John

We lost Benteke, Snake, Vlaar, Weimann and Cleverley this summer. £52.5m would not have bought like for like replacements for these players. We ended last season 17th so something below that was always a risk given our net spend was in line with what it has been in recent years.

1-0 to us. We have a great record so far this season in the league on the south coast after all.

This Manchester City deal is good for them but is a bad one for the rest of the league. They were given a new stadium in the same way West Ham are getting one and their owner is willing to pump money into them at will (so much for FFP working other than to keep the rest of the clubs from reaching the super rich clubs). The rest of the league just cannot compete with the likes of Chelsea and the Manchester clubs or even with Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool on a regular basis. Our current custodian had a go at spending to make us a top 4 club under MON but we fell just short. MON then left when the plug was pulled on the transfer kitty and we have stagnated since then up to the point where we now look relegation straight in the face. When the EC winners got together at Villa Park in 2007 one of those players stood up and said it was great that we were having a go but he was worried it was too late to break into the then top 4. A year later Manchester City was bought and they blew us out of the water by spending previously unheard of money on building a new team. Our custodian could not compete with that level of spending and appreciated that the odds of us getting into that top 4 had gone from slim to none overnight. He has since spent less than the bare minimum that was needed on our football club because he has lost interest in his play thing and has seen his pot of money reduce primarily due to personal reasons. He has made it clear that he wants rid of his toy but buyers are aware of that and the slump that we have gone through in recent years so have been unwilling to meet his asking price which will have to drop even further should the unthinkable happen this season. He has lost money on his gamble that he will never recover but I think he is reluctant to accept that fact when it comes to cashing in his chips. His under investment over recent years and the way this club has been run has also cost the club and the fans of the club he is the current custodian of big time. He has failed in his duty of care to our football club and we are now paying the price for that. £30m as a minimum spend in the next window might be a gamble that will come to nothing but it might be one worth taking to protect his investment, to give us some hope of survival in the top flight and to maintain the value of our club at something approaching the figure he wants for it. But he has shown no wish to dig deep of late to try to ensure that we stay up or avoid our now annual relegation fights. Why would he spend more money on something he no longer cares for and on a club he never comes to see play at Villa Park?

I doubt it and I would guess he might want to move on in any case given relegation might have an impact on his getting international games.

I think you may still have some grounds for hope. We are much easier to get to after all although we need to start playing half decent football for your son and for other youngsters to want to go to Villa to see their football live. Good luck on that it was a lot easier to tempt children to the claret & blues in the 90's.

I am Platty as well it seems.

Is his English team Villa?

I guess the fact that he does not turn up to hear them might have some impact on that. Most chairmen and owners attend the odd game to suggest they do have some interest in how their team are doing.

Come on lads times are hard now as they were in the late 60's and mid 80's. but things will get better as they did in the early 80's and in the early 90's. Deadly did not stop me making my son a Villa fan nor should our present so called custodian stop you both making the right choice that I am sure when the time comes you will!

