westholmevillan

Really impressive start to the season, fair play to him.

Totally agree. Excellent start to the season by AH

Villa 3 Orient 0

18,783

I think it's a very good signing. Balotelli seems like he has matured a bit.

Yeah...he now acts like a ten year old.

Is it just me, but is there a slight feeling of positivity/optimism right now?

 

Granted the win has helped, but the signing of Sanchez, appointment of Fox and general good feeling has certainly increased recently.

 

The question is... what is making you feel good about Villa right now?

 

Positivity? Sure, we won the game last weekend. That keeps the mood stable during the next week, until you play the next game. The mood after that game will be based on the outcome, just like it would for every other fan of any other club. However, take a look at the first game last season when we won 3-1 away to Arsenal. One games means absolutely nothing in the long run, except of course that is brings us 3 points closer to the magical line of 40 and avoiding relegation. With our upcoming fixtures in a few weeks, we desperately need a few wins now to create some cushion.

 

The signings over the summer have been mediocre, yet again. We have gone for experience, but none of the players will make us particularly better. Let's not kid ourselves, if someone had mentioned Richardson, Cole and Senderos a few years ago we would have laughed it away. I am not going to comment on Sanchez, I have never seen him play before. He has spent most of his career at Valenciennes and then Elche before he joined us, pretty much the equivalents of Villa in their respective leagues right now. Lots of players have performed well in a World Cup before securing a move. I sincerely hope he will do well, but chances are he is a new Makoun. Also, the new CEO will hardly perform miracles when we currently have a very unsexy brand and little money to develop it with. I am happy enough with Cissokho, I have hopes for Sanchez, Okore and N'Zogbia - and I hope Vlaar stays on.

 

We are maybe a little bit better than last season in terms of options and quality. However, we are still without our best player; Christian Benteke. If he returns before October and stays injury-free until the end of the season, we will be fine around 14th place in the table. If he returns too early and then struggle with niggles or even more serious injuries, we are firm contenders for relegation yet again. I think it's extremely pleasing to see that Luna, Tonev and Bennett are far away from the team though - I wouldn't even describe these as professional footballers. The same goes for El Ahmadi and Bacuna, they might have some assets but I don't think they are anywhere near good enough to start in the Premier League.

Sounds like you need to check that the Samaritans are available in your area

What about Bradford City?

Welcome to VP Tom!

First job is to get Vlaar, Delph and Grealish signed up.

Make us shitloads of money to spend on the team!

Letting Vlaar go is potentially the equivalent of 'financial suicide'. If Randy wants to protect his investment and find a buyer the sale of Vlaar woukd not make sense.

I would offer Vlaar a similar deal to that of Benteke. If he does not accept it I would let him run down his contract. We have nothing to gain by selling him. It would be extremely difficult to find a suitable replacement before the window closes. This would leave us in a simillar position to last season where we have to rely on Baker/Clark. The transfer fee we would receive for him does not come close to the revenue loss if we got relegated!

Dont risk it......Vlaar must stay!

So now Bennett has gone on loan it frees up another spot for our squad. Hopefully that means another player is inbound soon.

If Bennett goes on loan that means our 25 man squad has 26 players in it so whether we sign any additional players or not at least one player won't be in the team this year.

herd and Stephens won't be in squad for sure

Got a feeling that either Clark or Baker will be loaned out as well depending on the fitness of Okore.

I noted that Mr Fox was employed by NIKE previously.

A new lucrative kit deal would be most welcome. First job for him should be to sort out contracts for Vlaar, Delph and Grealish!

john arne riise claims we want him. god no

Ten years too late IMO

I am an exiled Brummie who now lives in N Somerset approx 12 miles from Bristol.

I am a lifelong Villa fan. I saw my first Villa game when I was 8 in 1959. My favourite players in that era were Charlie Aitken and Johny Dixon.

I used to travel the country to most Villa games in the 60s and 70s including games in the old 3rd division. I only get to see 5 or 6 matches this season as travelling is difficult for me. I am hooeful of a much better season after 3 years of struggling.

Best wishes to all Villans throughout the world.

Vince