roonst83

I'm driving down to this on Wednesday night. Can anyone recommend decent places to park? Their official site advises people to not park near the ground and use city centre NCP's etc. I wondered if anyone has driven before and can recommend a decent place / plan for parking?

We are without doubt the perfect opposition for them to play. Any team needing to end their poor run of form will look at Villa away as the best possible fixture to get back on track.

Villan living in Swansea therefore see all their home games,they are capable of beating anybody at the Liberty, away is another matter, been pretty awful this season and are looking for their first win away.If they turn up very difficult match,if they don't then 3 points could be obtained providing we do not give away stupid goal.Can see a 1-1 with Sherwood still in the hot seat. The very fact that the Swans haven't won away just makes our loss that bit more inevitable. We continually prove to be the very best opposition to face if you need to stop the rot or break a trend of poor results.

Players out played, manager outclassed and one step closer to being relegated. Hard to see anything other than another inevitable loss. I give up.

Disagree with this. We have replaced Lowton with Crespo, Baker with Ilori, Vlaar with Richards, Senderos with Lescott,Delph with Gana, Cleverley with Veretout, Benteke with Gestede and Weimann with Ayew. I'm failing to see any level of improvement apart from Richards coming in. Christ, this is a depressingly true statement.

Down by Christmas if we persist with Sherwood. I've just never been so convinced of our fate than right now. The worse thing is the inevitability of the damage that will come from our next five games. We have no chance and it will be beyond saving by then. We need a miracle.

We know the result. It's simply a matter of "how many?". 5-0 Chelsea. Ivanovic to score at some stage.

It's a good call by Tim - if Hodgson wants Grealish then call him up. Don't expect us to lend out one of our best players to train with the England team where, knowing our luck, he'll get smashed in a tackle and out for three months.

Gestede, from what I can see is only strong in the air when attacking the ball towards goal...and assuming the delivery is excellent. My worry is Gestede has emerged form a league where he has had endless joy in the opposing box. The Premier league is a different animal and soon teams will wise up to stopping Amavi and Bacuna whipping balls into the box - therefore limiting Gestede's offering. I like the lad, he works hard and is a beast in the 'danger zone' - but we are trying to use the guy in the same way we did Benteke and he is nowhere near that level. One of Benteke's main strengths, in my opinion, was taking the ball deep and bringing our midfielders into play thus creating a counter attack and with Christian having lost his marker by dropping deep he becomes harder to stop finding space and harder to prevent getting on the end of service. Rudy doesn't have the touch, strength or quality in those areas so we're left with only being able to make use of him (primarily) through crossing to him. Im always surprised to see how many headers Rudy doesn't win when facing our goal - and from Guzan's long kicks etc. Providing we can keep finding pockets of space for players like Amavi to deliver for him then we've got a chance of making full sue of him - I just feel he's limited. But don't get me wrong he is committed, gives his all and if the cross is decent, boy he can power home a header. The Premier League can be an unforgiving place though and I'm sure teams will be trying their hardest to stop us getting any service into their box for Rudy. Worth remembering that it probably wasn't Tim's plan to have Rudy as our No.1 striker - as he was desperately trying to get Adabayor and Berbatov too. But at 27 yrs of age Rudy is no young gun and if we're going to use him then we need to get far more deliveries into him each game.

This is exactly what I said after the Liverpool game. I really feel our lack of points in the opening fixtures will harm us this season. Tim can hide behind the fact we're a brand new side who are developing, but this brand new side has been in some very good situations to get points (see Palace away, Leics away and Sunderland at home) and yet the decisions (substitutions) made by our management team have directly unsettled that progress and led to a repetitive pattern of throwing away points. There's definitely been individual errors in those games, but with more astute tactics, or even basic knowledge of how to hang on to what we have, then we would be in a far more comfortable state. As it stands, our players seemingly have no confidence, no leadership and we know we only have one half of good football in us - because as soon as an opponents manager needs to react they all out think Sherwood and come away with the points. We learnt nothing from the positives of Tuesday, judging by Saturday - and it feels as though we're relying on luck more than quality to try and steal a win. I cannot see Saturday being anything but a comfortable ride for Stoke - and that would be the case no matter who we were playing.

As exciting as he is, he needs to get better at his decision making. Yesterday he would do the hard stuff by drawing in and beating a couple of players but instead of keeping the momentum of the attack by passing to his teammates in space he tried to take on more players which resulted in him perpetually losing the ball. Would love to see him one on one with a counter attack as he'd blitz any defender in the Prem. As it stands he seems quite static and gets crowed out. I imagine he will be valuable away from home if we can break on the counter. Hope to see him starting in games soon as he is a real handful for opponents - but just needs to look up more.

Tim, is that you?

Inevitable loss.

Tim has no idea how to make us hard to beat. Norwich got a draw last week and looked solid. They also went to West Ham and were very unlucky not to win. Tim is so tactically inept and out of his depth that he he can only manage a draw against teams who we should beat (I.e. Sunderland) and in games where we're going to struggle he sets us up completely wrong and gifts the opposition the win. The arrogance and confidence we saw in Sherwood last season has evaporated. He doesn't even know his best team and continues to set us up wrong and make the wrong decisions. I'm struggling to see what he can do to keep us up.

Libor loves a goal.

Be the perfect time to show us your attacking abilities Joleon

If we play Gestede then we must just brief the boys with cross, cross, cross - otherwise he's redundant. Can't see Tim dropping Jack over Gil - but I do agree we looked too lightweight on Sat with those two as half of our midfield - as they offer zero defensively. Blue will approach us like WBA did and if they pack the midfield against Westy and Sanchez then we will be in trouble. I want a more solid midfield tonight to try and control the play and give the ball out to Grealish/Gil to make something happen.

Is it too obvious to expect Villa to bend over for the Liverpool win and help delay Rogers stay in his job for another week? With Gana and Traore I could see a point. But as it stands with them both out for God knows how long, this game smacks of a predictable comfortable win for Liverpool as well as the inevitable goals from Benteke and Sturridge - cue mass media wank fest.

Norwich draw level. Liverpool now without Benteke and Sturridge for the rest of the game.

We had an anything but a safe passage to get past Notts County.

Norwich look so much more of a threat than I expect us to be at Anfield next week. They're playing with confidence, look assured in defence and decent going forwards with Brady working well down the flanks as well as Redmond.

The last sentence suggests neither are to far away. OS Link. Same was said for last week about him and Gana and no sign ofeither. It's purely tactical to try and make Pulis think twice in case he is selected. If Traore hasn't trained all week then he's not going to make the bench, again.

He literally can't do any worse than Gestede - who can never seem to get himself into a game.

Any update on his injury?

Problem Sherwood faces is lifting the team and the crowd for the next couple of important games. Everyone seems deflated. Only a win can help with that - but i'm not sure how we'll get it.