Chindie

I would say that the squad as it currently stands is fairly likely of getting relegated. It's just too weak. Certainly, were I a bookie, I'd be putting odds on us that would place us amongst the favourites.

It's only relatively straightforward at the level of 'If you give something enough thrust, it'll be able to leave the atmosphere and maybe get to the moon'. It's incredibly difficult. Which is part of the reason it's so expensive still. You have to consider that the Saturn V rocket was, until only fairly recently, considered one of the most complicated machines ever made by man, and was expected to have a fairly high failure rate but still work. And all that had to do was force it's payload into space and towards it's destination, the Moon. We've not built anything else capable of doing that. The Space Shuttle only managed the comparatively close destination of the ISS, really. And theres nothing you can do on the Moon, really, that you can't do on the ISS. The Moon is just a big dead rock. It may have some resources useful to us in the future but otherwise... getting there isn't worth it. Most experiments you could wish to do on the moon you could also do on the ISS with far less difficulty and danger. Putting a man on the moon is still one of the greatest achievements any state could do - the fact that so few are even capable of considering it, let alone realistically doing it, is testament to that.

The Chinese and Indians are only now starting to really get going on manned space flight. Landing on the moon is very much a prestige event - it doesn't actually achieve much beyond saying you've been capable of it. The Americans and Soviets had the space race in the 50s and 60s and, almost universally, the Soviets beat the Americans to every landmark. They were doing everything as far as space was concerned and the Americans left behind. Kennedy realised this looked bad and looked for a landmark that the Soviets had not yet reached and chose to focus on that goal almost exclusively - for the build up to the moon landings everything NASA does is focused on the long term goal of man on the moon. Meanwhile the Soviets, who would like to go to the moon as well, are also investigating other space related endeavours and not wholly focussing on achieving man on the moon... so the American's beat them to it on the single endeavour they chose to win. You can think of it as the American's getting battered in a football match and suddenly deciding on a single quite difficult goal to score will let them say they won the whole the thing. The Chinese and Indians are now interested in the prestige of being a nation capable of doing what is considered the ultimate in human achievement, putting man on the moon, so they both are now planning to do it, as a prestigious moment for their nations, as new boys on the power block comparatively and new boys to space endeavours. The Soviets (and now Russians) basically abandoned their plans to land on the moon when the American's achieved it - they didn't really have anything to prove and since the Americans had already done it (and the USSR/Russia had it's own achievements in space anyway), they just didn't bother. And now theres not much point bothering as far as they're concerned.

He's useless without the ball, and while ask him to do anything involving striking the ball and he's alright, he simply doesn't have enough strings to his bow nor the physicality to make up for his not being supremely talented. I've never believed he's good enough and I rather suspect he will forge a career north of the border or in the Championship or below (and I'm lead to believe he wasn't an unmitigated success in his times in the lower leagues either...). He's had chances, and has been found wanting.

hmmm does sound a bit of a nob - but it was a few year ago and probably only to be expected when your club Captain and role model is John Terry!!!! He's only been there for about a year at that point, if that IIRC. But regardless, he was a complete word removed that night and will forever be so in my eyes. Whenever I've seen a teamsheet with his name I've find myself wanting him to do a Dave Busst. I couldn't support the word removed. EDIT - Saying that, I won't have to support him at any point - I'm more likely to turn out on Villa's wing any time soon.

A few years ago, we played Chelsea in the Youth Cup semi-final. I attended the Villa Park leg of the semi final. Kakuta was playing for Chelsea and was probably playing in front of the largest crowd he'd played to at that point, and there was a good atmosphere for what was just a youth game. The Chelsea team turned in a petulant display marked by gamesmanship of all sorts, nasty tackles, diving all over the shop (Kakuta the main offender), numerous counts of time wasting (one of their players, Stoch I think his name was, got sent off in the second half and took the longest length of time I've ever seen a player take to get off the pitch, literally minutes). The horrible display eventually ended with a Chelsea win and saw them progress to the final. At the final whistle, Kakuta and his buddy immediately decided the best thing he could do at that point was wind up the crowd. He decided to run straight to corner of the Holte and Trinity waving his shirt and goading the crowd, again and again. Eventually the cowardly word removed managed to draw the crowd to chuck stuff at him and, rather than decide he should probably pack in a game he shouldn't have started, decided to carry on goading the crowd, but stay just far enough back that a bottle wouldn't hit him. I can't remember a time where, in what on the face of things wasn't that important of a game, a crowd was on the verge of hopping the hoardings and going after a player - there were guys on the Holte who were leaning over the hoardings, giving this prick dogs abuse he'd earned (and was earning) as they left who I could tell would not have needed much to jump them. It turned very nasty in the second half and culminated in Kakuta really winding up the crowd to a pretty grim level. He's clearly a hideous tosser and I've genuinely wanted his career to end since that day. He's an arse, could have caused some real trouble to break out at the end of that game and his display on the pitch hardly had you wishing him well for his career either. He'd just played to a pretty decent crowd for the level he was at, turned in and been part of a display of all that is bad about football, and made a final... and his first thought was to go rub the crowds face in it. word removed. So **** him.

