PandaMac

As other's have said, he's not a bad player, it's just starting to show that he's played every game although I thought he played well today. Would consider resting him against Man U so he's a bit fresher for the vital game's against Sunderland, Norwich and Wigan. Can't really afford to drop him but will probably lose to them anyway.

When Samba got his head to that ball I genuinely thought it was in, what a world class save that was. Can't believe how much his game has come on from those cup game's early in his villa career when he couldn't command his box, now he come's and claim's everything thrown at him. Credit goes to him for improving and striving to become a better player. Class act.

Said it before and I'll say it again. This lad is going to be a top quality player and I've been impressed since his first game for us. Knew what kind of player he was when he signed but didn't know how well he would adjust to the prem. Have to say he's took it in his stride and is now probably our third key player behind Benteke and Guzan. Hope he has a long career at Villa. Unlikely though.

Got a funny feeling we'll get something from this. Maybe.... 3 - 0 to the villa.

I remember back to when i got my 360. The dashboard is unrecognisable now what with the app's and ad's on it. I agree we'll get a lot of poor game's that try to hard to use these new gimmicky feature's but the social element's are a good thing IMO. I just fear that the PS4 will try to hard with them because it was one aspect that was underestimated with the PS3.

Agreed, I'm only 20 so for me Mellberg and Laursen are legend's. I can't remember seeing the like's of McGrath and such, even though I can read about their exploit's on here and from the conversation's I've had with my dad, fact is I've never seen them play live so how can I compare. Growing up and watching Mellberg who was a model pro and brought passion to a pretty crap villa team was fantastic considering this was a time when much more money was coming into the game and more and more "mercenaries" started to show up, Laursen for me is also legendary but slightly behind Mellberg based on games played. Just wondering, does anyone think if Laursen had remained injury free and had kept playing until his late 30's, would people put him on par with god?

I think maybe this was done in mind with albrighton out for a while. We needed cover and I wouldn't expect him to start straight away just come on as a sub for 20 odd mins.

Think we'll get 4 points. A win against west ham and a draw in one of the other two games. We need at the VERY LEAST 2 points I would have thought.

Don't think it was the case of bombing out all of the high earner's, we just needed better value for money than what we were getting. I don't know exactly but I imagine Collin's was on about 50k a week, whereas Vlaar's probably on what 30k. I know who'd I'd rather have. Unfortunately we handed out those sort of contract's to squad player's as well and only at the end of this season will we see all of them gone barring Given and Bent. I do agree to the bit about other's cutting cost's to the extent we are though. It's getting ridiculous that we can't seem to splash the cash on someone like Sissoko who we could probably resell in the future for quite a bit more money if we had to.

Yeah that seem's quite familiar. Two team's shared the same manager and we both got relegat..... What's that? We haven't been relegated yet? Also nobody said we're in a sound financial position, just that it's better than Leed's was.

Think we've still got a decent chance of staying up. Mercenaries won't give a crap about QPR, Southampton will give it a go but that will ultimately be their downfall ( can see a lot of 3 -2, 4 - 3 loss's ) so it will be between us, Wigan and Reading and possibly one more team might get sucked into it ( West ham or Norwich ).

If he's good he might help keep us up. That's the point.

Considering I expected us to sign no one, I'm feeling quite good about this window. Even without a CB I think we will be a tiny bit better defensively as long as Lambert tell's Sylla not to go any further than 10 yard's from the CB's. That and I think we'd do better with a flat back 4 of Lowton, Vlaar, Clark and Baker and we played wide men to protect the full back's a bit better.

Experience!!! Just what we were looking for.

Maybe, just maybe we are signing player's in position's we don't think we need because they will fit into a system which will dramatically improve us tactically. Crazy? Yes. Clutching at straw's? Also yes.

I really hope we get a CB. Looking unlikely now though but could change.

Neither. 4-4-1-1 when we're defending and 4-2-3-1 when we're attacking. So you have a back 4 which doesn't change, Westwood and Sylla as CM, Gabby and Weimann on the wings and Zog playing just behind Benteke. Gabby and Weimann will protect the full backs better and also will be able to cut inside when attacking and score goals. Since this involves a lot of work, occasionally put Zog on the wing for one of them and put Ireland behind Benteke. I like the idea of a system with wing backs but we don't have the players or organisational skills to pull it off.

What, so the ability to keep the ball ( which no other of our midfielder's seem to be able to do consistently ) is bad? Also off the top of my head our 2nd goal against wba, picked up the ball about 20 yard's inside our half and with his first or second touch, fed Nzogbia with a great pass who in turn set up gabby.

Le Fondre 7 goals in last 5 games. How many in the last 10 min's as a sub. Wish we had fight like that.

WHAT THE HELL IS ADAM LE FONDRE MADE OF.

So after 440 odd pages we actually have something concrete to go on. At last.

Ha ha same here.

I'm just happy we signed someone but this did make me laugh.

I'd keep Lambert this season and next, whatever happen's. I honestly think that with 3 addition's to the squad we would comfortably avoid relegation so if we stay up I'd trust Lambert to get these player's as most of his signing's have been good IMO. Whether the money will be there or not is a different question.

Anyone who came in to manage us would need money to spend. Since that doesn't look likely to happen we need to stick with Lambert. It's our best option.