WakefieldVillan

7 minutes ago, Brumerican said:

"Hot Potato" casual top.

U ok hun?

35 minutes ago, omariqy said:

Cairney struggled in the PL when Fulham were in it

Fit in well then  

Joking aside, you're right he did, doesn't mean he doesn't still have ability. Anyway I'm no Cairney bum-boy, wouldn't mind seeing his missus at VP though   just think he would improve the "squad" better than the likes of Lansbury/Jota.

11 minutes ago, deeps said:

The Cairney boat has sailed. He is 29 now. 
 

I think we need a lot better than him. In fact, a hell of a lot better. 

Lansbury and Jota are both 29 too and have contributed pretty much nothing since they signed for us. My suggestion was to improve the squad (and at the right price) IMO Cairney would be a better option than the other two.

11 minutes ago, deeps said:

The Cairney boat has sailed. He is 29 now. 
 

I think we need a lot better than him. In fact, a hell of a lot better. 

Lansbury and Jota are both 29 too and have contributed pretty much nothing since they signed for us. My suggestion was to improve the squad (and at the right price) IMO Cairney would be a better option than the other two.

Presuming Fulham do the job tonight then the play-off final against Brentford is going to be interesting with regards to the respective clubs main assets when one team fails.

Brentford obviously have Benrahma, Watkins and Henry - who would all be great additions for us.

Fulham have Mitrovic and Cairney that I would take all day long. Mitrovic for his experience and aggression, something we are lacking (and still only 25!) and Cairney seems like his career has "stalled" a bit at Fulham but he still has great talent and a cracking left-foot. Maybe we could get him on the cheap (though I would guess he may want to stay in London). Offer them Lansbury and Jota as part of the deal. I would prefer someone like Cairney coming off the bench and I think he would add much better competition to our squad.

Eze and Buendia are obvious talents whom would be great to sign, but think we need to be wary of what clubs are going to charge.

40 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

I think it is. Elmos getting on abit and guilbert is abit inconsistent. 

I dont qant moreles. He would acore goals but get sent off 4 times a season. Imagine playing blose at the sty. 100% he would get himself sent off Too much of a gamble

Don't worry mate, won't happen for a looooooooooooooong time  

19 minutes ago, thunderball said:

QPR have allegedly accepted an offer of “around £20m” from Palace for Eze. This might move quite quickly.

Paves the way for Zaha's Villa move 

Joking aside, I would love us to make a real big statement signing before Jack or anyone else leaves. We are a huge club, we've got wealthy owners and we need to stay in this division now for a long time. We won't do that without real quality competition. Love to see the reaction of one of the so called "top 6" clubs if we were to bid for one of their "stars"

I think we have to be careful not to change too many players but also make sure we aren't sentimental and keep players just because we managed to stay up. Wide areas and up front are our main weaknesses but we can improve all over if truth be told.

I'd love something like this in front of the defence;

                    Luiz        McGinn

                             Eze 

Benrahma        Abraham          Grealish 

Or

                     Luiz          McGinn 

                            Grealish

 Benrahma          Abraham              Sarr 

2 hours ago, Keyblade said:

Remember when Leeds fans were saying Pablo Hernandez was better than him?  

I think if you asked a sample 100 Leeds fans now, the majority would still say Hernandez was better Ridiculous

Living in Yorkshire and having a lot of Leeds fans on my social media, yesterday was beautiful and I was extremely childish in tagging each and every one of them on my Villa related posts

Not sure if they just don't like me or whether they hate our club or probably a mixture of both ha, but the ones I know were gutted we stayed up and now using the "well it's an easy 6 points line" 

Ridiculously, most of it is coming from that "walk-in goal" - GET OVER IT!

4 hours ago, TheStagMan said:

We should only be getting rid of players who have not featured or where they are simply not good enough.

Hogan, Nyland, Kalinic, Bree, Taylor, Lansbury, Chester, Jota, Baston, Drinkwater, possibly Taylor.

Samata and Davis loan out to Championship clubs, see how they perform. Both need game time and I would not write them off yet 

We need quality additions to the first team for players like AEG, Trez, Targett, Wesley to fight for their places against.

Sign Reina for a year, Keep Steer (both as backups to Heaton). We need a permanent signing of a top class striker, perhaps loan another for six months to cover Wesley's injury/bring him back slowly, at least 1 top winger, RB and LB, maybe another CB if Engels is beyond redemption.

