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2023-24 Premier League Thread

The American media talk seems to focus almost entirely on Watkins and Emery ... when they talk about Villa. Which, honestly, has been a fair amount IMO. Then maybe they get around to the midfield and Martinez. But injuries? Nope. Other than when they happen, it doesn't seem to come up much. I mean, they're on their THIRD left side CB at this point.
 
I'm convinced this is because most media people aren't bothering to watch Villa play, but we've done so well that they're forced to talk about us so the easy points are Watkins, because he's been one of the most productive strikers since Emery took over and Emery, cause well, Villa took one of the biggest leap in manager qualities ever. It still feels like every match is the first time a broadcaster has seen a high defensive line. I truly question how many people in soccer punditry and broadcast actually like the sport, cause they don't seem like they watch much of it or enjoy what they're seeing or have anything insightful to say.

It's kind of funny that American sports fans are the more sophisticated audience, cause you compare it to American broadcasts where you have people really breaking down the action. I don't know, I'm sure there are people they can find who actually enjoy the sport and current product and don't just want to talk about how things were in their day and why people should play like they used to.
 
English coverage of the Prem is VERY distorted by all sorts of things that don't compute to American fans ... at least the bits of it that I run into. I don't listen to TalkSport anymore, but when I did a lot of times it was parallel universe stuff. I remember Leicester's title run and all they could talk about was "Tinkerman this" and Vardy's rude mouth that" ... while the actual team was dicing up the league.
 
I don’t find much “sports coverage” is tailored to our level of fandom very often, Athletic comes the closest but unless you’re going to podcasts about your own team the coverage is always going to be pretty surface level to reach as broad a audience as possible. (ESNP stuff is so hilariously bad).

I like a small handful of athletic footy pods, a half dozen Tottenham focused ones (The Extra Inch is pretty fantastic for tactics, scouting profiles during transfer windows etc)…..and I enjoy some Simon Jordan and Jim White, cause I generally find Simon entertaining and pretty damn insightful on the business side of things, and Jim White is a pro’s pro. (I’m also a huge boxing fan, so the combo of footy + boxing coverage they have is right up my alley.)
 
VinatieriDefinesClutch said:
Konsa is out 3-4 weeks according to the team, so thankfully not worse case scenario, but still a huge blow. Villa fans in general feel like the team is mostly ignored by the media at large, but it's always hilarious when they talk about the injury issues of teams we're playing and we've probably missed twice the amount of time to injury as them. Full list of Villa players who have missed large chunks due to injuries: Konsa, Mings, Tielemans, Buendia, Digne, Pau Torres, Moreno, Jacob Ramsey, Jhon Duran. Duran aside, those are all key players.
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I’d say Tottenham losing Van De Ven, Maddison, Bentancur, Romero, Lo Celso, Bissouma, etc for significant stretches and then having Son, Bissouma & Sarr gone for long stretches parallels Villa’s losses…

..the big difference being we had the benefit of some very expensive quality depth….having a front three of Son, Richarlison, Brennen Johnson, and Kulusevski, so being short one was capably covered, and then when Maddison went down GLC came in and played great, then when he went down you still have Kulusevski to slide into midfield and cover for Gio….and then we splash on Werner’s loan further adding to our high priced depth…

So we got to paper over many of our injury loses with either recent big money transfer acquisitions (Richarlison, Kulu, Gio, Werner, Dragusin….heck even a £20m Emerson Royal being around to come in and play some CB)…..

All of which is to say, I’m plenty impressed with our ability to overcome the injuries we have, and so much credit also goes Ange’s way for having guys ready to step in and give a good shift (not to mention turning previous managers dead weight GLC/Skipp/Royal/Davies into very valuable contributors when called upon)….but Villa has overcome similar injury issues without (imo) that same kind of high priced depth to cover for it….but Emery has still kept things churning none the less. It’s been damn impressive.


Especially since we play a style of football that should be exposed so much more easily when your world class talent is out.
 
Obviously this is my favorite season we've ever had. I'm just feeling the depression of the realization that we've almost certainly hit the tipping point where we are most likely not finishing in the top four.
 
VinatieriDefinesClutch said:
Obviously this is my favorite season we've ever had. I'm just feeling the depression of the realization that we've almost certainly hit the tipping point where we are most likely not finishing in the top four.
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Sure, but Villa have been here before ... it's just been so long that it's easy to forget the Martin O'Neil days. Back when they had a sharp manager, a good roster and an entertaining style of play. Lots of water under the bridge since the Villa were relevant but not so much that it seems impossible. I'm just happy to see them step back into the conversation. Hopefully Villa are building something with good foundations that will last a while and I'd rather see that than a Leicester-style wonder season that turns back into nothing fairly quickly. That kind of well supported success tends to take some time.
 
The bones of a really good team are obviously there and it was great to see Ramsay looking more like himself even if his finishing was a little off. I am worried/depressed about the rumblings that we might sell him in the summer for ffp reasons. It sucks that its harder to create bonds with players who came up through your youth ranks because ffp makes it significantly more beneficial to sell academy products than to keep them.
 
Yeah, but once the league starts enforcing FFP evenly across the board, you're going to see a lot of homegrown guys sold off across the league ... simply because you get 100% return on the credit. It's not like it'll just be Villa doing that math.
 
Haha, and now Diego Carlos is also injured. That leaves our healthy CBs as Lenglet and Chambers. We are now on our Fifth and never ever choice for CBs. All I can do is laugh at this point. I'm already prepared to deal with pundits having the conversation of "what's happening to Villa" and most of them just going, well they've been found out and zero mention of our top six defensive players being injured.
 
I wonder how close Hause is to returning. He's been training with the first team for awhile now ... supposedly.
 
Roy Hodgson has stepped down as manager at Crystal Palace. He fell ill during training last week and was taken to the hospital. He’s been released but decided to resign. He’s being replaced by Oliver Glasner, who most recently managed Eintracht Frankfurt. He guided them to the 2022 Europa League championship, but resigned at the end of the 2022-23 season. He’s also managed at SV Ried and LASK in Austria and Wolfsburg in Germany.
 
Old Roy has been looking rough on the sidelines for months now. He almost fell a couple of times getting out of his chair when Villa played them and that was back in Sept or October.
 
Everton’s points dedcution was reduced from 10 to 6 following appeal. That moves them from 17th to 15th in the table. But they, along with Nottingham Forest still face charges related to the most recent financial filings and could face additional points deductions.
 
andyt said:
Everton’s points dedcution was reduced from 10 to 6 following appeal. That moves them from 17th to 15th in the table. But they, along with Nottingham Forest still face charges related to the most recent financial filings and could face additional points deductions.
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Given how long the appeal took, those two clubs better hope that the current charges don't result in a final judgement until after the season is completed. If they take a hit before then, it'll take until post-relegation before they get any reductions ... and by then it will be too late. Given how much calendar the authorities are willing to allow Man City to burn, you'd think they'd be OK with slow walking that one.
 
Villa's crap injury luck continues. Looks like Pao Torres will miss at least the next fixture with another ankle injury. Oh, and Matty Cash will be out for card accumulation, so they'll be facing Man United with a VERY limited pool of available defenders. At least Chambers got some game time on Saturday. He hadn't played a live match since the summer.
 
Crowds have been brilliant today for this game, both home and away…..too perfect that Maddison happened to score first.
 
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