Aston Villa Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 2025/26

Must not tempt fate....must not tempt fate...

Wow, great result - hopefully that can inspire the lads tomorrow

The only thing that would give you a bit of hope tomorrow is that Chelsea have had 2 days less rest than Villa, and probably chased a few more shadows than Villa did at Wolves.

Will be a different kind of game too, with most of the games that Villa have struggled in lately being ones where they’re expected to take the initiative and win.

Still, now possibility of 6 point gap on 5th and 9 point gap on 6th, if we suddenly, magically, rediscover our spark

The pessimist in me says that Liverpool losing last night means it’s more likely we will squander the opportunity and mess things up. But yes common sense says we take a draw, a win and we’re almost there for CL qualification

Still in it, assuming Man City and Arsenal fall off a cliff we just have to hold off Chelsea and Liverpool and get a point more than Man United and we can book the flights for the parade.

No, win today and we're only 8 points behind, and given that Arsenal always collapse, Man City will have 60 points deducted annnnnny day now, Jim Radcliffe will insult more Man Utd fans to point players will quit, Liverpool are still in midst of Salah farewell syndrome and Chelsea can't finish a match with 11 on the pitch - that'll make it a straight fight between us, Brentford and Sunderland

Is it? Other than Watkins/Abraham, Mings/Torres and Bailey/Sancho is almost no choices to be made.

None of those decisions seem to be where the recent run of form is being won and lost.

I think Abraham should have started ahead of Watkins in some of the games where you’d expect to be on the front foot and creating chances, but Watkins way better suited to a battle like Chelsea even if I wouldn’t bet my life on him converting at the moment.

Bailey starting after his last home performance seems a bit strange but we’re not leaving many goals on the bench. Hopefully Bailey can bring us up the pitch and force a bit of space for Rogers. Mings back in means it’s up to Luiz to pick the passes if we go through the middle as normal. Maatsen will need to get forward plenty, hopefully we can get on the ball enough to get attacking opportunities.

What a move

Dibu doing his part as well.

If Chelsea now have to come at us, then Rogers should have space to operate in