poitier

I don't see us being relegation material this season, so I think we could wait and see whether any of the current crop are able to fill this AM/hole position first before needing to bring one in. If none of Helenius/Tonev/Carruthers/El Ahmadi/Bacuna/Zog are capable, there is still the option of maybe moving Weimann inside.

I don't think we know yet that we don't already have the player we need.

I am not really sure what Clark's main defensive ability is supposed to be. You can say that he distributes the ball well for a central defender or he is comfortable on the ball, but what does he bring defensively?

I think he has impressed in most of his recent appearances for us, but they were only sub appearances. I hope he gets a chance this season, but not at the expense of Delph, because he provides a lot of energy.

I think we have decent enough depth for what will hopefully be a season of consolidation. It isn't as if we have to play Europa league as well as PL. Of course it is always nice to get more players in, but I think we have what we need for a mid table finish with plenty of high scoring games, some we'll win some we'll lose.

I reckon 10th with potential to be much worse or a bit better than that.

I think Huddlestone is a good player, not necessarily one that I would pay £5mill and big wages to, but I can't quite understand the vitriol many people here have towards him.

Great news that he is staying, I expect a top ten finish this year.

Lambert likes a big physical centre forward, Ba doesn't fit that.

 

The agent then said that the Villa should be generous as they only got him for 7.

Don't make Hulk angry, Hulk will smash agent.

Looks like its Spuds then, I genuinely doubt they will give us what we want.

It won't be Spurs then. We hold the aces here.

Given the style Lambert likes to play, I think it will be someone with a strong physical presence. Alternatively, I would like to see Gabby back in the middle.

Well, if you had considered these two options when he signed for us, I know which I would have preferred:

1- He plays like a monster, scores the goals that keep us up and generates a huge profit after one season.

2- He is shit.

Gutted that he is going, but I wish him success wherever he goes (except Spurs).

Oh well, at least that is £20k pw off the wage bill, maybe we can afford to keep Ireland on now...

Totally gutted, and much as I have faith in Lambert, it is going to be very difficult to replace him. At least it isn't near the end of the transfer window.

I can accept him going to Chelsea, but not Spurs.

I would still characterize Gabby as our talisman. Love him and really he should have got an England call up to play against Ireland and Brazil, but unfortunately for Gabby he doesn't play for the op 5. He was at times unplayable at the tail end of last season. Whats particularly impressed me with Gabby is how far he's come technically. Last season I saw him pinging cross field balls and his passing and link up play has come on heaps and bounds. When he's on form theirs not many English wingers better than him.

When he is on form I don't think there are any English strikers that can play the lone forward role as well as him, I really think he could do a job for England in the games where we are mostly on the back foot.

I am really looking forward to seeing what this kid can do for us. He is like a 6'5 Denis Bergkamp with pace

This is a hoax, that isn't a real beard.

Our first choice left back next season will be Bennett sporting a beard.

Trying to build a team around Bent would mean dismantling just about everything that has started working well for us. I really don't see him staying as being an option, even if we get less for him than we would ideally want.

The front three clicked first, it looks like the midfield three is coming together nicely, so improvement in the back four is next on the cards. I think we will be an exciting mid table team.

Not sure Benteke meant the elbow

Could be wrong of course

He looked for the defender before doing it, unfortunately.

Because he's always going to be challenge there

Raising his boot that high is naive

Really?

The standard had already been set by the foul that Ramirez got his second booking for. He only made contact with gabby on the downswing, nowhere near as high as it initially looked, and gabby was already on his way down at that point. I don't think either deserved to be off.

Benteke is more important to us than Ramirez is to them, that is obvious.

At 11 vs 10 I think we were overconfident if anything - us, overconfident against the European champs!

He was sloppy at times but overall a very good display.

A very good performance today, sadly no points. Delphi was the best midfielder on the pitch, but ten vs ten allowed their creative players more space.

Benteke's second yellow was soft but no more so than Ramirez'.