Trickster

Was he shit tonight? I thought he did ok, put some pretty decent crosses in. Not saying he played great but I think he's become infected with 'the team was crap so everyone was crap' tag.

2 minutes ago, bobzy said:

Well, we've spent (reportedly) maybe £40m on strikers if we get Hogan this season.  At Championship level.  That's **** ridiculous.

2 separate managers though and if we had spent nothing people would say we'd given up or that the Dr. didn't have the ambition. I don't know if there's an amount in the middle that wouldn't haven't been spending quite a bit and also wouldn't have been lack of ambition? 

Spending money doesn't necessarily mean it's 'spending just because we can', the balance and performances of the team will show that one way or another.

For reference it's a joke about Alex Bruce leaving Hull, but is going to Wigan

To those complaining about the Hogan fee, it doesnt look like 15m, it looks more like 10m with add ons. Usually the promotion add on is the biggest one and no one will mind paying that at all if that is triggered.

Quotes from Barnsley manager

Irish people pronounce Hourihane two ways really

How-RI-Han (the 'Ri' sound like 'Rid)

Who-Ri-Han

There's a rumour that the hold up was Barnlsey wanted permission for him to play todays game and Villa relented in the end, and to sign him soon.

Just a rumour.

Ayew has ability sure but I think it's overstated a lot of the time. His ability to find the right ball at the right time is quite shocking at times, even simple ones. He has his spells where he'll skip past 2 or 3 players 50 yards from goal but mostly it's having the ball and not doing much with it. His goal tally should be more even playing on the wing because of his ability to go past people but he's pretty poor at shooting and rarely seems to be in threatening positions, this especially is something I've been very disappointed in. He doesn't affect the game that much, he's just someone a lot of the time who just.....has the ball. I'd have Adomah there every time over Ayew.

5 minutes ago, sir_gary_cahill said:

I think the criticism of Rushian Hepburn-Murphy in this thread is harsh to say the least. I find it hard to believe that he would to leave this football club, he's been here since he was 9 years old! I have reason to think that he might have played or had a trial for West Bromwich Albion but I have no proof to this effect

I have met him personally at an u23 match, not only is he a brilliant footballer, he is also a very nice, funny guy as I have stated a few times on this site. He also comes across as being very humble. In my opinion, he has great natural ability in terms of finishing and first touch but I think he has the all round game too, that top players have  I know it is naive to say that as he is still only 18 years old, I shall enjoy watching him develop at Villa or elsewhere.

He's been offered the highest wages ever offered to an academy graduate. The offer has been on the table for weeks and he hasn't signed it. How can people be free of criticism for that? He either wants more money or is considering offers elsewhere, both ways fans aren't exactly going to be neutral about.

Gueye was a success certainly. Ayew was one of our better players last year but he was pretty hit and miss as well throughout the season. Gueye was better than Amavi last season as well.

Lansbury incoming? Talk seems to have heated up the last half hour or so.

3 hours ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

Second half vs Forest, game winning contributions from the bench vs Reading and Burton. 2 goals and 5 assists. 

To say he has shown nothing is plain wrong. He's contributed more than anyone not named Johnny Kodjia. 

Inconsistent yes, really **** frustrating at times. However the new manager has been here 12 games and I'd love him to deem it fit to give the relationship time. For our sake. Because those contributions have been vital. 

Contributed more than Chester, Baker? Can't agree with that. He's so frustrating too much of the time imo, he's not the teams best performing striker and he's not the teams best performing winger so I don't see a consistent place in the starting lineup for him. He can have moments  where's he's great but he hasn't turned enough 'moments' into 'games' imo. He's bought himself starting positions from very good sub appearances but then when starting in those has failed to impress. A decent wedge of money and I'd let him go, the team is already pretty loose with such a weak midfield, so I don't see the point in having an inconsistent, at times greedy player along with that, despite his talents that he has not showed anywhere enough.

It's great Jack scored that screamer to win the 3 points, it really was. But he now needs to be influencing games from 1-90 consistently after this boost, he needs to become the player that other players want to give the ball to, especially away from home. A player like Jack can thrive at home in front of the Holte, but away against someone like Norwich for example, the team can't afford some of his quiet, ineffective performances that he has produced a little too often in the past. I hope this big boost of confidence will bring out the player that we think he can be.

Quite harsh on McCormack here I thought. No one in the second half was getting much ball, when Kodjia did he did his thing of running sideways across the field with the ball and making no progress. He's a more intelligent footballer than most of the team, the ball he played in the first half that led to Kodjia's shot, he was looking for them all game and no one was making the runs. There's almost zero link between the midfield as it is, he's the only one who does that at all in the team. Someone like Grealish who plays far too weak and has shots that a 10 year old would kick harder, should be questioned more imo.

If Bruce finds a system that works and it doesn't include him then fair enough, but he's still a big asset if he's in the team in the right way. If it's one up front than it'll be Kodjia, even if he does need to work on his game a fair bit still. 

Wasn't really linked with us, but Oliver Burke from Forest going to Leipzig is one of the strangest transfers this window.

Even if it is that, its 14m with add ons based on Villa acheivements, which I presume is promotion. No one would give a crap if that add on ended up being triggered. It makes for a good headline but there's an ocean of difference between 20m and 14m plus add ons that total 20 with all fulfilled.

Could be some truth in the Bournemouth thing, they have signed another striker today. Lys Mousset from Le Havre.

Wilson would be a great signing if it was him.

On 2/12/2016 at 18:43, abdulaziz1 said:

He doesnt need to be consistent. Win us 4-6 games out of 13 Would worth him his contract. Even without another goal in his career if we stayed up.

Which is less than half of the games. 

Thats such an easy thing to say though. If a guy who hadn't scored for a year was on a big 5 year contract and scored a last minute last day winner to keep the team up, doesn't mean he'd be worth his contract, although the romantic side of it may falsely show that. If we stayed up it would be because the defence played great and the team started performing superhuman in comparison. Nothing he would do in a short run of games would have made him 'worth his contract'.

We'll see how Gabby does for the rest of the season, I don't have any confidence in him that he will suddenly become anything like a consistent player but for the survival hope I hope he does of course.

Also if he scores I hope he celebrates, doing the sulking thing once is ok in a lame, making a point way, doing it again would be pretty sad on his part.

Gabby did good in the second half certainly and should be praised for it. However he still doesn't show a presence up front as much as he should be, the first half he was static wanting balls into feet that were impossible to find him with. He doesn't give midfielders options to use his pace, he never, ever spins off defenders to do it. He got the goal fair play and all but let's not pretend a lot of the criticism he got hasn't been deserved. Nowhere near as good as Gueye or Okore too either.

33 minutes ago, AntrimBlack said:

Garde was expecting to get some new players in, but equally I think the Board were expecting him to bring us closer to our rivals. Hence the lack of signings. And I suspect Garde knows this.The summer window is better value for money, and I think he will be backed then. He needs time to get his ideas across, and I am hopeful that he can do that during the remainder of the season to convince the Board to back him.

A board shouldn't need convincing to back a manager they hand picked and sacked another manager for. It's like having the audition after the actual role. He has clearly balanced out the team more and improved it, as much as the current squad can be improved imo. Whatever way we try and defend the damage, the club not signing a single player in this transfer window is absolutely diabolical and a shameful action towards the manager and every Villa fan.

I don't think anyone expected big money signings, but for there not to be an option on loan or a lower fee signing out there for Villa is completely non believable and would be disgraceful for the club to try and push that excuse.

Cardiff have a transfer embargo during this window and have still signed more players than Villa.

The board should be told with every breath of every Villa fan at games exactly what is thought of them.