fightoffyour

Best news of the day Bent stays, now just need Lambert out and a manger that understands how to play to a goalscorers strengths to come in.

But as the latter is not going to happen, we would be better off selling Bent and using the money elsewhere, yes?

Thriller for Sylla at the Villa? We have to win with him MOTM just so someone can write that headline.

Brilliant. We really should have "We Go Again" instead of "Prepared"

We do. http://pic.twitter.com/1mNbW4Bd

I don't know what is available out there so this is pure financial conjecture;

but buying one solid DM, let's say for a £5m transfer fee on wages of £40k for 3.5 years = total cost of £12m. That's a £12m maximum loss (in the situation that said player would run out contract and leave on a free)

This £12m could very well be the difference between staying up and going down. £12m that if we stay up will be recuperated in extra revenue from the TV money in 1 year alone. This sort of business would have to equate to a calculated risk that's worth taking.

On this day in 2008, Alan Hutton joined Spurs from Rangers in a £9m deal.

Delph is injured, Baker might be back.

No, we'll just go with what we've got.

We go again

Full strengh team should be played and let's get our name in the 4th round draw, it is the fa cup for christ sake, let's try and win it, plus if we win itl give us a bit of confidence for newcastle

This is the 4th round. We're closer to winning it than you thought!

Could still be effective for us given a more attacking license, with Westwood and Herd (as we're not buying anyone) behind him.

We have to win be 3 clear goals.

No we don't. We can get through after ET by winning 2-0 or by penalties after 3-1.

Newcastle are competing at a different level to Villa so it would be unfair to try to compare.

Yes they are competing at the 21 point level, whereas we are competing at the 20 point level.

Could do without ET as I have to be up early for work Weds and I can see temperatures plummeting after 9pm

Could easily be -4c or below after HT

Are you Michael Fish? You're always going on about the weather.

cheers, shame that! 2 - 0 at 90 mins winning is a hell of a lot better than 2 - 0 going into extra time

As we are not going to keep a clean sheet this won't be a concern! In fact it's probably better for us that they don't count until ET as it's more likely to be 4-2 than 2-0!

celebrating getting to a cup final would be embarrassing?

in addition as well, which a few now will probably swear at their laptops, but if money wasnt an issue, and we could afford a couple of CMs, id drop westwood as well, hes good, but not brilliant, he too is a little weedy

No, he keeps the ball moving and playing ticking over. Yes we need a big strong DM next to him (which we all already know), but the midfield disappears completely when Westwood isn't playing (e.g. Bradford). He's usually one of our key players, consistent but never spectacular. We'd have to buy a whole new top 6 standard midfield before I'd think about dropping him.

With little travelling for away fans they can wait to make a call on it. Not like some of the games being called off now already. I hope it's played.

West Brom keeper Ben Foster thinks it is "unthinkable" that Aston Villa could be relegated, ahead of the Midlands derby at the Hawthorns on Saturday.

"Just driving down the motorway, you see the big stadium alongside and to think they could be playing Championship football is just unthinkable," says Foster.

"If you'd said that three or four years ago, you wouldn't have believed it. But times change."

Legend.

Wish we could have him coaching and eventually managing. While I'm wishing for things can we have him playing again too!

Robin Bairner ‏@RBairner

#Marseille will try to use € from Remy deal to secure #Sissoko from#Toulouse. He wants €2.5m per year + bonuses. Decision expected today.

So thats €50k = £45k per week (I haven't checked exchange rates, this could be completely wrong) + bonuses. Sounds like his demands have dropped to something more realistic.

Nooo much better to play it. They are on as bad a run as they have been and we've got a fair few fixtures coming up. Plus Saturdays are crap when we don't play (and crap afterwards).

I like the positivity. I'm not sure if this is the worst side I've ever seen or not though. Relegation really could go either way at the moment.

So they have had good luck ? We got battered at their place 4-1 and they have been decent so far in the prem this season for a side that has not been up in yearsss.

This isn't unlucky it's something turning from inconsistency at the start of the season to not getting any results at this point in the season.

They had good luck to get the penalty, yes. I agree they have looked decent, especially against us and even when losing against the top teams. But the fact that we are so bad and they have beat us twice, yet they still only have 2 more points than us (they probably will not get any points from their game in hand against Chelsea [Yes, I know that QPR did, but still.]) makes me think they still have to be relegation candidates. And if they get some bad luck like non - penalties going against them, they might end up in trouble too.

Edit: Just realised which thread this is in and it's way OT so I'll stop there.

I was trying to say that the reason they won was because they scored a penalty, which should never have been a penalty, therefore they were lucky and we were unlucky. And I was supposing that had they not got that lucky penalty then the game may have been a 0-0 draw (this is pure conjecture of course).

The fact that we didn't score was not bad luck, that was poor finishing/skill i.e. not good enough, and hence why we didn't win was partly down to the bad luck of conceding a penalty and partly being not good enough.

Obviously losing all the other games was completely us not being good enough and I agree that we are not nearly good enough.

I was only trying to say that losing that one game was partly bad luck. It was said that none of this was down to bad luck and that's where I have to slightly disagree.