Holtecast - An Aston Villa Podcast

Aston Villa are back, we're back and the Holtecast is back. There have been a number of developments over the Summer, meaning that Robert and Jack can no longer commit to a weekly podcast between the two. However, 7500toHolte ran two podcasts and they now morph. James will be moving to host the Holtecast and will bring on someone from the world of Aston Villa to speak about the weekly developments of the club. We expect to link up with Stevie of the Aston Villa Review amongst other bloggers and podcasters soon. We might even find Robert again!This time, Jack Grimse returns. Jack spends his time at BeIn these days, but found the time to bridge that gap between the old and the new for us.James and Jack review the Hull game, while looking forward to Colchester in mid-week and Cardiff. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

It's been fun, hasn't it? Despite a stumble against Burton and a loss against Huddersfield, Villa have not stopped winning!James and Elis examine Villa's streak shortly before the end of the the first Aston Villa championship season and take some time to check up on Villa's city rivals, Birmingham City. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

What's that you say? A Holtecast that isn't just sadness and dour talk about doom, gloom, and relegation? It's true! Today's episode actually gets to talk about wins. Three of them, in fact! And, just to keep things feeling a bit normal, we throw in a loss too. We dive into the recent Villa winning streak (the first such streak since April 2010) and try to decipher if it's an indication of things to come, a fluke, or simply a regression to the mean. We also touch a bit on the ongoing injury crisis (Guess what. By reading this your left knee is now dead. Forever. Welcome to being an Aston Villa fan!) and Steve Bruce's tactics. And, as always, the spectre of Alan Hutton lurks over us all. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Jack and Robert are back with the first Holtecast since the closing of the winter transfer window. And Aston Villa are... pretty trash. We dig into the why of it all while seeing what's to come. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The full gang is back as Elis finds his way out of the space time continum of university to join up with James and Adam once more to discuss Villa's recent plight after a transfer splurge. Villa? They won't be relegated, but could find themselves in the ugly side of the English Football League Championship (no offense Rotherham!) if things don't turn around quickly. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

James and Adam met up over the internet this past weekend to discuss Villa's transfer business this January.It's cold outside, but things don't seem to be heating up at Villa Park, as they've only yet brought in one player - while their remaning targets could be poached from them.This was recorded before the Tottenham FA Cup match, so with that in mind - go Sam Johnstone! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Aston Villa have signed their first player of the January 2017 transfer window, bringing in 23-year-old goalkeeper Sam Johnstone on loan from Manchester United. This would make sense if Mark Bunn was the only healthy option, but Villa just bought 21-year-old Pierluigi Gollini in the summer.Jack and Robert discuss this in detail, as well as the sale of Rudy Gestede along with more transfer rumours in Episode 107 of the Holtecast.Additionally, this episode features an interview with Cameron Hall, chairman of the London Lions AVFC Supporters Club. Jack spoke with Cameron at The Globe Pub in Chicago after the 1-1 draw with Leeds United.Finally, we close out the show previewing the next two fixtures: Tottenham Hotspur in the FA Cup and Wolverhampton Wanderers the following weekend. It could get ugly at Spurs, but a match against Wolves and former boss Paul Lambert is a must win. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Unbeaten in seven games, Aston Villa have found a run of form for the first time in several seasons. This weekend, Steve Bruce’s side will travel to Elland Road for a Saturday primetime match against Leeds United. The Whites sit in fifth place in the Championship, and are enjoying their best stretch in recent memory as well.Ahead of that game, Jack was joined by Jon Mackenzie who provided some excellent Leeds insight. Jon writes for The Square Ball, an award-winning Leeds United fanzine, and a variety of other outlets, in addition to editing The Blizzard’s crossword.Robert and Jack look back at Villa’s recent matches and the positive changes going on at the club, as well as touching over this weekend’s game against Leeds. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

As the international break comes to a close, Aston Villa are getting back to football. But first, they were getting back to Snapchat with heavy emoji usage on Thursday. That prompted James and I to do a Holtecast Special!We started out with James doing a hilarious narration of the official account’s Snapchat story, which was followed up by a comprehensive discussion of Villa’s emoji usage on social media as a whole.Next up was a review of Steve Bruce’s time at Villa so far, before moving on to talks about ‘Tactics’ Tim Sherwood and answering your Twitter questions.Finally, we previewed the upcoming match against Brighton and Hove Albion that will signal the end to the international break in the Football League Championship. It’s Friday Night Football with Bruce’s men traveling to the Amex Stadium to face a Brighton squad that’s sitting pretty in second place in the division. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

