Hurray, the qualifying break is over and we’re back to proper footy.
I’ll say straight away that I’m fairly confident for this one, but not overly so.
There isn’t much squad news on either side, Jota is getting over his Hernia and Chester is training for more fitness.
As for Brighton, only Bernardo and Jose Izquierdo are out.
Both sides come off the back of good wins in their last games, with Brighton surprising a few by deservedly beating Spurs 3-0, where they’ll be just as confident as us.
We look very threatening though and Dean smith has practically claimed the credit for getting Grealish more involved, although I think the simple reality is that we’ve not let Grealish go as deep, defending as he had done in our first few games.
My complaining that he should be viewed more as a number 10 and definitely not as a number 8 wasn’t rocket science on my part and I wasn’t alone in thinking it, by any means.
Sorry, but if Grealish playing close behind the main striker isn’t the favoured option, it was well known that him coming inside from the left was the next best thing.
Put it this way; I don’t think it was a tactical revelation by Smith in the slightest. It was just obvious if you want to create maximum attacking threat.
Which suited us perfectly with the way Norwich played so openly.
I do wonder if Smith will stick with Grealish in the same position, as Brighton will be more canny, but suspect he might.
Otherwise, I don’t think Smith will change much.
I’ve seen predictions of us winning 2 or even 3 nil , but while I again see goals, I think if we do win, it’ll only be by the odd goal.
I’ll go for 2-1 to us.
And then there’s the latest twist to the Tony Xia story, where he’s apparently got a £30,000 reward on his head.
It’s all a bit vague at the moment, but it seems to me that Xia set up some kind of bond in China, where people were asked to invest money, with the promise of interest, backed up by Villa getting promoted last season.
Obviously that didn’t happen and Xia hasn’t been able to keep up the payments.
This might explain why Keith Wyness called Xia a “fraud” via Twitter almost immediately after we lost in the final last season and then backed it up today by saying “Karma is a Bitch”.
The former could easily be prosecuted for defamation, I’d have thought.
I’m in speculation land here, but suspect Xia told Wyness of his plan and if the bond or whatever wasn’t 100% straight, Wyness would have had to advise that it was illegal. Xia, desperate for money then had to sack Wyness if he wanted to go through with it.
Which then left Wyness in a perfectly good position, where if he was still in his job, it would have been his duty to declare us as trading fraudulently and basically bankrupt, at best.
There’s more of this story yet to come and I find myself fascinated.
But expect Wyness to get a fat payout.
Another full house, I believe.
Three points and things will really be looking up.
Some tough games coming up though.
The popcorn’s out for the Xia story, but it’s going to be a really long film.
Dr Xia. All very likely. As far back as his purchase of the club, I checked what I could about his businesses. That is not easy in China where crooks can easily hide their companies real worth behind a mass of BS. Nevertheless I could not see that any of his companies made a lot of money, and netted together they seemed to be making a loss.
So, his funds would seem to be a money laundering scheme, whereby people in China lacking the permits to export cash could buy some entitlement from Zia. It worked if he could make a profit on his investment and sell the club, because the profits would be external to China and he could pay his bondholders in exported money, but not 100% of the value internally.
I speculate here – it would not have surprised Chinese investors to be told that the result of the play-off v Fulham was fixed. Villa would win and they could not lose if they bought Xia’s bond.
Yep, that sounds plausible too.
It certainly sounds like Xia sold some sort of guarantee, to me.
I still can’t get away from that £400,000,000 outsized cheque that was supposed to have been deposited in a UK bank.
I assume that was total rubbish too, but I’m sure it was confirmed by someone at the time and it was what convinced me that he was pukka when he arrived.
So much for due diligence on everyone’s part, including Lerner.
Doubt whether Lerner did much due diligence past satisfying himself he’d get his money. Lerner had lost interest in the club and wasn’t much bothered about its future.
Fair play to OLL he called spot on when Dr T first appeared on the scene.
If all the positivity on here is to be realised then we need to beat Brighton today but a draw wouldn’t overly surprise.
Hurray, the qualifying break is over and we’re back to proper footy. always to the point and very true in this sentence badger
i really hate these pointless friendlies and this was a pointless qualifying game, which was a against a awful team.who would struggle against a school team under 8’s lol i really don’t understand why ppl watch these games, pay really good money and get ripped off. all the top nations will qualify, that cause uefa what all these top countries there in the end of season comps. do away with the formalities. get all the micky mouse counties to qualify for the right to play england and the other elites in the comps.
rant over i just hope this break doesn’t kill our momentum we started last fortnight ago. i watched the demolition of norwich, it could have been more convincing score had we taken more of the easier chances the elghazi header from 2 yards and the pen. norwich fans and blue noses were saying yeah norwich had injuries but they had the same numbers out when they beat city.
today Brighton will be tough, i watched them a few times and they play decent stuff, very progressive football, they had a great result last as did we. so iam looking forwards to this. i so want a victory but would take a point now, can not afford to lose these games to fellow bottom 12 teams. i think both these teams will be more than safe this year. both made slowish starts,both thou are growing fast.
2 2 draw
Nath, 2-2 won’t be a great result. I’m going for 3-1 Villa. We have to tighten up at the back. We can’t keep conceding two goals in games.
VILLA (4-3-3): Heaton; Guilbert, Engels, Mings, Targett; Nakamba; McGinn, Hourihane; El Ghazi, Wesley, Grealish.
Subs: Steer, Konsa, Taylor, Douglas Luiz, Trezeguet, Lansbury, Davis.
Shit, Brighton 1-0.
Free kick and a free back post header.
Mooy off for going straight through Grealish from behind.
Let’s see if we can make a better fist of it against 10 men this time. This is proving to be a tricky game so we could do with getting the rub of the green.
Hourihane!
F*** VAR
Disallowed 🙁
Was that for a handball or an elbow?
Yes! Grealish on the stroke of HT 1-1
first half was very eventful with brighton having the better chances, they found loads of good spaces, on the break and just in front of the back four, inside left and right spaces.that malpay found dropping deep from a forward starting position.
but after their guy got sent off we capitalised with the extra man. scored a great goal and again bulshit var akinson disallowed it. scored again grealish sliding in from a great move on the right and cross.
hope the second half is eventful and we get the goals to make it less stressful. they havent given up they still got two up front. so we have to watch them on the break
Hourihane 41% successful pass rate? Hmm
Hourihane coming off for Trezeguet.
Brighton getting far too many chances for my liking.
How the hell are they getting so much space when Conolly’s gone off?
Something not right.
Our defence looks panicky again.
Duffy on for Montoya, who was close to a second yellow.
Potter must be the happier manager atm.
Not watching the game but it seems yet again we don’t know how to play against 10 men.
Seems like it.
Luiz on for El Ghazi, Davis on for Wesley.
Run ’em to death lads.
Maupay off, missed who’s on, but they’re after a point and we MUST get all three here.
Sorry, but how can you look clueless when you’re a man up?