Tomaszk

Bloody hell. Gareth Barry today would get us up! Their best player v us and their best player by a mile just v Sheff U. You get the feeling he'll play 90 mins every game as well. Chugging around midfield. Never gets injured. Made of granite that guy.

VAR similar to the world cup starts next round. Should create some fun.

We'll start to see the strength of backups in the next few weeks. Hogan and O'Hare will both get minutes tomorrow. Hopefully when we're already 4-0 up.

Whelan has his limits but I don't think speed is his issue. It's the options in front of him when he's played that role. He's only had 45 mins on the pitch with both Grealish and McGinn in front of him. A 45 that we largely dominated v QPR. Need more confidence from everyone with Grealish out. Positive play is second nature to him, others must try and make conscious decisions to not take the easy ball every time.

Watching that Sunderland documentary on Netflix. Looks like he could've gone on loan at the start of last season but we wanted them to pay more wages than they were happy with. One of them isn't it. If there were no plans to use him, would we have been better off at least getting £20k a week off the budget and pay half ourselves? Can't actually remember the state of things at that point in time. Was it already looking like he was in the bomb squad? What is weird, is that it appears we contacted Sunderland 13 minutes before the end of the window. Grayson was desperate for him but their exec said too much money. If we didn't want him, why wait that late? Maybe it was a tactic from us to try and force their hand into paying for all his wages.

I agree, and that'd be lovely but they're both comfortably Premier League players. Tough to get players like that to come in a team outside the top-flight. Especially to one not even if the playoffs. Essential we go into January in the top 6 I think. Or we're at risk of losing players like Heaton to rivals such as Leeds who are in a stronger position.

Hourihane is nothing like the ball carrier Grealish is but can step in if he shows some confidence and goes forward instead of laying it off to centre halves and running away.

Devastating to our chances.

Our embarrassment of a keeper is going to cost us again before January. I hope it isn't against Leeds because these lot are a bit tiresome now. It'll be frustrating them telling us how good they are when they become another team we outplay but don't beat because of that disaster.

1) I hope so, it might help if you lose or draw this weekend and as it'll feel like we're catching you that bit more. You're still far off in the distance when you look at the league table. 2) Hope you do, John McGinn will run riot. And Bolasie. And El Ghazi. This isn't Steve Bruce's one man army anymore. The transformation has been staggering and we're playing the best football at Villa I've seen since the 90s. Where I really fear Leeds will have success is closing down, and dispossessing, any of the defence or Hourihane, who sits deep for us. They are a bit shakier than the rest of the side. I'd put my balls on both teams scoring.

He was so good. Like a player from 25 years in the future. Completely unstoppable. Which sadly meant he got booted into next week. If he'd have appeared 10 years later he'd have been much better protected and we may have seen him at an even higher level. What we did see wasn't "quite a lot better" than prime Messi I'm afraid. It's tight either way.

Muzzy Izzet.

Not sure that's real. Can't imagine Smith saying that. It's too Sherwood-like. Maybe he did, it's not far off the truth. You don't have to say it in those words though. Plus it's a terrible image with text all over the face. Looks like something some berk has made himself to stick on Facebook. --- Edit. For reference. I'm taking about gwi1980's post here.

Christmas party today it seems. Something to blame if we don't pump Stoke 5-1. So what we got? Taylor as Ali G, Hutton as an excellent Joker and Lansbury as Wally. Is Nyland Duff man? Who is Ted?

Basically the opposite of our season so far.

Yep, thought so.

I think we could do it if we put another keeper in. Whoever Sarkic, Moreira. This guy is broken. It's basic errors costing us goals. I think we'll be playoffs though.

Respected? What do you want him to do?

He can bring the ball out from the half way line or edge or the box, but him dribbling across our own six yard line and knocking it around with this keeper will see issues. Really good in the air on Friday.

A good deep lying midfielder who can hold position and isn't scared of responsibility would make us even more dominant in midfield. Grealish and McGinn can't play every game from now until the end of the season.

Can't wait until we have a left back. He's no Nyland, but he ain't good. Hutton in for him next game for me.

'kin ell, blast from the past. Radhi Jaidi is the U23 manager for Saints.

Nope.

Begs the question as well... What the hell are we going to do at the end of Jan when we play Wigan, Hull, Ipswich, Reading all in a row? We could realistically score 20 goals.

If we do has to be O'Hare to start.