Poise

We're conceding 2 goals a game anyway. Bacuna much better going forward than Hutton and can do a job as RB. Cissokho is absolutely horrible to watch. Literally think he'd make a better centre half than left back. Bennett with it all to prove. If Bennett does crap then bring Cissokho back in. Same goes for Bacuna. I'm not saying that that team is going to be our 11 for every game for the rest of the season. Just something I would definitely give a go. Especially in a game against a weaker side where you need to take the game to them. Basically all I am saying is what we are doing right now has got us in 20th place! So giving something different a try can't hurt.

Okay everyone has an opinion. But people moaning about my team saying it is terrible and then putting theirs with Ayew back out wide is making me laugh. Our only saving grace at the moment is how Garde has started playing Ayew in his preferred position and how Ayew has repaid that by putting in some top performances. If we sign Remy then it has to be Ayew and Remy up top. Could save our season. But I don't think we're going to sign Remy. Therefore my squad was just all about playing to our strengths and changing the system to a counter-attacking system. At the moment we're playing a style of football that just seems ridiculously hard to play and we are just playing into opponent's hands. Counter attacking football with a front 3 of Adama, Ayew and Gabby could potentially striker fear into defenders given a couple of games. Obviously if it didn't work we'd change it. All I was saying is that it is worth a go at playing at this style.

Hmmmm 4-4-2 really?

I remember when I heard about his antics the other week which led to Remi Garde banishing him I said "He's a 20 year old lad with 100's of thousands of pounds in his bank. Why let something as silly as a football match ruin your weekend when you're in that position..." But seriously though, he's just not even up for debate for me. He's shown glimpses in the odd game but overall I would say he has had 3 stand out games. West Ham at home last season. Liverpool at Wembley. And Birmingham at home this season. Albrighton came onto the scene looking a lot more promising than what Grealish has done and there was nowhere near as much hype. Why the media created the circus about him choosing England or Ireland is beyond me. He's genuinely not good enough for Ireland let alone England. Loaning him out now to get his head straight and back focused on what he needs to do for his career would be a good move for all parties in my opinion.

Like I said we gotta play to our strengths. Our only strengths are the fast players if you ask me. Hence the counter attacking football with Adam and Gabby on the wings. Sinclair is just as useless as Gabby. I'm not saying it is going to save our season. I just think it is our best chance of doing so.

Guzan Bacuna Richards Clark Bennett Westwood Veretout Gana Adama Agbonlahor Ayew Subs : Bunn, Lescott, Hutton, Sanchez, Gil, Sinclair, Gestede. In Jan I would like us to loan Grealish to Derby. He ain’t gonna keep us up and the loan could get him used to the Championship which could prove vital next season. DO NOT SELL AGBONLAHOR! We have kept this guy as a Premiership side and he's dissappointed us now for probably 5 years. However he loves an important goal and I think he would make a great Championship striker for if/when we are relegated. Then I would like to sign a Goalkeeper for the first team, a right back for the first team and a centre midfielder to provide competition for the CM places (Gary Gardner can’t even do that.) Maybe get a striker in on loan who's going to be an improvement on Gestede. No point signing anyone in that position because again we know that Gestede can do it in the Championship so we don't want to add to the wage budget for next season. Play old-fashioned counter-attacking football. Behind the ball when we don’t have possession and then burst forward in 3’s and 4’s when we gain possession. If we are losing a game going into the last half an hour or so then take off whichever CM is playing poorest for Gil and move him just behind Ayew as an AMC. If we are still losing then take off Bacuna and Bennett for Gestede and Okore/Lescott and go 3-3-4. If we go on to lose by more then at least we gave it a bash! Bennett has a lot more to prove than Cissokho. Feel we could gain from that. But if he doesn’t hit the ground running bring Cissokho back in and just hope for the best K It’s a shame none of our centre halves seem to be able to stay fit. Isn’t helping us that we seem to have a different centre half partnership every week. Clark is prone to a mistake but I think we have looked at our steadiest with him next to either Okore or Richards. I like Hutton for his work rate. Second to none in our team when it comes to that. But he just lets us down in the final third way too often. Bacuna is much better deliverer of a ball and can also hurt teams from set plays. It is goals that we need so he wins that battle for RB. (Obviously unless we sign an improvement at RB). Gana and Veretout keep showing glimpses of what they are capable of and we have no other decent CM’s anyway so we have to stick with them. I do think they can go on to become good players so hopefully we see that in the 2nd half of the season. You get what you see with Westwood. Not great but will break up play etc. Sanchez makes way too many mistakes. Shame because like Gana and Veretout he too shows glimpses of class but then he will do something very sloppy and just cost us a goal way too often. Adama is our get out of jail card. Showing glimpses of pretty much phenomenal potential. How he can’t be starting games is beyond me. Agbonlahor has to get back into the fold too. Probably the only player that can keep up with Adama and with both men on the wings could start to scare defences if they can get any kind of form together. Ayew as the striker doesn’t need explaining. I think this is our best bet of staying up. Everytime I see our team sheet I just feel that we are not playing to our strengths. We keep trying to play this style of football that is a very hard style to play. We need to go back to basics and at least give survival a fight. Up The Villa!

