Wes

I couldn't come up with anything clearly obvious for a target this window, going along the lines of Villa's previous strategies, which is i nline with all of the genereal trends of it's hard to buy in January. I still think the powers that be would prefer spending a larger wad of cash (£6m+) on an attacking midfielder in the summer than overpaying with already limited funds in the winter. However I did read that Sergio Canales has been targeted on loan by Fulham. I would think Valencia may even prefer to sell him if an offer was to come in. They may ask for more money than he is currently worth though.

A playmaker, currently in Europe, who could be available in January? That is just ambiguous enough for me to have fun with. Will conjure a list later for my own amusement.

Going back to Zaha one second, it's come out Cardiff are paying United £1.5m to loan him until the summer. There's no way we're going to try anything like that.

I don't think it's a matter of failing to compete. It's the Solskjaer factor. He is always going to get preferential treatment with regards United loanees because of not only the length of time he played there, but they trust him with coaching up their youngsters as he did before going to Molde. Much in the same way we're having difficulty signing Norwich players, Cardiff under Solskjaer will have an easier time signing United players. "It's who you know, not what you know" plays a role in football too.

The metro started this story? If this turned out to be true it would be the only recorded case of it's type that I can think of.

que = what

Michael Frey.

I only dropped Albrighton because until recently he hasn't been in Lambert's thinking and his contract is up in the summer. It kind of depends on how much money we have to spend. In fact this would be a good tell. If we were to re-sign Albrighton for 2/3 years that says to me that there's either less money to spend than originally thought, or they'd rather spend more money on real quality in other areas. I think an injection of a youthful tricky winger/striker in to the side could freshen things up and keep everyone on their toes. Someone like Massimo Bruno of Anderlecht or Joel Campbell from Arsenal. That said I generally like Albrighton as a backup option for us on the right side and wouldn't have a problem if we kept him although I envision Bacuna supplanting him in that role eventually anyway. Lowton - I think I put him in my team and dropped him again about 5 times as I was writing. In my write up I mention I'd like him to stay but of course off the field issues, there's just no way in knowing how that will turn out. I'd like him to stay because he's shown he can both anticipate the play and cross the ball well at times, he just needs to be able to make his reading off the game more consistent and become more stoic in 1v1 battles when he's on an island. You've caught on to the point I was trying to make. We're close to being able to add real quality to the squad rather than sheer numbers, which was the approach we needed these past two seasons.

Last night I had a go at something similar to dodgyknees, looking ahead to the summer, this is what I came up with: ------------------------------ Guzan/Steer ----------------------------- ?????/Bacuna - Okore/Baker -- Vlaar/Clark --- ?????/Luna ------------------------ Westwood/El Ahmadi (DM) ----------------- -------?????/Gardner (AM/CM) -- Delph/????? (CM) ---------- Weimann/????? ------------------------------- Agbonlahor/Tonev --------------------------- Benteke/Kozak ---------------------------- Additional three: ?????, Sylla (M), Helenius (S) Under 21s: Donacien (D), Grealish (M) Likely people looking to be moved on: Albrighton (Free) Bennett (~£2m or a loan unless improvement in summer training) Bent (Hard to value. High wages, not an attractive target( Delfouneso (Free) Given (~£1m-2m) Herd (Free) Hutton (~£1m) N'Zogbia (Will likely stay with us next season. Hard for us and other teams to evaluate someone who has been out for a whole season on injury) Thoughts: I don't think Lambert has settled on a set way to play the central midfield and this has a direct impact on our attacking three, but not always necessarily in a bad way. We saw starting against Liverpool a diamond with Weimann playing at the top and Westwood at the base which has rarely happened this season. Bacuna and El Ahmadi were asked to push up further on the right as a result. The versatility of our attacking trio means we can adapt how we position them in the final third. (The formation I've listed isn't anything but just an easier way of displaying roughly the area of the pitch they would lay in.) You can't sign two players for the same singular position (such as RB) in the same window. I've put Bacuna as a right back here for this reason where as in reality he can play anywhere on the right side of the pitch. With that said it would be a real boon to our transfer strategy moving forward if the issue with Lowton (whatever it is, frankly I don't care - it's none of my business and I don't think fans should get directly involved) could be resolved. He's an obvious talent despite his on-off performances when he has played this season. If we could keep him it frees us Bacuna to play further forward if we want and also means we don't have to go out and get another RB (I think this is why we've seen the Naughton rumours recently - which is funny as both he and Lowton were fighting for the same position at Sheffield United). Whilst a lot of people have been clamouring for a stronger presence in defensive midfield I think Lambert is going to stick with Westwood and try to improve that side of his game. He's never going to be a de Jong type winner of the ball but he can settle things down nicely for us moving forward. Westwood is a bit of a project and I think Lambert is hoping by displaying some faith in the lad he'll be repaid with performances on the pitch. El Ahmadi is an adequate midfielder for us at the moment to slot in wherever in the midfield. Rarely do players leave a club after just one year so I think Tonev will stay. Some players just take longer to settle than others. Gary Gardner is a bit of a mystery. His contract is up in the summer I believe and he'll be over 21 so if we keep him he's going to use up one of the 25 slots from now on. I've gone with giving him an extension for now. So that leaves the following holes: RB, LB, a CM project, an attack minded midfielder, and a wide, versatile talent. One of those (attacking midfielder) looks to be a target of ours this January and rightly so. Hoolahan would be a fine acquisition. Even if our transfer budget was to remain the same next season, that would mean we have close to £20m to spend on 4 positions. Suddenly, to me, things don't look that bad.

