LukeMoore

well how did 3 teams only lose less games than us last season if our defence is that bad?

General I think it would be interesting to know who is responsible for dealing with other clubs to agree a fee, and who deals with players and agents directly to negotiate personal terms and convince the player to sign.

i couldn't choose just one subways are good double cheeseburgers are the best hangover cure but every once in a while you can't beat a zinger tower from kfc man i'm hungry

well said

this certainly beats past debates about who should play between angel, sutton and baros

luke has the better technical ability and is the better finisher gabby causes major problems with his pace and is a decent finished i'd have to go with luke right now how great is it to have these two kids in our team

apart from a right back who exactly needs replacing? i think our first 11 looks dam good and certainly good enough to challenge for europe Mellberg and laursen, do they need replacing? NRC, petrov, young or barry? who needs replacing out of that group Carew and gabby? i'm happy to start our season with that pairing upfront Do people forget that during january we improved our team alot while the likes of pompey and newcastle did sweet f.a do we forget that we went on a 10 game unbeaten run at the end of the season thanks to the improvements made in january Why do you have such a defeatest attitude towards the upcoming season? like i said above after the additions in january we looked a much better team. we have now improved our midfield, we will have gabby and luke as strikers for the whole of next season and i'm sure young players like gardner and cahill will continue to improve. We still need a couple more players but i can't understand why people are writing next season off as a nothing season i don't see any reason why we won't be competeing for a european place.

If laursen can't play regular then i agree it could well be a weakness. I'd hope that between the player and the specialists they would have a good idea on what laursen will be able to do next season.

I agree someone like davies would be a good signing but i don't think starting the season with the 4 centre backs we have would cause us major problems. A rb, rm and a striker and we are good to go any other players would be a bonus and improve us even more but i just don't think we are as desperate for loads of players as some make out.

Do people think we need a huge number of players in? i for one think we would be fine if no one else left and we just brought in a rb, rm and a st, for each position we'd have gk - sorensen/taylor rb - new player/delaney/mellberg cb - mellberg/laursen/cahill/ridgewell lb - bouma/barry rm - new player/young/maloney cm - nrc/barry/petrov/gardner/osbourne lm - young/barry/berger/maloney st - new player/carew/gabby/moore We'd have a decent starting 11 and decent back up. We'd also have options as we have players who can play in a number of positions. I don't think the squad is as bad or as weak as some make out.

General, i've been meaning to ask if there will be another open day training session at villa park this summer?

i think including nrc we will have 5 new players

well the rest of the squad aren't in pre season training yet so there is still some time to bring players in. Also at the moment not replacing players who wouldn't play next season is not a terrible thing. New players will be brought in as soon as the manager can do it.

can't see us playing 4-3-3 because carew is not the right man to be the main striker It works if you have someone like drogba or bent, players who can hold the ball up but also score you plenty of goals. I think Carew is a fantastic player but i don't think he is an out and out goal scorer and for us to do well we need a goal scorer to partner carew. I can't see us playing 3-5-2 because i don't think we have the players that can do the wing back job. I think our best formation is 4-4-2 We can partner carew with a goal scorer If we sign swp he can play on the right and young on the left, with nrc and barry to play in the middle. We also have flexible options if players perform poorly or get injured, petrov and gardner can come into the middle, barry can go out wide, young can play either flank and we also have berger and maloney also who can play out wide. hopefully we will see a rb a cb swp a cf possibly a keeper as well.

Not sure i agree with that. really he has only had two transfer windows at the club, i'd be happy as long as we continue to see an improvement and we are challengeing for a european place throughout the season. If we miss out on one then i'll be dissapointed but i won't consider the season a failure

like everyone else said that really is a top post, we have great people running this club. Agree with all that as well.

Surely the exact same thing can be said to you tricella as when you were on about players we'd missed out on you mentioned

You can write what you think but i think it looks a bit silly talking about players rejecting us when there is not a single piece of evidence to suggest it. You could look at the list jez posts every so often and moan about eveyone of those players rejecting aston villa when in reality there has only been evidence to suggest we are interested in NRC I'd stick to the facts when it comes to transfers.

Clicky... Oh well... I read west ham were favourite to get ashley young at one point to. He may well end up at spurs and i know confidence in signing players isn't your strong point jez but we should probably wait untill something official appears. TBH we still have no idea if MON wants him.

i just had a look on google, hoping for some list of players this guy might represent but i can't find much.

If we manage to get Sniejder then Barry may well be the fall guy because Sniedjer is better than Gareth, all the other midfielders (if we include Reo-coker) are Mon signings and he won't want to be seen to be wasting money, Sneijder Petrov Reo-coker Young is a top four midfield imo, people need to understand that Barry is not the be all and end all!!, no-one should be a "cert" at Villa in this new era. I'm confident barry will still be one of the first names on the team sheet next season.

Didn't surprise me in the slightest when i saw who posted this. How about we give the club a chance to bring in the players they want before we write off their positive comments as PR babble.

Of course he is talking bollocks. Even I could have predicted him going to Spurs, if he goes there. Out of the interested parties Spurs clearly were one of them and they did make a bid in January I think. So you didn't have to be a scientist to understand it after all. Going onto a forum for another club and claim with a 95% certainty that he was going to sign, without any knowledge other than "I think this and that" and "I have done some math and he has to sign", is bollocks. At least I am 95% certain of it. agreed, i think most people predicted spurs as soon as charlton were relegated.

NRC will be a quality signing, I can't believe anyone would want barton over him, who would you rather be in the dressing room someone who has been captain of wimbledon, west ham and england u21 or someone who attacks his own team mates?

i hope not TBH MON praised him during the season and especially when he went back into full training. He still played in the reserves and was in the squad making sub appearances. If his attitude is so bad and villa made it clear they didn't want him surely he'd be desperate to move and we would have heard something from him.