MessiWillSignForVilla

When Lerner took over, the top 4 was dominated by Arsenal, Utd and Chelsea, the 4th spot was wide open with Liverpool floundering, and Everton didn't look to capitalise any time soon, with a bit of good spending it was within reach of pretty much any other top half side. Then Man City became uber rich and shut off that 4th spot when they finished there. Tottenham showed how shrewd spending before then would of gotten you in and around the top 4, and they fortunately, for them, got in before City which meant they were "part of the club" when City shut off access so to speak. If Mansour hadn't bought City that 4th spot would of been much more wide open and achievable.

I know you said you're out, but you keep mentioning this and it just isn't true. Let's take £30 as the average ticket prices - as tickets cost between £23 -£40, I think, for West Ham - and an average attendance of 37,000. That gives us £1.11m per game, or £21m over the entire season (not counting cup games). Now let's say we have an extra 5000 turn up each week, that gives us £1.26m per game, or £23.9m per season. Not enough of an increase to make a significant change to the clubs finances, it adds almost £3m per year, enough to pay Gabby's wages. Now say ticket prices increase to £40 and we somehow keep the same attendance. Current attendances give £1.48m per game, £28.1m per year. A bigger increase, but with the dross that get's served up at home, not many are gonna pay £40 to watch it. And if somehow we get an extra 5000 per week, and increase prices to £40, we get £1.68m per game and £31.9m per year. A significant increase, it adds £10m to our current total, enough to get a very good midfielder in that we currently need, but with our current form it is unrealistic to increase ticket prices to this level and also expect 5000 extra people to turn up. Fans shouldn't consider their part, as unless their is a significant increase in ticket prices, the increase in revenue will be negligible. Money's tight at the minute for most people, why spend £30, let alone £40, to go watch a team that has hardly won at home all season. Yeah, you're supporting your team, but that money could be spent on something you'd actually enjoy. If attendances we were in the low 20,000s, I could understand saying the fans can take part of the blame, but since we are so close (ish) to max capacity each week, there is absolutely no way fans should "consider their part" as their part makes little to no difference currently.

Between 10th-13th, we've been bobbing around their all season, and I don't expect that to change.

We played defensively against a top 5 team who struggle to break down tough and organised defenses, if Lambert had reacted appropriately to how the game unfolded second half, we would have come away with 3 awesome points. Alas we didn't, one Vlaar mistake and a wonder goal later, we lose. We won't set up in a similar manner against those sides, possibly Newcastle, but I've not really watched them this season and don't know how they play. For West Ham, we'll most likely set up with the diamond again, similar to WBA, and we'll win, as long as Nolan is dealt with. As for Cardiff, don't let a win against Norwich fool you, they're piss poor, they hadn't won in 7 games before yesterday, and with their squad, I can't see them suddenly going on a winning run. We'll probably set up like Plop, close down quickly and try beat them on the counter, I imagine Gabby should be back by then, and I think we'll rip them to shreds, as we did for the first half v Plop. Newcastle, tough to say how we'll play, and they're almost as inconsistent as us, I don't know how we'll set up against them but i think it'll hinge on their next two games, if they hit form again, we may set up defensively, try nullify Ben Arfa, if they continue to slump, I reckon we'll go for the throat. Norwich, I imagine Lambert will desperately want to win and we'll really go at them in that game, and i think we'll set up either with the diamond or go for our 433 from last season. I think we'll set up in the ways I've outlined above, and that will get us between 7-10 points, possibly even 12, although that is a stretch. I don't think yesterday showed Lambert's "true picture", he set up in a way that stopped Everton, it worked, but he made poor decisions in the second half which cost us inevitably. We have good enough players to deal with the teams around us, but aren't quite good enough to deal with teams above us yet, hence the more defensive formations. You can't approach every game in the same manner, if you're not world class, you get quickly found out and exploited, you need to tweak for each game and sometimes even play completely different systems to counter teams.

