Saturday August 14th marks the ‘Orns return to the glitz and glamour of the premier league with the visit of the second cities second team. Watford approach this match as underdogs against an overachieving Aston Villa who lie 2nd in the table with the Orns languishing in 18th. The H2H between the teams is a dead heat going back to 1969 with 8 wins each and 5 draws. Watford had been on a 3 game H2H win streak until January 2020 when Villa broke the streak with a 2-1 win. Villa background Hailing from a small ward in Birmingham with a population of just 22,636, Aston Villa have been overachieving for a number of years. Formed in March 1874 by a couple of bored cricketers with nothing better to do the club began taking its first tentative breaths with its first competitive match against local giants Aston Brooks St Marys Rugby Team. Yes rugby team. The first half was played as a rugby match and the second half as a football match. Fast forwarding through not much history of note to the modern era when in 2006 10 year old Doug Ellis was bought out by easily excitable American Randy Lerner. Lerner owned a football team called the Cleveland Browns affectionately known as The Steamers, fortunately the take over wasn’t a messy affair. After 10 years Randy realised that American football is not the same as actual football and decided to sell his shares to renowned waistcoat enthusiast Dr Tony Xia. Tony squandered the clubs resources on new waistcoats from M and S fall 2016 collection to the tune of some 50 million. In stepped an Egyptian consortium to initially offer extra funding but they would eventually wrestle control from Dr X (No relation to Professor X). Despite persistent rumours of this being nothing more than a pyramid scheme (hehe) Villas current top flight status looks secure. It would be remiss to sum up Villas storied history without mentioning some of their glittering successes over the years including the coveted Sheriff of London Charity Shield twice. Villa players to watch Jack Dawson Ex villa man now king of the world broke claret and blue hearts this summer by joining underdogs Man City. Enjoy watching him not play us on Saturday. Emi Buendia His one and only premier league goal coming against the mighty Orns back in 2020 Danny Ings The former Southampton man will be relieved to know that Watford general is 5 mins walk from the stadium. During the 40% of the season he spends fully fit he will score goals though (I am jealous) Stadium (Villa Park) Renowned critic ‘Chris B’ wrote this scathing review of villa park The second and final word (because we are at home) goes to Jessicalopez2019 who gave a detailed synopsis of the intricacies of visiting Villa park Local Area I actually do like Birmingham but this is Aston so here is a picture. TLDR: Hard avoid Predictions Watford look set to go with a bold 1-1-8 formation due to the number of strikers at the club. The albino Messi looks set to miss out after demanding image rights from the Cycling GK videos on youtube. Villa will be starting life without Jack after he jumped (sinking?) ship to start a new life as a Man City season ticket holder. Will Buendia be able to step up ? Will Bailey be a hit ? Line ups Watford Bachman Kiko WTE Sierrelta Rose Clevs Gosling Etubo Sarr Deeney Sema *This is what i think XM will do not my preferred 11 before you all keyboard kung fu me about starting TD Villa Martinez Mings Mings+1 Mings +2 Mings +3 Not Jack Grealish Not Jack Grealish Not Jack Grealish Probably Buendia Watkins Not Jack Grealish **Despite detailed research I cared little Score Watford 2 – 0 Villa Deeney (1) Sarr (69) Other notable predictions Deeney to score a dubious penalty and proclaim he is in the running for the ballon d'or Exciting Cucho to be an 89th minute sub Holebas to pick up a yellow card Gary Lineker to have a pop on twitter
I've gone early i know that but its my first matchday thread so I was excited Mods can you pin it until after the match ? Cheers
Still very bitter about that game at Villa Park where Mings should've been sent off and then scored the winner. They were utter droppings that season and deserved to go down. Obviously fortunes have diverged since and they have a much better squad than us now but I'm backing Cucho to have a dream debut and tear them a new one. Unless of course, he's on the bench and then we'll limp to an opening day defeat.
