Daweii

He's also going to want to be first choice for the USA national team. He's in the squad right now as a third choice back up, but the only way he's going to move up and get more games is if he's the first choice at another club. Leaving Villa isn't just about more football in the Premier League, if he's as patriotic as most Americans are the most important prize is to be the first choice for his country.

What scares me is not getting relegated, but getting relegated and then being unable to beat their teams. Our youth players are more than good enough to blitz that league.. If we go down I want to see us winning games for fun as it's a vastly easier league. I just worry we won't and we'll be spending the next decade or two in the lower leagues.

How about an "Occupy Villa Park" camp?

I don't think it'll work that well.. When the occupy movement started those with jobs had a better excuse "we are doing it for the good of the economy".. if I went to my boss and said "I won't be in for 3 weeks as I'm protesting against Alex McLeish" he'd fire me instantly lol.

Our kids simple don't let us down, what they lose for lack of experience they make up for in guile and effort.

How can you say that when every game we play with the kids (many of whom are 20+) we loose ?

The sooner the blinkers are off about these kids the better. The more we rely on them the worse the results. Last season as well as this.

I totally agree with this people seem to be blind to some of the performances these kids are putting in. Albrighton has consistently failed to under achieve (I don't count the odd game as being good enough), Bannan is light weight, when we played Herd at LB at Wolves he was so poor he had to come off, Baker was an accident waiting to happen against Chelsea.....

You anti youth players advocates also seem to forget that even when we play a side practically void of youth we still lose. It doesn't matter who we play at least the youth can string some decent passes together, we may just lose with a bit more style with the kids playing.

Best we can hope for is he returns as a coach or something, though chances are once he's beaten this thing he'll probably move back to Bulgaria for a time so he can enjoy the company of his extended family.

I think trying to rate a player in the final stretch of what has been a long season for AZ is never fair. Holman when he arrives here is not going to be tired and nor is he going to get all that tired here given the lack of cups we excel in.

I actually think the only game we can take a point or all three from is Liverpool.. Their form just isn't great right now it could very easily be like when we faced Chelsea earlier in the season, their form was shocking we all expected them to break their drought and we won 3-1. If we can do that again against another out of form team we'll be in a much better situation.. The rest though are relatively in form and will probably batter us.

That was back when it was ok to lose to Newcastle by more than a goal or two as they were seriously good back then.. That was back when they had front men like Les Ferdinand, Alan Shearer and Faustino Asprilla. I miss those days when we had a squad that could win the League Cup and give any top team a good run.

Though at the same time it very much could mean that.. I know Lerner is quite the wordsmith and rather epic at stringing a long a well crafted tale of success, but for him to come out and pretty much say in less direct words to ignore the manager isn't something a chairman says unless the manager is going soon.

Left side of a front three or midfield ?

Is he a winger ?

He can play upfront or right wing.

Heskey if you want to give us a going away present do it on Saturday score a goal or two.. I know it's gonna be hard and I know the goal is small but we need something, anything. If you aren't going to contribute would you ask McLeish to start with Ireland and Gabby upfront.. Ireland has better finishing than you.

Most of our games can be drawn and even won if fortune favours us. We only need one win and a draw to be completely safe..

Im amazed at how many people seem to be ignoring the players we have available at the minute when predicting the relegation run in.

Bolton, Sunderland, Norwich, Stoke, and West Brom - are winnable games - with a squad!! We have nearly our full first team out.

Football is football.. The great thing about it is anything can happen. Yes we look dead certs to lose every game we play right now, but we can very easily win them too..

Probably..

- "So we're not good enough?"

- "So playing defensively was our fault?"

- "So we were guaranteed to lose to them before we turned up?"

He's a complete dick.. There is one thing being clear spoken and "honest" but at times it's nice to lie to spare the feelings of others. There is a time and a place to have a go at someone when they deserve it, yet these days he's just sticking the boot in further. Our players already feel demoralised and shit enough as it is.

I think we can safely say Wolves are going down they are on 22 points with Stoke, Arsenal, Sunderland, Man City, Swansea, Everton and Wigan to go.. To get 7 points to even overtake Wigan and Blackburn is hard enough. To get truly safe they need to win 6 of those 7 games..

