DCJonah

Then the gamble was hiring mcleish and sticking with lambert. McLeish was a mess start to finish. Lambert should've gone earlier, that's certain, but if he had, would we have gotten Sherwood? Pie in the sky really. Maybe getting rid of Lambert earlier would've relegated us, we just don't know. All I'm concerned with is the right decision was made, the right man was brought in, and things look up for the first time in a long time - with Lerner still owning the club. But we've said this before. Things looked up when he first came and hired MON and that led to problems and things looked up when we sacked mcleish and hired lambert and that came close to ending in disaster. Things do look up, but history with Randy Lerner doesn't point to it going anywhere while he is in charge.

What if he doesn't sell the club? What if he thinks **** it, I've gone this far, with the restrictions in place and the right man in Fox at the helm (in Lerner's opinion) and a bright young manager why not have another go. It wouldn't be the first time somebody had a genuine change of heart. Being pragmatic, I am also of the view that what difference does it really make now? It's all about the structure of the club and the revenue it can generate. FFP is an abomination in many ways, but it is here to stay and we need to find a way to work within it. If the age of austerity is over (and I agree we shall see to a degree this summer) then I'm willing to let bygones be bygones I suppose. I'm really not in the mood for more upheaval unless absolutely necessary. I guess this summer will show us certain things. If it's different and we're going to be ambitious within FFP then yeah, i agree, lets get on with it and see where it goes. I just don't have much faith that Sherwood will have much more to play with than Lambert did.

Then the gamble was hiring mcleish and sticking with lambert.

Pete it all sounds good but i've seen little to have much faith in him. Yes the dirty work has been done, lets not forget he's the reason it had to be done, and I also believe it was done, more to benefit him with trying to sell the club than because he had a longer term plan to make us successful again. Lets see what we do in the transfer window this summer, I have little faith that it will be much different to the previous ones, where it seemed that Lerner was happy to gamble with the premier league status of the club. This is also the man that hired houllier, mcleish and lambert and stuck with and rewarded lambert when it was obvious to all it was going nowhere. I think there's lots to be fairly excited about with villa at the moment but I guess i've lost a lot in faith in Lerner.

I'm really surprised anyone is happy for Lerner to continue. Our points totals the last five years have been absolutely awful and we've allowed plenty of clubs to catch us and over take us during his time at the club. Why would anyone want that to continue? Because we've had a nice month thanks to Sherwood? I want nothing more to do with him. This has easily been the longest shit period of my time as a villa fan, I hope it will end soon.

While not comparing the two, as delph does things nzogbia could only dream of, he actually had a better pass completion rate than delph against Everton.

If benteke stays then I'd like to see a new starting keeper, lb and possibly a striker. Then fill the squad with a defender and midfield player and of course Sinclair and Cleverly. With the new TV deal, our finances in order and Bent leaving I'd like to think we could have our best summer in years and not break FFP regulations.

Sinclair and gabby both deserve to be ahead of Gil.

I still hope we can move on from him. A few good weeks since making the right decision for once doesn't change how awful we've been for so long.

So why are people feeling justified? He's scored goals, earlier on we were one of the worst teams in Europe for this.

Scoring goals at a very good rate justified the decision not to play him when we were one of the worst scoring sides in Europe. That seems strange logic.

Why? We didn't struggle at all with crosses into the box. The only issue was when the keeper was fouled.

Well boo hoo for Gil. Sherwood is getting the most out of this squad and doesn't need Gil at the moment. His man management has been excellent on the squad and he doesn't have to focus on an individual who currently wouldn't make a difference.

He was beaten far too easily a couple of times. Osman had a good chance from being able to walk through him, and I forget who it was but he was easily beaten and had to foul which led to a very dangerous free kick. Luckily Everton wasted it. I'd much rather let Baker, Clark and Okore develop than have Vlaar playing on a regular basis next season.

I'm happy for grealish and nzog to be starting and even though I'm a big fan of Gil, I'd rather see gabby and Sinclair in before him.

Quite annoying that him messing around on deadline day means we now may miss out on him.

Nzogbia was excellent yesterday so he really shouldn't. He wasn't though. Running into players, giving the ball away, it was standard N'Zogbia fare. He's certainly our weakest link at the moment. Maybe Gil couldn't play as a second striker, which was essentially Zogs role, but I've seen enough of him to say he's a better player. Not really fussed as we're playing excellently at present, just hope we keep hold of him in the summer. His pass percentage was better than delph, would you say he gave the ball away? The ovation he got when subbed suggests a lot didn't share your view yesterday.

Nzogbia was excellent yesterday so he really shouldn't.

Next season we could be a top half team. I'd love to see him one more year, fully fit and playing for a decent manager.

I can understand not really rating him, but truly enjoying him failing is so weird.

I think we've finally got a wonder kid. This guy has it.

Everything about Aston villa is what I've hoped for since MON left. I think we got lucky getting him but thank God we did.

Would be a massive blow if we lose him now.

Sine his arrival benteke has scored more goals than any other premier league player and bacuna has more assists than any other premier league player. I love this man.

Been shite for the last 3 seasons whilst picking up £60k+ pw in wages. The way he couldn't wait to mouth off to the media about the club when he joined Derby. The time when he was injured during our relegation battle under McLeish and decided shopping was more productive than supporting his team mates. Apart from his first 6 months, just generally being a drag on the club really. Plenty of players have been shite during the Lambert era and its hardly his fault he's paid that much. And he didn't mouth off at the club, he mouthed off at Lambert and said he hoped we stayed up IIRC.