MessiWillSignForVilla

Is 6 points against Man City and Southampton acceptable though? No, we should of had the common decency to lose to those superior teams.

He was at fault for the first goal and a bit clumsy for the penalty decision. A lot of stick for Herd on here and i don't think he can be faulted for either goal. Berbatov running the show. Herd can't be blamed for the second but the first he's standing next to Clark, what great positioning for a CB! He was massively out of position chasing after the ball like a headless chicken, again, which left a huge gap for Fulham to slip through. Bacuna didn't do well in this situation, he maybe should of challenged Sidwell, but the blame then shifts to Guzan for coming out, there's no need. If he stays on his line, Sidwell chips it gratefully into his arms. And as for the penalty, clumsy? Yep, very clumsy running in a straight line and not lunging in in the box!

Can the ref get subbed at Half Time please?

Exactly.... Just how much worse must Bacuna get before Lowton gets considered? Bacuna's not been that bad, he's not been good either, but most of his mistakes have come from covering Herd when he's decided to go close down a central midfielder.

Last man is a rule for hacking someone down on the half way line when they are clean through. The actual rule is denying a goalscoring opportunity, that wasn't what Kackanaklic had since he was falling over...

Get Herd off, or move him, he's not a CB, he keeps chasing the ball and getting out of position, leaving huge gaps in defence. First goal was his fault, he went for the header on Berbatov leaving a massive gap between Clark and Bacuna which Fulham exploited. Never a penalty, what was Bacuna meant to do when Kakanacklic jumped in front of him? Stop completely still so he doesn't touch him? What the **** has Weimann done? Get him off too, even if it means Tonev comes on, at least you know what Tonev is doing.

BBC Sport's coverage of anything that isn't the Premier League or England Cricket, mainly Rugby Union. It's absolutely useless. I know those two are the main sports in the country and going to be the things viewed the most on their site, but they're meant to be the BBC ffs, they should make it look as if they at least try to put some effort into the reporting of the other sports.

You're correct re Holloway, I didn't realise it took Palace a month to appoint someone, however that is not when Palace's good form started, they still only got 1 point from the three games under the caretaker. Since Pulis was appointed they've won 3 lost 1, and is when Bannan began to play well. This is much more likely Pulis getting the best of Bannan and Palace rather than Bannan being responsible for Palace's good form. I was wrong about how long he's been in the Scotland team, however has he been playing well for them? A quick glance at match reports suggest he didn't get any assists or goals, and missed some easy-ish chances. As for the two games mentioned, Scotland scored against the run of play in both games with goals in which Bannan wasn't heavily involved. I'm not wrong about VIlla last season. Yes he started against QPR and Reading, but if you read my post again you'll notice I put best football as well as best form. We were quite poor against those two IIRC, and were fairly lucky to win both games. After that Bannan was dropped and we began to click. We played the best football we had all season and Bannan was not playing. I'm not saying it's because Bannan wasn't playing, however to suggest that whenever Bannan played we played better, is wrong imo. Being present in a team does not necessarily mean the player influences the game, it could be that the other 10 players pick up their game as they feel they have to carry that player. I don't mean Bannan specifically, but saying a players run in a team causes the team to do better without them contributing goals or doing well defensively suggests they weren't the cause for the upswing in form.

Nah, it makes they're poor form much funnier if you're constantly reminded they were in the top 4 about 12 months ago

Palace's upswing in form didn't coincide with Bannan's reintroduction to the team, it coincided with Holloway's sacking/Pulis' appointment. As for Scotland, they're doing OK, not pulling up trees though, they beat Norway in a game Bannan didn't start, drew with the US and beat Croatia and Macedonia and lost the two games before that. The only stand out result is beating Croatia, a game which, correct me if I'm wrong, Bannan didn't have an awful lot of influence over, in fact he even missed a penalty. Plus, he's been starting for Scotland for much longer than the last 3 months (the period in which Scotland have hit this "purple patch") hasn't he? And as Mantis said above, Bannan getting dropped from Villa's team last season also coincided with some of our best form and the best football we saw throughout the entirety of last season. So yes coincidence, as Bannan's introductions to these teams did not coincide with them picking up form and starting to win.

First off, AM82 didn't say he got 0 assists, he said that when we play Palace he will get no assists and his crosses will just float into Guzan's hands. Considering the main criticism of Bannan (or at least my main criticism) is something that you don't see when viewing highlights, then yes you do have to be at the game rather than just watch MOTD. Bannan is a MOTD player as they show HIGHlights, i.e. when players do something good, they don't show the 30 yard missed passes or the poor tracking back or poor tackling, unless they lead to a contentious decision or a chance/goal. To judge any players form based on MOTD is misguided. And frankly, if only 5% of a players game is good, no matter how brilliant, he's not a very good player.

