ferguson1

I don't personally dislike him like some at the club, but he does need to be moved on.  How he has so many international caps is beyond me.  If we cannot find a permanent replacement this summer, then we should look at some young Premiership loans (players like Holgate, Hector etc).

8 minutes ago, S-Platt said:

If I were a wealthy investor I would be all over Villa like a rash.

Fantastic infrastructure, huge potential fan base that will be loving me and giving me time to sort things out as I am not Lerner.  No pay off to Manager on a contract.  Yes I will have to invest in the playing squad but 30 million in the championship would go far.

Pay 75 million for the club. Raise some money by selling a few players top that up for my new manager to build a team to get promoted and stabilise in the Prem and sell for 250 million in 5 years.

Easy!

Anything but easy!  However, pretty accurate assessment of how that could happen with the right buyer.

6 minutes ago, sharkyvilla said:

Moyes has always impressed me in this regard from his time at Everton.  He got some outstanding value for money from almost every footballing background (ok there was the the odd dud signing but nobody gets it right 100%).  I'm hoping that if Celtic are looking at Lambert, Moyes has said no to them and is waiting to see what happens with a takeover here.

I like Moyes but don't like the fact that we may be waiting for a take over to happen first.  Moreover, does Moyes need convincing? Don't know if anyone else heard it, but Ray Wilkins was on Talksport last week and when discussing Moyes he said that the Villa and Celtic jobs wouldn't interest him one iota! Only a Premiership job was going to interest him!!  Make of that what you will. 

1 minute ago, Wainy316 said:

Might be the only way we could get him to sign for us. If I remember correctly he took some convincing.

True, he was highly thought of around Europe at the time.  At least we signed players last summer that we can get some return out of.  Unlike signings like Davies, Ireland, Reo-Coker, N'Zogbia etc.  Those type of signings have truly killed us.  My hope is we can at least keep him until January.  

12 minutes ago, rodders0223 said:

Agents of course.

 

Saying that this is surely bullshit. You dont pay 9m for a player and put it a release clause of 4m. Even in the event of relegation.

Hope it is untrue, but anything is possible with Fox!  You only have to look at the Adama situation.

1 hour ago, terrytini said:

At what ?

Way past it footballer who had very little when he wasn't past it.

Edit - done better than I thought recently, so considering how crap Rudy is, I take the point.

Still wouldn't want him though, I'm sick of us being a retirement home.

Being a retirement home or finding the right players to get us out of the Chamionship are two very different things.  I would take Walters, Barry, Barton etc in a heartbeat. 

2 minutes ago, Wainy316 said:

Rumours of a £4m release clause? Hopefully just Twitter guff at the minute

Not having a go at you here, but how would anyone know this?  Contracts are very personal, as are the amount someone actually earns.  So unless someone from the club, his agent or Amavi confirm this, I for one don't believe it.  Moreover, if for any reason it was truth, I would want to know how it has been made public. 

Whether it be Pearson or someone else, one thing is for sure that unless we have new owners, the new manager is going to have to work to a budget.  Now I have said this many times over, like many others on here, previous Villa managers have talked about having financial restraints, needing to reduce the wage bill etc etc, but the fact is we have bought very poorly over the last five/six years. Players like Ireland, Davies, N'Zogbia to name a few.  Players with no sell on value.  When we have attempted to buy cheaper from the lower leagues and abroad, we appear to have done that badly.  Teams like Leicester, Bournemouth, Southampton, Swansea, Watford etc have had far smaller budgets than ours, but appear to have bought the right mix of players in the main.   One example of this is Marc Albrighton - he may not get the star headlines week in week out, but he is willing, a real worker and appears to have the right attitude.  I don't particularly care anymore who the manager is, but hope that they can build the right team to firstly gain promotion, maintain a footing in the Premiership, then push for a consistent top ten finish.  Not going to be easy this job, but not impossible and a manager needing money to rebuild isn't the answer.  A manager that can lead, have respect, is savvy in the market and can coach are the main ingredients required. 

1 hour ago, MuleAthon said:

I said in the pre match thread that yesterday was the worst starting eleven I had ever seen us put out in the league. I stand by that.

This man is either winding us up on purpose, is bound by some directive from above, or is a complete moron.

I agree to an extent that the team yesterday wasn't great, but we scored two goals away and should have got something.  I remember a team that Alex McLeish put out at Spurs away roughly five years ago that still gives me nightmares.  Think we played six defenders that day and failed to get a shot on target!  So worst team ever seen in the league, no.  The quicker Black is removed though the better. 

