allani

Well Smith picked a striker who is not exactly well known for his goal record. So it is then a bit rich to moan that we didn't take our chances... My "anger" is more frustration than anything. We've not done enough to win matches. Bemoaning "bad luck" is what losers do. You don't just keep doing the same thing all season hoping that eventually we might take our chances. You need to do something different. It is all just too predictable. It was never going to be easy and if we win 2 matches then suddenly everything could look better (and I genuinely believe that several players will be much better next season if they get another season in the PL). Maybe I just want him to be a bit more passionate and being more assertive about going out on the front foot - rather than "confidence is high and I can't fault the effort". Hopefully we will beat Wolves 2-0 and we'll all feel a lot better!!!

It is neither yet. If we survive then he will have been a success (until next season). If we get relegated then he will have failed. That said I think we are down on the number of points that we should have because I don't think he has been proactive enough or shown enough initiative. We've dropped too many points from being in the lead because we've dropped back and tried to hold on rather than keeping the other team under pressure.

Newcastle had the same number of chances as us - so they have just as much reason to claim that if they had taken their chances they should have won. They have next to nothing to play for. We need 2 or 3 wins and suddenly everything would look half decent. We played OK against Sheffield Utd but apart from the save from Davis I don't remember too many "jump out your seat" chances. I think we got exactly what we deserved in both (from watching the first and following the commentary on the second). I just expect more urgency, more willingness to take a man on. I appreciate that it is not easy with so many games after such a long lay-off but I just don't see how we have been robbed in any match so far.

This is from the press conference with Deano: "We can see the team spirit that we have and also the quality. Confidence has not wavered. When players are playing well, they know, and they are playing well at the moment." Now I don't know what planet he is living on if he thinks we are playing well. We were lacklustre in both matches I watched live - lacked quality and seemed bereft of confidence. Too many players looking for a simple layoff rather than actually trying to do something more progressive. We are not alone (all 4 of the teams in 19th - 16th seem determined to try and get relegated) and a win will do wonders (especially if the other teams don't pick up points as well) but we don't look like a team expecting to win. He says we have been unlucky not to win 2 of the 3 matches since the return. I just don't think we have created anything like enough chances to win any of the matches (although as the Newcastle game wasn't on TV I am willing to be corrected on that one). They don't sound like the words of a manager who is thinking that a change of approach is required. Hope we nick enough points to survive as I think several of the players will be better in a second season in the Premier League - but we are still far too negative.

9-0-1 formation. 40% possession. Then moan about not taking chances and being unlucky to concede. Every single match. I am sure that at the start of the season Smith said we were going to try and win every match. I can't remember the last time we actually tried to attack another team and put them on the back foot. Probably May last year.

Has to go. He said at the beginning of the season that we would try and win every match. Yet in the first 2 of the final 10 "cup finals" our line up seems to be 9 mean (plus keeper) in our own box and a "striker" stood in the centre circle to hold up play (with no-one within 20 meters of him). What was it today = 28% possession. At home. When we need to win as many matches to avoid relegation as possible. It is worse than Bruceball - and I never thought I would say that. Pathetic.

The original post looked like it said 4-3-2 1. I need glasses not a calculator!

Sorry I read 4-3-2-1 rather than than "I"!!!!!!

Especially as it means we have sneaked an extra player onto the pitch....

@PompeyVillan thank you for making the extra link that I should have made originally if only I had thought about it!!! This absolutely fits into the "being part of the pride" for me. To me this is not just a good marketing tag-line - it sums up the sense of community and our pride in that (pun very much intended) that I feel is so important to club.

We might not have been included in the list of PL clubs depending upon when they did the study / analysis. But the fact that they did call out Luton - suggests that there are probably not many clubs outside the PL doing it. Also last year we had a lot of other **** to deal with in terms of the financial stability of the club. But now we appear to be back to a stable financial position, an intelligent / capable Board, etc - it feels like this is something we could really push again now.

@Tubby - I agree that there are many ways in which Villa, or any other business, can reward staff / be a standout employer other than just through higher wages. And I am sure that there are plenty of Villa fans who would be very happy to work at probably even below the minimum wage as they probably feel that they are even closer to the club they love and support. I am not really interested in the exercise of raising wages just for good PR. It's just that paying the minimum wage (or ideally less) seems like something that Ashley does at Newcastle. We are Aston Villa, we're an old, historic club that prides itself on its reputation and place within its local community. It just feels like we should be doing something different, something good, something better. Call me an old romantic fool but that's what I think makes us Aston Villa.

I disagree on the first point. Businesses should be paying their employees a good enough wage. Obviously not all staff will work full-time so may need to have more than 1 part-time role - but their average wage should be at a level where they can sustain a reasonable life by working a reasonable number of hours. However, given that a reputable independent source has highlighted that the national minimum wage is too low to support a reasonable standard of living - all I am saying is that I think Villa should recognise and exceed even their advised level. Obviously, the staff who only work on match days would need other sources of income - but for the hours that they work at AVFC I think it would be good for them to be paid more than the minimum wage and more than the VLM. I think for a club like Villa that prides itself on its family / community feel - a generous staff payment model would feel more in tune with our ethos than just paying a minimum wage set by government. To use a bad supermarket analogy - we should feel more Waitrose than Asda in the way we treat and remunerate our staff (assuming that still holds true because I have been out of the UK for a while now).