They think its all over it seems it is now and it is still only November! It is hard to see us coming back from this sad, sad situation to retain our top flight status this time. Our absentee landlord has failed in his role as custodian of our football club and that will cost him financially and us in ways he does not or chooses not to appreciate. It looks like we are down before the Christmas decorations have gone up! This was a must not lose game that we lost. Watford beat us at Villa Park in the league for the first time since 1969. We have not won a game since the first day of the season in the league and have only managed two draws since then. Will we win one in what remains of this season let alone win enough games to keep us up? We are fast running out of games now let alone winnable ones. Watford was one of the games we really needed to win if we were to retain any realistic hope of adding another 27 or so points to the 5 we currently have. We are now faced with a need to gather points from games that we will start as heavy underdogs in as we did against Manchester City. Our next two games fit that description. We started this game well pressing our opponents from the start and looking like the home side for once. Watford took the lead totally against the run of play but we deservedly pegged them back before half time having shown a good response to going a goal down. We clearly had the better of the first half but we did not put away enough of the chances that we made and our defence showed the usual signs of frailty when they tried to hit us on the break. The 8 minutes injury delay came when we were well on top. We were caught napping shortly after the re-start and the visitors took the lead again. We needed to kick on again in the second half but not for the first time this season we demonstrated the difficulty we find in performing at the same level for more than 45 minutes unless that level is an embarrassingly below par one. On the positive side we scored two goals at home. That should have produced a point at the very least but our defence conceded three to add to the four they leaked last week and you really cannot expect to win games when you are conceding goals to that extent. We hit a late goal which did give us some hope of a grandstand finish during the ten minutes of injury time. We deserved to get something from this game but we failed to lay a glove on our opponents in stoppage time and they spent more time in our half than we did in theirs. My player ratings from a game that has left us cast adrift from the rest of the league are: Brad Guzan – 7 – Did well to block a 17th minute Ighalo with his body but the same player turned the ball past him later in the same move after the ball ran to him off Clark. Brad did well to stop a Capoue shot with his legs on 24 minutes and he twice saved us from further embarrassment in stoppage time by turning Guédioura shots off target. Alan Hutton – 5 – Did well going forward and was brought down for the free kick that led to our equalizer. Put the visitors back in front on 69 minutes when he turned the ball past Guzan and inside the post in the process of taking the ball off Ighalo after Deeney had threaded a ball between Clark and himself. His heavy touch on 85 minutes also led to us losing the ball in the build up to their third and ultimately decisive goal. Kieran Richardson – 4 – Failed to get forward effectively enough and was again a cause for concern at the back. Michah Richards – 7 – MOTM – Led by example and scored a tremendous goal on 41 minutes heading a well weighted Veretout free-kick into the corner of the net. His goal celebrations showed how much this game meant to him and he gives an example other players need to follow. Ciaran Clark – 5 – Ayew touched a 39th minute Veretout corner across the face of the goal which Ciaran hesitated to move towards and could only stab wide with an outstretched foot. He really needed to go for the ball that Deeney headed in on 85 minutes to seal our defeat which had unluckily bounced off Richards into his path. Carles Gil – 7 – If only he could see out a full game. Worked hard, has a lovely touch and his creativity was much needed in Jack’s absence. Jordan Veretout – 5 – Hit a sweet free kick for our equalizer and had a couple of other nice touches but he needs to try to impose himself on games more. Carlos Sánchez - 4 – Lost the ball on the edge of his own box which led to their opening goal and was also dispossessed by Deeney on the edge of the box shortly afterwards. Not a good day overall for Carlos. Idrissa Gana – 5 – Hit a nice shot just wide of the post on 27 minutes but needs to make a bigger impact on games than this. Scott Sinclair – 6 – Forced a good save from Gomes on 31 minutes who turned his goal bound effort past the post. Made some decent runs yesterday and produced a better overall display than those of late. Jordan Ayew – 6 – Had a decent shot saved at his near post by Gomes in the 10th minute and hit the bar with a header 3 minutes later from a Gil corner that was re-taken due to a coming together inside the box prior to the corner being taken. Really should have been on target when a 20th minute Veretout shot fell to him but he somehow managed to screw the ball wide of the post. Had a 31st minute punched away by Gomes who was grateful to see Sinclair’s header from the rebound go safely into his arms. Jordan curled a sweet shot into the corner of the net from the edge of the box on 89 minutes to give us a late second goal. Substitutes: Adama Traore – 6 - Replaced Gil on 68 minutes. Gave us pace, urgency and a couple of decent crosses but he needs to look for a pass occasionally rather than to go it alone. Rudy Gestede - Replaced Gana on 82 minutes but was not on long enough to gather a rating. Stay up Villa! John Lewis

