Uno
ial Villa News…
On loan Manchester United goalkeeper Sam Johnstone has said he’s ‘really enjoyed’ his time at Aston Villa in the second half of this season. Having moved to B6 back in early January on a half season loan spell, Johnstone went on to make 22 appearances for us in 2016/17 and after a difficult start as he bedded in, there were far more impressive displays as the year drew to a close. Read more: Johnstone Talks Villa Spell
And following on from that:
It was being reported on Sunday that Jose Mourinho had given Aston Villa the green light to take Sam Johnstone back on loan for the 2017/18 campaign. With his half season loan now at an end following his arrival in the January window, manager Steve Bruce had already confirmed that he would be speaking to Mourinho about the stopper and it appears that meeting took place this week. Read more: Manchester United Goalie Set For A Return
With only the Play Offs remaining in the 2016/17 campaign, some promotions and relegations in the football pyramid are already known. With the vast majority of sides already knowing which tier of football they will be playing next season, there are a few spots still to be confirmed and here are the potential final make ups for the next campaign. Read more: Potential Championship Make Up 2017/18 (10/5/17)
With all playing 46 Championship games in the 2016/17 season and the Championship campaign being over bar the Play Offs, the Golden Winner is now known. With goalscoring so far this season, the Golden Boot race was largely a four player race with Chris Wood (Leeds United), Tammy Abraham (Bristol City), Dwight Gayle (Newcastle United), and Glenn Murray (Brighton) best placed to take the award as the final games ticked around. Read more: Championship 2016/17 Golden Boot Battle (10/5/17)
Having picked up another ankle injury in our final game of the Championship season against Brighton, Aston Villa striker Scott Hogan is expected to be fit for the start of 2017/18. Having picked up the injury and having to be substituted in the curtain closer, especially with his ankle problems of the past, it was feared he would be sidelined over the summer and have a late start to the campaign, but following scans that doesn’t appear to be an issue as the injury isn’t as bad as first feared. Read more: Hogan Expected Back For Pre Season
Welsh international centre half James Chester has called on Aston Villa to return in peak condition next pre season so we can hit the ground running as we go for promotion back to the Premier League next season. With a slow start to this year added to New Year troubles with results, Chester knows in hindsight that certainly cost us a real effort at promotion at the first time of asking, but with players having at least six months with each other now to bond, he’s looking for far more next season from the first kick off. Read more: Chester Wants Quick Start To 2017/18
With the curtain coming down on the three Football League tiers, the EFL have released figures showing that more than 18million fans walked through the turnstiles in the season of 2016/17. Whilst the Championship was hugely boosted by the arrival of Aston Villa and Newcastle United who accounted for almost a 2million boost between them, there was still a 3% rise for the 67 EFL clubs who remained in the pyramid this season and last. Read more: Football League Attendances Up In 2016/17
As we announced the other day Mile Jedinak won the Vital Villa Player Of April with 43% of the vote. The bearded wonder has been kind enough to send those who voted on the Vital Villa poll a quick message of thanks and returns the compliment. Read more:Mile Jedinak ‘Fans Make This Great Club What It Is’
Turning green in claret and blue.. Villa finished the season with a consoling draw against the second best team in the Championship and with only ten men, which invited the conclusion that the gap between Villa and worthiness of promotion is hardly anything at all. It certainly isn’t too fanciful to claim that if they hadn’t had such a lousy start they would have almost certainly reached the play-off places and if the African Cup of Nations hadn’t deprived the team of King Kodjia, automatic promotion would have been possible. Okay, I can dream can’t I? Overall though, considering the depth of the systemic problems at the club over such a long period, the turn around has been as quick as could be reasonably hoped for. A club which got relegated with seventeen points, twenty points behind relegated Newcastle, have substantially further to go, on their long march back to the top of the hill. Read more: Something For The Weekend (575)
It was being reported over the weekend that manager Steve Bruce will only be given a £1million summer transfer budget with the plan being sell to buy moving forward. With heavy spending last summer and again in January, whilst the media take the ‘shock’ figure as forcing a change of plans, to be honest Bruce has been saying all along that the focus was more on trimming numbers and sorting out the futures of players and moreover he said himself it would be a quiet summer in terms of incomings, so I’m guessing he probably knew that all along.
Read more: Plans Change For Bruce With Summer Budget?
The Road To Nowhere? A discussion in the forums got me thinking about where we now find ourselves, and the impact on our long-term prospects of getting mired in the Championship over the next few seasons. Say, for argument’s sake, we get promoted and manage to establish ourselves back in the Premier League? Will merely surviving, trying to become the ‘best of the rest’ and the occasional cup run be acceptable? Will we as fans be happy to settle for that, year after year? Read more: The AVFC Road To Nowhere?
maninapinksuit follows on from posts in the forum about the reported new budget for Aston Villa with this on the whole situation. See also: Plans Change For Bruce With Summer Budget? ************* There is some truth in this but also some lazy journalism… Dr T stated on Twitter early this morning that ‘we need well prepared for the FFP as we inherited heavy burdens. If we get more ins but can’t succeed in outs, we’ll have headache with FFP.’ Which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. With regards to the press stories….Read more: An In Depth Look At The New Villa Budget / FFP Rules
Aston Villa’s Conor Hourihane has been called up by Republic of Ireland manager Martin O’Neill for their coming international fixtures. The Republic face three fixtures over the month of June, two friendlies against Mexico (June 1) and Uruguay (June 4) and then a World Cup Qualifier against Austria (June 11). A number of players miss out with injury such as Seamus Coleman, Ciaran Clark and David Meyler but there is a first call up for Kevin Long. Read more: Hourihane Gets Republic Of Ireland Call (16/5/17)
Aston Villa will be returning to The Lamb this summer as a Villa XI side will take on Tamworth as part of our pre season schedule. The game is almost an annual event again in recent times and this summer’s encounter will take place on Friday July 28, carrying a 7.30pm kick off. Read more: Tamworth Friendly Set For Villa XI
And here we have it. You can provide your own drum roll…Read more:The Vital Villa Player Of The Season
Following on from this article: Chester Wants Quick Start To 2017/18 Steve Tarpey wrote in the comments and I thought it too good not to publish properly. We certainly need to make an impact from day one, making promotion our only priority. Read more: Villa Fan – We Need To Hit Ground Running Next Season
The previous Villa Times: The Villa Times – 09/05/2017
The Villa Times – 05/05/2017
The Villa Times – 28/04/2017
The Villa Times – 24/04/2017
The Villa Times – 21/04/2017
The Villa Times – 18/04/2017
Thought for the day: My therapist says I have a preoccupation with vengeance. WELL!! We’ll just see about that!
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