Butterfingers

The heart has gone out of the side. I can't see them turning it around now We needed a springboard to go into the new year with. The last two games have ensured we won't have one.

This thread has become depressing. Last time I looked it was "what premiership player is going to come to us? Now its "what championship player is going to come to us"? We'll be down to the Conference by 31st January. For me at least, I'm past caring now. 2 points from a potential 12 over Xmas has confirmed that we're just not good enough.

I'm shifting more and more towards starting him. After Arsenal, we had 12 points that were winnable. The first 2 ended in draws and (for me) weren't the end of the world, although disapointing. There was enough in those two performances to go with Remi. Norwich was an utter shambles-A disgrace, given the importance of the game. Without Jordan A against Sunderland, I fail to see where the threat will come from. We still need 10 wins with 3 less games to get them in. We have to take the game to Sunderland-Start Traore, go for the lead and then take him off to tighten things up-Lets not do it the other way round & throw him on when we're desperately chasing the game. The kid makes no more mistakes than the other clowns wearing our colours.

Perhaps if you add "realistic" in front of "target", it might become more beleivable. Nobody in the prem will come to Villa Wake up & smell the coffee boys.

Its on the Evening Mail website if you want to find it. I think Collymore speaks a hell of a lot of sense regarding our current status-For some reason, he's demonised by a section of our support. He also said in those statements that his 2 years at Villa were the worst in his life as well as his carreer-I think many should cut him some slack, we can only imagine what he was having to deal with mentally at that stage of his life. There but by the grace of God go I. Paul Gasgoine was so similar to Stan in so many ways yet one is a national hero, the other is public enemy number one. Disagree about Morley & Withe though-I can't see what they'd bring to the table in an advisory capacity. Even a Stan Collymore playing at the level he showed at Villa would be welcomed with open arms at present. The way people re-write history books, he fifn't hit a barn door all the time he played for us.

Yeah-My confidence in him is shot to bits as well

He got very lucky in his first year-If Wigan hadn't have got to the cup final that year, we'd have gone for sure. They just had too many games in such a short period of time that it got too much for them-Has happened to far better teams than Wigan.

The Newcastle goal should have been saved, the first yesterday should have been saved, he should have done better with West Hams goal and don't even start me on the Leicester game. A terrible, terrible excuse for a PL goalkeeper and a contributing factor into why we're going down. Not good enough for the championship either so if a new keeper is coming, lets get him in now & bed him in for next season.

I'd only add that appointing & relying on people like Paul Faulkner, Tom Fox and Paddy Rielley puts the blame firmly in his court. At least Bendall had his son hands on, on a daily basis. There are probably only around 10-20 managers out there who could be classed as success's at PL level. None of whom would touch us with a barge pole. Nobody with any ambition would join a club who totally lack ambition-Thets why we'll always get up & coming managers who are grateful for the chance. Its a vicious circle and anyone who expects a manager to come in and work a minor miricle is deluded. Yesterdays performance being a shining example. The bottom line is that we needed investment over the past 4 or 5 seasons. This was not forthcoming. This is why I blame Lerner directly. I doubt relegation will affect him financially, other than he's stuck with us. His previous managers have done their job in making us self sufficient. He is minus £200 mil regardless of where we play our football.

He may have spent £250mil but that was his choice-His decision. It was not one based on love of football or, more importantly, love of Aston Villa. He may well have grasped some of that money back over the past 5 years as far as I know. He still has an investment, that will one day give him most of that money back as well. Why the need to force shareholders to relinquish their (sentimental) stakes in the club? That shows you what Lerners about. Some of those shares had been passed down generations within families. Cahill was 4th choice and didn't want to stay at the club at the time. £5mil was good business for someone who wouldn't have played many games and walked for free at the end of his contract in any case. It wasn't like we sold our number 1 defender. Bent came in and kept us in the division. It was the Milner money, not Randys. Would you pay £20mil on January 1st for a similar player? I would, and nobody complained at the time he signed. Again, NRC, there were other clubs sniffing at that price so we weren't alone. Lerner threw money into the club for 3 years and then gave up on us-Turned his back completely. I do blame him for everything-The buck stops at him & we've suffered ever since, ending up as a complete & utter laughing stock. The plan was to get rid of anyone on big wages and replace them with "battlers" whether that is young kids, journeymen or lower league players-Just anyone who is prepared to take less than the PL average wage. Jordan Bowrey is a battler-Lets get him back. Limited funds and low wages are a recipie for disaster. We went from one extreme to the other in about 5 minutes. As soon as night turns to day, we were going to go one season. This season is the one. At least half the squad wouldn't get into the top half of the Championships starting 11. Comparing the worst run Villa set up since the 60's to the set up that won the league and European Cup is not an acurate comparison.

You could blame one appointment, maybe two but all of them? I don't think so. We continually sold the crown jewels and replaced them with kids, hungry players or whatever masterplan was in place at the time. The bottom line is that you cannot strip all the assets and rebuild on a shoestring. If Lerner was so interested in our history as he makes out, he would look at the championship winning side and see what happened there-Exactly the same as is happening now. We have the owner who hasn't been to a game since the cup final, a bloke in charge who has no interest in football and is not very good at his job and a head of recruitment who has done what exactly in the world of professional football to justify him making decisions on players. What happened to the global branding of our club that Krulak used to harp on about? What happened to the bright future they all promised us? Its a shambles-Lerner came here for profit and wants to cut his losses-There was never ever any commitment or sentimental attachment to the club or its fans-It was a business venture-A poorly thought out one at that.

