TWar

Excellent article. Very much enjoyed reading

Allioski for Leeds last season was 10 as a left back.

JWP should be back for the weekend. Wonder if Armstrong is fit too. If so change team to: Forster KWP Bednarek Salisu Perraud Romeu JWP Armstrong Tella Che Armstrong Suddenly that's a pretty nice team. Would like to see us maybe upgrade on Bednarek by swapping out Vest for a new signing but I'm hopeful!

Sell vest, go nuts and replace him with a quality CB for £25m. Back up fullback and we are done. Wouldn't complain about shifting Ely/Redmond and bringing in a new AM but thats a bit greedy.

Surprise he hasn't been announced yet.

That's interesting, thanks! Does he mention if he is more of a box to box midfielder or a pure DM?

I really rate Diop, wonder if they'd accept a swap of some kind with Vest plus a bit of cash.

Easy thing to do, I got all excited when I saw it too haha

Tbf that is an edit that wasn't there when MLG posted as you can see from his quote

Yeah I'd be surprised if we don't get an LB in and we will definitely replace Vest if he goes, if atleast with a depth option and start Bed/Sali. I think with regards to Smallbone, I think our real 3rd/4th choice CM is Stuart Armstrong given we have so much depth in attacking mid. He probably just drops back and we see one of Walcott, Redmond, or Djenepo take his place.

The photoshop around the fingers could do with some work

Something like that, I imagine Vest will be off and replaced by someone else, with any luck they'll bench Bednarek. Also hopefully a back up LB comes in with a back up CM so Smallbone and Djenepo can be taken off those roles.

Yeah that's the thing with corporate sponsored pride stuff, they will do whatever makes money and generates good will as that is their priority but with the minimum possible effort. If we show support for the things they do that are positive they are more likely to do more and bigger positive things in the future. If we cry about virtue signalling then they will see this sort of thing as negative and won't do it anymore. That's kind of the point of the "virtue signalling" argument, it's basically saying "I can't think of a problem with what you are doing so instead I'm just going to say you are doing it for the wrong reasons as if that matters". And since it seems we have a bunch of people in our fanbase doing this I think it's good to positively support the club doing things like this as much as possible to encourage meaningful change.

I'd like those things too, but it's really not a "one or the other" situation. I think this will help a little bit, and the thing you suggest would help a lot, but I don't think there is a finite budget of things the club can do and this doesn't seem to have any negatives, aside from a very ugly shirt.

The people who "have a problem" with this pretty positive and universally harmless gesture. See the comment I was replying to for context...

They don't like LGBT people to feel welcome, due to bigotry, and have a bunch of stupid buzzwords and whataboutism to justify it.

In the championship last season he scored 5 and missed 3. Not exactly fantastic stats imo. JWP scored 7 and missed 3 in the prem in his career, last season scoring 3 and missing 1. I think JWP based on that will probably remain our pen taker for now.

It's a cultural issue and therefore cultural actions like symbolic support are more valuable. You aren't going to cure cancer or end poverty with a shirt but you might make a gay kid feel a little more welcome supporting the sport they love, so its an action that might actually make a difference in that regard.

Great message, ugly shirt. I think it's good to show support for LGBT people in an arena where they don't traditionally feel welcome. Also virtue signally is an incredibly stupid term and it's a real shame it's gathered so much traction. If something is a good message and it's getting out there who cares about the motives. Also to all the "I just want to watch football" crowd. It is a shirt being worn during the warm up, just ignore it, it is an unbelievably petty thing to complain about distracting from the football.

Oh fair enough, I'm over in Tile Hill but I play football twice a week in Solihull. They all seem pretty negative about Grealish being off but no one seems to really believe they will get JWP, they were amazed they got Ings.

Yeah exactly. I think Villa's bellends are feeling especially riled up and noisy as Grealish leaving has reminded them they are not a massive club, which I think overhype from last season was making them think. Now they are pissy and need to deflect.

Thanks for the info, really appreciate it. How is his interplay? Passing, hold up play, running the channels, making space, that sort of thing? We play with a front two so how he interacts and plays around our second forward is pretty important in our system. Again, thanks for coming over!

I actually am based just outside Birmingham at the moment and most of the people are lovely. I have a lot of Villa fans on my football team and they are a very pleasant and humble bunch. The internet just seems to bring out the worst in people.

There are dozens of them. One of them said that he'd get a Birmingham City tattoo on his fist if Smith-Rowe didn't sign by the end of the week (about a month ago) he was that convinced. When it doesn't happen they just say "guess we didn't want him, or he would have joined" and move on to insisting another guy is on the verge of joining. Villa twitter are a bunch of utterly desperate nutters. I mean, all twitter is, but they are the worst I've ever seen.