Dr_Pangloss

Amazing that Adam is 26, he looks closer to 46.

If you look at when he had his 'season' at City he had clever players making clever runs, creating gaps in even the most organised defences meaning he could pick his pass to the best option. If at Villa he's only got Bent making intelligent runs, it's not hard for a defence o double up on him making Ireland's ability on the ball ineffective.

Ideally he needs 2 wide players dragging the full backs awayf from the penalty box, leaving one CB to close down the ball and one to cover Bent (who should be able to find some space). It's abit like when we had ash Young and everything had to go through him, teams would double up on him and we'd struggle to create anything.

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Brilliant!

So all we need to do is go out and sign about 4 new attacking players just so Ireland can demonstarte his array of clever balls....

OR

we should not bow down to his needs for the sake of 20m and go and buy a player similar to Michu and Sigurdsson (bought for peanuts) who actually shoot from outside the box and actually try to be a threat on the opponents goal.....

I think Ireland is simply not worth the hassle of building our entire attacking players around....

he has done nothing to warrant that respect at all...

The one player we should be thinking about building our attack around is a guy who has delivered all his career, is our captain and has produced the goods already for Villa...

Darren Bent....

If Lambert is signing players thinking "I wonder if this will help Stevie" im gonna be disappointed.....

Focus on Bent Paul!

Basically we need to sign Robinho then we might get something out of Ireland.

£5m for a couple of Liverpool no hopers, what a deal!

If there was a buy option, what would be considered a fair price for a player like Carroll? Given his Liverpool performances I'd say around £5-8 million give his rate of around 1 in 5 in all competition. Would they really take such a massive hit? Actually more likely they'll play the 'potential' card and set a much higher price in the hope that a couple of marks out there will take the plunge.

Yes that's the one lol.

£35m for a limited player is indeed an absolute joke, dictated by Torres or not, no one had a gun to King Kenny's head, it really has worked well for them hasn't it.

Bringing in Carroll would require us to sign at least one winger in order to get anything out of him. So we'd have to essentially build a squad around a loan signing, nice and sustainable that isn't it?

Carroll is a donkey and something of a joke when you think about his cumulative transfer fees already. He has only had one half a good season in top flight football.

Also, as some of the more astute on here have already pointed out, who is going to cross to him? Carroll's only and I mean only asset is his 'ability' in the air, that is instantly removed if you don't have the player to chip it onto his bloody head.

we are crying out for a bit of creativity, huddlestone is a poor mans carrick. any player should be capable of passing a ball 20 yards left or right, what we need is that special type player like a merson or a carbone

Wow, I completely agree. I was saying to some pals yesterday that this team is crying out for a Merson or David Platt type.

Huddlestone has fantastic distribution but he has no pace and he is very injury prone, not worth the risk IMO.

I personally think an attacking midfielder should be the priority. I get the feeling Lambert sees KEA and Delph sharing the defensive work, at least given how he set us up yesterday.

I don't see us getting enough goals and assists out of Ireland and N'Zogbia.

Holman needs at least half a seasons worth of games here before anyone can seriously judge him.

KEA did very well yesterday, looks a player that lad.

Tom 50-Stone? No thanks.

Ennis doesn't do it for me, I like a woman with a body that doesn't resemble a teenage boy that has been going to the gym for a few months.

Anyway, I don't see us getting relegated, but I do see us finishing bottom half, I have no problem with that given the current team and resources available.

Everton have signed kevin Mirallas, what do you guys think? I must admit he has looked a talented player in the few games I've seen him play.

I agree CI, he looks like a talented player and has an eye for goal.

We basically need a couple of attacking players that can play football and will do it consistently. We need players that will produce, or at least try to, and not just take some nice touches but do **** all with the ball.

Delph played very well yesterday. At times his partnership with KEA looked very good.

Ireland looked like he didn't really know what he was doing out there. Some nice touches though.

We could definitely improve on him, I don't see N'Zogbia producing much for us this season.

Funny how some of you don't rate Ireland yet expect him to play miles better than every other player on the pitch.

Well that's a sweeping statement right there with no evidence to back it up...

people (including me) are saying that a player in his position should be producing more and questioning whether he actually has the ability to make a difference for us

I agree, it's complete and utter ignorant nonsense. What he has 'produced' at Villa, if you can call it that, is simply not good enough. It's not unfair to ask of more of him.

She's just a multi-talented and exceptionally hard working person.

1 goal 2 assists last season, let's see if he can top that this year

Yeah but that's not his fault, it's clearly the fault of those around him. He works very hard for the team as well!

This " its the players around him" theory has been a defence mechanism for lots of players at Villa Park.

The stark truth is they have to punch their own weight...in other words win their respective battles and outwit/over power their opponent.

Football is a team game made up of lots of little personal battles and our guys don't win enough.

It can't always be some other players fault..... we need to snap out of this mythical analysis and see it for what it is ....right now we ain't no where near good enough.

Well said, it's a cop out of the highest order.

We didn't replace Milner, he was becoming a top class central midfield player here.

At City he has completely stagnated, played predominately out wide and has been unable to build upon his success in the middle at the Villa. Sad really.

His 'through balls' today were weak passes straight to West Ham's centre backs. Yep credit he chased back 30 yards after giving it away, where was he late on in the game though? As I said, his effort levels seemed to dip as the game went on, perhaps he was tired? It's hard to justify Ireland's apparent quality when he has provided so little output in the games he has played for us.

I really hope Lambert can get the best out of him but I don't really seeing happening.