Don’t know about anyone else, but that close season went by in a flash. And here we are with Newcastle to kick things off, along with their newly acquired player, one Jacob Ramsey.
I don’t know that I have much new to say about the toon. Always a tough game, but at least it’s at home. Doesn’t mean we’ll get a result, but it never hurt anything.
Obviously, the big news is Ramsey leaving and I know many will be disappointed, especially at the ‘buy-to-sell’ optics and bidding farewell to an academy product. Me, I’m not terribly fussed because while he’s had his moments, he just hasn’t gotten over the hump for one reason or another. Injuries have played a huge part in that, naturally. He may go on to greater heights in fresh surroundings, and I won’t wish him anything but the best. Except when he plays us.
Of maybe equal interest are the reports of interest in Bailey, particularly ‘talks with Roma.’ Me, I find that a bit surprising, but I’m no sporting director. What I am is someone who has watched virtually every minute he’s played and apart from a very solid number of goal contributions season before last, he’s just never really been up to snuff, and I can’t think of a player who’s made me angry as much as he. Seems a great guy, and I think he’s well liked, but his decision-making is often baffling, his game overall very one-dimensional. I saw more from Jimoh-Aloba in terms of quality on the ball this summer, to be honest. As with Ramsey, if Bailey does go, will wish him nothing but the best.
What these developments mean for the rest of the window is anyone’s guess. Buendia has earned a recall, we still seem to maybe be after a Marco Asensio return. Can’t say I’m convinced about bringing Marco back despite his undoubted quality. Mainly it’s about the wages. But if nothing else, he and Buendia now give us rotation at a pretty key creative position.
Sounds like we’d still like another striker in, but I’m not sure what’s really available at the price-range we’d be shopping in. Me, I’d like a true challenger at RB and/or someone to push Konsa and give us more balance playing out. At the same time, I can see going for a winger/wide midfielder to help fill the gap that two going out the door would create.
There’s talk around Trossard, who is a tricky customer, but I wouldn’t mind hijacking Spurs’ seemingly imminent move for Eze.
I’m also curious what the future holds for George Hemmings. Young, yes. But I saw pace, composure, and grit. I’m not sure he’d get the minutes management might think he needs, but I wouldn’t mind seeing him kept around the first team.
Anyway, we’d all like to get off to a flying start and nobody has ever not enjoyed turning over the barcodes. The important thing now is to try and at least break even on points with the teams above and around us. Coming out with 4 or 6 against a couple of them…that gets you somewhere provided you aren’t dropping a lot of silly points. Liverpool, Arsenal, and Chelsea are all going to be tough, and I expect them to open up a fair gap to fourth. The real trick is how we box with Newcastle, Spurs, United, and maybe Forest again. Who knows, it could be the season Palace get it together, but if Eze leaves that would be a setback.
So, stow your tray tables and fasten your seatbelts. Another marathon season beckons.
Over to you.
Bugger!. You have nailed it. Can’t add anything sensible. Could ask if we could try for Disasi as Konsa backup.
Had seen this, jbd, sorry. I think with Disasi, no question he’s a big, competitive player. I think it’s probably pace that finds him surplus at Chelsea and not alluring to Villa. Backup? Sure, but the money’s needed elsewhere, I’m guessing. I think Bogarde has gotten the nod.
Var ,2 matches in same crap,blatant handball by Bournemouth defender
Making tracks for VP shortly. Expecting a tough game. How will Bizot get on? What team selection will Unai go for? Can we stop Elanga? Will we take 3 points? So many questions. Answers will soon be revealed.
Interesting to go with Tyrone ahead of Pau and to choose all three of Kamara, Onana and Ginny. Total lockdown? Newcastle front three full of pace. Both benches look thinner than you’d expect. Come on lads! UTV
Good grief. At sixes and sevens all over the pitch apart from Bizot. It’d be 3-0 if Olsen was still there. Newcastle look apprehensive but we look asleep.
Either we start making the passes stick or Unai has to make some subs, with some ball carriers coming onto the pitch. So far any of our few forward moves end up with a Newcastle free kick or a turnover.
