sharkyvilla

Applying logic to the way the club is being run at the moment then I agree with the opening post, it is going to be a slow start to the rebuild before a pretty steep upward curve. This is assuming that Randy isn't just saving money for the sake of saving money but is simply trying to correct the mistakes of the past. He's got a young manager in who to my mind has the intention of playing good football with young, hungry players on much lower wages, although it is an incredibly tough juggling act at the moment. This is achievable as the likes of Benteke, Lowton, Vlaar and Westwood illustrate. They are Lambert's big successes for me and once we stop losing the £200k a week on Dunne, Warnock, Hutton, Ireland etc and reinvest it in players like the four I listed (probably with lots of spare cash left over as well) then the team will improve with a decent pre-season. We need to sign players with sell-on value or if we do need the odd short-term addition to fill a hole they need to be cheap and above all reliable. That's the only way of the club getting back to where it should be.

I agree but I think it's unlikely that Vlaar and Dunne would both make it to the end of the season without missing games, so signing another centre-half would still be a good idea even if they are a cheap lump.

Whilst it would be incredibly shit to get relegated we could easily lose a fortune by gambling on the wrong sort of players to keep us up. Getting relegated would make it easier to get rid of the players that have been a disgrace to the club whilst most of the squad would be forced to take a pay-cut. I'm pretty sure Lambert would take us back up again at the first attempt if we did go down though there is obviously no guarantee of that. I'm still hoping that Randy is looking long-term at correcting the mistakes of the past 5 years but still gives Lambert a bit of backing for the right players this January so we can avoid it.

I really liked Davies until he did his shoulder in, I've never quite understood why his stock is so low on here but I don't get to see us week in week out. Obviously never a £10m player and that weird thing about not playing him as we would have had to give him a new contract was another example of our over-indulgence with money, but for £1.5m, solid and still at a good age I would welcome him back.

Depends on which club caves into his demands first, as VillaCas indicates. Sissoko really could just wait until the summer and run his contract down if he wanted if nobody stumps up the wages now. He'd also have a better idea of who didn't get relegated. That's one of the reasons why people need to keep things in perspective when it comes to doing deals in January.

I agree with you on Houllier, he really let the club down before he had his health problems. As I said before, in hindsight it would have been better to have him in a development role with a young, hungry manager like Lambert as coach. That was probably Randy's biggest missed opportunity.

And that sums it up perfectly choffer

They'd probably consider a loan though. How injured is he?

We need to sign good players that have sell-on value. If we desperately sign players who are going to do a job for 12 months and then be a financial burden on the club for the 3 years after that we'll just end up going round in circles.

Not really. Even if nothing is announced players could still be doing the Villa Park tour or looking round the training ground as we speak. Anyway, what do people think of the ex-Barca pair Romeu and Rochina? Would they have the ability to make a difference in Prem scrap? Guzan Lowton Vlaar Bruma Cavanda Romeu Westwood Weimann Rochina Agbonlahor Benteke Romeu on loan to buy, Rochina probably buyable, Cavanda just because I like the idea of him but Bruma probably unavailable until the end of his loan in Germany

Talking of Dutch centre-halves I've always liked the look of Jeffrey Bruma who seems surplus to requirements at Chelsea

When Vlaar was fit and in the side he definitely tried playing out from the back. The first half against West Brom we passed and moved quite well but Benteke had a mare that day meaning it came to nothing but a desperate 1-1. Gradually as the results and crap defending have taken their toll players have completely lost their confidence to do anything remotely creative.

I think we started off with the right intention but the lack of quality from our 'creative' players has meant that Lambert's had to be more pragmatic, hence Benteke starting instead of Bent. Long term I'm sure he wants to play the right way, unlike McLeish.

I'm pretty sure Lerner trusts Lambert with the club over the next few years and would have backed him to buy the players he needed gradually based on getting the deadwood out and replacing them with hungry new players on less wages. Our predicament has just accelerated the process and I would expect a few signings now before we are able to get rid of the shite. I hope so anyway, and that he'll get whatever transfer budget Lambert feels he needs.

O'Neill is such an intense character and I'm sure if you work with him he can be very persuasive. That's always been one of his strengths as a manager but also his inflexibility is a weakness and he has never managed to leave a legacy at a club he has worked at. That stops him being a great manager that could have ended up at one of the 'big' clubs. It's a shame that as a Villa employee O'Neill was unable to work under the new financial constraints that Lerner was having to impose and decided to walk out instead. Operating under a financial system where you have to sell your best players for big profit like we did and reinvesting the money to build a new squad is a viable option and displays management skills that unfortunately O'Neill didn't fancy and the managers since then have failed to succeed in. That's probably the biggest reason we are in such a mess.

Ideally we should have gone for Lambert (or someone similar) as first-team coach with Houllier as director of football when O'Neill left. I think Houllier had good ideas but he just couldn't give it all on the touchline. I think deep down Lambert has a similar philosophy but is having to do it with utter carthorses because of the money we've wasted.

But to be fair to him, having that £30m completely written off is not his fault at all yet comes out of his own pocket. I assume that doesn't include their wages either, or the other 4 or 5 players still at the club who he is paying to do nothing. I don't see how he gets the blame for bad scouting of players, that is down to the manager at the time. I think he set fair budgets for our aims but he is probably not rich enough to lose £30m a year (he's a dollar billionaire I think, not a sterling one, plus the divorce and recession etc). In the long term he is doing the right thing but it has got to the point where he has to spend money this January and ensure that Lambert buys players that will have resale value. Of course it would be nice to hear him speak but he never spoke out during the good times either. The stick lies with the bloke doing the day to day job, Faulkner.

Would he really earn a better living as assistant manager at a second division German team? Weird. Another illusion shattered if true. There is the off chance that they're becoming a feeder club and he's getting involved but probably not.

I find it very unlikely that we will find a new owner that will fulfill our ambitions so I think the best case scenario is for Randy to stay at the club through thick and thin and make this financial restructuring work. Lambert needs to be part of this. Faulkner will have to be the one to go, with someone like David Dein taking on his role. I fear that we will have to settle for relegation as part of the rebuild, unless Randy has the cash and willingness to secure our position with a strong window. What a horrible, horrible mess.

I still think that signing high earners who do **** all for the club is the cause, not necessarily getting rid of them. If we could get rid of them that would be the best thing to happen to the club since we finished 6th.

We are the worst team in the league at the moment, simple as that

That's where Henke's appointment in the summer is so crucial, we really need him to bag some gems from abroad. The likes of Everton have built a squad over time by adding quality gradually, and these players can come from anywhere but rarely cost a fortune. It helps that they have had managerial stability for the last 10 years or however long Moyes has been there. You're right though, bar about 4 of O'Neill's signings and most of Lambert's, we have had absolutely shocking value for money.

He's got very limited playing resource to choose from, probably the worst in the league at the moment but to me he is at least trying in every game to get a positive result so I give him credit for that. Maybe it's a bit naive to do that right now but in the long term surely it can only benefit the club. This transfer window is vital for the club, any screw ups and we're 50/50 to get relegated, get it right and the improvement should be quite sharp.

Unless it came from Lambert's mouth at a press conference I don't see how he could know that for certain

If I was going to tell porkies I'd probably pick better clubs than Villa and Southampton if my client had the potential of Coutinho