Paul Cartwright

Battling life and its disappointments! Savouring its joys and occasional victories!

[Steven Billingham @StevenBillingh5]

I'm not going to engage with @matt5cott beyond this and I urge other #avfc fans to follow suit. Whatever the reason, knowingly making false accusations of racism when the real thing is such a blight on football, and the country as a whole right now is disgraceful.

[Paul Cartwright @PaulCartwright3]

@kobashi100 @TheVillaPodcast @Ian_Ladyman_DM @OllieHolt22 I suggest you give it a couple of months under UEs management before you are quite so certain.

[Paul Cartwright @PaulCartwright3]

@PaulTomlinsonn @chrisw333 Opinions I guess. It's his second game and he showed enough to see why UE rates him.

[Paul Cartwright @PaulCartwright3]

@Matt5cott Fuck off Matt. It's because he dives and feigns injury all the time. You ought to know better

[Paul Cartwright @PaulCartwright3]

@DecPierce Good man...you and your dad. My whole family is Villa, the old man wouldn't have it any other way.

[Paul Cartwright @PaulCartwright3]

@Arsenalnewschan The only head loss is from clowns like you. You are either stupid or willfully ignorant. You love the current rules because they give the Sly 6 a massive advantage.

[OkaySakhile @okaySakhile]

Watching Arsenal will make you hate football. They play with so much dirty little tricks and a lot of whining. A little tackle on their players and they are diving. Time wasting, kicking the ball away. So unbearable.

[Paul Cartwright @PaulCartwright3]

@SkySportsPL Failed manager has the audacity to chat nonsense about the club with the best manager in the league.

[Guillem Balague @GuillemBalague]

Nobody at Villa Park will pretend this rebuild was the plan back in May. But in football you cannot always decide what happens and a rebuild, at a pace that was not expected, eventually became the plan.

Everyone knows of the financial pressure, with UEFA’s oversight hanging over every decision the club made this summer. Morgan Rogers’ departure helped balance the books and freed room to address squad needs.

Then two release clauses landed that nobody had budgeted for, Digne and Tielemans’, forcing the plan to change again. Onana got injured long term, so he would miss most of the season where, by all accounts, he was going to fly and govern the midfield.

Then Emi Martinez wanted out, like in previous summers, and tried it every way he could. Add a squad whose average age was pushing 29, and the club faced a choice: patch the cracks or start a real generational turnover.

Imagine the long meetings, the long discussions, all the possibilities on the table. But clearly a new path had to be taken, one that accelerated out of anyone’s control. It happens.

Almost a dozen new faces later, and let’s see what happens today, this is a different Villa. Younger, leaner on the balance sheet, built in a shape and with names and positions chosen with Emery’s blessing, now everyone is determined to start a new cycle rather than defend the old one.

The financial side of this rebuild has gone about as well as it could, with sales of players in their thirties fetching prices well above expectation.

The football side has to be more honest: losing that experience for extraordinary fees is good business, but it leaves gaps a young squad can’t fill by talent alone.

Players are not yet a team, and there’s an acknowledgment inside the club that another experienced body or two would have helped soften the transition. But once a player has decided he’s done what he came to do, there’s little a club can do beyond protecting the valuation.

That’s the job now, and it will take patience, both from the coaching staff working with young talent and from the club itself. From the fans. That is what it is being asked of you.

Do you want new memories, a new trip around the demands of the Premier League while players develop their football and personalties?

Emery has rebuilt cycles before, at Valencia, at Sevilla. He knows what this looks like in year one. The timing is brutal, a new-look squad thrown straight into the Premier League with barely a pre-season together, but the people building this are the same people who got Villa to a Europa League final.

Who knows what will happen. But don’t you want to be part of what happens next? Then, I would say, help this team reach the best they can give.

[Paul Cartwright @PaulCartwright3]

@GuillemBalague Wow what a pleasure to read properly thought through journalism with real insight. Thanks Guillemm

[Paul Cartwright @PaulCartwright3]

@stompey__ He dived before he was touched that's why.

[Paul Cartwright @PaulCartwright3]

@TheLineupVilla @Benjmeister85 Rogers

[Paul Cartwright @PaulCartwright3]

@jk_fof @villareport Exactly this.

[Paul Cartwright @PaulCartwright3]

@SkySportsPL @Carra23 What a 🤡

[Paul Cartwright @PaulCartwright3]

@SkyBet @Carra23 Carra is tax evading moron

[Paul Cartwright @PaulCartwright3]

@avfc_stef Who cares they wanted to leave. Move on now.

[Paul Cartwright @PaulCartwright3]

@ShahidaQureshi5 @kennardmatt @OwaisCheema9 @andyburnham I guess not

[Paul Cartwright @PaulCartwright3]

@iamivank Of course it is Ivan. Even though things will be more than ok, this place is toxic.

[Paul Cartwright @PaulCartwright3]

@mattavfcc I think we might revisit Ordonez in January if he gets over the injury.

[Paul Cartwright @PaulCartwright3]

@ArunAVFC No high line. We will pivot to play on the transition. UE is a chameleon of a coach. Not dissimilar to how he playef when he first arrived. At least to begin with before everyone beds in.