All our signings now need to be top class first team players.

I agree pretty much with all of that, other than I would only loan out Bree and not sell him just yet. He has been performing to a good level albeit at a lower standard, is versatile and I think he still has the potential to develop into a solid Premier League player. Vassilev another to go out on loan.

I don't particularly rate Reina and think his best days are well behind him, but I wouldn't be adverse to keeping him as third-choice and around the squad because he is a winner and looks be popular amongst the dressing room - I mean, I woke up and was dancing to La La Bamba at 7 this morning.  

As many others have alluded to, we don't need wholesale changes we just need to add real quality - It's all about increasing the quality and competition by strengthening our first eleven then it filters down the squad.

He started ok, nothing amazing, but I think some fans got a bit carried away with his performances, the matches we played before he showed up we had El Ghazi up top - There was obviously going to be an "improvement" but that's all it was.

Since then, he's been extremely poor. I don't like writing players off, especially foreign ones settling in to a new environment and will trust the management but I really haven't seen anything that suggests he is going to be a real asset to us.

If we had of been relegated I would have said keep him on but I hope now that we have kept our PL status, our summer transfer business means that he will either be moved on or our 4th / 5th choice striker at best.

Wesley (for all his critics) was performing better and Davis (for all his very limited scoring prowess) brings more to the team than Ally does. We need TWO real class centre forwards next season if we want to push on.

I love his latest social media posts, there is just absolutely NO denying his love for this great club.

I still think he will leave unfortunately, but if he does, he goes with my blessing. 

He led us to promotion as skipper and now scored the goal and pretty much carried us for the majority of the season and kept us in the league.

Don't get me wrong, I would absolutely love it if he stayed another season but I fully understand if he wants to play Champions League football and a real chance to win major honours.

Staying up as definitely given us a better chance of keeping him that's for sure and also gives us much better bargaining power.

In an ideal world before he potentially departs, we splash the cash on some real quality signings - a winger and a striker - and let's see if the owners ambitions match that of Jack's.

Two final things, I would be extremely disappointed if we didn't get at least £80 million and I think we need not one, but two or three players to fill the void if he is to leave.

A small part of me wishes we were in Watford's or Bournemouth's position and not favourites to stay up, just feels like the disappointment is going to be a thousand times worse if we go down now after giving us such a good chance with the win against Arsenal.

I think we are going to need at least one point and it terrifies me immensely that we are going to go a goal down early and never recover. 

I really hope to God I'm wrong. I suppose as supporters you always fear the worst and tbh I feel more anxious coming on here, so I blame my fellow Villans 

I'm 75% turning off my TV and phone 4 till 6

10 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

He really was. Nothing stuck to him, he wasn't physical enough, he made sloppy passes and he missed a huge chance to seal the game.

I like the guy. And I was screaming for him to come on because he USUALLY holds it up far better than Samatta and I felt that with his physical presence would be exactly what he needed.

But I think he froze. He was poor

I agree completely. Davis wasn't great at all. 

The miss wasn't the worst miss ever (I'm looking at you AEG ) but I think it knocked his confidence a bit and his whole game suffered.

There was two other instances, miss aside, that spring to mind and that was a simple lay off to Jack which would have set up a nice attack - he played it straight out of play and another instance in the corner flag where he lazily tried winning a corner off the defender, defender moves and Keinan's "cross" goes to one of the Arsenal players and we're immediately on the back foot.

I like him too, I would love him more than anyone to get the winner on Sunday that seals our top-flight status.

8 minutes ago, The_Steve said:

Bournemouth will have to win by 3 clear goals and bank on us and Watford losing though. Stranger things have happened but Everton look in good form currently. 

I might be wrong but I think you may be interpreting that if points are equal then it goes on goals scored, which it does, but only after goal difference.

3 minutes ago, Djemba_Villan said:

If we and Watford lose, Bournemouth can win 1-0 can’t they?

Correct.

Goal difference doesn't really come into it with Bournemouth. They simply have to win and hope Watford and ourselves lose. 

1 hour ago, omariqy said:

Anyone going to avoid the game and find out afterwards? 