Missed the first 17 mins, saw the chances, but I wasn’t terribly upset. The out ball was missing, but otherwise not the worst.
Funny thing is that Villa had taken the momentum to start the second, and I thought we had a good chance to go on and win from there. But, one terrible cross, a pulldown and we did well enough to get the point.
Well the performance improved just enough to stop any changes before the red card permanently stopped a real change to win the match.
In retrospect I think we paid Newcastle too much respect with our team selection. It’s fine being solid but you have to include attacking in the gameplan. We were set up to spoil the game and hope for a magic moment from Ollie or Morgan (neither looked particularly sharp).
Take the point having gone down to 10 but that goes down as a false start. I can see us being fired up and peppering Brentford next weekend, to make amends for today.
I do wonder if it played out as expected. Seems like Toon wanted to go all out, force the issue, get the early goal. Almost worked out.
Villa weather the storm, start to take control.
Lineup makes sense if that’s what Emery foresaw. Don’t get sucked into a wide open game, be a bit cagey.
Yes that’s a fair point. We’ve been whomped by the Toon a few times, so there’s no harm in denying them their A game. And as you say, before the red card we were on top and looking like we were going to have a good go at them.
I just wonder if with one tweak, we could’ve had both defensive solidity and some attacking impetus with an extra ball carrier. I guess it didn’t help to have Morgan – prime ball carrier – undercooked due to his ankle injury…
Excellent debut from Bizot. He was Martinez without the ego and frills. Also seems to have the arms of an orangutan!
Rogers was right off – nothing worked out for him at all.
For once, the ten man rule worked for Villa. The first 70 minutes with 11 players was sloppy and uninspiring. Then Konsa was caught flat footed and even worse, was caught out for speed and positioning. Pulling back the newcastle player was all he could do. Maybe he saved us a point! Then we played our best most disciplined football for the last 20 minutes. The defence was cast ironed and newcastle were never a danger.
Would it be outrageous to suggest that our defence looked better without Konsa. He seems to be slowing in mind and body and still suspect to dawdling on the ball and almost losing it. This is not the same RCB who bossed the England defence a few months ago. WTF is wrong?
Bizot was good. Konsa, it’s a mystery to us all, I think.
But yeah, we did look solid with 10…I half-expected us to nick a late winner, especially on that run where Rogers ended up tripping himself.
Thought it was very interesting that Unai only brought on Malen. Thought for sure he’d put Bogarde in. But he seemed to want to keep the attacking threat alive. Says something about how he was seeing the game.
PS – glad Pau wasn’t playing today.
I was watching on my phone, couldn’t tell who put in that cross to no one that set up the counter and got Konsa in trouble. I thought it was Cash (positioning mainly), commentators seemed to think it was SJM.
Can’t help thinking that Gordon (?) was a dickhead for going down. He didn’t really lose his balance and had a better chance of scoring by going one on one with Bizot than from the free kick they were awarded. Yes it was a red card but karma got the snivelling weasel for diving.
I think this was a point gained. Liked the starting line up as it seemed built to be solid. Turned out rather cautious, as Henry says above, did we pay them too much respect? Then again, the Wai Ayes have extreme pace up front and our defence does not contain that level of pace. Howe definitely drills his teams in the dark arts of getting players into trouble. Every one of their players go down theatrically at the slightest touch and Pawson fell for it hook line and sinker. He refereed our game against Roma and was hardly noticed. But today he showed severe favouritism to the away team.
Bizot had a great debut. I must say I also thought Cash had an excellent game. He’s copped plenty of pelters from various quarters but was sound today. And I agree with 656, Rogers had a stinker. Konsa will be missing at Brentford so a chance for Bogey to step up. Tielemans was average, SJM, Onana, Kamara did OK.
The fact Unai only made one substitution and that was late on, was quite telling. He wanted to keep things tight and take the point. Might have been different had Konsa not seen red. We’re picking up too many reds of late. Lack of pace at the back?
In the circumstances, I’ll take the point. It’s only the first game but if we produce many more performances like that first half display, our fortress VP will be compromised.
