Aston Villa v West Ham - Pre-Match Thread

[LeeB]

Weirdly, with the strength of the Premier League, it's probably harder to win the FA cup than it is to win the CL (once you're in it).  So, I don't think the FA cup is our best chance of silverware anymore and so I'm more in the 'rest some players' camp than the 'go strong as possible' one. 

Do we know why has the club allowed West Ham to have so many tickets?  Because they didn't think we'd sell out?   

You have to in the FA Cup don't you, if the visiting club request it? I think it's about 15%.

[Rigadon]

Ah right - another thing I didn't know, but now do! 

[Behind Bluenose Lines]

 West Ham manager sacked. Replacement lined up apparently.

New manager bounce: that's us out in the third round yet again!  :'(

[HolteL4]

Bollocks to all this resting of players malarkey..... The FA Cup is our best chance of silverware (*and long overdue). 5 day break before Everton away should be plenty of recovery time.

What an absolute shitshow Friday is going to be if it's a skeleton crew. Less home fans than any other game, lots of season ticket holders not taking up their seats due to inflated prices/christmas/extortionate CL tickets, you couldn't write how much of a fuck up this Heck guy is for our club.

WIN THIS BLOODY CUP. PLEASE VILLA!!

Surely it after selecting this as our 151st Anniversary (sorry 150th) celebration game we have to play our full strength team,  you can't do that and not take the game seriously as that will be confirmation that we only decided on the celebrations just to trick people into buying tickets and it'll also look a bit stupid.

[Villan82]

Bollocks to all this resting of players malarkey..... The FA Cup is our best chance of silverware (*and long overdue). 5 day break before Everton away should be plenty of recovery time.

What an absolute shitshow Friday is going to be if it's a skeleton crew. Less home fans than any other game, lots of season ticket holders not taking up their seats due to inflated prices/christmas/extortionate CL tickets, you couldn't write how much of a fuck up this Heck guy is for our club.

WIN THIS BLOODY CUP. PLEASE VILLA!!

Surely it after selecting this as our 151st Anniversary (sorry 150th) celebration game we have to play our full strength team,  you can't do that and not take the game seriously as that will be confirmation that we only decided on the celebrations just to trick people into buying tickets and it'll also look a bit stupid.

Emery runs the team. If he wants to rest players for this game that should be his call. I personally believe it is wrong for Heck to select this game for the celebration for many reasons, not least because it puts pressure on the manager to maybe select a stronger side than he would want to. It was such a bad decision to select this game.

[DB]

West Ham manager sacked. Replacement lined up apparently.

New manager bounce: that's us out in the third round yet again!  :'(

Too slow. Winky.

[cdbearsfan]

I reckon we must probably have a decent record against Graham Potter, at least. I'd imagine a new manager makes them much less likely to rest players, though.

[LeeB]

I reckon we must probably have a decent record against Graham Potter, at least. I'd imagine a new manager makes them much less likely to rest players, though.

Gerrard beat Potter's Brighton in his first game.

[cdbearsfan]

Bring him back!

[cdbearsfan]

Do NOT bring him back, really...

[Clampy]

He'll tweak the side a bit for this, especially with 3 away games coming up. It would make a sense.

[VillaTim]

--------- Olsen----------
Cash Konsa Mings Maatsen
--- onana -- barkley-----
Rogers ---------- Buendia
--- Bailey -- Watkins ----

[ChicagoLion]

--------- Olsen----------
Cash Konsa Mings Maatsen
--- onana -- barkley-----
Rogers ---------- Buendia
--- Bailey -- Watkins ----

with only 1 LCB, he will not be risking Mings.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

The very first Villa v Kit Stealers fixture was an FA Cup 2nd round game at VP on 1st February 1913. We won 5-0.

https://www.avfchistory.co.uk/game/923

We went on to beat Sunderland 1-0 in the final lifting the trophy for the 5th time.

[Percy McCarthy]

^^ Looks like our keeper had a good game. It was quite hard to follow - spotted our goal celebrations but not the missed penalty.