Grunthos

Weird. Why not bring Holman on for N'Zogbia direct, and Sylla for KEA direct?

OK, Mr. Savior, let's see what you can do.

Absolutely must hold this, or we're down. It's really that simple.

Zusi and Alonso are plausible options that would actually fill a need for us, which of course implies that Villa haven't even thought of them.

American center back, age 25, plays for Kansas City.

Matt Besler has one cap and, so far as I know, no second nationality. He's not gonna get a work permit last-minute like this. Omar Gonzalez only has three caps, so similar conditions apply. Omar Cummings is 30 years old, not "promising". Freddy Adu is crap. Next?

His FM 13 profile is fairly generic. Strength 16, Stamina 15, Balance 16, Acceleration 13, Pace 11, Work Rate 14, Teamwork 14, Determination 14. Most everything else is in the 9-12 range. I find FM's ratings to be inaccurate as to the overall quality of the player, but generally pretty good as far as his relative strengths and weaknesses. It's good that they think Sylla is well-rounded... a generic 2nd tier d-mid in FM will have significant deficiencies in his attacking skills, and that's not the case here. It's not so good that they assigned him Tackling 9. Basically, it's an assessment that he's got the athleticism, but may or may not have the requisite skill potential in critical areas. Which doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know.

Here's the problem that's cracked it for me, Blandy: they do have money for him. To repeat, Randy just sold the Browns for roughly a billion dollars. The idea that he can't back his manager even in the acquisition of further bargain signings like Westwood and Lowton at this stage is ludicrous. We don't need a whole new team to stay up, and we don't need to commit to huge contracts to get better players than PL is running out there in the middle of the park right now. I, too, fully support the idea that the club should live within its means... but strangling Lambert's options right at this moment in the name of that principle is deeply stupid. Everyone is clear on the fact that the remaining high earners are going to come off the books in the next couple of years, one way or another. That fact alone, along with the massive exodus that has already occurred since MON quit, ensures that the club is in no danger of collapsing into administration. And yet Lerner now insists on doing his own level best to force us down. It's gratuitously, unforgiveably idiotic.

I can't argue with that sentiment, Richard. I disagree with your characterization of the arguments in that thread three years ago*, but regardless of how things stood then, today's news that Lerner will not spend a bleeping dime this window is tantamount to an abdication, and is unworthy of stewardship of this club. *You got stick at that time because an owner who was injecting a large amount of money into the team's facilities, wage bill, and transfer kitty was adjudged by you to be inadequate because he wasn't an oil tycoon. It was, frankly, churlish on your part. C'est la guerre.

Caveats: - I don't post here much because the negativity is way OTT, all the time. - I think people are constantly laying way too much blame at the feet of Lambert. - I appreciate what Randy Lerner has done for this club... so many posters have awfully short memories re: Ellis. With that said... what Lerner is doing right now is sheer idiocy. Unadulterated incompetence. An absolute travesty. Total bollocks. Not allocating even 5M in transfers and, say, 50k in wages for the January window is farcical, stupid, wrong, self-defeating, so mind-bogglingly asinine that it beggars belief. Perhaps PL can find some way to keep the club up anyway... but I can't see how, not with this spineless excuse for a central midfield. Relegation will undo every gain Lerner has made for the club since taking over, and then some. Randy, you just sold the Browns for something like a billion dollars. I don't care how much money your wife took, you can afford to back your manager enough to get quality reinforcements. There's talent on this team. A good center back and a strong, consistent defensive mid would make a world of difference. When the day of the drop comes, there will only be one person to blame.

I think he always honestly meant well. Now he can honestly mean well in the third tier in Scotland, where he belongs.

Top post from BOF. This is about where I am at also, with the (sad) expectation that this is precisely what will happen. Randy's more extensive history running the Browns has much of the same character to it... there's a fair amount of evidence that he just doesn't know how to pick good people to run his businesses and/or manage those managers himself to get the best out of them. It would be nice if people could recognize the vast amount of good he has done for the club while taking him to task for his mistakes, but it seems as though those things won't be appreciated until long after he's gone, if ever. When you look around at the owners some teams have to put up with (Ken Bates, Venky's, Mike Ashley, the Glazers, David Gold, the revolving carousel of incompetence at Portsmouth and Rangers, etc., etc.), Randy's sins pale in comparison. Of course, if Randy continues to employ Eck and we go down next year, then all that good will have been wiped out at a stroke. And Lerner will deserve every bit of the stick he'll get in that circumstance, because it's completely avoidable. But even then... to ascribe ill-will or indifference on Lerner's part? Horse hockey. It's bright-line obvious that he's trying his best to do best for the club. Whether his best is good enough, we'll find out soon enough.

And, as others have noted, the non-call on Hutton's foul earlier may have made Dowd quicker on the trigger. Incompetence begetting further incompetence.

Nuremberg, I think you will easily be proven wrong on this one. It's not a "kicking out" at all. However, our appeal against the card will fail, because the refs will be able to point to Herd's instinctive motion as if it were a foul, even though it blatantly isn't, and pretend that they were making a defensible decision. So, business as usual.

That's not a stamp. It's rather clearly not a stamp, and there's no reason for the linesman to have called it as such. Herd starts to pull away from Olsson, then realizes his foot is still tangled up and jerks it back rather than get pulled over. I don't think Herd's foot even got back down to contact. There remains no cause for dismissal at any point in the play. Pathetic.

Horse hockey. There were many perfectly viable choices that the board ruled out explicitly with their "Premier League experience" criterion. And a ton of ink has been spilled here and elsewhere suggesting what should have happened. The selection process was an absolute farce. "The notion that every manager in the league would want to come here..." Straw man. This isn't about Ancelotti. This about the contradiction between having a stated ambition to progress into the top 5 and appointing a manager who has presented zero, and I do mean zero, evidence that he is the man to take this or any club there. McLeish is a conservative choice, a guy who keeps your team afloat, not one who advances our possibilities. "What he did elsewhere at a club that has no parallels... is obviously irrelevant" This is an absurd comment. I don't think that McLeish is a bad manager, and the out-of-hand condemnations of him as incompetent are uncalled for, but what he has done at other clubs is absolutely relevant. Very few managers play one style repeatedly at several different jobs and then change their stripes completely. We have just committed to ugly hoof-ball. Stop kidding yourself that we have done otherwise.

This. Agreed, undersigned, supported.

Missed the first half, but what I'm watching now is the best I've seen from this team in quite a while. Bright, energetic, good spacing... where has this been the last few months?

In the end, we have still been bits and pieces today, not a cohesive team. Frustrating, but there it is.

Blechh.

Don't be silly. Young started going over before any contact was made. Nonetheless, things are better now that GH has accepted the obvious.

Nice dive, Ash.

Soccernet has possession at 56-44 to Villa.

I'm seriously wondering, in fact hoping, that Makoun thought the ref was one of our players there.

Well I, for one, do still see us winning this. Fulham are hardly having a blinder, and we are not universally poor. It's a mixed bag from both teams. We're at home, and we've shown more and better chances.