Genuinely can't decide how much I think we'll get, I think it'll be between 4-7 points. I don't think we'll lose either of the next two, and I think it'll all depend which home side shows up v West Ham, and I reckon we'll beat Cardiff and lose or draw to Newcastle, depending on which Newcastle turns up.

We should try Carruthers in a midfield with Delph and someone else, he could be the answer to our "No. 10 problem".

His Net worth in 2013 was £1.1Bn, after the Browns sale, I'd say he is very much a sterling Billionaire again.

Still claims to be in his Twitter bio, I imagine he'd have changed that if something had changed.

I'm not anti-Lerner, I'd say I was in the middle, wouldn't mind him staying if we were run properly, but would quite like a new owner, but you're argument is absolute rubbish. We get crap attendances because we've been atrocious at home for the last 4-5 years, and although I don't agree with the booing, ditto. As for sponsorship, I thought Macron was our most lucrative sposorship yet, and isn't Dafabet bringing in a lot too?

Erm, we do have a rich owner? One who recently got paid roughly £500-600m for the Cleveland Browns and has £1.1Bn.

When's the latest financial report from? We should be turning a profit by now, maybe that's where the money comes from.

The expectation isn't spending £15m on midfielders, it's buying enough players that can cover all positions effectively. We spent £20m, roughly, in the summer, and we got a GK, LB, CB, Winger, 2 STs and an all rounder, whilst still having a threadbare defense and midfield that was still unproven at this level. EDIT: I should add, of our signings, 2 have long term injuries, 3 never play, 1 who has been largely terrible and 1 has been showing recently he might be a bit of a coup. These signings are fine, there risks that sometimes don't work out, but you can't build a squad on those players, you need to intersperse some big-ish money signings who will be able to play straight and will be relatively low risk, which we are currently to financially restricted to do. That's the expectation from the board.

It does not stop Vincent Tan and Mike Ashley. I do not think Lerner is disliked by the majority of fans, I think RL has lost his passion for the club and football in general. Vincent Tan seems to be absolutely mental though, and I'm not sure how disliked Ashley is since Newcastle started doing well again. Maybe he isn't dislike by the majority, but the content aren't the most vocal, the most vocal are always the ones who are pissed off and the ones who are over the moon. As for the last part, that's why I emphasised the if in the last sentence.

Let's be honest, if you were Lerner would you want to show up to VP? Probably not, the majority of fans hate him, and if he turned up he'd get dogs bollocks abuse. This will probably be passed off as "defending a billionaire", but it's fairly obvious why he doesn't turn up if he does indeed watch every game.

I don't think that's very accurate, I work out the Net spend as ~£40m for the last 5 seasons, as our big outlay season was the season before the last 5, and even then the Net is ~£70m. Any chance it's on a site that isn't the Sun?

Bye then

He was, he felt tightness in his hamstring and it's been reported he's got a Hamstring strain.

I don't think that Ashton is ever coming back, he only really did well as teams didn't really know how to play him, and remember in his 9 tries in 9 games stint, he got 4 v Italy and 2 against Wales in a game where the Welsh didn't particularly impress, although credit to him he was pretty good in his games v Australia around that time. Now, I think he's been found out, and he's targeted as he's pretty poor defensively, would rather not see him start this 6 Nations.

I think if we still utilised a 451 similar to the MON days, he could be a very good right winger. As for how we currently play, holding midfield possibly? He's good at reading the game in front of him and making interceptions.Should probably stick with him at RB though and see if he can recapture his form.

I don't think he would have garnered the same amount of attention as Holt. I don't know why I'm beating this drum so much, I don't think Holt played well today, but with an unknown quality in Helenius I think they would have risked not paying too much attention to him and double up on Benteke, whereas with Holt, they knew he was a physical player who could bully CB's when on form, so needed to nullify him so he didn't impact the game. If Helenius had played, I don't he'd have gotten much ball, and if he did, I haven't seen enough of him to suggest that he could currently be our focal point in attack if Benteke was crowded out and doubled up on.