Same id love Cucho to get a real run - element of surprise and all that I think we need to aggressively target our opening 5/6 games get points on the board given the run and momentum If we are too 'safe' eg Sema > Cucho type line-ups then I think we lose this opportunity and its going to be a VERY tough season
We could not be playing that at a better time with all their notable squad movements. If we want to stay up we need to take these opportunities. Prediction Watford 0-3 Villa Deeney (sent off 22); Young (45+2, 67), Sarr (88), Hogg (sent off 22)
Not sure what the capacity is for this game but it looks like there’s only 700 seats left on the ticket site so a crowd of over 20,000 expected. Surprisingly it seems fans haven’t found other things to do on a Saturday. I must admit this is well above what I expected.
Deeney to score the opener directly from a corner to put Villa 1 up. Then can see them going to town on our defence. 0-4. Commence the meltdown.
The starting line up suggested on here looks very bleak. It 's all we have l know. Someone has to win the lottery, so perhaps it will be us. I hope for the best, but fear the worse for the coming season. I have made my predictions known on here already. Lowest points total on record and failure to win away. I will be very pleased to lose my money. Every fan enjoy the season as much as possible.
Whereas we didn't want to turn up pointing to fears about player welfare and safety. All very noble but blown out of the water when at least 2 of our players decided to risk theirs by having a party. We must have looked like right old mugs? Villa spent 100 million that season so really it was stay up or bust for them. Fair to say he we'd stayed up instead of them we probably would have not had the season Villa did have last time.
Deeney plays well vs Villa. His one and only good game. I would take a draw, but it could of been a much tougher opening fixture. Team has some talent, and Xisco must know by now his best 11. I think we might actually win this one. Our away form is awful generally, so banking as many points at the Vic as possible is vital. 1-0, Cucho top bins.
Deeney, Cleverley, Gosling and Cathcart all to start as we put out one of the worst and oldest PL XI's in the history of the division and get completely embarrassed. I felt weirdly confident a few weeks ago. It seemed we were freshening up the squad and finally moving in a new direction, but it's clear now that we will almost never be rid of the likes of the hapless clingers on above, amongst others, and will continue to beat our head against a brick wall with them until they're literally so old they literally can't move, and so we are in big, big trouble.
Up front we have Sema/Cucho JP/King Sarr/Dennis. In midfield we currently have Etebo/Hughes Louza/Chalobah Kucka/Clevs/Gos/Quina in defence Masina/Rose TE/Kab Sierralta/Cathcart Kiko/Ngakia and Bachmann/Foster in goal. Unless Pinnock is PL ready we need another CB who no doubt will be an ageing freebie. We have a good enough squad to stay up if the team spirit is good and with the right leadership. The problem is the elephant in the room. To me its incomprehensible why the elephant is still in the room. But despite the cup final humiliation, the unnecessary relegation and the pre 433 horror movie last season he still is. It's one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen in my life......
Can't see anything other than a battering, sadly. Ashley Young will probably score to rub salt in the wound. 4-1 defeat. Our goal will be a Deeney penalty, thus prolonging his untouchable status and the usual suspects saying how he is still a PL player. Long season ahead....
how do you shift a player on massive wages who no one else wants to pay for? When there are literally no takers what’s the alternative? Loan him out and carry on picking up the whole bill?
Well, one idea is at least don’t play him, don’t deliberately sabotage your whole team and its prospects by shoehorning a completely past it and useless player into the team, something the club seem hell bent in trying to do. Yes he may well be impossible to shift, it doesn’t mean we need to compound that issue further.
Let’s see if he’s in the team next Saturday first. Picking him for friendlies doesn’t necessarily mean he’s going to start in the league.
It saddens me watching these wonderful athletes at the Olympics knowing we still have large number of players who probably don’t know what being a professional sports person is about or care and would rather sit around underperforming on big money . I can see some of the new signings kicking off if things don’t go well too. A few have history of it !
That’s assuming Birmingham want him and want to integrate into their group a player who might be on double the money of the next highest earner. Probably not all that simple.
That's very true and I guess it's unlikely Lee Bowyer would tolerate a player with Deeney's attitude in his dressing room
€100. Yes, that was the prediction. The club was in turmoil and certain players didn't want to play in the Championship. At the start, it could have gone belly up for the Hornets. It was a gamble, but that's how it goes. Never bet more than you can afford to lose. It just a fun bet and keeps things interesting. I have bet the same again this season €100.