Yeah, like I was thinking beforehand, if you break even with your main rivals, that’s not the worst thing, points-wise. A win is always better, but with a sending off at 0-0 and 25 to play…you take it and move on.
Whimsical thought just oozed out of my brain. Are we the first team to bookend each end of the summer close season with a red card for denying a goal scoring opportunity?
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Didn’t see much of game,the stats were bad enough, negative line up especially at home emery doesn’t seem to trust malen,konsa brain freeze it’s not like it was last minute, cash as usual one mistakes define his career at villa,onto positive bizot looks really good,,holding on for a point when down a man,7 clean sheets in last dozen league games equal to previous 50
Roll on Brentford kamara can replace konsa ,and hopefully malen in from start
Looks like Bailey is off to roma,hopefully doesn’t bite us in Europe league, dendonker looks to be finally off the books,with moreno dobbin and junior rumoured to off on loan our squad is fairly threadbare
Best of luck JJ. Sad to lose one of our own, but understand the reasons.
Politely disagree, he had 6 months to agree a née contract,he has been injury hit out of form for last 2 years di he not back himself to get in and stay in emery’s plans
Have our accounts been released for last year,our wages transfer amortisation etc,surely our revenue has risen massively, 746 consequently, European runs sponsorship, or did heck just put tickets prices up
Accounts for Jul 1 2024 – Jun 30 2025 won’t be released by Villa until around March 2026 by which date they must be submitted to Companies House. But Heck did give an interview to some media outlet where he stated he expected revenue for the year to come in around £370 million. He gave that interview before our 2nd leg result against Bruges in the UCL was known. Villa (and all teams) have to submit them to the EPL by Dec 31 2025 in case a breach of PSR has occurred and the EPL then has time to dish out punishment. Villa must also submit them to UEFA early but I’m not sure by which date. The first pointers for 24/25 come from Swiss Re who do a comprehensive report on the finances of all European clubs but this is in Euros. Around Dec time.
Our problems with UEFA relate to 23/24 accounts when in the Conference League. We lost £85.4 million that year, we lost £119.6 million the year before and the year before that we made a small profit (Grealish sale). The small profit has now dropped off the 3 year rolling period so 24/25 accounts need to make a small profit again to offset this and comply. I’m sure it will. The fear now is revenue for the current year 25/26 will come in below 24/25 amounts due to Europa games instead of UCL games. Hence the push to lower the wages in 25/26 to 70% of the anticipated revenue, whatever that might be.
Clear as mud eh?
Thanks plug
Crazy Barcelona only finished paying Messi off and they can compete,chelsea had transfer ban imposed they can do what they want,forest are just after points deduction and have spent over or going to 100m on players
Not one reporter,podcasts etc got anything right about villas business all summer,tanswell(from athletic, orstein )did interview with dan bardell1874 on the morning guisand news broke and stated it would be 7 to 10 days before villa signed any players,
With carlos not being replaced, rashford asenio duran Bailey ramsay all gone we are massively light with our youth still being miles away from 1st team,monchi will have to e busy
Having had a day to let it breathe, I have to say my thoughts remain virtually the same as directly after: the lineup was too defensive and was missing a ball carrier, 1st half was collectively sloppy, it improved in the 2nd half then we got a red card, and we coped brilliantly against a side with lots of pace. Shout out for Bizot, that was a promising debut.
No need to panic, I’m still very confident about the quality of the squad, and a point vs Newcastle certainly isn’t a bad result. If Bailey does go, then we’ll need to bring in another wide player to cover off Bailey and JJ, but I’d imagine finances dictate that we sign an “up and coming” type, not a Guessand-style established senior.