Personally, I think our usual systems wouldn't have worked today either, I think we would have gotten overrun in midfield and would have been too narrow to deal with Everton's wide players. The way Everton play, they like to keep the ball, slowly build up and try to capitalise on defensive mistakes and use Baines' crossing ability if they can't break through. The best way to deal with a team that does that is to let them pass the ball about in front of you, stay disciplined, nullify their "Plan B" and watch as they get frustrated and start sloppily passing the ball around as they try and force something. Something we did fantastically in the first half. Holt, though he didn't play particularly well on the ball, was enough of a presence so that Jagielka focused on him and left Distin to deal with Benteke on his own. This is ideal for us as our best player is allowed to win the ball, have space to play and hold up for long enough that our quicker players - Delph, Weimann, Bacuna and Bertrand - can break forward. Our starting formation and line-up was perfect to deal with Everton, and it showed as we were 1-0 up and Everton were restricted to pot shots and not much else. Also the 3rd centre back often pushed forward into the holding midfield position when one of their midfielders got too much space, limiting Everton's creative capacity. Also, Bacuna did an awesome job of not allowing Baines to do much whenever he got the ball, Everton had no idea how to break us down. Second half is where it fell apart, as Lambert didn't adapt the formation to his and Everton's subs, personally I think he should have waited it out for 10-15 minutes, allowed Everton to get even more frustrated and desperate then make some subs. I would of brought off Holt and probably Baker and brought Lowton and KEA on, switching to a 41212 with Bacuna behind the striker and tried to exploit Everton as they begin to get increasingly desperate and sloppy. The introduction of Pienaar didn't really change much as it was a like for like change for Barkley, but when Naismith came on, we didn't adapt to deal with it. I think Everton went to 352 at this point with Barry joining Distin and Jagielka at the back, we should have moved to a 433 at this point with Weimann and Bacuna exploiting the gaps left behind Baines and McGeady as the bombed forward. As for reacting to Vlaar's injury/twinge, I'd have brought on Tonev or Sylla and moved Bacuna back to RB, and Lowton to CB. If Lambert had reacted sensibly to how the game unfolded we could have walked away with three points and possibly another goal and a clean sheet to boot. He didn't and it really let us down, he plugged his subs into a formation that was suited to a specific way Everton played and the original line up we had. Lambert made bad decisions in the second half which meant we couldn't get foothold in the game when Everton got the upper hand and completely undid all are brilliant work prior to that.

Total guesswork, but he only felt tightness so I'd imagine he could play v West Ham, but it may be a couple weeks out.

It's not like we're playing 3 centre forwards in the 4-3-3 system. When we have the ball, yes they have the freedom to roam inside, but they also at times cuts in out wide with sucsess. The way we've been playing recently has been with two up front, with Weimann behind the strikers (which incidentally I feel is our best set up), Gabby's role in that is to just bomb past the defence when we counter and keep the opposition on their toes. Albrighton has nowhere near the pace required to make that effective. Even with 433, Gabby and Weimann still aren't wingers really, and again Gabby's main weapon in this tactic is his pace breaking through the middle, and his sudden finding of dribbling and crossing ability. Albrighton isn't fast enough to hang off the shoulder like Gabby, he doesn't have enough in his locker to beat a man - his main "trick" seems to be knock it past and chase, which he is again, not fast enough, or strong enough, to do - and although his crosses look pretty, they rarely beat the first man. He doesn't have the ability Gabby has, nor physical aspects of his game.

Albrighton's a winger, and not very good one at that, he'd be awful up front.

Yeah, he fell hook, line and sinker for Fickou's dummy If he hadn't of bought it, there's a good chance that conversion would have been missed and it would have set up a very exciting final two minutes, or however long they would have played on after the 80.