Jay.P.A

7 minutes ago, Rob182 said:

I'd love us to bring in Buendia or Benrahma, but we'd need to be careful that we don't teeter towards the West Ham mould of signing these fancy flair players with little thought to the defence behind them.

That team @Jay.P.A with a midfield 3 of Buendia, McGinn and Luiz would probably get overrun against all but the bottom 3 sides.

If Grealish is sold then I think Buendia would be a good replacement to slot into our side, and would leave another £40-50m to spend on other players.

Spot on, my team wouldn't be very defensive at all haha. 

Would be very exciting though on the attacking front. 

We really do need a top quality DM.

We also need great winger - and that should be Benrahma IMO. 

2 minutes ago, Jay.P.A said:

For the midfield I'd want the following;

       Buendia McGinn Luiz
Benrahma                  Grealish

Lack of a DM, i know - but we would cause some serious problems for teams with this midfield. Entertaining AS ****!

and if Grealish goes, I'd go for;

Benrahma McGinn Luiz Eze Buendia

For the midfield I'd want the following;

       Buendia McGinn Luiz
Benrahma                  Grealish

Lack of a DM, i know - but we would cause some serious problems for teams with this midfield. Entertaining AS ****!

5 minutes ago, supermon said:

Could we get N'Zonzi on loan?

N Zonzi, Callejon, 

Plus another 2nd striker?

Depends on the Januzaj loan.

5 minutes ago, Rob182 said:

Is this definitely the case?

I thought there was a 'Max 2 loans at any one time, and max 4 in a whole season' rule, but @omariqy said the max 2 loans was just for Prem to Prem loans.

Let me get this straight - we can loan Reina, Drinkwater, AND JANUZAJ? 

5 minutes ago, sir_gary_cahill said:

I think he has become overrated by a lot of fans and media, I’m not saying he’s not a good player but he’s not world class, at least not yet anyway. He has the potential to be world class, to realise that potential, he will have to move away from Villa

His talent is world class. There's not too many players who can do what he does with the ball. You'll see that in time. You recognized it early, but Jack will go on to do great things. 

44 minutes ago, Strangeways said:

Be honest!! He's living off a few good goals.... he's been shocking the last 4-5 games he's played, not good enough and cant carry him any longer. Drop / Bin / Recruit or we are going down.

 Simples

Pure bollocks.

Was great versus Burnley - and who's been good the 'last 4-5 games' before Burnley? FFS 

50 minutes ago, Cizzler said:

I mean, we’ve lost all three of the games he’s scored in - so not sure how important his goals really were .

He’s just not very good. He’s slow and makes terrible decisions every game. Hard to believe Smith has not pulled him aside and told him to stop trying to beat people on the edge of our own box? Just seems to happen every game, why can’t be learn he’s not good enough to try that.

Slow? He's probably one of the fastest with the ball in our entire squad!

Cannot stress how great Luiz will be. 

This man, has got a set of bollocks on him. 

The only player in the squad, apart from Grealish, who always wants and shows for the ball. Great control  on the ball as well, and really good energy levels. I think he will only get better - and cannot believe he is only 21. As we get better this season, so will he. 

Was extremely unlucky with his chance on the weekend, on another day he scores it with ease. Classy. 

2 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

Are you saying fans should accept relegation?

Not a chance. My expectations will never be lowered. Survival is the very least i expect this season.

Most sensible fans won't agree and submit to this loser, acceptance mentality.

Survival is, and always has been the aim. We got half a season to go. 

53 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

I don't think Smith is the right man for a long term solution.

Tactically he is inept at this level. He's already been found out. Leicester and Southampton exploited us the same way and he doesn't react. He is reactive not pro active.

The way he handled the Mings AEG situation was poor. He appears to be too soft. There are signs suggesting he is losing the trust by his players. When things doesn't work he doesn't change. The persistence with Wesley is killing us.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOL all conjecture. 

7 minutes ago, Graham t said:

We are 'back where we belong' in the Premiership and that is where we should aspire to stay. Leicester are happy to play long balls to Vardy to run on to and they seem to be doing okay......I will grant you that our centre forward is not going to chase a through ball and crash the ball into the net, he's not going to 'hold it up 'either for that matter.

'Back to where we belong' means the upper echelons of this league - not just to become another number to stay in this league mate. That's what I meant. 

Poor example that - It took years for Leicester to start playing with a philosophy and they went as low as League One. They've got the personal in to play how they want now but it didn't happen overnight. 

