Danwichmann

PS, you are making me miss English food (I've been eating rice for for months)

It's 8.30pm, which here means everything is closed. But I'm in my third glass of 'raksi', home brew which can be anything from 20% to 80%. Power has come back now, watching Newcastle game. If we're worse than them we deserve to be sent straight to the conference.

So, I'm in Nepal, there is no electricity and my network is too slow for any site but this one. I'm relying entirely on you lot to follow this game.

Interesting, and something I hadn't really considered. The difference for Villa may be how difficult it will be to offload some our players, given their poor performance and relatively high wages. Do we have any idea what sort of (if any) relegation clauses most of our current squad have?

Not convinced about Okore or Clark, but if they'll still here next season then as far as I'm concerned they'll be given a chance to redeem themselves. And the youngsters should be exempt from any purge for now. Ultimately we need a new spine. Last season we sold Vlaar, Delph and Benteke, and while some of the replacements looked ok on paper, they didn't have what it took to form the spine of a new team. Get the spine right, and some of the players around them might suddenly start to look decent.

Haven't been at VP this season (being in Nepal makes it difficult). Have we started singing "The Villa is Ours" (as opposed to the City is Ours) yet? Remind our board and our 'custodian' who the club really belongs to?

While I'd like to get rid of almost everyone, realistically we simply won't be able to sign 25 new players in the summer which means we'll have to keep hold of a few more. Going with a guess of needing to keep 10 players, I'd keep: Bunn - preferably as back up Baker - had a season in the Championship and at least has a bit of fight Amavi - looked like he had potential in the games he played Gardner - has plenty of Championship experience. If he hasn't nailed down a starting spot by January then it will be time to let him go. Grealish - attitude sucks but young enough and has potential Gana - there is a half decent player in there Veretout - ditto Gana Adama - we haven't really seen him yet and I still want to Ayew - occasionally looks like a Premier League player Gestede - has scored goals at Championship level. Goes without saying that if we are ever promoted he needs to be shipped out. Whoever is still here needs to be given a clean slate from the fans, and the chance to try and redeem themselves.

I've always been against booing our own players, but they've been this bad. If I was at Villa Park these days, I'd boo. Any player still here next season can be given a clean slate (we'll have to if we're going to do anything in the Championship), but for the rest of this season they deserve what is thrown at them. *Not suggesting the literal throwing of any object onto the pitch.

Pearson's personality aside, I've heard people giving him credit for putting together most of the side that are on the verge of winning the league. But flip that around, and with a side about to win the league, he spent most of the season at the bottom of the table.

At the moment, that would include being a shift manager at Burger King.

The guy never really a chance, but I still can't say I'm sorry to see him go. He'll be a mere footnote in the history of Aston Villa, and we'll never know in truth if he could've done well with us had he been backed to even a modest degree. The manager has become pretty much an irrelevance at Aston Villa, which only serves to underline the scale of the problems we've had above that level.

What I understood from your post was that things were so much better at Villa before and could only have gone so catastrophically wrong under Lerner. If this was not your point, I apologise. My point is that we were heading the same way before Lerner came in. I've no doubt that was Ellis still here, we would have been relegated long before now, without the reprieve of the O'Neill years having bought us more time. The fact that so many other big clubs have **** up shows it isn't that easy to keep any club in the Premier League, even one the size of Aston Villa.

The last 4 years of Ellis we finished 16th, 6th, 10th and 16th. One decent season, one mediocre one. It is not a case of one season showing the full picture. We had been sliding for a long time. The infamous players letter critising Ellis? I can't remember the accounts at the time, maybe we were making money, but we weren't spending it! Eirik Bakke?! Lerner coming in halted the slide and gave us a bounce for quite a few years. What has happened since is a continuation of the downward path we were already treading. None of that makes Lerner blameless, he clearly is not, but we were shit before, it's not something unique to the Lerner era. It should be possible to keep a big club like Villa in the Premier League, but it's hardly unique is it? Newcastle, Sunderland, West Ham, Leeds, Man City are all big clubs who have been relegated, the last two to League 1. Yes, it we have **** up in going down, but Lerner isn't the only owner to do it. None of this is a defense of Lerner, he's got to go and the sooner the better. But we should keep a bit of perspective.

We were heading for relegation under Ellis, do you remember O'Leary's last season?! We were dreadful then as well. That 0 3 defeat at Doncaster is still as bad as I've seen. Lerner may be totally useless, but let's not kid ourselves that everything was smelling of roses before he turned up.

The players we have, and the players will are capable of signing,have the ability to rip up the league. Someone needs to give them the mentality, confidence and motivation to do so, which they are badly lacking.

Our squad is bad, no doubt, but I don't think it's bottom of the table cut adrift bad, it should be making a half credible relegation fight. Biggest problem is the toxic atmosphere and mentality at the club, which goes well beyond the manager.

We'll make it up to them by giving them 6 points next seasons.

What are people more interested in between now and the end of the season, results or performances? Neither seem likely to improve, but which one would be deemed more important at this stage?

Resign Postma?

Just asked my wife how many we'd lose by today. She said 5. She's starting to understand football I think.

I thought this was the GOAT? But I don't remember what happens when you feed him...

Oh, missed that on the first read through

Too Little too late. Seriously, can't believe no one wrote this yet, what's wrong with everyone today?

Playing triple captain on Aguero today. Fair to say I'm not optimistic about our chances.