week out in the PL to winning 20 + matches in the championship. Therefore, the fans need to expect at best it’ll be mid table this season with probably more downs than ups. I’d be astonished if we even threaten the play offs but we are signing the right type of characters in Elphick and Mccormack. Keep the faith, it will take more than one season to get out this league unfortunately
Replying to Villain 1 and Guest. I agree that it cannot be turned around in an instant, but anybody who has been watching Villa for the past two years can see it. THEREFORE a manager being paid a lot and an owner who can listen to advice have no excuses for playing Bacuna Westwood Hutton and Cissokho and expecting them to have cured all their failings over the close season. They aren’t good enough, and never will be. I watched Stephan Moore playing in the Conference on Saturday, he looked average. Just because a player has pulled on a shirt in the Prem does not make him good enough for that division, and some like Moore and Westwood, need to drop several levels to look competent.
There is a library in the Manager’s room of videos of all Villa games, and I suspect Manager’s assistants compile a video dossier on each player from those. Gestede scores from crosses from the right when he can see the goal and the ball coming at the same time. He rarely does anything with a cross from the left unless he can take a touch before hitting it.
Didn’t Gestede score past blues last year with an amarvi cross from the left. Great header as well
Yes, but that was peculiar in that Gestede had to run to meet the ball, travelling directly opposite to the path the ball was taking. That is a very unusual way to meet a cross.
Ah but u see when a decent cross comes in he can make something out of it by improvisation. Amarvi unfortunately is the only player in our team that can cross a ball. Once he got injured last year our goal supply dried up. Btw is Traore still injured
The performance wasn’t that bad we could have scored with a bit more cutting edge personally I think grealish should have come on earlier and you can’t play ayew, gestede and McCormack. Would rather grealish or green instead of ayew imo. A silly mistake cost us again which kind of suggests we haven’t eclipsed last season from our memory. Hutton, Bacuna, Westwood and Cissokho in my opinion are what cost us. They are absolutely dross.
Not keen on Ayew either gets into decent positions but can’t deliver
Just got home and caught up on the game. No shock we’ve scored nothing with Westwood playing, did he manage a forward pass at all? Then I see he’s gone with 3 strikers…..GESTEDE!!!! Then I see Gardner and Cissokho playing too!!!! Then I see the keeper hashed a clearance, 2 mistakes in 2 games…..and you lot thought Guzan was bad, trust me, this guy will be dropped by Xmas and never seen again. Can’t comment on the game in the whole but I’m not surprised we lost judging by the lineup and tactics. Boooooooooo (waits for dislikes from blinkered Villans)
I misses Bacuna off the list of useless idiots in the starting lineup
bit harsh on keeper looked ok for most of match, bugging me why short kick out ends up back with keeper defence out of place he has to kick it long why not kick long to start with
For a team that hasn’t had time to gel, we looked ok second half, we need lots more movement and i think that will come with a bit of confidence and a couple of further additions… 2 red cards were missed too.
Rome wasn’t built in a day !
Time to gel, most of them had last season. Is that not long enough? And the few new players should just walk into the side, as Elphick has done from what I hear
Has to be Ayew and McCormack up front. Gestede is a waste of time, doesnt even win that many headers and cant do much else. Plus Ayew is not a left winger! Either Grealish or Green should have started today on the left.
If we can get a decent RB, then with Baker, Elphick and Amavi, we will have a very good back 4. Keeper looked good too until that mis-kick!!
Would also like to see another central mid before the end of August.
All in all though, some positive signs and unlucky to lose…against one of the top teams in the division.
If Gestede plays we have have width and quality crosses to him. Only one player in our whole team that can put in a decent cross and that’s our left bk Amavi! That says it all
After the long walk home from the pub having time to reflect on the match.. I don’t think we deserved to lose the match nore did we deserve to win it
A draw would of been fair but again we let a cheap goal in and lost!!! Am absolutely gutted about the game but I hope RDM will see now what we’ve always seen, in that the likes of Westwood Hutton cisoscko are just not good enough and they never will be. We got the rest of the month to bring in players and I hope now he will see we desperately need to and get them over the line sooner rather than later!!! I was a bit shocked at the line up to day but hey what do I know…
And still the simple basic of if you can’t win a game then don’t lose it alludes all our players. Could easily have got a point today but they shit themselves in the foot yet again. That point could be the difference between finishing 6th or 7th in the league
Very true oohah
👍
Our weakness is down the right with Hutton and Bacuna. Hutton just doesn’t seem to have an awareness of who he should be marking or how he should be positioning himself. We will be continually exploited down the right had side. I thought Cissokho had a decent game and looked pretty solid. Probably doesn’t offer as much going forward as Amavi, who would have linked up better with Ayew. The new signings looked fairly promising. I was a little disappointed with McCormack, but think he will improve once he settles in. Elphick looks like he will make a good captain. I thought the keeper had a decent game until his clanger and looked much more composed than Guzan, even at 21. Gardner was very disappointing. Baker did ok and is much better than Clark, in my opinion (thank you very much, Newcastle!) Ayew looked our best player to me. Grealish and the new midfielder should start the next match. Hutton and Gestede need to be dropped. I’d even play Richards at RB over Hutton. Push Ayew up top instead of Gestede and put Jack out wide.
Agree Richards is a good right bk but will he try as he only wants to play centre half and he is crap there
Amavi’s coming off the back of a bad injury, but I expect to see him feature soon. I’d replace Westwood, Hutton, Bacuna and Gestede with new faces. The rest I think you could work with.
I’d get rid of Ayew too his final ball is a joke
same old shite year in year out,mid table at best.Sorry to be negative but im totally fed up with this.