James, Adam and Elis are back!They discuss Villa Ladies and their marquee match to round off the season at Villa Park before moving onto recent Villa events.Was Di Matteo's dismissal fair?Is Steve Bruce a boring potato?Is Gabby Villa's best striking option?Find out, ON THE POD. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This is a podcast that I've been wanting to do for ages! As part of Aston Villa Ladies week on 7500 to Holte, I got the chance to chat with freelance football journalist Carrie Dunn and AVLFC forward Katie Wilkinson. Carrie writes for numerous outlets, and routinely covers women's football for Shoot magazine. We got the chance to talk about the history of women's football in England, how the game is structured now, and how the Aston Villa Ladies stack up against their competition. Then I get to talk with Katie. She's been with Aston Villa since she was a kid (with a brief spell across the city of which we will not speak) and is one of the brightest stars on the team. Unfortunately, she's been out with an injury since summer, but that doesn't stop us from digging deep into AVLFC and what it's like being a role model for young players. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Two weeks ago, we were ready to throw in the towel. Find something else to podcast about and just get use to nothing but endless draws. Boring draws. Draws that we couldn't even see. Because, you see, Aston Villa were bad. They were trash. And it was TERRIBLE to talk about. But then something happened. Aston Villa beat Reading and then they beat Fulham. That's two wins in a row. That is something that we haven't had since May 2015. And now Steve Bruce might be making Aston Villa fun again. Just in time for a trip down the road to face Birmingham City. So we talk about all of that. Come join us! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We’re back! Just like Roberto Di Matteo isn’t! (Look at that, we’ve got jokes right out of the chute.) But the dominating piece of conversation is the sacking of Di Matteo and the entrance of our (//counts on fingers) fifth manager with a significant tenure in the last 365 days. FIVE. FIVE IN A YEAR.Everything is terrible. Except Villa. Including Villa. So we break it all down while it continues to break us down. There is talk of the draw against Wolves. There is talk about today’s match against Reading. And there is even transfer talk! What more could you ever want? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Have you seen Aston Villa’s form chart lately? LWDDLDDDDD. It’s as if the club are some perverse remix of a DJ Khaled song. All they do is draw, no matter what. And we don’t like that. Worse yet is the fact that if Villa had taken advantage of winning positions, they’d be sitting in an automatic promotion spot. So what gives?Jack and Robert sit down and try to figure out the major keys to “fixing” Aston Villa right now. Is it luck? A need for management change? Bad tactics? We consider all the options.We also have a bit of a chat about the North American Villans meetup, featuring the likes of Aston Villa fan-favorite Jack Grimse and some guy named Ian Taylor.As always, you can listen below, or by subscribing through iTunes, Stitcher, BlogTalkRadio, or with a self-addressed stamped envelope sent to Jack Grimse and Robert Lintott, USA (don’t worry, the post office will find us), with a check for $15 in it. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

After a one-week hiatus for international football, Aston Villa are back! Since we’ve last talked there’s been a terrible loss to Bristol City, a busy transfer window SLAMMING shut, and uh... not much else. I mean, those first two are plenty to talk about, but the past week has actually been sort of blissfully quiet for Aston Villa. After a wild and crazy summer, I think we all needed that.But that means we’re back to the business of trying to win promotion. 16th doesn’t seem like a very inspiring place in the table to be, but it’s still early and things can change quickly in this league. Those sound like cliches (and they are!) but they’ve also got a lot of truth to them. You can think of everything up to now as a sort of half pre-season. Now we’re really into it. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

After two straight losses to open the season and send everyone into panic mode, Aston Villa have rebounded quite nicely. The wins aren’t coming yet, but three matches in a row unbeaten is something we probably couldn’t even imagine last season. And a 1-2-1 record in league play puts the club at nearly 30% of last season’s points total in just 13% of the matches. This is improvement!But it can keep getting better, too. So for this week’s episode of the Holtecast we take on everything that’s happened since the Luton Town League Cup disaster, look at the transfer window’s tail end, take your questions, and preview this weekend’s trip to Bristol City. Will we see new signings Mile Jedinak and Ritchie De Laet? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Well this certainly could have gone better. No one expected trascendence from Aston Villa this year but with the optimism that came with new ownership neither did anyone expect two straights losses to open the season. Jack and Robert return with a look at a tough but acceptable loss to Sheffield Wednesday in the season opener. It wasn't great, but it was understandable, at least. But then, on Wednesday, they traveled to League Two Luton Town for the first round of the EFL League Cup and absolutely shamed themselves. We also delve into your twitter questions and try to figure out what it is that this team needs to make itself a competitor. And we close by taking a look at this weekend's match against Rotherham United. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

After a long, tumultuous, and quite frankly confusing summer, Aston Villa are ready to start playing football again. And this time, it's in the Championship. The season kicks off on Sunday at Sheffield Wednesday, and Jack and Robert are back with the Holtecast to take stock of the club in the leadup to the match. We open with just an absolute bevy of transfers in the last couple of weeks (really? We couldn't do them earlier?) and then move on to trying to figure out what to make of the squad as it currently stands. The strike force looks weak, but what if we add Ross McCormack? And that midfield is... missing a lot of attacking options. Then we head on to your twitter questions and an honest-to-goodness look at a match that matters! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hello and welcome back to On The Pod.James Rushton, Adam Clark and Elis Sandford return to talk Villa, and are taking upon themselves the mighty task of a season preview.We left off with Villa being relegated from the Premier League with just 17 points, not even enough to buy a drink in the UK! The Championship is a league which brings new difficulties and is a forty-two game slog. Yay.Aside from that, James, Adam and Elis speak about those who have left Villa, those who are coming in and what to expect from this new season for Villa. That includes dodgy tweets from our new owner Dr Tony Xia.Enjoy!Thank you for listening, we're trying (as are the Holtecast) to improve audio quality and Zencastr does seem to be the way forward. It enables us to get rid of coughs and clicks also! That being said, there's no video because of this, so our lovely faces are nowhere to be seen.If you have any feedback to give, please do so - On The Pod is by Villa fans, for Villa fans. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out i

Welcome back to another episode of the Holtecast! This week, Jack talks to Simon Leach, chairman of the Chicago Aston Villa Lions Club, about the upcoming fourth annual North American Villans Meet Up in Chicago. Next month, Villa play Newcastle, and around a hundred Aston Villa fans will watch the match together in Chicago. You should join us! Learn more about it in Episode 96, and in another preview to come on 7500 to Holte! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.