Leicester' first season back: 

During the 2014–15 season, a dismal run of form saw Leicester City slip to the bottom of the league table with only 19 points from 29 matches. By 3 April 2015, they were seven points adrift from safety. This could have brought a sudden end to Leicester's seven-year rise, but seven wins from their final nine league matches meant the Foxes finished the season in 14th place with 41 points. They finished the season with a 5–1 thrashing of relegated Queens Park Rangers. Their upturn in results was described as one of the Premier League's greatest ever escapes from relegation.^[44][45] They also became only the third team in Premier League history to survive after being bottom at Christmas (the other two being West Bromwich Albion in 2005 and Sunderland in 2014), and no team with fewer than 20 points from 29 matches had previously stayed up.

3 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

I am saying Smith out and not scared to admit it.

Being 3-0 down at home to Southampton was the boiling point for me.

Yeah but you're wrong like 90% of the time. Look at all your posts from last season for example. You wanted Smith out this time last year and he went on to give us some of the best football we've played in a long time, a historic winning streak, feel good factor around the club and promotion - all this after he had a very bad patch at Xmas. 

15 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

The 15 prior to that weren't great. We were conceding 20+ shots close to every game.

 

Could really give two fcuks about that stat - could be misleading as well - give me stats from where the shots were taken from. I'm willing to bet money a big number of them would have been taken from outside the box.

Think some of us have to remember we are a newly promoted team who will concede shots. We still don't have the worst record in the league, btw. 

15 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

I'd rather us have a head coach who can have both attacking football and a good defensive structure.

Smith is not that coach. Wherever he's been he's had a piss poor defensive record

So you're basically saying Smith out? Lol ffs. 

1 minute ago, villalad21 said:

Even the Brentford fan confirms Smith defensively is woeful.

So how on earth is he the right choice long term? Any successful football team is build on a solid defensive foundation.

Because him, his team, and the top dogs at Villa are changing the whole culture of the club. I'd rather we have good attacking football  from the first team down to the youth team rather then defensive, dour crap. Don't want to sit back deep, win the ball and then hit it long to the channels or to our striker. That's not a long term strategy. Not for our club - not if we want to be back where we belong.

9 minutes ago, useless said:

Causing the best teams 'big problems' is no good without results, Newcastle are the best team we've beat this season, so no point pretending we're doing well against the better sides. And admitting that we're in trouble and things haven't been going well, doesn't mean to say that one wants Dean Smith sacked.

So performances are null and void to you? Would you rather we played like complete shite against the top boys and still lost? 

There were definite positives in some of our performances this season. We've just hit a bad patch under Smith. Half the season gone and we are where I think most of our fans expected us to be - in the bottom half of the table. Two wins takes us to 13th, and we've got a better goal difference then all the teams near us in the table. 

It's not panic stations yet as we've still got the second half of the season yet to go. 

We've literally just about crawled into the relegation zone. People need to chill out and not get OTT about a few bad results. 

I've seen more then enough this season to see that we've caused the best teams in this league big problems. 

If we sack Deano, and bring in another manager who loses 3 in a row, what then? You going to call for his head as well? 

Deano needs time. Only been in the job just over a year and has performed miracles. He's not going anywhere - even if we get relegated he'll be the man to bring us back up. You have to remember this is his first year in the PL as well as many of our players. 

This is rebuilding job - and we will be better in the second half of the season. 

Sorry Villalad21 but you've been killed here in this thread 

39 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

I believe he is better than Mings i really do.

Whoa - why brings you to that conclusion? Ridiculous to say that. 

10 hours ago, KentVillan said:

I was joking about the hair.

Let's agree he's somewhere in the 5'8 to 5'11 range (they all look the same to me), and definitely not 6'2.

Last time I saw Grealish when I was at VP, I was at the players car park with my nephew and we were getting a pic to take with him. I'm 5'8 and he was definitely taller then me. I'm sure he's 5'10 at least. 

1 minute ago, villalad21 said:

Well Luiz has blasted in 2 goals in the top corner now.

Can't see a reason to why he can't take free kicks for us. In fact i'd be very interested to see that.

Not free kicks though mate. Open play goals. It's not the same at all. 

3 minutes ago, barry'sboots said:

Only in games where we are dominating (or at least getting our fair share of) possession.  Against Liverpool and Citeh, as Villalad21 says, I would expect us to be chasing the ball for long periods of time and, in that scenario, CH has a tendency to become a passenger.  I would play Luiz, or even Lansbury, in front of him in those games.

Can see the logic, but with Jack on the pitch and McGinn who win a lot of free kicks, you'd want Hourihane in the team to take a set piece for Mings, Engels, Wesley to get on the end of and stick it in the back of the net.