9 minutes ago, theboyangel said:

To be fair he got the ball but was then daft enough to cock his leg and trip the player.

We're not blessed with left backs at the moment either.

It'll either be Richardson, Bacuna or Hutton switching the LB role next week against the barcodes.

I have no faith that Eric Black will make a decent decision.

Re the Newcastle game, I personally would much rather play Toner there.  At least the fans would get behind him, rather than the other names mentioned above.

2 hours ago, dudevillaisnice said:

I would love to know his thinking with that Sinclair sub, as someone else mentioned it earlier in the thread it's straight out of the Tim Sherwood notebook. It doesn't make sense on any level of football. 

To make some sort of sense of it and I don't agree with Black's thinking by the way, was that firstly, the subsitution disrupts play.  Secondly, I can only assume that his thinking was that Sinclair would run the channels/corners and act as an out ball.  We were inviting pressure, depending ever so deep and simply giving the ball back to them too easily.  However, from a coaches point of view, I would have brought on Richards and kept the five across the back.  Black said that they had practised this for a few days, so why then make the back line a four after the sending off?  Richards may have at least got in the way of some of those crosses!  Still scratching my head too to be honest. 

Quite simply out of his depth in the Premiership, not helped by a shocking defence in front of him.  Wouldn't even be happy keeping him as back up next season.   Has to go I'm afraid.  Marshall at Cardiff would do us a job next season.

Have already made a similar comment in the Black thread, but if we cannot get a new manager to start next week, I would sack Black now and have Brian Little run the team until the end of the season!  I know the same players would no doubt put in the same performances but at least the fans would be fully supportive of Little.  The atmosphere alone for the Newcastle game would improve.  The longer he stays, Black is seriously causing more damage.

2 hours ago, Zatman said:

Grigg has a good scoring record in fairness but still prefer Nakhi Wells as man fire us out of Championship

Know absolutely nothing about Grigg but Wells is someone I have mentioned many times in this thread.  If we are to persist/keep Gestede, then we need a Defoe type player next to him.  Someone that is mobile, has pace and most importantly scores goals. I am happy to keep Gestede next season because we cannot get rid of the whole squad, but we desperately need a reliable goal scorer to get out of the Championship.  Replying on Gestede alone to do this would be damaging to our chances in my opinion. 

Just realised, he defends similar to how I stretch for the remote!

Aston Villa

If we cannot get a new manager to start next week, I would sack Black within the next hour and have Brian Little run the team until the end of the season!

Losing mentality, weak, lacklustre, brittle, and completely broken club!

2 minutes ago, sne said:

Such a shame he'll never get to show his new goal celebration in front of the Holte

Quality, but I actually laughed more at the guy with the glasses bottom of the screen for some season. 

1 minute ago, It's Your Round said:

Providing we can actually get rid, where do you think he'll end up? 

West Brom, on lower wages! 

4 hours ago, rodders0223 said:

Fat shit.

I would like to think of him more as "rotund" actually.  After all, the guy has been on a two week fitness programme.  Bit harsh that! 

There are not many footballers that I actually hate but N'Zogbia typifies everything I hate about certain modern footballers.  No respect, don't care attitude and to put it simply "a money sucking leach".  The type of footballer that sucks the money out of the club and then simply walks away, without a care about whether they have even played.   Should be a national bank holiday when he finally walks away!  Another that I can't wait to see moved to the "Other football" thread.  

**edit**  fair play if he does make a financial gesture to the people facing redundancy but it still won't change my overall opinion of him.

4 minutes ago, DamsonwoodVillan said:

Total hypocrisy from a lot of fans so nostalgic for the Gregory era!

We had darn good players in those days. Yes his first run when he took over was amazing, but I think it went sour for him quickly when we went from top at Christmas to finishing 6th. 

Villa fans of the time moaned constantly of the dour football Gregory served up, and his ridiculous public spats with Ellis and some of the players. In those days we did truly have a squad that should have done better. He was a big disappointment in the most part for me, but stole the hearts of the fans for being a 'Villa man'.

This.  Remember those times well and we did have a good squad, which could have done better.  Wasn't it Gregory at the time that said "if only we'd signed Muzzy Izzet, we'd of won the league"?  I did quite like him though but bringing him back would be ludicrous. 

My opinion of him has not changed one bit!  Very much doubt he wrote the piece above and it's too little too late.  Thanks for some memories but still hope he is out the door in the summer.  Call me cynical but is a new manager on his way in very shortly and someone is attempting to build bridges? Big clear out required, starting with him.