For what it is worth... This is what I would now do after the latest Benteke revelations : Man Utd are meant to have enquired about Benteke…. I would ask for £28m and maybe sell for £25m. Lerner normally gives around £10-15m to spend on average the last few seasons. So that would give us a nearly £40m transfer kitty. I’d go (as realistic as I think we can be) : Sell : Guzan £3m (He’s always been a good shot stopper but never held down the number 1 shirt well enough for me. Given has 1 season left as a number 2 and we have Jed Steer coming through the ranks as 3rd choice.) Cissokho £3m (Always looked like a centre half playing at left back to me. Sherwood doesn’t seem to rate him so expect to see him gone.) Luna, Tonev, Helenius (Not gonna get much for these three. £1m for the lot if we are lucky I think!) Benteke £25m Gil £2.5m (Hopefully get what we paid for, I’d like to see him stay but Sherwood seems to have his mind made up.) Weimann and Lowton already gone for £2.5m and £1m. So after all that with plus Lerner’s normal £10-£15m transfer kitty we’ll hopefully have £40m to spend. Buy: Micah Richards (already in) Charlie Austin - £12m (Rising to £15m based on appearances/goals) Andrew Robertson (Highly rated left back from Hull Sherwood is meant to be keen on, Bruce has asked for £30m though lol, but even the player has said that is stupid.) - £8m We need a centre half to replace Vlaar. I literally can’t think of a decent centre half in the Premier League that we could go for. James Chester from Hull has been mentioned but don’t want to sign too many Hull players! For me Sherwood has gotta go find a centre half from Europe that will replace Vlaar. Gonna be £10m at least. Chicarito on loan. If Arsenal sign Cech then I would consider a move for Scezsny. Maybe just on loan with a view to a permanent deal. If not then this David Button from Brentford that Sherwood is meant to be keen on sounds okay so worth a go. Still got Given to step in if he struggles. - £5m. A centre midfielder is needed too, not got much options there. Huddlestone has been mentioned and I think he would be alright - £5m. Then I reckon our 11 could be something like : Button Richards Okore Clark Robertson Huddlestone Westwood Delph Grealish Austin Chicarito Can switch to wide players if he wants and just play Austin as the lone striker. Bring in one or two of Bacuna, Sinclair, Agbonlahor, N’Zogbia for Chciarito and a midfielder. And play 4-2-3-1. Got Hutton as back up for Richards. Joe Bennett as back up for Robertson. Baker, Senderos and whatever centre half we sign too. Would like to see Gardner pushing Westwood for the centre mid spot next to Delph. Sanchez there to take over if Huddlestone struggles or doesn’t work out.