The pussy side of me is tempted to switch my phone off for a couple of hours from 4 pm, watch a film with the other half then ask her to look at the scores exactly two hours later for me and give me the bad or (hopefully|) good news.

But the devil in me is thinking of booking Monday off work, going to a pub for 12, singing my first Villa song at 2, fresh by 4, leathered by 6 and hopefully out celebrating till the early hours of the morning then coming home to the wrath of my extremely annoyed bird whom I told it's "just a steady one".

Decisions, decisions...

1 hour ago, Demitri_C said:

Wonder the odds on a villa loss borunmouth and Watford win? Must be very good winnings?

42 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Decent odds worth a tenner

The problem with putting that bet on is that you could get just one or two correct, not win the money and we still get relegated.

The only real guaranteed "consolation" bet is the outright option below; 

1 hour ago, It's Your Round said:

Relegation odds

Bournemouth 1/25

Watford 1/4

Villa 2/1

So for instance - £50 stake for £150. To be honest, I would be still be gutted big time regardless of getting £150 back so not sure it's even worth it.

An other option (using the same stake as above) would be to put both the following on;

£25 on Watford staying up (11/4) - £93.75 (£43.75 profit)

£25 on Bournemouth staying up (9/1) - £250 (£200 profit)

I will see how my nerves are come Sunday morning, I might just lump on Bournemouth to stay up which has better value and certainly not inconceivable that it won't happen.

Anyway, this is probably for a betting thread, so apologies.

Is it Sunday yet?! This is the run up to the play-off final kind of torture...

A Leeds fan I work with has just said that first thing we need to do regardless of whether we stay up is to get rid of Smith. I was like, oh right, really, what makes you think that? He said well, he’s crap ain’t he, he’s not up to it. I said but why do you think that? His response “well he got lucky last year, shouldn’t have gone up, defense is crap blah blah”. I pointed out our 10-game winning streak and that he achieved promotion quicker than Bielsa (who is a Leeds God), “ah but he’s crap.....”

I am not sure if that is a "Leeds" thing more than anything else as another one of their fans said this morning on a text “I don’t mind Villa (re-staying up) but hope they sack Smith. Which I found quite bizarre.

Anyway, it is waffle like that which makes me want him to succeed even more. At least back up the argument with something productive, with some knowledge of why he (in their opinion) is not very good. Stinks of bitterness to be honest.

As for Smith, I would keep him regardless of which division were plying our trade – Unless were a Premier League club and we can get a real coup like Poch! I do think that this is probably one thing against Smith, is not being the "big name manager" that can attract star players.

But just like our squad, he is learning all the time and yes it hasn’t all been good, far from it, but I think tactically he isn’t bad at all, he selects teams that I generally agree with, the team spirit seems to be just fine and if we finish one place above the drop zone (with the cup final day out to boot) then he has earned another season to have a shot at IMO.

Looks like there's not many people doing much work today, so I'll join in 

Think there is an argument for being wary on both the "other" games on Sunday to be honest.

Negatives;

Arsenal could have minds elsewhere and / or field a weakened side.

Bournemouth know that a win is their only chance of survival and have dangerous players going forward against a team with nothing really to play for. 

Positives;

The Deeney factor might see Arsenal more pumped than they would be in a game like this, they won't want to lose two on the spin, players playing for their cup final shirts.

Bournemouth when going forward could leave gaps for Everton's front line to exploit. Everton's home record is very good. Everton had a great win last time out at Sheffield Utd. A draw for us rules Bournemouth out of the equation.

Unfortunately unless Arsenal and Everton both go 2-0 up in the first 15 minutes I think it is going to be a real tense day, one I was hoping at the start of the season we wouldn't be involved in but one I was desperately hoping we were involved in over the last 6 weeks or so.

We have given ourselves a real fighting chance but it is far from over - We need to go out against West Ham with a view to getting the three points which would be extremely likely to be enough - Come on Villa, one last push!

Think to be fair the goal came against the run of play but it has lifted our performance but we all know there is still a VERY long way to go.

And fair play Trez, oddest player I've ever seen play at this level. 

I've done my bit, I've £35 on Arsenal. Worked in the City game, hope it works for us 

Think Davis for Samatta has got to happen sooner rather than later.

Just now, BleedClaretAndBlue said:

Samatta and Trez start

Shhhh.

Don't ruin the positivity of this thread

Can Watford play City next week too