Wigan have Chelsea, Man Utd, Arsenal, Fulham, Newcastle, Blackburn and Wolves.. They are on 28 points. They need 6 points to overtake us. They have a slightly easier points total, but other than Fulham, Blackburn and Wolves the rest aren't games they can win. If we get 3 more points we are out of reach of Wigan on goal difference.

Blackburn have West Brom, Liverpool, Swansea, Norwich, Tottenham, Wigan and Chelsea.. They also need 6 points to overtake us. Realistically the games they can win are West Brom, Swansea, Norwich and Wigan. If they win those 4 we may be in trouble. Though as with out of form sides like ourselves even the likes of Swansea and West Brom will be very hard matches for them.

Going by that if we by some miracle win at least 2 of our remaining 8 games we will be safe on goal difference. Win 3 of 8 we will be safe completely. Stoke, Sunderland, Bolton, West Brom and Norwich are all very winnable games.. We may even take a win from Liverpool depending which Liverpool side turns up.

I said it a lot yesterday.. We threw the kids in at the deep end against a Chelsea side that has barely changed since they battered us 7-1 a few seasons back. To score 2 goals against that kind of competition with a side comprised with an outfield age average of 23 and factoring in Given an average age of 25 is great news for the future. I know it may sound defeatist but had we played this team against Stoke, Fulham, Newcastle etc.. We'd have probably won.

Some posters on this forum are far too harsh.. Some said yesterday was the worst Villa performance they'd ever seen. What I saw was players for once playing slick passing football and smart lofted passes when required. Yes there was no cutting edge but it was a mixture of having many players out and playing Chelsea.. I thought yesterday was promising, yes we lost but the small things I saw were great..

Disinterested and Ireland? Are you kidding me? He's the only player in our side right now that week in week out plays like he loves the club. He's our best player and without him we wouldn't even have the option of drawing games right now.

Makoun didn't get a pre-season.. He didn't get a chance to truly gel with those around him. When he was played we were in a relegation fight and he was a liability. It wasn't down to a lack of quality it was just down to a simple fact he couldn't adjust quick enough. I'm not sure why McLeish loaned him unless he assumed that Houllier didn't play him so he must be average, I don't know but if Makoun can get to grips with the PL then he'll be a great player for us.

Lichaj was a boss yesterday.. He did more in that game than Hutton has all season. At times it seemed like he was channelling Kyle Walker when he was attacking.. He has some pace and a great situational brain, the main difference and a big one is unlike Walker.. Lichaj is a great defender, he kept their players silent all game. The weaknesses came from Baker.

A week or so ago Ireland said in a interview that he doesn't care where he's played provided he plays and is happy. I wasn't sure if he was telling the truth until yesterday's game.. He is genuinely happy at this club and just wants to play football. I am really glad that Ireland has come good, it just saddens me that we don't have a better team around him.

Looked very dangerous today. Should be on the right though

Why? He played 20 minutes yesterday on the left and looked more dangerous there than he has all season. If Albrighton can make the left work then keep him there.. N'Zogbia prefers the right so he's not gonna care if he's moved, if anything he'd welcome it.

He still looks healthy from the clip I saw earlier. But I guess that might change over the next few months.

The big change will happen after a few weeks of chemo.. Depending how his body reacts he'll either look tired or really really ill which may alarm some, but it won't be from the cancer it'll be from the treatment.

I personally think we did well given our circumstances.. We were playing some good passing football. Yes there was no cutting edge but we've been saying that all season it wasn't just a solitary issue in this game alone. I think the youth did themselves proud they didn't do anything wrong that's for sure. I'm not going to get on their backs.. At least they tried to fight back which is more than the side has done in most games this season.

Everyone getting downbeat just shut up.. The game isn't about the result we could lose 12-0 and I don't care. This game is about remembering what Stan has done for us and supporting him. Forget the result.

Probably the worst Villa team i've ever seen.

I actually think it's a strong one.. Sure they are young, but many of them are more gifted with a football than most of the "experienced" players we've played all season.