Aston Villa vs Brighton - pre match tea & biscuits - Sun, May 28 4.30pm

[Axl Rose]

I like the stoney beach at Brighton, it's sand that's stupid.

I fucking hate sand. And it's cousin, glitter.

[RamboandBruno]

Brighton have been 'feast or famine' recently, either taking a battering or dishing one out in 6 of their last 7 games. Their away form in particular is very binary. We need to get right at them early on and dominate.

3-0

This, Watkins, Ramsey, McGinn

[coreyfeldman]

Good result for us tonight imo. I'd have been more worried if Brighton had lost tonight

[SoccerHQ]

We match up against them a lot better than we do when we play West Ham or Brenford for whatever reason.

Only lost once v them since coming back up and Gerrard rolled them over comfortably home and away which takes some doing.

They'll come and have a go so up to us to do what we've been doing very well in last three months and matching their intensity and waiting for front players and Ramsey and McGinn to exploit the space they leave behind.

I'm pretty confident on this one. It feels very un Villa like to think we'll seize a chance of winning to make europe but if you can't have that air of assurance after the fantastic run since late Feb then the next few years are going to be very strange indeed.

[Skerra]

Think we need to be very careful with our playing out from the back as tonight Brighton put a lot of pressure on City’s defence and goalkeeper when they were passing around at the back.
They are are reasonable side so hope we are at our best on Sunday.

[astonvilla82]

Think we need to be very careful with our playing out from the back as tonight Brighton put a lot of pressure on City’s defence and goalkeeper when they were passing around at the back.
They are are reasonable side so hope we are at our best on Sunday.

Should be a good test for us

[Brightoninpeace]

I think it's more the other way around. I can see your boys flying out of the traps and if Brighton aren't careful we could see the same result as the Everton game. I'll be honest, I can't see any other result than a win for Villa on Sunday. I've been a Brighton fan far too long to have any hope of us giving the opposition a decent game on the final day of the season. Remember the Villa-Brighton final game a few years back in the Championship?

I never like seeing Brighton lose but I won't be too upset if it happens. Can't speak for the entire Brighton fanbase but the general consensus amongst my mates is that we'd love to see Villa finish above Spurs and take that last European spot. Not just because Spurs fans all seem to be whiny, entitled & arrogant, not just because it would be good for English football but it would also be payback for when VAR and the ref blatantly rigged the result when we played them at WHL.         

I genuinely think there's a shift happening in English football. The Big 6 as we know it will soon cease to exist. City will still be the dominant force but their main rivals will be Newcastle. As for the other 5 they've all lost their aura, they're all beatable, no-one's scared of them anymore and the gap in quality between them and the rest of the PL is shrinking fast. I'm under no illusions about Brighton, we're punching well above our weight and we've probably hit our ceiling but it's a different story with a club of Villa's stature and potential. There's no reason at all why you can't consolidate and build on this year's success and genuinely challenge the likes of Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal and Spurs for a top 4 finish next season. 

Best of luck.

[eamonn]

Cheers pal, a decent post with a lot of respect. I think a lot of us are in awe of your scouting network and how well your players are coached.

[Brightoninpeace]

Cheers mate. I don't know how much longer we'll be able to have an advantage over other clubs with how we scout players because there's a much better understanding of how it works. Chelsea made the mistake in thinking it was our head of scouting. Newcastle thought it was our Director of Football. Spurs and Liverpool have the right answer - it's from data analysis - and both clubs have said they want to move towards that. Not sure how successful they will be though because they're not the sort of clubs to nurture and develop raw talents or give them much game time. They like to pay top dollar for the finished article.

A downside to using this model is that it does have a negative impact on homegrown youngsters coming through our academy. Sussex has never been a hotbed of footballing talent so it's not a massive problem at Brighton but could be for clubs like Villa, Palace, Boro, Sunderland, Leeds.   

[Sexual Ealing]

Sussex has never been a hotbed of footballing talent

I have a young man called Gareth Barry here with me. He. Is. Distraught.

What do you want me to tell him? What?

[Brightoninpeace]

Gareth Barry is v.much the exception that proves the rule! Off the top of my head, the only other footballer from Sussex who played regularly for England was Peter Bonetti. Technically, there's also Gareth Southgate but he loves Palace, hates Brighton so he doesn't count.

The only current first team player from Sussex who came through our academy is Lewis Dunk and right now our brightest academy prospects are from London & Ireland. There's not an awful lot that can be done to fix this. There's nowhere in Sussex that has the same demographic or culture as places like Croydon, inner city Brum or Sunderland.

[Drummond]

Sussex has never been a hotbed of footballing talent

I have a young man called Gareth Barry here with me. He. Is. Distraught.

What do you want me to tell him? What?

Tell him to speak to Michael Standing.

[Ian.]

Sussex has never been a hotbed of footballing talent

I have a young man called Gareth Barry here with me. He. Is. Distraught.

What do you want me to tell him? What?

Why didn’t he take the Penalty?

[sid1964]

If either Everton or Leicester score early on Sunday then maybe Leeds players will just accept their fate and give up.

I think we will draw 1-1

[mallo]

They're a really good side, but we must want this more than them - I think we'll nick it now.