iancharlie

team:

Bosnich

Barrett McGrath Laursen Staunton

Young Townsend Taylor Barry

Yorke Saunders

Best Manager - toughie but probably Big Ron just Little Brian a close 2nd...

Subs:

James

Merson

Mellberg

Wright

Milner

Atkinson

Houghton

Best Goal:

Atkinson - Wimbledon (best prem goal ever still!)

Saunders - Ipswich

Yorke - Ipswich or Sheff Wed was a team goal about 30 passes! 92/93

Yorke - Arsenal penalty

Best team performance

2-0 vs chelsea (allback kept us up)

5-1 Mbro (92/93 league leaders at that point)

1-0 Man Utd (agbonlahor)

2-2 Man utd (houllier - a team of kids should have won)

3-1 man utd (you wont win anything with kids! - great proper start by Little!)

whilst debating OGS and the minor league he manages in - wasnt Arsene Wenger working in Japan when he got the Arsenal job - did he do much previously in France?

OGS would definitely be diffrent i still havent forgiven him for that 94th minute goal at OT when we had gabor Kiraly in goal (the one who wore pyjames). as soon as he came on you knew he would score, despite isiah, cahill and ridgewell playing pretty well for a depleted team!

has dean saunders been mentioned?!

i would bloody love it to be AVB. All we need to do then is sign M'Vila, David Villa and Aston from JLS and we have theme to our team. in all seriousness AVB would be great. He has so much to prove in England and to remove the Mourinho shadow by going on a different and slightly more treacherous yet more rewarding path to greatness!

I just don't get the rafa hype. Does nothing for me

agreed. i think he peaked a long time ago too. should not be considered always came across awkwardly. my personal choice would be AVB ust because he has that energy to instil some fire and belief plus i think it would be more about the challenge than the money (he' still be earnong a fair few quid!)

lambert would be my second choice though. a more suitable dour scotsman for Villa!

AVB for AV. Failing that Lambert. Failing that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Failing that Gus Poyet.

andres villas boas my shout. all the way. unless he already has a new job!

When was the last time we've gone into the last day of the season not mathematically safe?

1994-95

We were 2 points ahead of Palace. We drew 1-1 away to Norwich and they lost 3-2 to Newcastle.

I remember watching that in the Holte end on big screens.

i remember that didnt staunton score for us early on. Brian Little sorted us out that summer though!

2-2 draw. gardner and samir...

Eddie Howe - burnley?

i think a part of my soul died typing that (no disrespect to Howe as i think he has potential). how bad we have become. God just let Nicky Keyes manage the team!

bad news for the boggies...chris hughton wuld be a great appointment for them though! as would a certain Roberto Di Matteo! Good luck Roy always seems a good guy and has bags of experience hopefully he can remove the primadonna culture and replace it with something more passioned, authentic and inspiring

I would love Lambert here, but what exactly is "Villa football"?

Without wanting to speak for iancharlie I can see what he is getting at.

Villa football for me is the team passing the ball and feeding 2 wingers who whip balls in with a striker to get on the end of them.

yes just that - not arsenal pretty but whole hearted, exciting and end to end. ive seen various good versions of it from big ron to brian little and even MON to the bad of DOL and Eck. in my opinion it is players like Kevin Richardson, Ian Taylor, McGrath that embody the villa. They are just prepared and i think Lambert could get that out of our team.

lambert would be my choice. a winner worked under lots of good manager and he plays "villa" football (rogers at swansea doesnt). he'd be a good choice and would be a great time for him to move personally as hed sidestep 2nd season syndrome and keep moving upwards....

we need crouchy and kyle walker to makesure we are def safe!

in all seriousness i would do everything in villa's power to get our namesake andres villas boas in charge

Totally agree! He's young and can build us from ground upwards again. Made a mistake at chelsea trying to kick all the 'big named' players out at once, but probably learnt a lot. With a bit of money at his disposal, I think he could turn this club right round. Great knowledge of the game as well, both here and abroad.

what he did at porto and a lowly protugese prior to that was immense. he builds on young hungry players - well we have that in abundance so the basic skeleton of baker - lichaj - clark - herd - carruthers - alby - gardner - weimann and possibly bannan and delf is there to be used and improved on! plus throw in bent and agbonlahor and get them firing and our team is not all that bad.

we need to give the youth more time still (i mean it generally takes fergies young guns until they are 23/4/5 to really be properly established). unfortunately this season they dont have it nor do they have the right leadership or atmosphere around the club to grow.

in all seriousness i would do everything in villa's power to get our namesake andres villas boas in charge. he may be interested as he is young and hungry enough for a challeneg and villa would definitely represent that as well as prove that chelsea was just a small anomaly where his enthusiasm to move the older players on got the better of him (i never thought his appointment would work having been a lowly assistant in jose mourihno staff whilst he managed there)

he is the man to move our club on.

