Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Match Threads & Player Ratings => Topic started by: Smirker on December 31, 2025, 12:16:05 PM
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8)
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Ffs Smirker, no poll?
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Ffs Smirker, no poll?
Give me time!
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Never doubted you.
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Start Maatsen in this one, watched them against Man City at the weekend and their right back is a fucking donkey. They do seem to have quite a few decent players though, overall, and I think they're in something of a false position. This will be tough, IMO.
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An important game, we need to get back on track ahead of Palace. Could be tougher than we think, 2-2.
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This is a must win. Victory against these and the Arsenal game will be a mere blip on an otherwise upwards trajectory. The more clear space we have ahead of the chasing pack, the better.
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They just lost at home to Everton who had about 12 fit players and had to bring on a sick Grealish last night to finish the game. Bit unfortunate v Man City but they have been a mess since Nuno fell out with them. Ideal home game for us after last night. They have plenty of good players, mind. Any word on how far off Torres or Mings are? Tielemans has had two appalling games in a row in midfield so should be sitting out this one. Not sure what's going on with the Buendia/Rogers selections in the last few games.
Martinez, Cash, Konsa, TBC, Maatsen, Kamara, Bogarde, McGinn, Rogers, Buendia, Watkins.
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How's our beautiful Dougie Louise doing for them?
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In spite of their position this won’t be easy. They’ve got a number of really good players. Hopefully we’ll respond positively to last night’s defeat.
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They will give us a game, but we are better than them with a manager far more tactically astute.
3-0 (Watkins 2, Rogers).
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3-2 Villa
Saturday cant get here quickly enough
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It'll be a tough one but I think we'll have too much for them. Any news on whether Onana will be available?
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With Watkins back in the goals this is a chance to hammer someone.
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Feel sorry for forest.
Backlash incoming.
5-0 Villa.
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We will bounce back and win. Players will return, our focus will be on moving forward. Forest are shit and if we play our game we will smash them. I am sure our players are highly motivated to start a new run of victories and a game at Villa Park only a few days on is a perfect way to do it. 3-0 Ollie, McGinn and Malen.
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This is a must win. Victory against these and the Arsenal game will be a mere blip on an otherwise upwards trajectory. The more clear space we have ahead of the chasing pack, the better.
Agreed, tough game coming up.
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1-1 Sheffield United type game
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It's nice to have a game a few days after we all watched Woolwich win the league. The players and Manager will want to shake it off and being at home is ideal, against opposition that we should be able to overcome.
Having the suspended players back will help and with a trip to Hellhurst around the corner, prevailing in this game is far more important than it was last night. But, as often happens in football we will see a surprise and that will be the concession of an early goal and the brow of the crowd collectively furrowing. But not for long.
3-1
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Forest are poo and we should be winning this comfortably.
1-1
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How's our beautiful Dougie Louise doing for them?
Looked him up on Wikipedia the other day - think he’d played half a dozen games for them this season, so I’d assume he’s not been that great.
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Not exactly a Dyche type player. He's been caught up in the mess there, signed by Edu and not wanted by likes of Nuno and Dyche. Can't get or stay fit, suspect his conditioning isn't what it should be.
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1-1 Sheffield United type game
It does have that feel to it, and I'd say that even if we had won last night.
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4-0.
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3-1
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2-1. Ollie to score at least one.
Don't know which thread I should use but Happy New Year Everyone & Best Wishes for 2026. X
Hopefully 30 years of hurt (play-off trophy apart) will end for us!
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Cashy with a screamer
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I wonder if he'd celebrate if he did.
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2-1. Ollie to score at least one.
Don't know which thread I should use but Happy New Year Everyone & Best Wishes for 2026. X
Hopefully 30 years of hurt (play-off trophy apart) will end for us!
No Christmas or New Year's threads this year, we've all become rude cvnts since challenging for the title.
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How's our beautiful Dougie Louise doing for them?
I've seen him play quite a bit for them in recent games. He's not been all that good.
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Chance to go 2nd Saturday lunchtime before any of our rivals play. 3 1 to us, feeling optimistic.
