Pundit and Media Watch on Aston Villa 24/25

[Hookeysmith]

Make that 61%

They are cnuts - every single one of them

[Drummond]

Make that 61%

They are cnuts - every single one of them

Actually I know a few who are decent people, support the team because they came from there (or their family did) and are regular people, just like every club has good and bad.

[Hookeysmith]

Irrespective of where they are from I have never had a football discussion with anyone of them that could be called honest and fair. And I worked in Manchester for years...not one.
The template is twats like Goldstien.
Football is cyclical with most of them stuck in the past and they just cannot handle that they are bang average now.

If you have met a few that you think are decent then that is the exception not the rule

[Tokyo Sexwhale]

I used to think some Villa fans were a bit paranoid about Villa not being given any respect in the media, but I listened to a few of the big podcasts after Villa's wins over West Ham and Leicester and we barely got a mention at all.

The Totally Football Show (The Athletic's offering) only mentioned the scorer and the Villa scorers for the Leicester game, and The Guardian's Football Weekly gave us a couple of minutes; whereas every other game featuring a Sky 6 team got in-depth coverage.

No doubt it was different for the Arsenal game, but that's because we were playing a Sky 6 club.

In attempt to dismiss the paranoia; I had a listen to a few more popular football podcasts - The Rest Is Football (Lineker, Shearer and Richards) - no mention; The Football Ramble  - no mention; and The BBC's Monday Night Club - no mention.

I did ffwd through a lot of Man U/Liverpool/Arsenal chat which was the bulk of them; so it's possible I missed a brief mention, but I don't think I did. 

[john e]

The one that should be top of the list and sought after by all tv/radio is Lucy Ward. She’s excellent - brilliant, in-depth knowledge, and properly interesting insight.

Stephen Warnock is the best football analyst pundit on TV for me

[PaulWinch again]

I’m not sure it’s really a conspiracy. The podcasts/shows are ultimately trying to engage their audience, and at the moment the majority of those listeners will probably be interested in the historical “big 6” - be they specific fans of those clubs or casual listeners. From this weekends games -

Manure vs Liverpool - always going to get focus as it’s a big rivalry, plus Manure being clobbered would be of interest to fans generally.


Arsenal vs Brighton - Arsenal dropped points and there was a contentious sending off, people would want to hear about that.


West Ham vs Citeh - Haaland’s ridiculous start to the season is a talking point.


Newcastle vs Spurs - interesting narrative of Spurs continuing to lose games they shouldn’t.


Chelsea vs Palace - there’s probably a general level of interest in the circus at Chelsea and when they drop points I know I enjoy hearing it discussed.


Villa’s coverage was light, and it’s annoying, but from the outside I imagine our result was pretty expected and there weren’t really any major talking points. The quality of our goals was touched on in the Guardian podcast, but I can see why it wasn’t a huge focus if you
don’t support Villa. On the Football Ramble there’s been several mentions of Rogers emergence of late.

[Dave]

And you missed Everton - Brighton which the couple I listened to both led with.

Rest assured, had we chucked away a two goal lead and lost 3-2 in the last ten minutes we'd have featured heavily. We just weren't a story.

[PaulWinch again]

Yep sorry of course Everton vs Bournemouth was always going to get plenty of attention due to the circumstances.

[Toronto Villa]

Along with limited content what I find most annoying is just the general lack of knowledge about us. The vast majority of them all know the bare minimum. But ask them to talk Chelsea, or obviously Man U after a defeat to Liverpool they will dedicate entire shows to it. I actually found myself feeling a tiny bit bad for Slot and Liverpool. They came, battered their opponent and left, and nobody really talked about how this bloke from the Dutch league without spending much has his side, one of the highest profile jobs, taking over from a massive character like Klopp, playing as well if not better football than the final months of his predecessor.

[Sexual Ealing]

I'm sure Slot and Liverpool will cope.

[rob_bridge]

Us not being a story a week Saturday will suit us just fine.  A routine 2.0 win will suffice. Everton managing a draw or a win would be a story, after their start.

[SaddVillan]

Does the media have an "agenda" with us?

Given the general lack of interest and coverage you'd be inclined to think so.

The London/NW centric journos seem to me to be very lazy and rarely give any coverage to clubs outside the Greedy6.

They "fell in love" with Toon quickly enough when their Mancrush fave Eddie Howe took over and The Mags qualified for the Chumps League. But last season’s trials and tribulations added to PSR constraints saw the journos turn their backs on them soon enough when they came bottom in the Group stage and slipped back in the Prem. I can't remember a single in depth article trying to explain why Toon struggled.

And now it seems we've been cast in the same mould. A "nouveau" club, trying to gatecrash the established order who in their eyes will hit the same problems and (most likely) fail.

So I'm sure the journos won't waste any time and effort writing about us.

What if we did get to a Euro semi last season despite a limited squad with several key players missing for all/half of the season?

What if we've got a manager with winning European experience and the fourth best win rate in the Prem since he arrived (behind City Arsenal and Liverpool)?

What if we've had a pretty good transfer window and have started the season reasonably well, going toe to toe at home to one of our favourite teams and winning both games away from home.

All very well, but if they're not Arse/Spuds/ManUre/'The Mighty Reds YNWA'/CarClownFC or Citeh we can ignore them.

A footnote about out games in Europe will suffice, after all Chelsea, ManU and Spurs in the Europa and Conference League will be much easier to write about.

Absent a couple of articles in the Guardian on Rogers and Emi M, can't think of anything about us in recent weeks.


Strange how paranoia can link up with reality now and again.

[paul_e]

The London/NW centric journos seem to me to be very lazy and rarely give any coverage to clubs outside the Greedy6.

Fundamentally I agree with what SE said about catering to demand rather than any conspiracy but I think the first part of this can't be understated. Birmingham in general is massively under-represented in media and a large part of it is simply that the bases for our media are mostly in London and Manchester so they report stuff that they can do without much travelling which fuels the problem and we end up being the wasteland that exists between them.

[Sexual Ealing]

There is no amount of coverage that will ever be enough for some people. There's loads of Villa media out there, I consume a lot of it myself (you can watch or listen to a new Villa podcast every day if you want to). But people then want the general media to notice us and then get upset when generalist commentators don't know as much about Villa as we do.

It's insane. What do these people want to hear Gary Neville say? That we're the best club in the universe? He can't, because we're not. That Unai Emery has done a brilliant job? Well, he does say that. How do they expect that they'll feel when someone gives us 'credit'? Whatever it is, they'll never get it because they're mental when it comes to our media coverage.

[nick harper]

The London/NW centric journos seem to me to be very lazy and rarely give any coverage to clubs outside the Greedy6.

Fundamentally I agree with what SE said about catering to demand rather than any conspiracy but I think the first part of this can't be understated. Birmingham in general is massively under-represented in media and a large part of it is simply that the bases for our media are mostly in London and Manchester so they report stuff that they can do without much travelling which fuels the problem and we end up being the wasteland that exists between them.

We need to win something to move the dial, and then win something else. Most pundits think we will be sliding back down from whence we came at the moment.