dn1982

He's been one of our better players and the over reaction is ridiculous. He's said it wasn't good enough. What do you want for them? They interact and tell the truth and get loads of abuse then they get abuse if they don't interact!! FFS some people need to grow up. Every body was hurting after that shambles on Sunday but we've known all season we are a fragile bunch. If the players show the same mentality against Stoke I'll be the first to go ape shit but not after one game no matter how awful it was. 

13 minutes ago, TRO said:

There is quite a coverage of Villa's plight in to nights Birmingham Mail.

no less than 7 pages of comments from fans and ex players

• Brian Little
• Paul Mcgrath
• Stan collymore
• Denis Mortimer
• Howard Hodgson (fan)
• Ian Taylor

During Stans damning report he touches on the Policy of "FIFA like stats "that are attracting the club to players during recruitment and scoffs at the seeming like dismissive consideration to their character.

Denis Mortimer touches on "if you get the wrong manager, you get the wrong players"

perhaps some basic stuff, but it seems that the basics allude us.

Stans a prat! The signings have been our better players and are all looking better than what we had. The squad is majorly unbalanced. We bought players without filling the areas that needed looking at or buying the sufficient quality to get goals. Collymore will stick up for Lescott but hammer Okore and makes everything about him. He is anti the club cause he lost his column. The blame for our predicament is solely on the board though and their recruitment policy but it's not to do with quality it's the filling out of the squad. The positions Garde was trying to address in January are the same we needed dealing with in the summer. Whoever came in would have the same problem. Garde has been stuffed and so have us the fans. 

7 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

If you offered me needing to win on the last day to stay up from our current position I'd bite your arm off.

Garde at Arsenal for us to stay up?? It's written in the stars or it'll be written I the Daily Star after the reporter reads this!!! 

7 hours ago, villan_007 said:

Like?

If pullis or allardyce are in your list then don't reply.

We should've held out for Mourinho 

11 hours ago, terrytini said:

As an aside, I'm never convinced by this.

 To me if he  - or anyone else - is really a good Manager (*) they shouldn't need their 'own players', aside from someone to be their man on the inside. Its partly this belief that results in every change of Manager needing a long process of him bedding in, then getting rid of 'not his' players, then acquiring 'his' players who in turn need to be bed in !  By which time people are fed up of things not having improved, so the Manager gets sacked, etc.

(*or maybe, more importantly, following on from one !)

E.g ;

You'll like this one TRO - Tony Barton didn't need his 'own' players !!   (Question ; Is this because (a) the guy BEFORE him was such a good Manager who had chosne well, or (b) because Barton was such a good Manager he had no trouble working with what he had, or (c), because in a way they WERE his players ?) All three ?

For me, I am getting close to thinking Garde has done enough to warrant 'a go', though I agree it is to early to decide, and way too early to be anywhere close to being sure.

And that is because he is doing it with' NOT' his players..('it' being the apparent forging of some character, desire, way of playing, certainty of style, harder to beat, and some decent football in places)

He's doing better with Sherwoods players than Sherwood did. Barton won our biggest trophy with Saunders team. Not exactly the same and not really a comparison. We have improved as a team under Garde and he is getting a harmonious dressing room with everyone fighting for each other. The fitness levels of the players now show how badly we were managed previously. Managers who have an immediate impact tend to fade just as quick as they're one tricky pony's Garde is making improvements weekly so give him a squad of players with the same ethos and then judge him fully but on current showing alone he deserves next season. 

1 hour ago, Phumfeinz said:

This simply isn't true these days. Contracts aren't worth shite.

Contracts with release clauses in aren't worth shite but we've proved in the past that we only sell on our terms. Benteke being the prime example of both of these!! 

17 minutes ago, useless said:

We won't be able to pick and choose who we keep especially if our improvement continues but it's not enough to keep us up, we'd be in danger of losing the likes of Ayew, Veretout, Grealish, Gil, Gueye, RIchards, Amavi, Okore and perhaps even the likes of Clark, Agbonlahor, Westwood and others.

Seeing as all of them are under lengthy contracts apart from Okore I think we can pick and choose who we keep. You've basically just said we are doomed and everyone will go! It doesn't happen like that. If Ayew scores a handful before the end of the season he'll be in demand and Richards has still got a good rep but we'd make a big profit if he went apart from that I doubt we'd be under too much pressure to sell. You've sold Amavi who's hardly played and will still be proving his fitness come August!! If we keep the players Remi wants we will come straight back up. 

2 hours ago, KHV said:

Guzan, Hutton , Richardson, Bennett ,  Baker  , Clark  , Sanchez , Nzogbia (done), Agbonlahor, Gestede, Kozak

I can't see us getting rid of all of our strikers even though I don't think any are good enough. Can see Clark being a big player next year alongside Okore. The others are either being marginalised now or virtually gone already so no great shakes. It's who we keep that'll determine how next season goes. 

1 hour ago, KHV said:

I think there will be at least 10 players leaving so I would imagine we will bring in about 4/5. we have some loan players returning and I imagine some will promoted from u-21

10 leaving? Care to hazard a guess? Hutton Guzan Richardson Nzogbia are the only ones I'd want rid of for definite. As long as we keep our 1st team squad in the whole together and add to it we will be a very good championship team. 

35 minutes ago, villa89 said:

Games in bold - I think we can expect to get a result from, but I just can't see us making up 8 points on the rest of the pack.

There isn't a single game that we can expect to get a result from. We are the worst team in the league.

No we aren't at the minute. Yes we are bottom but on form we are mid table it doesn't mean anything but saying we are the worst team in the league is stupid. Better teams than Villas have been relegated and worse teams have stayed up. If you've seen WBA of late you'd know that's at least one team we are better than. 