The article doesn't make it clear whether all PL clubs responded with information about the wages they pay (or whether AVFC were a PL club at the time the data was gathered) so it is possible that we already do pay everyone a living wage. However, I'd love to know that we were paying above the VLW not so that we can boast about being better than anyone else or claim some media brownie points - but just because it feels like the right thing to do and the thing that a properly run club that cares about its staff, fans and community would do.

Presumably even if there is a Buyback clause that City decide to invoke because he turns out to be the player that Pep expects him to be and so his value has increased and assuming that means that we are doing reasonably well in the PL ourselves - we would still be in a pretty decent negotiating position. I mean let's say that we bought him for £15 million and the Buyback clause is £30 million. Then let's say the Luis becomes a key player in a relatively successful Villa side over the next couple of seasons and Man City decide that they think he is then worth £45 million but is not quite good enough to start for them and is unlikely to be willing to sit on their bench for most of the season. It would still be a bit of a gamble for MC to buy him back at £30 million in the hope of making a quick £15 million by selling him on. I think we would be in a decent position ' particularly if Luis is happy and the team are doing well (by which I am hoping that we are heading in the direction that NSWE and CP alluded to in their strategy - plans to be back competing in the top third) to negotiate a deal. After all if we paid another £20 million to keep him - City have made an extra £5m and we have bought a £45m player for £35m. Win win. Obviously it is also possible that (a) Luis becomes the best player in the world and would walk into Man City's and we get very little "compensation" for his development (other than the reward of having him in the team), (b) Luis becomes our main player and we finish in the top 3 and look like being a title threat to MC so they buy him back and sell him overseas to undermine our threat or (c) Luis is great but we are "struggling" in mid / lower table position and so he has no interest in staying and wants to move somewhere that offers him more opportunity to win things - in which case we don't get quite as much money for him as we would want.

I was reading the BBC web-site this morning and, although I am usually very sceptical about such headlines and stories, I was very surprised to read that only 4 Premier League clubs pay their staff the voluntary living wage rate (Everton, Liverpool, Chelsea and West Ham). Now I am not someone who necessarily believes that companies should be forced or even encouraged to flatten their salary structures and reduce the pay gap between the highest earners and the lowest earners. However, that said I was pretty shocked by how little some staff members at certain Premier League clubs appear to be earning. Therefore, in the hopes that some NSWE Board members glance at VillaTalk every now and again (or have staff reporting to them that do) I would like to propose that we, as Aston Villa FC fans would whole heartedly encourage the Board to commit to not only paying all staff working for the club the Voluntary Living Wage but that actually they pay slightly above that rate (I think outside London the rate is VLW is £9 per hour whilst the National Minimum Wage is £8.21 - so a minimum £9.50 at AVFC could make a fairly significant difference). I think this would be an incredible commitment and really reinforce the idea that Villa is a proper family / community club that celebrates all its staff and recognises the important role that they all play in the successful operations of the club and our match day experiences as fans. Voluntary Living Wage

What a player!

At the risk of @romavillan and I turning this into a Totti appreciation / Roma fanboy / pro Southern Italy thread (although seriously you haven't been to Italy until you have made it down South) if you haven't seen Totti's farewell to Roma after his last match 2 seasons ago then watch this: Totti Farewell video. It is not a short video but it is absolutely unreal. If anyone on this site manages to watch the entire thing without crying then they are not human. I have never seen anything like it. More players should watch this too because a farewell like this is priceless in comparison to the money that Totti could have made moving to any other team in the world.

The below average playing performances and the dull / negative / clueless "tactics" caused the attendance drop. So be addressing that - playing exciting, attacking football (even if we are still in the bottom half of the table) attendances would almost certainly improve. I think people would be more forgiving of indifferent results if they could see a team trying to play good football, trying to be entertaining, trying to build for the future. I think most people who stopped attending probably just got bored with watching the same old **** every week with managers and players who were not expecting to win before a ball was even kicked. The new regime already looks like it is different - I think it will take more than a few bad results for fans to stay away - as long as we are trying to play good, exciting football. Then, if the Board are expecting results to follow and for us be aiming to break into the top third of the Premier League within a short(ish) time frame, you need the numbers to go up again in order to help pay for the further development of the team. Better to do that and have the disruption now so that by the time we are ready to make the next step we have the facilities and income in place? It is a risk - spend the money now, don't get the performance improvement and you don't get the return on investment. But the ROI will be much better now than if we wait for 3 seasons until we are (hopefully) regularly back in the fight for European places.

To be fair we REALLY needed to do it this summer.

Exactly - the French revolution saw a lot of good players arrive. But there was no plan, no system, no balance. This season every single signing makes sense and seems to fit a strategy - you can see what we are trying to achieve. I think we will have a few wobbles during the season but I think we will have more than a few amazing highlights.

Exactly - the French revolution saw a lot of good players arrive. But there was no plan, no system, no balance. This season every single signing makes sense and seems to fit a strategy - you can see what we are trying to achieve. I think we will have a few wobbles during the season but I think we will have more than a few amazing highlights.

With this team? Two at most.

Holy moly! I need to pinch myself - what an unbelievable transfer window so far. I don't think I have ever witnessed anything like this before (at least not with Villa). Every single signing seems to exactly match a defined strategy. Obviously there is never any guarantee (I was quite excited about the French revolution a few seasons back) but it really does look like this could be a very exciting time for the Villa. Every single signing makes sense according to the statements from the club about what they are trying to do. If this lot gel it could be absolutely immense!

I think Dave wants to say something..