They think its all over it seems it is now and it is still only November! It is hard to see us coming back from this sad, sad situation to retain our top flight status this time. Our absentee landlord has failed in his role as custodian of our football club and that will cost him financially and us in ways he does not or chooses not to appreciate. It looks like we are down before the Christmas decorations have gone up! This was a must not lose game that we lost. Watford beat us at Villa Park in the league for the first time since 1969. We have not won a game since the first day of the season in the league and have only managed two draws since then. Will we win one in what remains of this season let alone win enough games to keep us up? We are fast running out of games now let alone winnable ones. Watford was one of the games we really needed to win if we were to retain any realistic hope of adding another 27 or so points to the 5 we currently have. We are now faced with a need to gather points from games that we will start as heavy underdogs in as we did against Manchester City. Our next two games fit that description. We started this game well pressing our opponents from the start and looking like the home side for once. Watford took the lead totally against the run of play but we deservedly pegged them back before half time having shown a good response to going a goal down. We clearly had the better of the first half but we did not put away enough of the chances that we made and our defence showed the usual signs of frailty when they tried to hit us on the break. The 8 minutes injury delay came when we were well on top. We were caught napping shortly after the re-start and the visitors took the lead again. We needed to kick on again in the second half but not for the first time this season we demonstrated the difficulty we find in performing at the same level for more than 45 minutes unless that level is an embarrassingly below par one. On the positive side we scored two goals at home. That should have produced a point at the very least but our defence conceded three to add to the four they leaked last week and you really cannot expect to win games when you are conceding goals to that extent. We hit a late goal which did give us some hope of a grandstand finish during the ten minutes of injury time. We deserved to get something from this game but we failed to lay a glove on our opponents in stoppage time and they spent more time in our half than we did in theirs. My player ratings from a game that has left us cast adrift from the rest of the league are: Brad Guzan – 7 – Did well to block a 17th minute Ighalo with his body but the same player turned the ball past him later in the same move after the ball ran to him off Clark. Brad did well to stop a Capoue shot with his legs on 24 minutes and he twice saved us from further embarrassment in stoppage time by turning Guédioura shots off target. Alan Hutton – 5 – Did well going forward and was brought down for the free kick that led to our equalizer. Put the visitors back in front on 69 minutes when he turned the ball past Guzan and inside the post in the process of taking the ball off Ighalo after Deeney had threaded a ball between Clark and himself. His heavy touch on 85 minutes also led to us losing the ball in the build up to their third and ultimately decisive goal. Kieran Richardson – 4 – Failed to get forward effectively enough and was again a cause for concern at the back. Michah Richards – 7 – MOTM – Led by example and scored a tremendous goal on 41 minutes heading a well weighted Veretout free-kick into the corner of the net. His goal celebrations showed how much this game meant to him and he gives an example other players need to follow. Ciaran Clark – 5 – Ayew touched a 39th minute Veretout corner across the face of the goal which Ciaran hesitated to move towards and could only stab wide with an outstretched foot. He really needed to go for the ball that Deeney headed in on 85 minutes to seal our defeat which had unluckily bounced off Richards into his path. Carles Gil – 7 – If only he could see out a full game. Worked hard, has a lovely touch and his creativity was much needed in Jack’s absence. Jordan Veretout – 5 – Hit a sweet free kick for our equalizer and had a couple of other nice touches but he needs to try to impose himself on games more. Carlos Sánchez - 4 – Lost the ball on the edge of his own box which led to their opening goal and was also dispossessed by Deeney on the edge of the box shortly afterwards. Not a good day overall for Carlos. Idrissa Gana – 5 – Hit a nice shot just wide of the post on 27 minutes but needs to make a bigger impact on games than this. Scott Sinclair – 6 – Forced a good save from Gomes on 31 minutes who turned his goal bound effort past the post. Made some decent runs yesterday and produced a better overall display than those of late. Jordan Ayew – 6 – Had a decent shot saved at his near post by Gomes in the 10th minute and hit the bar with a header 3 minutes later from a Gil corner that was re-taken due to a coming together inside the box prior to the corner being taken. Really should have been on target when a 20th minute Veretout shot fell to him but he somehow managed to screw the ball wide of the post. Had a 31st minute punched away by Gomes who was grateful to see Sinclair’s header from the rebound go safely into his arms. Jordan curled a sweet shot into the corner of the net from the edge of the box on 89 minutes to give us a late second goal. Substitutes: Adama Traore – 6 - Replaced Gil on 68 minutes. Gave us pace, urgency and a couple of decent crosses but he needs to look for a pass occasionally rather than to go it alone. Rudy Gestede - Replaced Gana on 82 minutes but was not on long enough to gather a rating. Stay up Villa! John Lewis

34 points would see us safe for me. I just have difficulty in seeing us go on anything like a run like that one.

They have not beaten us at Villa Park since 1969 and last took a point at VP in 1987. History is on our side I hope the referee is as well.

He is a Nose and did his time for kicking a student in the head on Broad Street. He says he is looking forward to scoring against us and what Villa fan would say that in our present situation? Clearly some way off being a nice bloke or a Villa fan. I look forward to us singing "Deeney, Deeney what's the score?" later today.

The board for 67-68 for allowing the club to stagnate at the foot of the table for far too long and for bringing our club to its knees financially (history now repeating itself for me). We were a club in free-fall following that relegation and I think the change from Taylor to Cummings was uninspiring. The Doc gave us the sort of new manager bounce that Tim did but he also could not sustain it during the following season. I do not think Deadly was ever happy with working with The Doc who was not his own appointment so there may well have been a lack of trust between manager and chairman well before Deadly took the opportunity to sack Tommy. By the end of the 70-71 season there were signs that we were getting the playing side right but it proved too late to avoid a second drop.

