switters

Really should be Weimann rather than Gabby. Half-fit Gabby in v.bad form doesn't suggest big goal threat to me.. Warnock played okay in midfield the other day so that's sort of understandable, though Herd, Clark, Warnock does not suggest much creativity..need Zog to step up today like he did for Wigan last season.

Have to applaud HackneyVillain. Almost spot on with the ones played (only got Pool loss and Bolton draw the wrong way round).

i agree, i think the fans have been very patient, and i also think thats because he came from Bham City so we gave him an extra chance to improve. I think it's actually because fans burnt out on protesting in the summer before the season started. If owners don't listen before they hire him, they're hardly going to turn around and sack him if you protest again a few months later.. Once it had been McUnLeished on us, we were pretty powerless. Had to wait until it got really bad before the fanbase was energized enough to really try again..lots of draws and drab football just sapped the spirit from everyone.

On the OS now.. I stopped reading after this, hold on for the points, there was half an hour to go! Has AM wrote this? I love the way it says 'ultimately', as if we were in front for most of the match and threw it away at the end. We were in the lead for all of 90 seconds!

Finally someone's written an article that is absolutely spot-on.

Weimann or Zog with current team, I imagine. Bannan if he's on.

Conversely if we lose to Bolton it'll be: Villa 36 QPR 34 Wigan 34 Bolton 33 Blackburn 31 Within 3 pts of relegation spot with 3 games remaining, and Bolton with a game in hand. I still reckon we'd have to lose all 4 matches to go down now, but it's possible. After the Fulham win we had a 13 pt gap on Wigan, 11 on QPR - 6/7 games later and both are 2 points behind.

Bannan did a bad shot, no doubt, but the mass of criticism thrown at him when he played less than 10 mins is a bit excessive. Weimann should've hit that chance first time, tbh.

Conclusive If that was our goal, I'd be fuming! Borderline at best

1 win in 12. 6 goals in the past 10 games. We're pretty much safe via draws, but it's very poor stuff. Expect another draw vs Bolton. Lichaj, Weimann, Ireland probably the pick today. We lacked badly at finishing and final ball. Defence kept Sunderland to a few chances but they did have the (non)offside goal and a couple that were much closer than we came at any point.

Very lucky with the iffy offside decision. Sunderland looking more like winning this.

He is on the bench

Selection looks fine. Excellent to see Warnock and Hutton benched. The question will be the motivation. Will Gabby show up for the first time in weeks/months? Will Albrighton & Zog perform?

The most telling thing is that even in this exceptional season (for them), he still averaged precisely 1 goal per game. Which is generally relegation level of goalscoring.. In that whole season they didn't win a single match by more than 1 goal. They scored 3 goals only once. They ended the season with 1 win in 10. In fact, McLeish specializes in ending the season badly. 2 wins in the last 13 last season. 3 wins in his last 18 in his previous relegation. And here we are with 2 wins out of our last 14. Sadly our board probably didn't even look at these things, they saw 9th place and a Carling Cup and that's it.

Nah, just slightly lazy when it comes to formatting. Weirdly enough I didn't have to pick the colours of the lines..excel defaulted correctly!

Think they were better off at this stage by a point or two A couple of graphs I compiled, comparing Villa this season to Birmingham last season. First the accumulation of points: Then the position after each match:

A couple of graphs I compiled, comparing Villa this season to Birmingham last season. First the accumulation of points: Then the position after each match:

Cut them in half. Take the 'proud history' home and leave the 'bright future' behind :winkold:

I'm not sure about your maths. Just simulated on the BBC predictor the worst possible scenario results (we lose every game and all the teams below win every game - with exception that I have Wigan beating Wolves and Blackburn beating Wigan). Under this scenario Wigan were 17th with 43 points. We go down in 19th on 35, with Blackburn 18th on 40. Obviously this includes some seriously unlikely results, but it's possible and 2 points is clearly not enough to be mathematically safe. The only games against each other the bottom 6 have are us vs Bolton, Wigan vs Wolves and Blackburn vs Wigan.

The real depressing thing was seeing just how much better Wigan are than us. We haven't played half as well as that at any point this season. They had pace, quality on the ball and the fight to win it back & close down when they lost it. Of course they were under pressure for spells, but they showed what you can do when you have teamwork and tactics. We saw it last season that the players really play for Martinez - they are motivated to succeed. They do not play for McLeish. Lerner should watch our performance at Arsenal the other week back-to-back with Wigan's tonight and then, once he's fired McLeish, issue a grovelling apology to the fans for inflicting this season on us.

Weimann MOTM for producing the only exciting moment in the match (with a slight nod to Ireland for the quick one-two assist). The game was awful. Neither side showed any really attacking skill or took control of the match. No sustained pressure. Just scrappy and mind-numbingly boring. The equalizer was predictable. Huth always seems to score against us. If we really did have less possession than Stoke, that should be a sackable offence right away.

Should be alright, but in a bad scenario (we lose Man Utd and Sunderland, Bolton beat Swansea), Bolton would be coming to Villa 3 points behind us. And QPR & Blackburn both have 3 winnable fixtures. So we could be dragged back into the mix if they all hit form but it's looking unlikely now. Nevertheless our points tally isn't good enough. Struggling to hit 40 pts is a relegation-type performance over the season, whether or not we go down..

1 win in 10. Man Utd up next. Sunderland is going to be a big one.

Same, except I wonder if he might put Hutton at CB rather than Baker. Lichaj did more than Baker to keep his spot and I've a feeling Hutton has covered CB here and there in his career.

Just humour me.... but whats he correcting? Well, The finance issues are by far the biggest that the club faces at the moment, he's correcting the wage bill, changing the transfer policy, increasing commercial revenue etc etc. Football will suffer during this time, maybe that's why McLeish got the job I must have have missed all this. Attendances are down, and will slump further next season - against that I can't see commercial revenue increasing. I suppose your right about the wages - but thats pretty easy to do (sell your best players) - on a value point - i reckon Ashley young on £50k per week - was better value than Hutton on £30k per week Attendances are meaningless in modern football. Nonsense. Money from matchday accounts for somewhere between a quarter and a third of the club's income. It's become proportionally less important with the rise of TV money, but far from meaningless. The more attendances drop, the less we can afford in the wagebill.