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I wonder if he'd celebrate if he did.
Probably mimic a short putt.
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2:1 Villa, with an XG 0.9...and back in the hunt..
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Win. Could be ugly.
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Win. Could be ugly.
Sean Dyche and Evangelos Marinakis will be in attendance, it's bound to be.
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They showed a close-up of Ian Woan on the sidelines on MOTD the other night and he too looked a far cry from the dashing, healthy-haired bounder of 1993. Funny how it all falls away.
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Dyche will love seeing what's happening to Martinez from corners so I'll give them a goal. 3-1.
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I think we’re due a comfortable win.
3-0 to us.
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Looks like Wood, Ndoye, Anna and that cheating swine Yates may be out for this one.
Think they will also miss Elanga's pace.
Surprisingly, they have conceded the most goals from corners apparently. Although without Onana and Mings, difficult to see us scoring from one.
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Looks like Wood, Ndoye, Anna and that cheating swine Yates may be out for this one.
Think they will also miss Elanga's pace.
Surprisingly, they have conceded the most goals from corners apparently. Although without Onana and Mings, difficult to see us scoring from one.
We should send Martinez up for them, there's always a goal when he's in the box.
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Is Elanga at the Afcon ?
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Is Elanga at the Afcon ?
Close, Newcastle.
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Absences are becoming a real problem, but at least Cash and Kamara being back is very welcome.
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Need Kamara to up his performances. Starting tomorrow. Starting to rack up the level of players with muscle injuries. Mings, not sure he was fully warmed up at Liverpool. The rest like Barkley, interrupted pre season, Torres, unsure, and Onana, standard unfortunately. Cash, Kamara, Maatsen is three fresh starters and McGinn only played a half.
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Need Kamara to up his performances. Starting tomorrow. Starting to rack up the level of players with muscle injuries. Mings, not sure he was fully warmed up at Liverpool. The rest like Barkley, interrupted pre season, Torres, unsure, and Onana, standard unfortunately. Cash, Kamara, Maatsen is three fresh starters and McGinn only played a half.
Apart from Man Utd, I think Kamara has been really good in virtually every game.
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Yeah, it's a bit unreasonable to ask Kamara to up his performances from his current "one of the best midfielders in the league" level.
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Need Kamara to up his performances. Starting tomorrow. Starting to rack up the level of players with muscle injuries. Mings, not sure he was fully warmed up at Liverpool. The rest like Barkley, interrupted pre season, Torres, unsure, and Onana, standard unfortunately. Cash, Kamara, Maatsen is three fresh starters and McGinn only played a half.
Apart from Man Utd, I think Kamara has been really good in virtually every game.
Completely outplayed at Chelsea anyway and not hectic at West Ham either.
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Have you ever considered that you might be a bit negative?
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Yeah, it's a bit unreasonable to ask Kamara to up his performances from his current "one of the best midfielders in the league" level.
Recent performances havent been great hence the need to up it a bit.
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He has been slightly more susceptible to making errors (one important turnover vs ManU springs to mind, for example), but I think that reflects the fact that he’s playing with more depth and so at times, in riskier parts of the pitch (by way of illustration, the one vs one against Chelsea).
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I agree his level of performance recently have dropped a notch. He’s still very good at that level mind. I expect him to be right on it tomorrow.
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Maybe the breather against Arsenal might do him the world of good
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We’ve definitely had worse Christmas results.
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Have you ever considered that you might be a bit negative?
I for one am glad bronte’s finally stopped being so much of a happy clapper tbh.
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Yeah, it's a bit unreasonable to ask Kamara to up his performances from his current "one of the best midfielders in the league" level.
Recent performances havent been great hence the need to up it a bit.
Wow!
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Martinez
Cash Konsa Lindy Maatsen
Booby Bogey
Youri
SJM. Rogers
Ollie
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I'm going to this game, first time in donkeys. Coming from the North West so hoping all those rail replacement buses from Lancaster work out.
Surely even with no Onana or Pau we should keep them at arm's length. What's Unai's record vs Dycheball teams?