Nice to see you posting John! I can confirm Wiki is correct with those attendance figures (as checked with my copy of "The Essential History of Aston Villa"). As no doubt you are aware the Villa players were on high wages due to the bonuses they got for being top or near the top for much of the season (money well spent in my opinion) . Our attendances in 81-82 were 30,097 (Notts County), 37,661 (Manchester United), 25,637 (Stoke), 40,763 (Small Heath), 32,064 (West Ham), 32,652 (Ipswich), 27,316 (Arsenal), 26,847 (Forest), 35,947 (Liverpool), 19,916 (Sunderland), 24,287 (Southampton), 23,877 (Spurs), 24,474 (Coventry), 26,790 (Wolves), 28,440 (WBA), 22,731 (Brighton), 21,098 (Boro), 20,566 (Leeds), 22,150 (Manchester City), 20,446 (Everton) & 18,294 (Swansea). Although winning the EC must have made us a little cash as well given we had 38,579 (Dynamo Kiev) & 38,539 (Anderlecht). But winning the league and being the champions of Europe were not enough to compensate for us being in £1m debt for Deadly so we cut costs rather than looked to build upon the best 2 seasons we had enjoyed as a club since the end of the century before that one. But all that is now water under the bridge. Our opinions of the previous custodian of our great club differ somewhat and have been debated between us or for many years now. Can we agree that neither our present or previous custodian can claim to be anywhere near to being another Rinder, that Deadly has taken more money out of the club than Randy now looks likely to ever do and that Randy should we be relegated under his watch is running Deadly a lot closer than we would have ever thought possible to the title of our worst ever club custodian?

We can but hope but they might want to keep what they have as they already have injury problems and have three trophies to play for.

Yes the signs of recent months have not been good. All this will he play for Ireland or England debate will come to nothing if he does not do his stuff for us. He should have kept his head down after the summer he had and just worked on his game. We need him to look like he wants to turn things around for himself and for our football club rather than like a player is going off the rails after what was a very brief time in the limelight. I hope he will now get and listen to sound advice from both the club and his family.

Jack needs to party off camera and smile when he has cause to do so after a game. Come on Jack you are better than this. Get the papers talking about your performances on the field rather than off it.

I think Austin will wait until the summer and maximise the money he will get for doing so. Trippier looks the more likely of the two but would he want to come and would Spurs really want to help us out in any case? It would be nice to hear us being connected with players who might keep us up in the press but the silence suggests the club are prepared to go again with what we already have although we are not.

The Sunderland result was a shocker tonight to them as much as to us I would guess. We really have to beat Watford now it is our Cup Semi-Final (I would have said Cup Final but I am looking for a better performance than that this weekend). I heard a Newcastle fan say that we are already down on Talk Sport today and that really got me going given how well they are playing. I am hoping that the players might have a similar reaction when they look at the clubs that are now too many points ahead of us. This may go down to the last game if we are to stay up but at the moment I hope we are still in with a chance (however slight) of staying up in March. This was always going to be a tough season given the players we lost and the gamble the club were prepared to take on spending little more than they received on bringing in new players. Our players now need to show that they want to play to keep us up and the club need to find the funds we need in January to add players to the squad that will increase our chances of staying up. As fans we need to play our part but the players and club need to do the same!

We would get an extra 4 home games which I am sure would be the spin the club would put upon it for season tickets so I very much doubt we would get any such reduction.

I doubt it. He could do one in the centre of our defence though.

I think we can thank GT and Big Ron for that rather than Deadly. Deadly also took us down more than once. But that is now history and Randy still has time on his side to challenge Deadly's sorry record. I would also add that it was much easier back then to get into the top half and even the top two because money had yet to create the gap between the mega rich clubs and the rest of the league that now exists.

I have to say I would much rather we did not take that risk. I am sure Forest, Blackburn, Sheffield Weds, Ipswich, Sheffield United, Fulham, Wolves, Charlton, Bolton, Coventry, Wigan and Derby fans would with hindsight look at that risk in the same way. He still has a bit of a way to go given the person he bought our club from and that has the Witton Lane Stand named after him managed to turn the European Champions into a relegated club in 5 seasons but he is currently in danger of running him a close second!