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Welcome Ange: To Dare is to Didgeridoo

Definitely. I remember one of my cousins asked me around March 2010 if I would accept 4th place if it meant Arsenal winning the league (they were loosely in the title race at that point with Chelsea but by no means favourites) and without hesitation I said “yes”. We beat the pair of them about a month later and it wasn’t even a consideration in my mind that us beating Chelsea would open the door again somewhat for Arsenal. The situation was completely different, CL seemed like an unscalable mountain at that point as we had never done it. We’ve done it multiple times now and the shine of just finishing 4th has wore off for me. I’d rather be in it than not and I won’t pretend otherwise but it was too much of a long shot even if we had won the game on Tuesday.
It would be interesting to listen in to Villa fans...to gauge the feeling amongst them around breaking through that ceiling for the first time.
 
It would be interesting to listen in to Villa fans...to gauge the feeling amongst them around breaking through that ceiling for the first time.

I’d imagine it feels pretty great. I don’t begrudge them at all. We had the added euphoria of beating the direct rival team who we were fighting with for 4th to actually clinch it which felt like winning a trophy at the time.
 
It would be interesting to listen in to Villa fans...to gauge the feeling amongst them around breaking through that ceiling for the first time.

Villa mate of mine is over the moon.

Looking forward to some signings and being able to more easily keep their key players, and to their injured players (Buendia, Mings and Carlos) fully back.

Emery fully bedded in.

All optimism for them at the moment.
 
That looks WAY out to me. Wages and salaries in our last set of accounts were at: £251.1m. Our wage and salary number for the last reported financial year was higher than Aston Villa’s entire turnover (£217.7m). Villa’s wage and salary number for that same period was an unsustainable £194.2m.

I suspect Aston Villa will have little to spend in the transfer market this summer, even with the additional money they will receive from their CL qualification.

First team wages and clubs total wages. Think we are £110m for first team. Villa £111m.
 
Really interesting that Ange says the Emirates Marketing Project game was the worst experience he's had as a manager in the game. Good to hear a bit more about that incident with the fan behind him at the match.
And admits he read the support base wrong.

Check from 12 minutes in here. And then after 21:30
Fair play, thought that was an excellent press conference particularly after recent events. Think he added some very good context to the comments on Tuesday night which shows they weren’t anywhere near as harsh as first assumed.

Good job by Ange. You can see why lads would want to play for him. Gets me a bit excited for next season.
 
Something I don't really get about other teams getting CL football is that we got that for some time, went all the way to the final five years ago... and look where we are now. Arsenal missed out for six years in a row and they are challenging for the title. Of course, it's better to be in than out but there's so much money in the PL at the moment that playing in the CL is not something that sets you apart for ever. It would have been nice to qualify but missing out isn't the end of the world, in my opinion.
Because we never tried to capitalise on that qualifications. Every time we've qualified rather than pushing on we've stayed largely with the same same squad. The squads became stale and others around closed the gaps slowly but surely. Arsenal have really gone all in, they spent quite large even when they were out of it and then of course bought players like Rice who is a finishing touch.

Hopefully next time we are in a similar position we also continually improve the squad because that is the only way to progress.
 
Because we never tried to capitalise on that qualifications. Every time we've qualified rather than pushing on we've stayed largely with the same same squad. The squads became stale and others around closed the gaps slowly but surely. Arsenal have really gone all in, they spent quite large even when they were out of it and then of course bought players like Rice who is a finishing touch.

Hopefully next time we are in a similar position we also continually improve the squad because that is the only way to progress.

We had a zero net spend on transfers for years. With the money going towards stadium and training ground. (Many fans might think that was wrong, and that's fair enough).
 
Because we never tried to capitalise on that qualifications. Every time we've qualified rather than pushing on we've stayed largely with the same same squad. The squads became stale and others around closed the gaps slowly but surely. Arsenal have really gone all in, they spent quite large even when they were out of it and then of course bought players like Rice who is a finishing touch.

Hopefully next time we are in a similar position we also continually improve the squad because that is the only way to progress.

The new stadium was how we capitalised on those qualifications.

We’ve increased ongoing revenue massively.
 
We had a zero net spend on transfers for years. With the money going towards stadium and training ground. (Many fans might think that was wrong, and that's fair enough).
The stadium is one possible reason, but we also didn't capitalised in 2010 either. Some might say future stadium concerns were also the limit then...
 
The stadium is one possible reason, but we also didn't capitalised in 2010 either. Some might say future stadium concerns were also the limit then...

We were buying land. We had about a decade of almost zero net spend. £650m went on the training ground and stadium (according to swiss ramble).
 
Fair play, thought that was an excellent press conference particularly after recent events. Think he added some very good context to the comments on Tuesday night which shows they weren’t anywhere near as harsh as first assumed.

Good job by Ange. You can see why lads would want to play for him. Gets me a bit excited for next season.
Agreed.
Again, the intent of hios football has never ever wavered regardless of whether he plays with a 2 and false 9 or 4-3-3. I have been adament that this is a vital thing for people to understand and am glad he clarified it.
 
Fair play, thought that was an excellent press conference particularly after recent events. Think he added some very good context to the comments on Tuesday night which shows they weren’t anywhere near as harsh as first assumed.

Good job by Ange. You can see why lads would want to play for him. Gets me a bit excited for next season.

This is even better - his answer 1 minute in where he just takes the blame on and says he'd do things differently
 

This is even better - his answer 1 minute in where he just takes the blame on and says he'd do things differently
Thanks for that. I think he's recovered the situation and explained his position really well. I'm more all in on him than I've been after this week. I love the fact he admitted he got it wrong and I fully respect his viewpoint on it.

Two other things I'll say about Ange in today's press conferences. He is strong with the media in that, like Fergie, he controls that relationship. You can see here and in others that it can become a bit awkward when someone asks something stupid or goes somewhere they shouldn't or labours a point. Fergie was more of a tyrant about it but I think Ange controls the narrative pretty well and that's very important.

Secondly, I loved the bit from the other clip about the fan he got involved with. At the time, I thought it was a bad move but when he explained it, I absolutely loved it. "Yeah, we had words but he's welcome to take his seat next time and voice his opinions but if he does it that way, I'll react the same." Mature and respectful of the fans. Other managers, and some of the ones we've had, would have used their power to have that fan moved or ejected.

Again, good on Ange, he really couldn't have handled today any better and I was very concerned about how it might go.
 
You understand it's a new format? They should get through to the knock out stages.
That will be entirely based on who they get in those 8 games. And yes as a football manager afficionado I've been playing the new format for a while. It's not a given that you will qualify but if you only lose 1 or 2 of your group games you'll probably progress.
 
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