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3-0 Villa, the backlash begins here, we start our brand new run of wins, get comfortable in the game and throw on our new Brazilian signing, early days yes, but we won't really know ( forget about these so called South American experts straight out of London town) what he's about and how he handles the Premiership until he gets out their and struts his stuff, of course he may not be ready and it may need Unai to bring him on slowly on the other hand he may eat it up and be made for it, football is a strange beast, you just don't know, throw him in the deep end see if he swims or paddles.
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3-1. No Chris Wood for them this time. Ollie to continue his scoring run.....
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I think Kamara has been conscious of being on four bookings for a little while. Until that kind Mr Attwell put him out of his misery.
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I think they will park the bus and try to do us on the break. Forest will sit as deep as possible. I'd possibly consider giving Sancho another go so we have a bit of pace down one side.
Martinez
Cash. Konsa Lindelof. Maatsen
Kamara Tielemans
Sancho. Rogers. SJM
Watkins
Bench of Bizot, Garcia, Digne, Bogarde, Buendia, Malan, Hemmings, and 2 others.
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Elanga's Swedish.
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I think they will park the bus and try to do us on the break. Forest will sit as deep as possible. I'd possibly consider giving Sancho another go so we have a bit of pace down one side.
Martinez
Cash. Konsa Lindelof. Maatsen
Kamara Tielemans
Sancho. Rogers. SJM
Watkins
Bench of Bizot, Garcia, Digne, Bogarde, Buendia, Malan, Hemmings, and 2 others.
Does Sancho have pace? Not much sign of it so far.
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Haven’t you seen him get out of the way of those 50-50s? Fast as a badger.
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Hoping it’s not snowed off !
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I'm breaking my record for clothes layers at today's game if it goes ahead.
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Why wouldn’t it go ahead?
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Just got to VP. Paths and roads all fine , no snow
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Yeah, it's a bit unreasonable to ask Kamara to up his performances from his current "one of the best midfielders in the league" level.
Recent performances havent been great hence the need to up it a bit.
Everyone was outplayed in the first half at Chelsea. Along with Onana and Watkins he was pretty instrumental in our dominant last 30 minutes.
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Got to be right at it today. They’re fragile, but they have a lot of good players. We can’t give them a sniff.
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Just watching BBC news this morning and in the sports section, they reported that Arsenal will go 7 points clear in the title race if they beat Bournemouth today…..hmmm, think they may have forgotten an early k/o
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Just got to VP. Paths and roads all fine , no snow
Thanks Aldridgeboy. Good to know.
Are you avoiding the traffic?
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I feel worryingly confident for this one.
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We will need to be better at defending corners. They have some big old units and we don’t have Onana.
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It would be nice to bounce back from the other night with a handsome victory, but this looks to have 'conserving energy' written all over it. 1-0, I reckon.
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Hopefully today at corners we will use a goalkeeper instead of a wrestler.
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It's going to be football versus Dycheball with their two absolute units at the back battering their way through the game. I fancy a win but I don't think it will be a big margin and I'm expecting a very though dour game. 1-0 to the good guys.
Edit: Hopefully I'm still suffering a hangover from NYE celebrations and being negative and we'll see a spectacular 4-0 victory to the good guys!!!
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Their Brazilian striker Igor Jesus is someone I recognised at the start of the season as a possible Watkins-type player in that he's tenacious, holds the ball up well and presses very effectively (and, for Smirker, he doesn't even score many goals!!).
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Just got to VP. Paths and roads all fine , no snow
Most paths I’ve walked on along Trinity Road and over to Perry Barr still have a covering of snow
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Just got to VP. Paths and roads all fine , no snow
Good luck staying warm for 3 hours
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Bit gutted. My mate who often sends me his ticket has been trying to forward it to me but the tech has let us down and the ticket’s not showing in my app. I’ve deleted, re-installed, logged out, logged in. Nothing.
I’ve been in his seat v Arsenal & Man City this season so if we don’t win today blame the bastard app.
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On way. 5 layers.
No issues with buses from town
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Team pretty much as expected then. Bench looks ‘stretched’.
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Fully expecting Gibbs-White to turn into Zidane today