also off topic slightly but i love the way word removed has become almost worse in conotation than the words it is meant to represent. that is some evolution of english language which mcleish has pioneered on the old VT t'interweb.

graham taylor/big ron/brian little/john gregory megamix for final three games? godeven deadly would even knock them into more shape...someone save the villa - we may need to look at Ian Taylor and Dion Dublin!

they do have agent ridgewell playing for them though. although he has turned into a competent player i think he still does act as an agent for us so heres hoping hey...

if i was mcleish i'd just stay at home and let sid pick the team. whats the worst that could happen with no manager there?

spot on - i too am relatively calm and think a relgation might give villa back their fire, despite this being sad. I wish we hadn't been as harsh on Steve McClaren now last summer! he could have done the same job as McLeish!

Randy needs to think long and hard about what he is doing with villa. for all the anti-doug stuff, he at least took steps to stop villa sinking and did put up significant sums that unfortunately were more than often wasted through no fault of his own (Collymore case in point - we shoudl have been exceptional)

McLeish should do the decent thing and leave though - just as gordon strachan did at middlesbrough last year when he walked away and told gibson to keep his money as he didnt do a good enough job. unfortunately i dont think mcleish has the same principles as gordon strachan.

i think the following will happen

Villa - Bolton - draw (villa 37 points, Bolton 31)

gameweek 2

QPR to lose (34 points)

Bburn to lose (31 points)

Bolton to draw (32 points)

Wigan to draw (35 points)

bolton to lose game in hand (32 points)

Gameweek 3

Villa to lose (38 points)

QPR to win (37 points)

Bbrun to draw (32 points)

Bolton to win (35 points)

Wigan to draw (36 points)

Final game

Villa to draw (39 points)

QPR to lose (37 points)

Bburn to lose (32 points)

Bolton to draw (36 points)

Wigan to win (39 points)

Villa, Wigan, QPR stay up.

in the past 3/4 seasons 36/37 points has normally been enough...I just hope my mystic predictor works. we lose tonight and it is kyboshed!

How do we lose in game week 3 but gain a point?

Sssssh we're going to add them on when no one's looking.

It's our only hope

i dont know - i think i missed a villa game out! draw obviously! but like in the 1890s/1900s we founded the league hence rule 212((i) should apply - aston villa fc cannot be relegated

i think the following will happen

Villa - Bolton - draw (villa 37 points, Bolton 31)

gameweek 2

QPR to lose (34 points)

Bburn to lose (31 points)

Bolton to draw (32 points)

Wigan to draw (35 points)

bolton to lose game in hand (32 points)

Gameweek 3

Villa to lose (38 points)

QPR to win (37 points)

Bbrun to draw (32 points)

Bolton to win (35 points)

Wigan to draw (36 points)

Final game

Villa to draw (39 points)

QPR to lose (37 points)

Bburn to lose (32 points)

Bolton to draw (36 points)

Wigan to win (39 points)

Villa, Wigan, QPR stay up.

in the past 3/4 seasons 36/37 points has normally been enough...I just hope my mystic predictor works. we lose tonight and it is kyboshed!

If it was in Lerner's plan to cut costs this season, then strengthen this summer, I wonder if he took into account that if we had such a rubbish season (like we are having), decent transfer targets might not want to come to the club anymore. Bas Dost doesn't want to come because we are not competitive anymore. Back to square one Randy you absolute plonker. New manager and a positive/clear outlook is needed to give fans and good transfer targets a reason to come to the club or even go to games in fan's cases.

it was a mad brave decision to appoint mccleish and after the deal was done i wanted it to be really successful. however this is one of the worst seasons to support villa in my living memory (inc Dr Jo in that - at least we beat Inter 2-0) and i agree that a new positive approach is need a new atmosphere is required to sweep this gloom away that has eaten the club up all year. it is sad. i hope randy actually takes note and thinks carefully about next steps - appointing mccleish was difficult from day one due to the blue connection and should never really have happened in the first place - he was no george graham (spurs after arsenal and bungs) and unfortunately for him winning the villa faithful over was alowasy going to be a mission impossible, made worse by both his mannerisms, the teams inept performances and just the lack of soul and belief.

at least the seaosn under little (well half season) where we nearly went down we knew there was something there (despite the 4-4 draw with leicester) god, even that excitement would be good now! i cant see us finishing 4th, winning the league cup and getting to the semi of the fa cup next season as little did!

schmeichel

gNev God Campbell Cashley

Ronaldo Gerrard Scholes Giggs

Shearer Henry

whens doug going to come out in the press and say something??? we need to act asap and find the new graham taylor!