fightoffyour

Vlaar in the squad for tomorrow guys!

It's like a new signing!

can we afford Liam Trooter @ £2m ?

No.

WDFAITJTW

WDFA would probably do it.

Vlaar back in training is just the one positive thing the club can feed us at the moment. Doubt he'll play though.

It doesn't sound great does it? We all know that big investment is needed urgently or we may very well get relegated.

However, they're not exactly going to come out and say "we've been given £30m to blow, who wants some?"

It says he rejected us in the summer and is glad he did now. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for us

It doesn't say anything like that at all. It in fact says that Ajax rejected our offer and that it's turned out to be a good thing for him because now he's won a place in their team.

The first we've heard of this rumour and it's to say he's joined another club! Pssh

If we concede first I don't see us coming back. I think we would have lost to Norwich in the cup if Holman hadn't scored that 'wonder' goal straight after theirs.

Pete Colley reporting on twitter that we are not in for Coutinho.

Shipping 32 goals in 4 games* should make it fairly obvious.

*Please note stats may have been inflated for effect.

Nope, I think they're pretty much spot on.

The issue is we have to keep a clean sheet and score at least 3 to get to the final, I mean talk about making it a tough job.

Nope. 2-0 in 90 minutes and no goals in ET will do for us. Easy!

It was a silly height for Bent to jump to.

It was so bad that hardly anyone has even mentioned Bent's miss, which is possibly the worst miss I have EVER seen. Then he went off after out of embarrassment. Not what you want from your £20m player who should be trying to prove a point.

But one chance aside, the downfall of this game (and the season in general) is the lack of a midfield. We started out as a 4-2-4 which basically equates to 4-0-4. You're never going to pass the ball out of your half like that, and we didn't.

This is the reason for our lack of goals and has contributed to our terrible defending. However the goals yesterday were purely down to terrible defending alone. The first was very unlucky that it fell to the striker but he still should have been played offside. 2nd goal was just woeful. Third goal - how is Benteke getting beat by anyone in the air I don't know.

So no one correctly predicted the lineup:

Given

Lowton

Clark

Baker

Bennett

[/teamline]

[teamline]

Weimann

Agbonlahor

N'zogbia

Benteke

The fire was a tragedy don't get me wrong, but I don't recall them doing it previously

You can't go and do our applause but not theirs.

Think he's looked decent the last 2 games. At least willing to move with the ball, try to beat a man and get a cross in. Not always successful, not even close, but a whole lot better than the most of the rest of the team. Considering he has been the least bedded Villa player out there, that is very encouraging for me.

Not too sure the 2nd Spurs goal was his fault. Plenty of other mistakes contributed to that goal, and could he have actually put the ball out rather than in the middle from his position? I thought he did well to make the challenge at all.

yeh this was definitely a low point. I was willing to forget about the other 2 losses, despite the scorelines, as we expected to lose. But to lose at home to Wigan, in the manner that we did, is truly awful.

Herd shouldn't be playing CB. He could have easily used the injuries as an excuse to revert to 4 at the back if he wanted one, but instead persisted with a system that isn't working.

Confidence is so low that players won't even run forward into open space in front of them with the ball. Everyone was static on the ball, like a game of bloody netball.

Actually thought Bennett looked decent, may have given the ball away once or twice and ballooned one cross, but at least he had drive to get forward and beat a man. Same as Albrighton when he came on.

Ireland is disgraceful player. We can't afford (and I don't mean financially) to have a player who only turns up when he can be arsed. And today he couldn't. I don't care if he's our most talented footballer or not, it's pointless if he's not going to put a shift in.

Holman is a very very poor footballer. How many times he can't make a 2 yard pass is unbelievable. He's scored a few great goals but can't even do the basics.

We need a new midfield quite simply. As has been said (sorry for not quoting), it's not just the defence at fault for shipping goals or the attack for not scoring. We have no midfield and so we have no protection and no service.

Pressure off away from home at Swansea, hope we can nick something, and use FA cup to boost confidence. Hopefully.

And on that note, can't Lerner afford to meet Messi's buy-out clause now?

I have no clue how we will line up for this, but hopefully Bannan finds his way back in. I'd be interested to see:

Benteke

Carruthers

Holman

Ireland

Westwood

Bannan

Lichaj

Clark

Herd

Lowton

Guzan

Also, if we revert back to 3-5-2, which I do not imagine we will, I would give Stevens a shot at the wingback role, put Lichaj at RWB, and shift Lowton to the right of the back 3.

2-1 Win.

I just can't see Guzan upfront working at all I'm afraid, even though he's been our MOTM the most this season.

Haven't seen anyone predict a 3-0 win to us but for Wigan!

No Tetty, Turner, Garrido and Hooli for starters, they're big players for us.

No Guzan, Vlaar, Westwood, Bannan for starters, they're big players for us.

Carrick has barely played all season and would prefer to play for Villa in a relegation battle for £20k a week than stay at Man U

Yep that was an utterly ridiculous thing to say. A win in any way, shape of form is what we need.