Match Day Thread A “Big Club” - Aston Villains vs Ralph’s Marauders (aka PL Saints) Sat March 5, 15.00

Here we go ….. RTM Dave (or should that be “Evad”?) with Match Day Thread number 6 ….. the number being that of our holder of midfield and scorer of rather special (albeit rarer than the teeth of feathered things) goals, Oriol Romeu.

So, after we made a bit of a hard job to dispatch a woeful Norwich, we get to play a team of pussy kickers in the FA cup. But that’s the job of Laces to do a wondrous job of the cup match thread. Here’s to the continuation of his thread work. I’m afraid I can’t quite match the magnificence of Laces’ threads, so this will have to do …….

This one is to concentrate on Saturday March 5 15.00 – where we travel up to Brum to play yet another “Big Club” (as they like to be known ) - a founder member of the Football and Premier Leagues.
A club founded in 1897 (and, quite possibly still playing football like it was played back then, though they have improved slightly with recent input from a few key players).
A winner of the European cup in 81/82 and a club, amazingly, ranked 5th in the list of all time English clubs. Not bad for a team currently languishing in 12th place in the table. Of course, we have nothing against them, except some player who’d scored a few goals for saints, defected there at the end of last season, saying he was going “because he was looking forward to European football and was convinced that Villa would get him there”
I don’t quite recall his name (generally when players leave Saints, I write them out of my memory. Except Yoshida, of course ) Was it something like Daniel Minge? Anyway, it rather looks like he might have done better staying, but it was his choice. Still £25 million or so (I don’t recall the exact figure) was a reasonable price and has been invested well, so “little” Saints are now 5 points and 3 places above his team, where he seems to spend a lot of time either in the treatment room or on the bench. He’s scored 4 times this season ….. that’s only one more than our twin goal machines Kyle Walker-Peters and Jan Bednarek have got ….. oh well. I imagine he’s happy counting his pennies and living in the wonderful Black Country.

On to the area of Aston, where the Villains are based …. Of course, the most interesting thing about this area of Birmingham is that HP sauce used to be produced there. It’s now (of course) made in the Netherlands (I blame St Jabbo). There used to be a brewery there as well. Ansells. Decent beer from memory (my parents hail from Smethwick – though my dad was a West Brom supporter, but we won’t go into that).

Key celebrities from Aston? Well, of course, there can only be that special foursome ….. Ozzie, Tony, Geezer and Bill. The pioneers of heavy metal. Much more interesting than a fading football club …… I have to wonder if the club and its supporters aren’t a little Paranoid, though these days they’re probably Masters of Reality, with an attitude of Never Say Die. Of course, with these fans there’s a feeling that Mob Rules, however, with Stevie Gerrard coming in for the woeful Dean Smith (we’ve seen how good he’s being at Norwich), they hope the club is “Born Again”.

Still, I don’t see the current crop of players biting the heads off bats in their efforts to win. That sort of attitude is left to our Oriol, I reckon.

Talking of Oriol - this is for him ….. our very own “Iron Man”

We all remember “the Villa” – 2019/2020 …… they spent the whole season down at the bottom and only dodgy goal line technology at a Sheffield United game allowed them to scrape into 17th place and avoid relegation. Outrageously. They would/should have been in the championship and they definitely would have lost key players, including Grealish ….. who went anyway for a ridiculous amount of money, much of which has been reinvested, I guess, in players like Diane, Chambers, Coutinho (loan) and Robin Olsen (loan), but these were only in January and have, slightly, improved their results.
Amazingly, Villa have 20 players out on loan, but they do have the wonderfully named “Marvellous Nakamba” playing for them, so all is not lost I’m sure.

Let’s see another Ralph masterclass and a result so we can upset Stevie …..

Officials (Thanks, Tom)
Referee : Peter Bankes
Assistants : Ian Hussain, Wade Smith
Fourth Official : Tim Robinson
VAR : Paul Tierney
Assistant VAR : Lee Betts

OK - over to you chaps

 

I take no responsibility whatsoever for the relocation of HP sauce manufacturing. It was a fiendish plot by those who were seeking to discredit the then prime minister Tony Blair. Anyone who says anything else is talking bollocks.

 

Really looking forward to this one. Ticking off Villa Park is long overdue for me and it's also my first YELLOWS match of the season. Its what I consider a relatively local away too. Buzzing .

