Adam2003

Still not convinced he can play well for a sustained period of time

Remains to be seen but he's really impressed me in the last couple of months.

While its wise to curb the spending i can't see how anyone can argue that hiring someone who was relegated twice was smart.

And why would you want mcleish in charge when you can afford to spend in the future?

Randy has failed and has accepted life as a midtable shit team. **** him!

Even if you believe that, a midtable team is better than the relegation certainties we were shaping up as before Randy arrived. Whatever else I'll always remember that, so the '**** him' attitude doesn't sit well with me.

You're entitled to your opinion of course!

we will always be between 6th & 10th

We wont even be doing that this season I'm afraid.

Your support of Mcleish, though admirable, is at best misplaced

Given our current league position, I would say your prediction that we wont be finishing 6th - 10th could be deemed misplaced as well Richard

I think 6th to 10th has become 8th to 12th. Neither excites me, of course, but those thinking we'll be in big trouble are incorrect IMO.

I would have no problem with Dunne being our CB for the next few seasons.

I think he's a very competent defender and there are much more pressing areas of the squad that need revamping.

I couldn't disagree more.

For all people complain about negativity/creativity etc we have some very good attacking players. We have some promising youth coming through.

Our defence is awful. Maybe Dunne is no worse than Collins, but we can improve on both.

this is totally disrespectful !.

Dunne has been a very good player for us in the 4 yrs he has been here. As yesterday, he makes the odd error, but , as yesterday, that odd error usually is sandwiched between about 10 times he bails his other defenders out of trouble !.

Ask any of the Irish side, or Irish experts who the first name on the team sheet should be, and the answer is Dunne - Ray Houghton actually said this about a month ago. Said about how he is the leader, how all the other players look up to him, how he is Mr Dependable.

This is a huge part of the argument on here and elsewhere. Irish fans (of whom we have a lot, which is great) love Dunne - he's something of a national hero, and that's fair enough. He's rubbish though. An awful player. This 'oh he'll be great most of the time but then have a few howlers' drives me insane. Give me someone who's 7/10 and cuts out the howlers and then we'll stop conceding as many. Our defence (not just him) guarantee goals to the opposition every game.

I will judge McLeish firmly on what he does with our defence this summer and Dunne needs to go.

And, just as I started this looking at the Irish side of things, just want to say my favourite Villa players ever are mostly Irish - and I love the likes of Robbie Keane and Shay Given now. You can't be too careful with the current racism climate in the Premier League ;-)

I'm still wondering how he lost his place last season

Wasn't he secretly injured and waiting for an operation? My recollection is he needed one but agreed to wait until the end of the season so we had cover in an emergency. Think even Gary Mac said now he was going for an operation and that#s why he'd been on the bench and praised his commitment.

Like him, hope he stays.

I thought he was magnificent yesterday

Don't see it at quite that level, especially on an attacking basis.

I think he has the potential to be great for us and there were flashes but overall I was frustrated with him more than not yesterday for his positioning. If we started an attack on the right he would be central and there would be no-one wide on the left. Brilliant if we had an overlapping left back but with Warnock it meant too often we looked for the pass left, there was no-one there and we had to come back inside. Of course, no way of knowing if this was him drifting or if that's what he's been told to do.

When he was in position to be an option for us it meant he could do great things like set up the first goal, lead the break that led to Gabby's chance etc. But I think we could have had more of those breaks if he'd been holding wider on the left at times instead of pushing up through the middle.

HOWEVER on all that. what I would say from the last two games is his defensive work has been great. He's worked very, very hard and it's made a difference.

Think he can be a very good player for us - he could do with a goal to get his confidence up and then hopefully we'll see more of the good stuff from the last few games.

I think Delph and Bannan will both go on to be very good players.

I'd like to see Delph alongside Herd - I don't mean because I want to drop Petrov, I just mean that I'd like to see Delph play with a holding midfielder at some point.

Personally I think its not a bad signing, but its not an exciting signing either.

This.

I think he's better than Luke Young but not really by much. I guess if Young wanted to go that much then we needed to replace him.

There was a thread on here not so long ago, concerning our relationship with some big New York agency, and stating that the club was trying to force players to drop there current agents, for them, and that if they did not sign, the club could make it difficult for them.

What's this? Anyone got a link?

Sorry to repost, but this seems like quite big news if true...

There was a thread on here not so long ago, concerning our relationship with some big New York agency, and stating that the club was trying to force players to drop there current agents, for them, and that if they did not sign, the club could make it difficult for them.

What's this? Anyone got a link?

Makoun has had one good game since he arrived and that was his debut.

Concidentally, at the end of Petrov's first season, we were all saying exactly the same.

I wish the player who played against West Ham had stayed for the rest of his Villa career.

Puyol captains Spain & Casillas does NOT captain Real

where are you getting your intel from

Were you banned from H&V for being stupid, too?

I liked the capital NOT. It really added emphasis to an already bizarre statement.

Back on topic, I wouldn't have Petrov starting every week, but I do think he's a model pro and a good club captain.

Puyol captains Spain & Casillas does NOT captain Real

where are you getting your intel from

Thanks for the information.

Weird that they always let him wear the captain's armband and lift the trophies.

http://img.skysports.com/10/07/218x298/Iker-Casillas-Holland-Spain-World-Cup-2010-Fi_2476528.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nErQe11XWvU/Tc81o0h7adI/AAAAAAAABDw/DVFvWsu3Ii4/s1600/109428_iker-casillas_300_225.jpg

Goalies as captains doesn't work.

Yes they do.

No they don't.

Can you imagine Spain or Real Madrid winning anything with Iker Casillas as captain?

I didn't think so.

There's no one in midfield or upfront as they're either unsuitable or too young at the moment

I'd give it to Bent if we took it off Petrov. He'd love to be captain and is the first name on our teamsheet every week.

There is no shame in having Bolton interested in your signiture

You're right. The shame, if this is about NRC, is in absolutely no-one else at all being interested despite you being available on a free for months. That's not a slight on Bolton at all.

Good luck to him though, I have nothing against NRC.

Very good today.

Take it you missed the game on tv

Mature response.

He played well today. I think a section of our fans are determined to write him off, as with so many players in the past, and I hope he can prove them wrong.

Very good today.

Makoun - 5 - Oh dear, the boy is struggling at this level

Mental how we all see different games. I thought he did absolutely fine.

Oh, and I've really missed THAT Stephen Warnock. Good to have him back.

Thought we looked pretty tidy.

Pleased with Bannan and thought Makoun looked very good indeed.

Stan had a shot :shock:

We're playing some nice passing football to be fair.

I NEED A LINK ALSO! PLEASE!

I was thinking that...

Yeah, I accept that completely. I'm not accepting someone like Makoun being a step down from someone like Reo-Coker, which other people seem to be suggesting.

My apple is better than your orange. Totally different players. One is a passer and one is a tackler. That's simplifying it somewhat, but it's essentialy what it boils down to.

I've watched Jean II Makoun for a lot of years and I think there's plenty more to him than being a passer. I think he can do everything NRC does almost as well as NRC, as well as actually having the passing ability you refer to.

Not suggesting he's 100% the same sort of player, but it's perfectly reasonable to compare two central midfielders even if they aren't exactly the same type of player.

I do prefer apples to oranges also.