It’s a long story, but it was a late night last night.
I’m talking about me, not Villa, I don’t know what the excuse is for that.
This was the first game I’ve missed in I can’t remember how long. There was an hour gone and we were 3-0 down by the time I got to it. I already knew the score when I tuned in.
I saw the 4th and we looked terrible during the half hour I
Rapid Vienna have issued an official apology to Andreas Weimann and Aston Villa after their fans’ deplorable behaviour during Thursday’s Europa League match, showering him with abuse and drinks as he was stretchered off, clearly in a state of distress.
One of the things I love about being back in Europe, even if it’s just the Europa League, is the exposure to a different set of footballing cultures. I think we were all blown away by the experience in Vienna
He’s definitely making all the right noises and feels like he’s fitting in at Villa already
There’s a video of some of the interview here, I can’t get it to embed at the moment I’m afraid.
I liked what he had to say about Villa and the “bling-bling” culture at City, although with those cars I’m not sure he’s in the best position to criticise. In fairness, I think it’s the attitude he’s taking a swipe at.
Stephen Ireland
I’ve really landed on
There are several key narratives going into Sunday’s game against Newcastle at St James’ and it’s tricky to establish any sort of order of priority. Firstly, I suppose, Kevin MacDonald’s presumably temporary, but possibly not, reign continues to breath fresh air into everything Aston Villa. Long may it continue and having steered a young, makeshift side to a result in the hostile cauldron – albeit of the mini variety – in Vienna, he’s unlikely to be intimidated by
Ardhe Nuhiu 32′ | Barry Bannan 11′
YouTube Video
So says Andy Brown, back with a long overdue smacktalk. I’ve only had Newcy Brown once myself and my assessment was very similar to Andy’s.
Andy’s the resident Villa fan among my friends at Yanks Call It Soccer (the website previously known as Among The Thugs), which is a great blog featuring a bunch of American football fans (that’s American’s who are fans of football, real football, not that silly hand-egg game) who each support a different team. A
Job done I think. Just. An away goal could be vital and we learned an awful lot in what turned into a less than an entertaining game after a promising opening 20 minutes or so. Barry Bannan opened the scoring, but Ardhe Nuhiu is being credited with the equaliser with what must be the faintest of touches, fooling Brad Guzan during the first half.
It started extremely brightly, Rapid struggling to cope with the pace and vigour of
It’s probably fair to say that I underestimated Rapid in last year’s preview, the final sentence in particular was way off the mark. However, they had been struggling up to that point in their season and, having made the group stage, they surprised one or two people in the Europa League too.
They beat Hamburg 3-0 at home in their first group game and then managed a 1-1 draw at Celtic Park. From there, they lost their
While Stephen Ireland was busy signing his Aston Villa contract, most of his new teammates were travelling to Austria for tomorrow’s Europa League play-off first leg encounter with Rapid Vienna. I think the 20 man squad (16 1st teamers + 4 reserves) caused a few sharp intakes of breath among some Villa fans:-
Goalkeepers
Defenders
Midfielders
Forwards
Brad Friedel
Stephen Warnock
Stewart Downing
Nathan Delfouneso
Brad Guzan
Curtis Davies
Marc Albrighton
Emile Heskey
Elliot Parish
Habib Beye
Nigel Reo-Coker
Andreas Weimann
Eric Lichaj
Isaiah Osbourne
James Collins
Shane Lowry
Barry Bannan
Ciaran Clark
Jonathan Hogg
Nathan Baker
Of the 12 members of the first