Hopefully we can have a good laugh at Ings but also give him a bit of love. Is he fit?

Having said all that we can lose fourteen nil for all I care if we do the business on Wednesday.

Might even try and get out of driving so I can have a drink

 

Just checked as I was certian Aston Villa played in the inaugural football league season which make a founding date of 1897 incorrect. I have just checked and this date was when they mived to Villa Park. They were founded in 1874. I have a book somewhere about the first league season wgich was quite fascinating but I have to admit that I was, for a while, obsessed with Victorian football. It is difficult not to look back at this era with nostalgia and the notion of "gentlemen footballers" although, from recollection, Villa fielded one of the most notoriously dirty footballers in the history of the game. I cannot recall his name but he was involved in organised crime around the turn of the century including serious assualt if i am correct. His record on the pitch was as bad as off it. I have subseqently wondered if he was Peaky Blinder . (I loved Grace's radio in last night's episode as it was able to predict how jazz would sound about 15 years after the events were taking place. Also as good as "The talented Mr Ripley" which was set in the mid 1950s but included a character who had been able to obtain a copy of Miles Davis' "Tutu" although this album was not released until about 1986.)

 

I did wonder about that 1897 date as I thought they had won the majority of their trophies in the 19th century but couldn't be bothered to check.

 

See you there maybe. . Last I went there was a massive beer tent set up for the away fans (the home fans go inside the pub) so I'll be heading there.

 

We absolutely thrashed them at home and we we are playing even better now. Can’t see why we won’t do it again.

 

Had a feeling I might get some of my facts wrong …. Blame Wikipedia or my inability to understand same ….

 

Not a problem, Dave

I have been annoyed that I cannot find the name of the Aston Villa player. I had thought it might have been Alec Leake but he turned out to have been involved in the Billy Meredith fixing scandal when the latter apparently offered him a bribe to fix a match in 1905. I thought I had read about him in a book but it might have been on line.

I did not appreciate that Villa Park was in fact the fan's nickname for the ground and was originally called Aston Lower Grounds. I believe the Villa name came from a property adjacent to the orignal ground.

 

There was a TV series on the founding of the football league and establishment of the fa... It was great, really focused on the characters involved, not just the football, and you sort of rooted for the privaledged armatures in the end.. worth checking out the English game..

 

Oh look, we have Bednarek, Salisu, Elyounoussi, Adams and Forster having had a whole week off, Stu, Broja and Tino having just played 45, and Romeu having a few minutes to drink some fresh blood. Everyone else gets some minutes in their legs.

JWP doesn’t do resting, so he’ll be fine.

It’s almost as though Ralph knows what he’s doing.

 

It would be very Saints to play our best 11 in this and lose now, having just made 9 changes and unexpectedly won tonight.

 

No it wouldn’t. Unless you have been watching a very different Saints to everyone else

 

Danny Ings is going on European tour

 

He's booked a weekend in Magaluf with Easyjet

 

It was a tongue in cheek comment! We support Saints, they definitely are not always this consistently good and they historically love to throw in a poor performance and result in a game we 'should win' following an unexpected win elsewhere! Was more a reference to those times.

This 2022 vintage of Saints is a different beast granted...game management, mental fortitude and both playing good football and winning!? Unlikely that we'll remain as consistently good for the remainder of the season as we have the past few months, but certainly enjoying the ride at the moment and believe in Ralph and this team to pull us through any tricky moments we may have.

 

Was reminded yesterday by a long time Saints fan of this little nugget versus Aston Villa. Always worth another watch. I remember the guy behind us went out for a pee and missed it all

 

I wonder how many changes there will be? Perhaps the full 9 due to limited rest time? Or maybe some keep their places? If I wanted to limit the changes I would keep KWP, Perraud, Smallbone and maybe Armstrong and Stephens

Perhaps go for :

Forster
KWP, Stephens, Salisu, Perraud
JWP, Romeu
Armstrong, Smallbone,
Armstrong, Broja/Che

But I’d expect to see the side from the Norwich game if they are all fit except maybe Perraud for one of the other full backs. So I’d expect 8 or 9 changes

We’ve got a lot of games I’d rather not 9 changes again for Newcastle regardless of how well the changed side did last night. So I like the idea of staggering the “first team” back in. But what do I know

 

I’d take 6-1 again on Saturday …..