M_Afro

When?

I don’t think you could ever accuse us of being bully boys

When this thread gets inevitably bumped again, please nobody mention Dyche as a possible new manager. Burnley are an awful, one dimensional bunch of bully boys that make no effort to play positive football. Total dinosaur.

It would cost much more than £60m mate. Much, much more

Hope you’re right mate. He is my favourite ever Villa player. Pure class

Superb today. The system really suited him. There was a real drop off when he went off. Hope his injury is not too bad! That could only happen to Villa!

The system we played today really suits us. I hope Deano sticks with it. We were superb in the first half and hung on when we needed to be strong late in the game. Huge win. You could see the confidence of the players increase during an impressive first half performance.

Grealish is worth £150m. He could play for anybody, he has a long contract at Villa, he is a leader, he is superb in a number of positions, he scores, he creates and he is a young good looking kid who is a marketing dream. I could really see him in a Barcelona shirt where he would be massive. He will leave at the end of this season and he will go with my blessing. I cannot believe that this kid is not England captain. Unbelievable player

Happy that he has shuffled the pack. Happy that Mings is back. Happy that the team has a slightly more physical edge to it. Happy that Burnley will not have seen this coming. Let’s see how it pans out. Come on you Villa boys!!!!!

The games really do come thick and fast at this time of year. It must be ace if you hit a good patch of form. Anybody remember a Christmas like that for Villa?............me neither!

It’s way too early to write any of our signings off. You can see potential in all of them. Smith has also said, on many occasions, that he was fully involved in agreeing to all signings, some of which he had already been looking at when he was still at Brentford. The problem we have and previously had was trying to implement too many inexperienced players at the same time. It’s a recipe for disaster. Hopefully we will add a bit more experience in January and that will bring up the performance levels of the entire group. We also look to be very poorly coached. We are disorganised at set plays and also when we lose possession. That buck has to stop with the manager who needs to start learning very quickly.

I think it will be a draw. I would love a win to kick start a much more successful decade but I just can’t see it. We had our chance to break our away jinx at 10 man Watford and totally screwed it up! I think Smith will go with the usual formation with Heaton, Elmo, Engels, Mings, Taylor, Nakamba, Luiz, Connor, Jack, AEG, Wesley. I would play 5-3-2 with Heaton, Elmo, Engels, Mings, Hause, Guilbert, Nakamba, Luiz, Jack, Davis, Wesley (all depending on fitness). The above gets much more height in the team for set pieces both in attack and defence. We will need the added physicality against Burnley

Lost at home last week and Rangers go top if they win the game in hand. Rangers also battered Celtic in the final. 9 times out of 10 they win that game.

Rangers finished 40 points behind Celtic 3 years ago. They are now favourites for the league. That is some progress.

Things can change very quickly in football. I have been very optimistic ahead of our recent games and it has got us nowhere. Therefore I am predicting a 4-0 win to Burnley, all 4 own goals by Wesley. What do I know!

That’s not quite true. Celtic have won 8 on the bounce and Gerrard started a fair way behind where Celtic were at the time. This season, Rangers have just had the better of things so far. He is also going well in Europe.

I would love us to get Gerrard involved. He is doing a great job at Rangers, has unbelievable connections in the game and would be such an inspiration for young players. He also does not accept lack of effort/aggression. I think he will go to the very top as a manager

Thanks for posting. I found it to be very interesting. Especially as it was based upon last season. The trends for both managers seem to have continued into this season, I have always had my doubts about Smith. I was one of the few people who moaned at his initial appointment. I do think though that unless we have a better option in the bag then we may as well stick with Dean for now. Whatever happens though I would look to upgrade at the end of the season which may be a bit harsh if he keeps us up but he just does not seem to be tactically aware.

We could easily of lost the Brighton game. We were very lucky indeed.

I would be amazed if he left in January. Sadly I would also be amazed if he is still here next season. That could only happen if we stayed up and really showed some serious intent in the summer transfer window.

I live in Leicester and it is a well known local fact that Drinkwater basically spends his entire time drinking anything other than water! He is a dead duck and should be avoided at all costs. This has got to be nonsense. I cannot see anybody at VP thinking that this is a good option.

Ha ha. He is frustrating AEG. He gives us something that we don’t really have elsewhere but he does switch off so much. There is a player in there but he is struggling to get out consistently. Not sure he is a CF though. Can you imagine a big lump CH going straight through the back of him?! We wouldn’t see him again all season!

If not Kodjia then who? Who else is there?

But there are loads of different aspects to management that you can get wrong. Formations, tactics, motivation et al are all key parts. These are all things that past and current management have got wrong. This is slightly different. We play a formation and tactics that depend upon having a lone attacker. There are probably only 3 viable alternatives at the club to fill that role; Wes, Kodj and Davis. Davis is injured which leaves two. Surely even the world’s worst manager could make the correct choice between two players to play a very defined role. I know that it is not really working for Wes at the moment but the argument that anybody else would be better is ridiculous. It ignores the fact that part of the problem is totally unrelated to Wes and is directly attributable to factors out of his control.

The people who earn a vast amount of money to make this decision, who also have the advantage of seeing all players up close and personal every day, respectfully disagree (as do I). Kodjia could not even perform in the Championship!