5 hours ago, rodders0223 said:

There is only one solution. Cheeky release clause in his contract. That way if he performs he can leave and if he doesn't he can stay. That is the beauty of letting players go into the final 12 months of their deal. You are **** either way.

Just our luck you wait to see if he recovers from injury ok then get relegated so he doesn't want to stay!! But we do need to stop getting into these last year of contract situations!! 

I hope Gabby doesn't celebrate another 10 times or so this season!!! 

I think we are in a very tough position with Okore. We would need to offer him big wages to sign for 5 years but why sign when it'd be halved if we went down? So we have to wait until the summer. Where things get dodgy. If we were in the PL he'd be a £60k a week player but I still think we could offer him £40k in championship as if we didn't come up there'd be no end of admirers. Hopefully he will show a bit of loyalty 

Seeing how our foreign players have come on after playing regularly should prove that players need time to adjust. Gardner hasn't played 5 games in a row for us yet is written off. If we wasn't our player we'd be looking at buying him as he's performing do well for Forest. Regardless of what division we are in I want him to have a full preseason to show Garde what he can do. It may be he just hasn't got the luck on his side to play here as he see,s to always get serious injuries for us. It's mad how it happens to some players. 

24 minutes ago, romavillan said:

I don't think we need to win te next two to have a chance, I think we're down

BUT, if we get a point against Liverpool and 3 against Stoke, mathematically it's much more in our favour than at present. If Sunderland, Newcastle, Swansea, West Brom and Bournemouth all lose two on the spin and we get 4 points then I might start thinking there's a chance we won't finish bottom  

You can't beat positivity!!! I don't think we'll finish bottom I think Sunderland will and the chances are it'll be us then Norwich but the way we finish this season will be a big influence on next season so I want us fighting for everything. To stay up! To not finish bottom! To take Newcastle with us! Whatever it maybe as the season goes. Show fight and the fans will unite behind the team and Garde so next season we can be successful in whatever division!! 

31 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

History tells us we can't sustain this form going forward, that's what worries me.

It's very well thinking "We've turned a corner" - but how many times have we said that over the last couple of years?

I still think we'll go down, purely because we're lucky to score >1 goal a game and concede <1 goal a game.

It's the hope that's annoying

Recent history yes but you only have to look at the top of the table for inspiration. Even in the 2nd half of Lamberts first season we hit good form . If you accept we are down its all positive as long as we keep fighting. 

31 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

History tells us we can't sustain this form going forward, that's what worries me.

It's very well thinking "We've turned a corner" - but how many times have we said that over the last couple of years?

I still think we'll go down, purely because we're lucky to score >1 goal a game and concede <1 goal a game.

It's the hope that's annoying

Recent history yes but you only have to look at the top of the table for inspiration. Even in the 2nd half of Lamberts first season we hit good form . If you accept we are down its all positive as long as we keep fighting. 

The improvement in the team of late is there for us all to see and I believe if Garde was backed in Jan we'd have stayed up. I still think we have a chance and we'll go down fighting which before Xmas looked impossible. Garde seems a class act who hasn't pushed the blame on anyone not Sherwood not the players not even the board but what he is constantly doing is demanding we fight for success. His latest comments show he is willing to stay if our club is serious about coming back up and for that alone every Villa fan should back him. He wants the best for our club and is telling the board this. We can have Lerner Out banners all day long but a manager backed by the fans will have more chance of getting a reaction than anything we can achieve. 

we need to win the next 2 then I think we'll be virtually back in the pack. March is a very tough month but 2 wins would give everybody at the club belief. I think the players have it more than the fans at the minute so 2 wins would be immense for us the fans. We need a vibrant Villa Park to have a chance. 

40 minutes ago, praisedmambo said:

I truly believe Richards at CB is 75% of the reason why we're 20th in the league. The other 25% would be having shit strikers. He's been an awful CB, especially as he's the one who was supposedly organising everyone. 

75%??? Seeing as Guzan and Hutton have cost us a load more that's a load of crap!!! Those 2 alone have cost us more points than watch actually have. All 4 defenders are supposed to do their job. With Lescott not being fit when he signed and Okore getting up to speed added to having Amavi's injury we never had a settled back 4 to blame Richards for 75% is silly especially when individual errors of the 2 I've mentioned cost a whole lot more! 

I think he's carrying an injury. Early on in the soon when he was playing CB he drove us on with some good runs from deep now he's RB he seems to be playing in himself. I didn't mind him as a CB but Okore is our best right sided one so he'll have to stay at RB for now. We do have a lot of power in the back four now. 

Gil gets played in the whole to negate him having to do the defensive work but against WHU he ended up left side after the sending off and was lax for the goal. Our squad is that thin we are playing our better players in other positions. Gil behind Ayew who's a willing runner would be ideal but we never get the chance. 

Thinking about it I'm guessing it was Karen Brady! We played West Ham on the Tuesday and she's a blue nose word removed!!!! 

22 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

A relegation rival being represented on the panel that decides whether we can sign a player?

I very VERY much doubt it. That would be a quite obvious conflict of interest and would never be allowed. And if it was, an independent hearing like this would surely decide it WAS a conflict of interest. We also wouldn't have described it as a "potential" conflict. 

That's why I put potential relegation rival! Looking at the criteria and the points system he met it so why would there be a rejection? Why redact so much of an official statement it's not the CIA!! 

On 21 January 2016 at 18:01, RimmyJimmer said:

 

29 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

It sounds like the conflict of interest was extremely tenuous, so I don't imagine it's anybody closely related to the club. We even cited it as a "potential" conflict, which would indicate we weren't confident of that ourselves.

 

That could easily be a potential relegation rival knocking us back? Either way it stinks added to the consistently bad refs you could get a conspiracy complex going!!!