I've been supportive all season-There is however no defending that today. The one chink of shining light in the past few games has been Lescott and Okore. This partnership can't be broken and must be allowed to develop. For me, I'd try Richards in Sanchez's role-He will be far better at getting back and helping out defensively than Sanchez is and will be at least as good breaking up the play in front of the defence. I'd then probably shoot Hutton and either play Bacuna there or bring somebody in, in January.

If people think any manager out there would have done any better with numptys like Clark, Richardson, Guzuan, they need their heads looking at. We are bottom because we are absolutely dreadful-No manager in the world would have done any better, given thr dross we have at the club. The finger of blame points firmly at the owner-I'd write about his poor running of the club but whats the point? He doesn't care-He just wants his money back

Has anyone said: "No way will he sign for us" Yet? If not, I'll put me name down to do so. I'd like to be proven wrong but I feel that (as with most potential signings), with the money coming into the PL in the summer, nobody is going to sign a contract in January, when they can wait till summer and dictate far bigger terms. This is more relevant with us, given that we have less than a 50% chance of being in this league next season. The only decent experienced players will be loan signings-Any purchases will be players from abroad that no-one else is after

I think Van Aanholt is pretty quick himself-I have confidence that Jordan A will destroy him. With Traore, I liken it to the start of the season when our French players were thrown in at the deep end-They all struggled and it was noticeable that at one point, the starting 11 had all but reverted back to players who were there last season. They are all turning the corner now though, but at what price? Both to them and us. It is also noteworthy that the one who did start well is currently struggling (Gana) If Garde thought Traore was the difference between winning and drawing a game, do you not think that he would use him? Sometimes, you have to trust the manager-The fact that he is getting (albeit) cameo roles suggests that he's not that far off. Be patient-Lets hope he starts v Wycome and gives the manager something to think about.

1. Hardly any teams play with wingers these days-Crosses invariably come from the attacking full backs 2. So they weren't random signings then 3. Yes-We had a particular system-It was 4-3-3. In some games it was played as 3-5-2 but in essence, they were both reliant on crosses coming in from the full backs. One was slightly more offensive than the other, that was all. 4. Well you won't be doing much praising then, it doesn't matter who the manager is-Whilst we have a chairman who is not committed to the club, things will never be different.

He had a good game last week as well apart from that mistake. Besides-People have told me in the Remi Garde thread that it was the managers fault that we conceded that goal.

We haven't played with wingers since MON was here-What makes you think that we should have bought one in the summer? We needed a left back, we bought Amavi We needed two central midfielders to replace Delph & Cleverley-We bought Gana & Jordan V We needed strikers to replace Weiman & Benteke-We bought Gestede & Jordan A We needed a central defender to replace Vlaar-We bought Richards Everybody was quite pleased with our summer signings. I don't recall anyone at the time complaining that they were a fairly random collection. Sherwood stated that it was his intention to use different formations-He was quite open about this. For most of last season, managers were slaughtered on here for not changing formations. Its damned if you do, damned if you don't

Net spends do not constitute being able to compete. Not many players are going to chose us ahead of Stoke for football reasons and I wouldn't be surprised if they pay more either. This is why we can't compete with teams such as Stoke.

Of course we bought players to fit a system-The problem was that most of them were never going to hit the ground running. Coupled with the rubbish left at the club, along with the benefit of hindsight, we were an accident waiting to happen. We finished 17th last season and lost our 4 best outfield players to clubs like Man City, Liverpool & Everton. We were never going to replace them in a million years, like for like-No player of that standard would want to join a club who had been so dire for the past few seasons. We can't even compete with teams like Stoke in the transfer market.

What choice did we have though? Vlaar, Cleverley, Delph, Benteke all deserted us. We had to start from scratch as we had just lost pour 4 best players. Those 4 probably carried the others to a fair extent. & we certainly didn't have a squad in place to compete in the league. In hindsight, it was an impossible ask to pool half the old side with half a side of newcomers and expect to hit the ground running-Especially as most of the newcomers hadn't played in the PL before.

The Richards one is a real dilemma. You should never tinker with something that is working, especially a central defensive pairing. Personally, I'd put Richards straight into Sanchez's role as I think he'd be an improvement-Call it 3 at the back if you like but I'd have him in front of Lescott & Okore

There is also the question of who should have tracked Cresswell? Perhaps we could place part of the blame on the enforced change-Still not great defending though.

Been very good in the past 2 games. Great to have in our own box as well, when defending set pieces. If we persist with him, I would like to see Baccuna at RB, given the quality of cross that he can deliver. Benteke benefitted last season, Gestede could do the same this time around. Neither him or Hutton are great defenders and I don't see that much between the two. People talk about "going for it". In that case, it has to be Baccuna at RB because of his attacking qualities.

Beginning with December, we really needed to win 2 a month until May. Given that we only have 2 games in May and one is Arsenal away, ideally we could have done with 3 wins this month. There is still time to get back on course and when people talk about "winnable" games, there are plenty lying ahead of us. Given that we have not won 3 on the trot since MON was here, it is more likely to be a gradual process. The signs are encouraging. People are comparing us to the Derby team of a few years ago but we are plating with composure and are creating chances-Unfortunate not to win in our last 2 games. Confidence is also growing and that first win could really make a difference. Under Garde, we've drawn 4, lost 3. Not as many points from those games as we really needed but there is certainly something there to work on. We are limping through to the transfer window. A couple of improvements to the starting 11 could make all the difference