switters

sorry meant Richardson..

There's a decent player in there but just too damn inconsistent and prone to disappearance. Maybe he should fully convert to striker, he didn't seem to have the discipline for the position but he's a good finisher. Anyway, good move all round. Should do well for Celtic 'cause the defences up there ain't gonna be too great and Celtic are going to be dominating against most of them which'll keep him involved. And we've done well to get some money for him and shift another player who is strongly associated with the horror of last season (even if not the worst culprit) That's 8 players from last year's squad moved on now (Richardson, N'Zogbia, Guzan, Clark, Gueye, Sinclair, Crespo, Gil), along with a few youngsters. Expect Veretout, Sanchez, Lescott to find their way out by end of month, maybe one or two others (can't see we'll keep all three of Amavi, Bennett and Cissokho, for example) and then with a few coming in, we'll really start to feel like we've started fresh.

Very concerning if Samuelson is indeed involved. What we know so far does have a few similarities to the Reading takeover: http://www.getreading.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/zingarevich-dream-ticket-who-turned-7207377

Hopefully this season is enshrined forever as the lowest point in our history.

I guess you could call it a battling point and a bit of resilience for the first time in months. Zero attacking intent, but screwing Newcastle is a nice bonus.

Something's gone wrong with my screen, there appears to be a bigger number next to Villa's name than there is for the opposition

Richards is probably on 40k a week minimum. Which equals at least £6m in wages over the next 3 years. If we can get someone to take him off our hands on a free, we should consider ourselves extremely lucky

My guess is King & Bernstein had put together a plan for overhaul which started with the words 'As soon as relegation is confirmed we need to: .... ' Relegation was confirmed Saturday and now on Monday they resign, so either they have been given an outright 'no' to significant parts of the plans, or they have been met with indecisiveness & dallying which is as good as a 'no' when your whole plans are based around acting early & decisively to prepare for next season. I think on past form, it is likely that Lerner has been dallying (probably on some tenuous hope of selling before he has to commit more money), and they've decided it's better to cut out now than risk reputations on a project that's doomed to failure without commitment from the top.

I can easily see us shipping about 15 players, with a mix of sales, loans and paid off/released. It's certainly not unheard of for Premier League clubs relegated to the Championship to make changes on this scale. Realistically, we're not necessarily going to be able to shift all the ones we might like to (Agbonlahor probably heads this list) or indeed keep the few we might prefer to (Ayew). So at a guess, we'll be looking at something like: Release/pay off/get negligible fee for - N'Zogbia, Richardson, Crespo, Bennett, Guzan, Richards, Bacuna, Kozak Sell (as they will want to go and clubs may pay actual money for them) - Ayew, Gueye, Gil, Sanchez, Okore (between them might bring in ~£20m) Loan - Traore, Veretout (I think these two will want to leave and we'd struggle to get half what we paid back so a loan might make more sense for now) -- Would leave squad along lines of: GK:Bunn, Steer LB:Amavi, Cissokho RB:Hutton CB:Clark, Baker, Lescott CM:Westwood, Gardner, Lyden Wide:Grealish, Sinclair, Green FW:Agbonlahor, Gestede, Robinson That would need serious work and investment: 3 or 4 quality additions in midfield and at least one striker who can definitely score goals at this level. And a first choice GK, 2 or 3 in defence and some more creativity, means we'd be looking at 10-12 incoming (maybe fewer if there are others in youth setup who can realistically step up). The good thing about this is that a new manager would get a real opportunity to make something like the squad he wants so obviously it's important we get someone in before too long so they can be making decisions early in the summer.

If Norwich win today we can officially be put out of our misery next week. Think the sole remaining pleasure we can hope for this season is taking Newcastle with us on 7th May. Hopefully then the clearout to end all clearouts in the summer. If more than 3 of today's starting line-up are lining up for our first championship match, I'll be surprised.

Two world class misses late on, just to prove our attacking is every bit as inept as our defending. Good stuff, guys.

Was that a foul? Thought Gana got enough of the ball. Either way we are the masters of conceding at the worst moments (i.e. first 5 mins, either side of HT and last 5 mins - oh and straight after conceding 1)

Okay if it keeps managing to stay out like that, we might be onto a fluke result here!

It's been okay except for the fact every time they up the pace slightly they are through on goal. Kane won't keep missing.

Oh I know, I know Pretty close with the lineup though. Just he went for Gil and Veretout rather than Lyden and Sinclair. Lyden was a long shot, but I did think Sinclair has shown more in sub appearances lately than Gil or Veretout have done so I thought he'd get in over one of them

Yeah, that post made perfect sense otherwise!

We'll lose by 4 or 5 if Spurs are up for it. Lineup I'd go: Guzan Hutton-Okore-Lescott-Cissokho Lyden-Gueye-Westwood Ayew-Gestede-Sinclair Will still get destroyed but we gotta drop the ones who've been struggling the most recently (ie Richards, Agbonlahor, Veretout, Gil, Bacuna) and that means going back to likes of Sinclair, Gestede and giving Lyden a shot. Midfield options are very poor, ideally we'd be dropping Westwood too but without Sanchez the only options outside another untried kid like Calder is Richardson or pushing someone like Clark into DM and none of those options sound any better.

Same shit. Bit of battle in first half but complete and utter collapse as soon as the inevitable 1st goal went in. Nobody in this team looks like a Premier league footballer. Compared to every other team in the league, they are slower, physically weaker, mentally weaker, lacking in technique.

Wonder how many times this season we've conceded 2 goals within 5 mins of each other. Feels like about 600. We have the spine of melted jellyfish.

Well, we can pick apart that lineup in a hundred different ways. But fact is, whichever XI he picks from our squad will look flawed in many, many ways. One of these days maybe we'll strike lucky and some combination of disappointing players will somehow combine to be greater than its parts. But I doubt it'll be tonight because Everton are a strong and very well-established team with better players in every department.

Respectable first half. No threat going forward but have contained them well. Hold 'em another 30 mins, throw on Gestede and pray to snatch a 1-0, I guess.

I do despair at the players we've got. Ayew's been one of the better ones this season but then he goes and does that. Not only messing up this match, but gonna be 3, possibly 4 or 5 match ban. Genuinely one of the stupidest red cards I've seen. Makes that Richardson one last year look positively smart - at least he was trying to win the ball. Battled well since then, but West Ham will improve after break (they could hardly not) and we will tire. Cannot see us holding on.

Strange signing but I think we just went overkill with cover due to having so many injury problems at CB over the years and the two main ones we brought in (Lescott & Richards) have also had plenty of injuries in the past. Basically got three for each side and the 3rd choices are both risky, relatively cheap punts: LCB: Lescott/Clark/Crespo RCB: Richards/Okore/Ilori Just 'cause defence has been bad, it doesn't mean throwing in an inexperienced player like Ilori would improve it. Richards was poor on his return but prior to that has mostly been decent, or at least, not bad enough to randomly drop him for Ilori

Another day of could've been, should've been. Slight progress in performance/battle but until we get 3 points, it's painfully slow. At least we got something - had Perez scored that late one it would've felt like final nail. Needs to be followed by a couple of wins over the Xmas games, for us to have a hope. Whisper it, but I actually fancy us to beat West Ham on Boxing Day (a dangerous thought!) Ayew and Veretout were the main positives. Defence did well too, Bacuna struggled at times and it was scrappy but considering the conditions, they were not bad at all. Guzan had one of his better games of the season. Not really the game for Gil/Grealish/Adama so I can understand not bringing them on. It's the kind of game where Sherwood would've gone gung ho and lost.

Ayew! Beautiful