His manager last season was Ian Holloway, who managed to flog Adam to Liverpool for £7m through excessive over-hyping, so very likely

Sunderland winning 1-0! It's been coming, they've been the better team with better chances imo. AVB has to be going soon surely.

To be fair, it doesn't look like Con specified whether he'd be forced out or plucked away by a big boy.

That's more because Southampton have had a mentality of introducing talented 16/17/18 y/o's to the first team for years now, so the team and fans are more comfortable and relaxed with those players coming into the squad. When's the last time a teenager got brought into the first team here and played fairly consistently, Gabby maybe? Therefore seeing a teenager in the Villa first team would be a very rare sight and would undoubtedly give the fans some very high expectations, "He must be good if he's playing at 17/18". At teams like Southampton this expectation isn't there as it's pretty common for youngsters to break through. Plus Southampton have been blessed with some fantastic prospects that have/will play at the highest levels, Walcott, Bale, Chamberlain, Lallana, Shaw, Ward-Prowse etc. I would be surprised (pleasantly) if Grealish really lived up to the hype and ended up playing at a level similar to those players mentioned. I agree that it would be great to see more young players in the first team, but the problem with doing it at a club that isn't quite used to it, you have to do it with the right player. Waste it on a player like Luke Moore who doesn't live up to the hype, fans become more skeptical about youth players coming though. Get it right with a player who goes on to play very well for 2/3 years and then gets sold for £15m +, or serve the club for a long time a la Gabby and Barry, fans will be more receptive to the idea of introducing youth players to the first team. Loaning your youth players out for a couple years before easing them into the first team allows them to get valuable first team experience and gets fans used to the idea that this player could break into the first team, which eases expectations on them to perform and prove themselves. They come in as a relatively known quantity, instead out of left field at age 17 which makes fans think he must be something special.

I think he does that on purpose so he has to go in with a flying, two-footed, scissor tackle on the opposition

Finished 4th and won the Europa League But Man Utd (5th) won the CL Having VP expanded by 12,500 and have to play a season in the Ricoh Arena, not too happy, but hopefully it means I can play my first season in the CL in a 55,000 seater VP Sold Westwood to Atletico Madrid for £15m as he wanted £50k pw, replaced him with Barkley for £14m. Also trying to sign the unhappy Ozil from Arsenal, he wants European football as Arsenal finished 8th

I think if he didn't it's something he would've regretted for the rest of his life. Jobs like Man U don't grow on trees, and he may have neve gotten an offer like that again. Maybe it won't work out, but I don't think he could've turned it down at the time. I think he'd also appreciate he had done all he could for Everton, and realises they probably wouldn't be doing anywhere near as well as they currently are under Martinez.

If we win 4-0 tomorrow, we go above them When's the last time that happened?

words cannot describe how much i dislike this clown. his comments are complete comedy. does he really believe this garbage? Might want to read up about the source first

Just beat Norwich 3-0 in the 2015 FA Cup Final!!!! 2 goals from Didier Drogba and 1 from Villa's own Jack Grealish Now to turn my attention to my fight for 4th and the Europa League final. EDIT: Okore just came to me saying he wants to move to a bigger club, I trot out the line of "I'm aiming to qualify for the CL", and he replies with "When do you plan to achieve this?" If you haven't noticed mate, were 2 points behind 4th with 2 games to go!

Are you expanding your stadium? That would mean you have to play in an inferior stadium for a while

Just to play Devil's advocate, which Winger/Attacking Midfielder is better then? I'll take Gabby, but I would say that is when he plays as a Striker or more centrally, as a winger, I'd still say Young is better.

My order is being processed Now hopefully it'll arrive by Thursday so I can play when i get back from Uni! So very excited now! :D

I can't quite believe how many people wouldn't have a player who is better than pretty much all of our players bar Benteke just because of one dive! Yes, that dive hurt, for some reason we tricked ourselves into thinking that he wouldn't do what he does in almost every single game to his former team. Of course he would, at the end of the day he's a footballer, none of them care about their clubs, with the rare exception of players like Gerrard and Gabby. But to completely reject the idea of him returning because he dived against us, give over! Would you reject Cahill returning if he dived vs Us? What about if someone like Bannan (or another young-ish player who leaves) went on to play for a top 4 team and dived against us, would he be completely out of the picture too? (Bannan may be a bad example as I think many on here may not want him back ever, just so they don't have to admit he's good ) As for diving in general, sure it was frustrating whilst he was here, but it never garnered this sort of hatred and disdain when he was winning us free kicks. Out of our midfielders/wingers, who is genuinely better than him? Gabby, AW, Tonev, Albrighton, Delph et al are all worse without a doubt. Personally though, I would not like to buy him, I don't think you should go back to former teams/players, I would rather give players like Grealish and Graham a chance. However, if Lambert decided he was the right player for us, I would welcome him back and certainly wouldn't bitch and get upset just because he dives.