The only way Carroll joins us is on loan and I'd bet against that even.

Oh they still do a lot of maintaining possession (also known as aimless passing), but that is a cornerstone of playing like that. It's not my favourite thing in the world but I can see why they do it. But when they do go forward you just feel like theres more than 1 option available to them constantly. Last year I felt like, when they attacked, the attack had 1 idea from the the start, be that a pull back or a cross, or a threaded ball. Now it's like when they go forward they want to have 2 or 3 potential outcomes every time, and it appears to be incredibly difficult to defend against. It also seems to help that when they attack they have just a little more directness to them, and they come flooding forwards. It's a subtle change, but Laudrup's improved them, obviously helped by him bringing in the likes of Michu, who is probably a shoe in for bargain of the season already.

Swansea generally just look even better this season than they did last. The football's still pretty, but it's a little more direct and a little more dynamic, they genuinely look like they have goals in them during every attack.

I genuinely don't believe I could support a side with Kakuta in. And I've enough pride in Aston Villa left that I don't think I could bring myself to support bringing Reo-Coker back.

Mars still holds many mysteries, and we've barely scratched it's surface. The search for knowledge is more fruitful on the red planet than it is on the moon. NASA was planning another manned moon mission IIRC, but given the cost and the fact it had it's budget absolutely culled meant they had to prioritise. Mars made more sense to spend the money on.

It's expensive. And by the time we sent the last chaps there, we'd discovered that the moon is fairly dull and held few things particularly interesting to us. So the cost wasn't justified any longer. We might send people back there eventually however. The moon is believed to be a major source of helium-3, which could be a future energy source. If it does become something we come to rely on, and the ability to create the infrastructure is there, you can expect men on the moon setting up a mining system, in the future.

They left behind a **** reflector that we use to measure the moons distance away from the earth as it changes over time. Of course he walked on the moon. You need to watch better documentaries. Ones that have facts in them.

I don't think our manner of play much matters to Bent. We can play however we like provided we can create good chances for him, and he will reward us for it. Unfortunately there's not a single creative bone in this side.

Lambert was my first choice, so I was delighted we got him (I felt he was beyond us/not stupid enough to take it, time will tell on that front...). But I always felt that that delight was tempered by the fact that, in an ideal world I'd have liked to seen Lambert having had a second season of Prem football, as for me there were some questions behind all the promise and success thus far he had. The little doubts haven't gone away yet. Saying that I still think he's a good manager, and I think he's still not really sure what's what with this Villa side. I also am bloody certain that any manager would have considerable trouble with the state of the club right now - it's all shot to shit. The playing squad would trouble any manager.

Depends what you expect of an academy. Few teams are able to consistently produce large numbers of players able to do it at the top level. I can only really think of Everton in the Prem who are able to produce anything like that, and even they are only producing one every couple of years (if that, really) that goes on to be a proper major part of their team. If you want an academy to consistently produce assets that can be sold to perform at a decent level (not just the top of the game) then ours is pretty good, most of our academy players go to make decent players at the level they find. Unfortunately that's not a huge deal as far as we the fans might be concerned.

6 days before the end of the window, and they're gong to have a chat about transfers? I can only assume Lerner will be saying one thing. 'No'.

A man whose name is written in history for eternity. A great loss.

I hope DeepDish is right, but I can't say I think he will be. 2 in max , 1 a loan, and the purchase will be sub £10m. We need more like double that. I believe as far as Lerner is concerned, the money saving isn't done. If the money was there, we'd have spent more and spent differently by now.

He needs to speed up the obvious plan to sell up.

Even if there is money for signings (for the record, I think there is a small amount - a single players worth. And not a particularly expensive one), it will not be enough to shore up this side. We need more like 4/5/6 players. We might be lucky and get 2, and I'd wager that'd include a loan.

I expect we'll buy a player (if pushed I'd guess a LB), and we'll get a loan who we'll expect to be a starter, perhaps a striker. We really need far more than that.

Well, we're certainly good enough to achieve relegation this season.

Will it?! That's a helluva leap. I'd say that the fact they are in the squad is a sign that theres no/not enough money and we must make do. Coupled to Faulkner telling us last season that all these great young players will play a big role in the coming seasons... I think you could be disappointed.

We basically need the best part of a new side to look even vaguely decent imo, so unless this week sees us spend an eye watering amount of money, this is going to be a long, long season. Forget us needing a signing or 2, most of the team is not good enough, and the squad is pitiful. There are 6 days of the window left. A LB alone won't save us. A striker won't save us. Someone who can create might help, but it won't save us. We need all of them, and more. Ain't happening. We'll buy, we'll borrow. It won't be enough.