skarroki

I think we should sack Bruce before the weekend. It's been a good month or 2 since the football world had a good excuse to laugh at us.

As people have already touched upon, it's all a little irrelevant saying that without Kodjia we would be worse off and we rely on him too much. I think we are relying on him too much because we can afford to, he is on fire. Anyone can say we rely on him too heavily which is fine, do the same people think Leeds rely too heavily on Wood? Lukaku at Everton? We've been hoping for a 20 goals a season striker for about 25 years. We've finally got one and we're too reliant on him. Give Bruce a full preseason with the squad and see how they are set up and how the goals are distributed throughout the team in the first couple of months, that should be a clearer indication of how heavily we rely on him. He is our focal point, and a very good one at that. But as has been discussed he's also poor at picking out other players or bringing people around him into play, he'd rather shoot than pass. That kind of striker will bag you more goals than most because he's not picking out midfielders running from deep, the only way they'll get the goal is from rebounds or if they make a long run with the ball at their feet. When Bruce was at Sunderland he finished 13th with an poor side he had little time to rebuild. Bent got 24 goals in the Prem that season and they relied upon him 100%. The season we signed Bent from them in January, goals were much more evenly spread throughout the side, a lot of people got on the scoresheet and they finished higher, in 10th. It shows Bruce can do both and can adapt to the situation. There's no reason not to rely on Kodjia at the moment but with a good summer of training and nailing down tactics i think we'll look a different side.

If this Barry rumour has legs it'll be the first unrealistic transfer rumour we've discussed on VillaTalk that I'll be genuinely gutted about when it doesn't happen. Love a bit of sentimentality in football. Would make picking the captain for next season a no-brainer too

We've all been conditioned into expecting Villa to mess up in some way or another. I haven't expected us to win a single game since this crazy run started. The constant winning is frankly making me uneasy. Having said that, there never has been, and never will be, a day where i would predict anything other than a fairly strong Villa side to comfortably win against Burton Albion. It's Burton Albion Burton. Albion. Going for a 4-1 win. Kodjia not to score. More than 50% possession.

Trump will bring in Baker and Chester to BE the wall. Nothing getting past them.

The good things that he does off the pitch are genuinely good things and aren't asked of him or forced upon him. What he does barely anyone his age would be doing The bad things that he does off the pitch are obviously unacceptable but is just what the majority of lads his age get up to. His season has been disrupted by 2 massive clearouts of the squad and a few niggling injuries here and there. These have been picked up because opposition managers pick him out as the danger man and put 2 men on him or get players to go in a little harder than necessary "leaving one in on him". Perfect example Warnock and Cardiff. He was almost literally kicked off the pitch. I don't understand the hate he gets. His mistakes aren't dangerous or inexcusable, they're just daft things you do when young. Bruce isn't going to phase him into being a squad player, look at the trust in Green, he'll be seeing if he fits into the current line up when people need resting and if he doesn't then he'll get a chance eventually. He could be our version of Adel Taarabt next season.

You don't just pick up that Jedi knack overnight

Hasn't the coaching staff changed entirely since they were brought in? You'd have thought it would be a clean slate

As for possession chants We don't need the ball, we don't need the baaaaallll. We're Aston Villa! We don't need the ball.

This is from that prediction he did at the start of the season, before McCormack moved to Villa. I think Holloway is the kind of guy to take a punt on McCormack. Add to that he said that QPR hadn't replaced Austin, and McCormack might like to move back to London and it's just a case of the QPR chairman getting his cheque book out

Player of the season is always a hard one for me as you tend to remember the last 10 or so games best, which on a few occasions have been our best runs of the season, now being case in point. Going through our best XI of the season: GK - noone consistently in goal / mistakes made by all 3 RB - Hutton was unfairly criticised until recently, now he's being overhyped. Average season CB - if you could give it to a partnership then Baker/Chester would win, Chester too dodgy without a solid partner, whereas Baker is out the team too often with head injuries LB - Amavi inconsistent and Taylor only here since Jan RW - Adomah only real wide option but has consistently performed well and definitely one of the top players in the squad CM - our entire central midfield was brought in during January and took time to find their feet, Jedinak has had a couple of injuries and gone from good to very bad to very good so not consistent enough. LW - Again, Green only came into the side recently but took the chance with both hands. Not played enough though. Grealish not dangerous enough and everyone else either sold on or played out of position to fill in the left side. ST - considering the strikers we've had as options this season, Kodjia is the only real one to talk about here which both shows how he's lived up to the expectations, and how every other striker disappointed. I think you'd have to go for Kodjia, I'd then go for Adomah as second choice and then if pushed I'd pick Chester but i think those 2 are the only players at the club to have met expectations, let alone exceeded them, when called upon.

I'd start to blood a couple of youngsters every game at this stage but i think Bruce won't do that until promotion is mathematically impossible, which will probably be with 2 or 3 games to go so they get very little time to prove themselves before the season is over. I'm gonna go for a 5-2 win, a barnstormer of a match, incredible scenes throughout the 90 minutes

That lad Wigan signed from Grimsby is reasonably young, tall and strong so offers something different to what we have. Better version of Gestede and would probably cost less. He was in the West Brom and Birmingham academies too and i think he's from the area so that might improve our chances of getting him

You must be one of the lucky 4 people who follow Villa and Forest and haven't been banned from Collymore's Twitter. As a general rule of thumb, i tend to disagree with what Collymore says. Seems determined to wind people up rather than talk sense.

According to the dressing room videos on YouTube every player says he's the last to turn up to training and first to leave so makes sense if they told him to get there crazy early.

If Pickford isn't signed up by a Prem club over the summer, or no interest is shown at least, i think we should go all out to try get him in. No point staying at Sunderland and he'd easily make the step back up with us. If we didn't get promoted then a Prem club would come for him eventually so it's a win win situation for him

He has better physical attributes and better potential than Gardner, and is younger. When he was here playing he wasn't our saviour, but never would have been. That made him look like a lost cause. But if he's a back up option for Lansbury, Hourihane, Jedinak and Bjarnason then he's got a much better chance of growing and showing his quality than he has playing alongside Westwood or Bacuna in horribly unbalanced formations. No need to give up on him yet and no reason to let him go in the summer. Give him another year as backup or out on loan and reassess.

This post was going so well... Let down by the second from last word

People are buying second choice left backs for £14mil in the Prem at the moment. If we ask for £25mil for this guy they'll be more than a couple of teams sitting up and taking notice.

We either need him to sign permanently and stick with him, hoping he'll grow with us when we get promoted, like Tom Heaton for example. Or we need a different short term keeper to get us out of this league and we can splash out on a decent keeper for the Prem once we're there. If he's not good enough for the Prem or he's only ever going to be a loanee, there's no point having him in my view