Totally agree. In front of Sherwood aswell I definitely won't be surprised to see Given starting against Stoke next Saturday. Also expect Vlaar to be back in the starting eleven and I think Bacuna may have done enough to merit a start in the league. Not only did he score a great goal but he made some wicked deliveries too. Very pleasing peformance eventually. Not been able to say that much in the last 12 months

I liked O'Leary myself. His first season was a miracle season. Taking us straight from 16th to 6th. We even had a chance of Champions League football up to the last couple of games... Sorenson and Gavin McCann were also good signings. Could have done with investing in the team after that season but Ellis didn't give him any money and we just spent the whole Summer chasing Mathieu Berson.... Then we had a very average season finishing 11th and this was when Ellis decided to get his hands in his pockets. Think pretty much every signing O'Leary made that Summer was a panic buy and this led to us almost being pretty dreadful and almost being relegated.... Just bad timing really.

Yeah it was Vaclav Drobny. I thought we signed him but turns out it was only a loan... Cheers guys.

I'm trying to name our worst signings ever and I do remember O'Leary signing a foreign (I think he was Croatian) center half and then literally never playing him. I can't for the life of me remember his name though??? Can anyone help?

It hurts me to bring this topic up, but after what seemed like such a bright and exciting start to Randy Lerner's reign at the Villa, we are now left with shattered dreams and nothing to look forward to once again. On a day where Darren Bent is now being linked with a move from Villa Park, I ask myself .... What has happened to Lerner's ambition and even more importantly, what has happened to his millions??? Hate to post this after how excited he got us all when he first took over our beloved club, but after cashing in on all the decent players bought under Lerner, he now looks to have given up on investing any more. Gone are the transfer windows where we could look forward to signing some of the best talent around and spending between £30-£40m. Gone are the days that we could go to any ground and face any team knowing that we have a chance in that game. So with money and transfer fees playing a bigger part in football than it ever has done, does this mean that if we are to ever kick on from here and go and do something, do we need to look for new ownership again? Would it be anywhere near acceptable to chant Lerner out yet? He's certainly not helping himself after selling all our main assets (on the pitch), not investing the money back into the team and then on top of that you can also look at the manager appointments as very bad choices too. Houllier was never fit enough to come back into full time Premiership management and we all know what the majority of Villa fans think of Alex McLeish. I ask myself, was Lerner ever the man who bought excitement to Villa Park? Not once have I been excited about anything Villa related ever since the day it was announced that Martin O'Neill had resigned as Villa manager. No Villa fan can argue that the bubble well and truly burst as soon as Martin O'Neill walked out of that door. And let's not forget, Martin was actually appointed by Our Ex-Chairman Doug Ellis and not Mr Lerner. So all Lerner has done, is throw money at MON to get his men in, the men that weren't so good have dwindled away and the men who were any good have gone onto bigger and better things for pretty hefty transfer fees, most of which we have never seen invested back into the squad. It was as though the Bent transfer last January only ever happened because we knew we would be getting similar money for Downing and Young 6 months down the line! But even so, if that is the case, where did the Milner money go? Randy Lerner has a net spend of just over £50m in his reign at the Villa. I don't know what you will all think of that, but I was surprised when I read it, I imagined it to be a lot more. £50m can be spent on one player these days, as proven when Chelsea bought Fernando Torres last January. We can all just sit here and say "Well at least we are not in any massive financial difficulties like other clubs" .... But are we, as Villa fans happy with just that? I don't think we are. We're Aston Villa, and we need to push on from this position we have found ourselves in. The only answer for me, which honestly hurts me to say it, is "Lerner Out!" UTV.

Maybe the fans who wanted Martin O'Neill out will realise how stupid they were now? :-) I've already renewed as I don't care who the manager is. Passed caring now. Would have loved Moyes, Coyle or Martinez but doesn't look like it's going to happen. So just wake me up when it's all over please. Thanks.

Martinez would be crazy to turn us down, if he stays at Wigan and they get relegated next season, then he may never get another chance like this. I've just put £1 on Ancelotti at 16/1 lol. Seems to be a different person everyday!

We could do a lot worse than Martinez. I think its good to give a young manager the job and look forward to seeing us play under him. Not going to expect any overnight success and will be interesting to see how he copes with the expectations of a lot of Villa fans.