Risso

Hmmm, toss up between Manic Miner or The Hobbit.

It has been for ages. He's atrocious, an absolute embarrassment.

It was just another baffling, inane decision from the manager to go with the decision to play Petrov and Delph together. Still never mind, at least NRC will have got the point, even if the team didn't.

Too right. Although if he keeps improving, I can see it being a while before Young gets a look in. It wouldn't be fair to Beye to drop him if he plays well.

Southgate and Mellberg for me. Southgate wasn't as good a defender as say, Ollie and Laursen, but he made up for it by being a much better footballer. He and Ehiogu were pretty much the perfect defensive pairing in my opinion. The solid-as-a-rock, tackle an oncoming steam train type (Ehiogu) and the cultured ball player (Southgate).

Agree with that. Sorensen was a decent shot stopper most of the time who made only a couple of mistakes like most keepers do. He should have been ahead of Carson in the 07/08 season IMO. I agree, but by then O'Neill had frozen Sorensen out, after telling him he was shit.

David James's days were numbered when he joined in with the general "The club/Ellis lacks ambition" line that saw the likes of Southgate, Ehiogu and Boateng move on. I don't think he was sold to make room for Schmeichel, more that Ellis thought that signing Schmeichel would placate the fans as he was still a big name back then. Just like Ginola though, his best days were far behind him, and he was just fat and useless.

Sorensen was a decent keeper to be fair. Nowhere near as good as Friedel or James, but also nowhere near as bad as Carson or Schmeichel. To be honest, he was treated pretty shabbily by O'Neill.

we have no divine right to finish above any of the SKY 4, or Everton, Spurs or Citeh TBH. Should we do so, I think MON will have had another decent season. I think we will push top 4 again TBH, but i also think spurs and Citeh might too. I think The top 4 could me masively under threat this season, and could be blown apart. I didn't say that we had a divine right to do anything. I just think that four years in and having spent the money O'Neill has, we should have a real go at the top 4. If we do, then great, I'll happily say I was wrong. if as I suspect though, we limp to 7th or 8th, then it's not good enough in my book. I agree that the top 4 might be broken up this season, it just won't be us doing it.

I still don't think he's the man to take us any further. Whatever the results against Liverpool and Fulham, it's still my opinion that we'll finish no higher than 8th this season, possibly lower.

Risso, that you? :winkold: Cheeky sod! I've actually been quite impressed with Beye I'll have you know. Few shaky moments, but that's to be expected, but overall seems quite nice and tidy, and has put in a good few saving tackles. As for the worst right back, christ, nowhere near. Step forward Mr UDLC for that honour.

A bit flat. No additional quality in midfield, just NRC and Sidwell who the manager didn't think were good enough last season, and an untried kid.

How is Heskey a back up for Carew exactly. Carew scores goals, Heskey doesn't. It's like replacing a McClaren F1 car with a Daewoo Matiz.

We may as well play 4-5-1 as play Heskey, as at least the extra midfielder would have a better chance of scoring. Slightly off topic, but where the **** was NRC tonight? Yes I know I've been critical of him, but after his great game against Liverpool, he should have started tonight. He and Petrov were an awesome partnership against Liverpool, and playing him would have given Delph licence to be more attacking.

How many goals has he provided for us? About as many as he's scored I think you'll find, ie hardly any. He's just a colossal waste of space.

You don't think the fact that he almost never looks likely to score is a problem?

I never want to see that lumbering oaf anywhere near our team again. Two goals in 17 games is a piss poor return. And no, I don't care at all what he does for England.

A Blues fan in disguise, apparently. And a mate of that wonderful manager, David O'Leary.

Actually my point was more that you can't really guage a player's quality by who comes in for them.

Not sure I agree, don't forget he was on the verge of a £4m move to Pompy when O'Neill arrived, not much top 4 interest then. After a season when we'd almost been relegated, that was hardly surprising. Let's not forget the only actual "top four" interest there's been since was Liverpool last season, who it turned out weren't actually that interested after all.

Gareth Barry had been part of a team that finished top 6 on at least 3 occasions before O'Neill came along, so I'd say he wasn't that far off. It was only SGE's ridiculous decision to continually overlook Barry that meant Barry's profile wasn't as high as it should have been.

Some of the players are "best of the rest" I agree, eg Ashley Young, Luke Young, Milner and on his day, Petrov. When fit, I'd actually say that Carew is probably the closest we have to a proper top four calibre player. However, too many are decidedly mediocre, and are nowhere near "best of the rest" eg Sidwell, NRC, Knight and Heskey, and I'm afraid, some aren't even that good eg Cuellar, Davies, Harewood and Shorey O'Neill also has the problem in that the other two top 4 calibre players we had, Barry and Laursen, weren't signed by him, and he lacks the ability to replace them with anybody even close to being as good.

Yes, where on earth would we find another manager with such a sound defensive record as O'Neill? Where, oh where would be the manager willing to come to work for £3m a year, with one of the best owners in the league? How on earth would we replace a man who saw fit to spend £25m on Davies, Cuellar and Shorey. If O'Neill ever left, who else could we get to waste Randy's money? I mean 6th place in the league, it takes a special kind of manager to achieve that.....

General, you keep repeating that Martin O'neill knows what needs to be done, but when you see that he has saddled us with some of the worst defenders I've seen at Villa Park, it's hard to believe he's going to turn things round. All of our decent teams of the past have been built on a solid defence, yet as we start our 4th season under the manager, we look like having one fit first teamer, and one youth team player without a single minute of competitive football to his name, as we head to one of the strongest teams in the league. I know you won't talk about transfers in detail, and rightly so, but are you confident that when the transfer window shuts, that we'll be equipped for another decent season, and to not face the situation we did last year when we had to prioritise? Also, is the free ticket offer for the Europa game a sign that the Villa fans are staying away in droves, as a result of the way we treated the competition last year?

I hope so.