Richard

1 hour ago, blandy said:

Forgive my impertinence, but do you believe Man City and Spurs are too good to go down this season? I suspect that deep down you'd probably admit they'll manage to stay up.

A glib comment maybe, on my part, but some teams are too good to go down. One of the "problems" with the perm is that the top 6 or top 6 are basically about 90% predictable every year. Arsenal, Manc City, Man U, Liverpool, Spurs - these clubs are not in any danger of relegation. They have money, good managers, good players, good support....

Villa needs to get back to that situation.

No I don't mean those clubs,. I mean those that are in amongst the relegation places that get described as too good to go down 

Ayew

Trouble is I've never believed a club is too good to go down and right now we are not showing it.

1 minute ago, blandy said:

I think it's somewhere between the two. This squad is not so low on quality that it is a relegation squad to the next level down (old div 3). It's just weak in parts and massively lacking in confidence. GT took a worse squad and got it up, but we don't have a GT calibre manager right now, so as at the start of the season, I think we'll end up somewhere round the middle of the table - 10th to 14th ish.

What's really needed is stability. it's just been change after change after change. At some point you have to stick with a manager and staff and let them do their thing. You cannot go on fighting crocodiles all the time, at some point you have to drain the swamp.

Sounds like 'too good to go down' ?

1 minute ago, DK82 said:

He isn't a winger. Put him behind a striker or two and get him playing off them.

We have three players capable of that and for me he is third in terms of order

3 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

Bruce never had the opportunity in his career to spend big and have a big budget though. I still think he can be long term, as long as he get good backing from Tony.

Exactly he's never done it. He has no experience in that, the experience people were lauding is not that. But he is here now and at this moment he is our best hope for survival. We cannot have a nother new manager this season we are doomed if we do.

1 minute ago, villalad21 said:

We need to stop talking about promotion guys, just stop it. Let Bruce get the chance to build this team over time, we can't keep sacking managers every season.

This is the main thing for me and, without wishing to reignite the Bruce debate as he is here now, that is what I and a few others were saying we needed before we appointed him. A long term build job. Some people were saying we needed to just get up this season and then replace him for the next phase but my argument was that we never needed this as promotion was not going to happen anyway . We needed the long term build and for this to be in his hands is really worrying for me. Even those who wanted him did not accept he was a long term manager.

5 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

I don't think the quality of the players is the issue. As you say the standard in this division is poor and for me man for man on paper our squad is as good as most.

As we have found though games aren't won on a paper and better quality won't make up for a lack of fitness, ridiculous formations/poor organisation, individual errors which overall have led to a lack of confidence.

I think we have a manager who can address these issues and who in January will also fill the holes in the squad. It may well not come in time to see us in the mix for a play off place, although given there are still 34 games to go I personally don't rule that out, but it will come together well enough to see us in no danger of being relegated come the arse end of the season.

 

I admire your continued optimism, I feel it is misplaced but I admire it anyway . For me on quality sorry mark but not seen it

. It is a combination of many things that make quality and in our lot I have seen poor application, simple mistakes, misplaced passes, lack of ball retention, no idea what to do with it once they have it, running into blind alleys, not running at all, errors in distribution, the list goes on. Other players, some new to this league, some 'journeymen' have demonstrated more than us. Lack of fitness, lack of confidence neither of those would affect basic football quality / skill and it is something we look light on

If Essien is without a contract get him fir the rest of the season

4 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

But we didn't we drew with a very good wolves side, so not all hope is lost

They were not a good side. We made them look good. The standard in this league is pretty low to be honest and from the games we have seen other teams have been better. Considering we spent 50m and bought players suited to this league that is a huge worry, we don't even look like better quality but poor fitness, or better quality but mental fragility , or better quality just unlucky , or better quality just a few out of form, or better quality just adapting to a different style. It is all of those things and poor quality which is a huge worry

28 minutes ago, Mantis said:

I still don't think there's any real chance of us going down. For me the objective should be to finish strongly and build on that next season.

I think it remains a big risk to be honest 

Really difficult to put this right with two games a week, players away for international break and no preseason to work with it's going to tough to resolve this

Can't see anything other than a loss 

According to that without contract list earlier in the thread it says muntari , Essien and Reo Coker are free and don't have contracts. If true I'd be tempted by at least two of those on short term deals right now

I said some time ago if someone offered 5m I'd take it, not sure we'd get that but I would snap their hands off right now

Certainly hope so as yesterday was as bad if not worse than sone of the stuff I saw last year

No no no. Just because our midfield is crap does not mean we are at the Gardner level yet. He's awful . It us like saying we aren't scoring let's give Gabby a chance 

Thought he was our best defender, admittedly he didn't have much competition for that honour but even so

It was a pipe dream before the season started. I said so then

I hoped Luton would be his last game for us. When Bruce was appointed I knew he would pick him, so obvious he would go for the tried and tested pro because he is Micah Richards, former England and man citeh player. I hope he learns and doesn't pick him again. I see people saying play him in the middle, well his positional sense , his lack of pace , his inability to read a game would make him a huge problem in the middle. Just get shot 

Ayew is the better player for that position.  We need to get back to buying better than we have, we haven't done that for ages

6 minutes ago, Woodytom said:

I like him. Think he's easily our best player. Poor 2nd half but you can see him fuming at the sheer lack of pressing from others.

If he's our best player it's not hard to see why we are shit

Not spending the 12 m on a player that we already had better than at the club represented better value. Quite obviously we didn't need him