Given that we beat City and arsenal several times with Youri at 10, I don’t think that’s the last we’ve seen of that game plan, I’d just like to see more ball carriers on the pitch at the same time. If Malen or Maatsen had started inplace of McGinn or Digne, you maybe would’ve had a better balance… you maybe also would’ve been 2-0 down by HT, but I think it’s better to throw some punches
And on Konsa, does anyone think that he actually has a problem with sprinting? I was shocked at how slow he was chasing back Gordon. Then looking at all of his running and it looks restrained. Like Harry Kane doesn’t actually sprint anymore, he kind of steps intensely😅 I remember Konsa being very quick over the ground and making lots of tackles chasing back, but lately he seems very restricted in his running
Konsa may be managing a hamstring issue or he may be a little slower than he used to be. We don’t know. Howe likes his attack built on express pace. Gordon is extremely quick. So is Elanga. But the EPL is full of these types of players. My view is we do need a CB with extreme pace. In the absence of one, we rely on neutering the supply lines to such flyers which is defensive in nature. Those tactics worked against Bayern and we did manage to blank the Wai Ayes with a man down. But yes, throwing caution to the wind like we did against PSG got arses off seats and produced an exhilarating display. Meanwhile, Konsa can take a one game break.
“Konsa, who’s been suffering from the strange malaise that often affects Villa players once they get into the England team (also known as Agbonlahor Syndrome) was undone by a quick break and there was no complaint about the straight red. ”
Now I get it! Excellent quote from: https://thebirminghampress.com/2025/08/villa-versus-newcastle-versus-the-world/
Bailey has left the building, 1 wonderful season ,2 I jury hit ,some flashes of magic especially emery early part and then new contract and a woeful season
With dendonker also close to leaving, and suitors for moreno dobbin and tiling junior must be some room for a few new signings
I’m guessing that Ascencio’s wages are all we can afford and that other needs will go unaddressed.
So far we’ve spent £30m on Guessand, £1m on Bizot and £5m for Ozcan. We’ve sold Ramsey for £40m and will get a £2m loan fee for Bailey. £42m – £36m = £6m. I can’t for the life of me see how we can afford a transfer fee for Asensio without permanently selling another senior, because if we want to register new players for the Europa we need a positive transfer balance.
It’s quite interesting (or lousy) reading BBC and SkySports as you see the cottage industry in full flow. They’re building up to the crescendo of transfer deadline day, like supermarkets before Halloween… “Opening day proves Villa need to spend” goes one headline. And it’s the same for nearly every other club.
To my mind, the squad we had at the end of last season was good enough to keep in touch with the title chasers until the end of April. We’ve lost Rashford, Asensio and now Ramsey and Bailey. The way I see it, we’ve replaced Rashford with Guessand and Asensio with Buendia. Bailey’s meager contribution can be covered by Illing Jnr etc. That leaves Ramsey needing to be replaced, but I’m not sure we’ve got the funds for it, given our UEFA straight-jacket.
But the point is that there’s no need for us to overreact to a slow 45minutes by spending £50mil more just to stand still, I think the squad is in decent shape. We could use an upgrade at RB and I’d definitely prefer a direct replacement for JJ, but the squad as it is is well capable of chasing 4th place.
I agree Henry. The fly in the ointment is injuries. If we suffer significant selection issues because of it, we might struggle in a similar fashion to last season. However, the Europa League is a stress level below UCL which will help. But we will still need to navigate 8 European matches before the Jan window opens whilst keeping in touch with the EPL pack. Our record in the games following European matches last season was dreadful.
Yeah injuries certainly are the known unknown, we kind of need to hope for more luck than the previous 2 seasons. Re: Europe, I see us not needing Rogers, Watkins etc. until the knockouts in March. If we play our cards right, the A-team can mostly play once a week. And that makes me think the Thursday-Sunday will be more like 2 seasons ago, when we absolutely nailed it. I do think we are 1 forward light but this time we have a stronger squad. Maybe they will use January for a stardust loan, like last year, but without getting a fine from UEFA
Nothing in this link that we didn’t already know but the big money greed has been noted in the States. Plateauing revenue growth, increased American ownerships, multi team ownerships and games in the States. The greed monster cannot be satisfied, it’s only a matter of time before certain games shift to America.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/19/american-money-pours-into-european-soccer-as-club-valuations-soar.html
Yeah, the US money…it’s not like they don’t know sports ownership, but it’s not a good thing at this scale, just like the Saudis and others aren’t any better for the game.
Also, belated thoughts on Newcastle and the window are now up.