Something definitely is up after his performance against Arsenal. I hope this gets resolved because he obviously has talent and he was one of our bright sparks for most of last season. If it doesn't he'll be in demand by another premier league team come the summer.

Our best performance all season. This is a Liverpool side that has won 9 out of 10 at home. Hopefully we can keep it up. Fingers crossed nothing serious for Gabby. Great to see Benteke scoring again, again.

If they get rid of Houghton I'd assume it would make Hoolahan a no go, who in their right mind would join a club as a newly appointed manager and sell one of the fans favourite players? I'm assuming Houghton is giving these comments rejecting his sale to try and get the fans on his side. It's a rare occurrence, sure, but it has been known to happen. For instance, West Brom just sold Shane Long to Hull a week after installing a new manager.

I don't think Norwich will sell Hoolahan unless they fire Houghton. They've already said they wont sell so that's a card they wouldn't be able to play in future transfers as people would see through it. Also, I doubt they sell on deadline day as they wont have time to bring in a replacement or at the very least use the money to strengthen in other areas of the pitch. I'd gladly be proven wrong though. For ~£2m it's not a bad idea to have someone like him around the club.

Unfortunately a large number on this forum ran him out of town. Some people just aren't content with what they have.

It's a loan move to cover Kozak's injury. I'm not seeing what the problem is here.

Forced in to a formation change that the squad would've planned all week after 15 minutes. Then changed it again at half time when that wasn't working and we played better. I never expected us to win but I think Lambert himself did a lot better than he has done recently in this game. We're still such a confidence team and it's Lambert's job to make them play well when that is low and he needs to improve on that.

Sorry no, I'm about to have dinner.

Heck I won a tennis tournament when I was 10. Guess I'm an award winning football observer too. This is a cache of his old account he deleted yesterday. It includes this gem from the summer: As much as I want to believe, I don't see it happening.

Well looks like things got interesting in here last night. You're right. I can't believe that this summer we scouted and signed players from the lower leagues of La Liga (Luna), Serie A (Kozak) and the Eredivisie (Bacuna).

Anyone notice we won against Sunderland the same day the new series of Sherlock started?

If I had to guess I would say both Stoke and Villa are pushing for the Ireland transfer this January. Ireland has shown glimpses and could improve under Hughes, who always seems to get some form out of him, in the second half of the season, which means we could ask for more from Stoke in the summer. So Stoke probably would get him for Cheaper in this window. Likewise Villa would love to dump that salary off the wage-bill and redistribute part of it on maybe one more loan signing than they envisioned they'd be capable of.

de Bruyne has agreed terms with Wolfsburg according to Bild, but Chelsea want more than the £15m the German club are offering. Don't see us getting involved in the slightest.

Wouldn't mind us being interested in Wahbi Khazri. Seems a fairly consistent attacking midfielder in Ligue 1. A likely safe and relatively cheap purchase.

If it was a transfer, that's the bet you're making. You're going to be paying a reduced price compared to if you had purchased him directly after his spell in the Eredivise but you don't know if he's the same player he was two seasons ago. A loan is a lot less risky on our side, with the benefits, possibly getting a player who showed he has the potential to score a lot of goals, being much greater than the risks.

At least you asked first before coming out with any information straight away. You've done the right thing in my book. Think it's wise if generally we now stop speculating or discussing anything further about HH for his sake and in the hope he gets to return one day. He'll be missed.