smokingzen

Quite a few, you see what they do, is they name them in the squad, but not the starting 11, then they get to sit on the bench as potential substitutes, then, guess what... if needed, they get to come off the bench to swap with a player who is on the pitch, who then goes to sit on the bench himself. I guess as the old chestnut of a saying goes: "You gotta be on the bench, to be able to come off the bench!"

Well that's one 'what if?', though I think he's injured and West Ham don't play until Sunday so unlikely. Another what if, is what if Watkins breaks his leg tomorrow?

He's a great manager for sure, but that doesn't mean he gets, or will get, everything right. Regards Ings playing time, I think it's obvious he wasn't central to Emery's plans and best suited to the style he wants to play... but having that back up of a proven experienced premier league player and goal scorer to bring on in matches where its needed, or to change the style of play, is always a bonus. In fact most good teams have this depth of players where they can bring on players to change a game, whether they play a lot or not. Also a credible plan b If Watkins gets injured. To me, the risks of him leaving and those potential benefits of him staying, meant it would have been better to keep him until we had a replacement. I'm sure Duran will add something which Ings could not as a backup, but why not both? Ings has things Duran doesn't, experience for one. Emery has already stated he not a direct replacement and doesn't want to put pressure on him. Hopefully it will all work out, Emery must have thought this out and have a wider plan and contingencies. I've got a feeling with his systems and the style of play he wants to impose, he wants the midfielders to score more, Dougie, McGinn and Ramsey have all shown they're good goal scorers when we play the right way. Plus, there's always Coutinho!

Well the rest of this season matters for one, and if we couldn't get our main target this window, then should we not have kept Ings until the summer.

More wafer thin I'd say.

Actually, that is how football works quite a lot, clubs waiting on other clubs who are waiting on other clubs, it's why quite often there's a lot of stagnation at the start of a transfer window and then eventually a few big transfers happen which triggers a whole bunch of other transfers. Re a club turning their nose up at £5m, i'm not sure you fully comprehend club finances and accounting and the various factors that go in to play, including player amortisation, and the fact that a few goals here and there, which turn loses or draws into wins, could mean quite a few places in the league, which equals about 2.2 million a place i think. At the end of the day, if he is being sold, i think it's because he doesn't fit the system, and have the attributes, for the way Emri wants to play, not about money.

Correct, I think it was 2 consecutive top 7 finishes Wolves had when he was playing for them

Have we really though? Being in and around the squad on a daily basis, training with them, being there on match days, etc., etc... is all a massive step up and part of learning and development. Hardly "disgusting" and a waste of development opportunities.

Nah that was a free kick, he got wrong footed as Dennis cut inside him and then blocked the player and threw him to the ground making no attempt to play the ball. Not a terrible error, but not a good place to give away a free kick, i think what was worse was how after giving that free kick away, he then loses his man for the free kick who then goes on to score... and that was after the terrible unforced assist he gave Mount in the Chelsea game before. Both of those games we were playing relatively well and at 0-0 and Mings gives away needless goals, i think this is one reason why teams become dejected.

Well we took 4 points off them last season, so some more of that please.

I think we have decent players but we struggle to make a decent team on the pitch out of them. The question is can any manager make a good team out of the players we have? When I say a good team, I mean a comfortable "top 10" team and challenging top 6. Personally I don't think we have the right balance of squad dynamics and mental and physical attributes with the players we have. I think a good manager will get us playing better, but we'd still lack consistency, play some terrible games and struggle to put runs together. A lot of teams are struggling with that at the moment, the Premier League is a tough league, but it's what distinguishes those teams at the top from the bottom. I think a lot of our players have good attributes in many departments, but all seem to suffer a lack of key attributes in other areas which affects their consistency, ability or decision making. I think you can look all over the pitch of the villa squad and think, if only we could smash those 2 players together we could have a top player, Watkins and Ings for instance, would give us Wings in attack. Or even smashing Bailey, Buendia and Ings together... which would give us a Grealish apparently. The latter example does ask questions of our recruitment strategy. Ultimately you can't replace 1 player's attributes with 3 players, as it's a downgrade of capacity on the pitch. What you want is players with as many attributes as you can on the pitch. That's obviously what all teams want and why such good rounded players usually cost a lot of money, unless you're developing them yourself. So I think we're going to need to build slowly, and pay the money for the right quality players, adding a couple in each transfer window, along with developing and integrating the young talent we have. That will then give good management and coaching a chance to turn us into a quality team. That's why I can believe Emry has been promised a significant transfer kitty, because he'll need it to progress us on significantly, and he'll have identified that.

I always thought that the defenders, and to a lesser extent other players on the pitch, played a large part in how many goals a team concedes, but what do I know.

I was thinking Ethan Suplee

I guess bizarre in this instance = does not comprehend

6ft 5 in v 6 ft 0 in. Or did you mean metaphorically? (adverb... in a way that uses or relates to metaphor; figuratively.) I think part of being a bigger man is to be able to accept and deal with the truth...

Thank you for identifying yourself.

#Emeryboardannouncement should nail it

TBH i look at the squad and i don't see a natural leader who also has consistency and should be playing week in week out. Generally i prefer the captain to be a midfielder who can lead in the thick of the action, I think Young has the right mentality but given his age shouldn't be a regular starter, hence why he's club captain. So out of current choices, i'd probably have Martinez, though even he's been a bit 'wobbly' on occasions.

We're 11 games in to the season, with 27 games and 81 points still to play for, 5 points from the top 10 and 10 points from the top 6, we're not in a relegation battle.... yet.

Just in case you think i hate him, i don't, I like how he comes across as a person, and i like a lot of what he has done at Villa, but he's not mentally strong enough or reliable enough on the pitch for the captain's role, and as a player he's always got a mistake in him which makes him a liability. We'll never progress as a team until we get rid of players that can't consistently perform, It's this lack of consistency which has put us where we as a team are in the last couple of seasons.

Well if he leads by example, then no wonder we keep giving cheap goals away and capitulating in games.

Oh ye of short memory... what about the Forest game before that for starters, gave away a needless freekick, then loses his man for the freekick, that's us of to another sh*t start and 1-0 down, given we drew 1-1, that's 2 points lost. Then yes the very next game, the Chelsea game... stupid header whilst under no pressure what so ever... and 1-0 down... again. There's a pattern here, and it's been like this for most of the time he's been at Villa, he got away with it more in the Championship as he wasn't as punished as much, but the premier league is a different beast. Even then, i can remember a whole host of games where he's amde stupid mistakes where we've been lucky not to be punished for them.

Sorry i thought you'd be astute enough to realise i want referring to our first season back, and it was actually 4 & 6 points off respectively. If you can't remember matches over the last 2 seasons where Mings has lost us* 10 points over that time, then you must have a very short term memory. Go back and check over some of the match or post match threads. *Yes as someone else has commented, it's not a precise science for most games saying someone lost us a game, or cost us points, as there's many factors to take into account, and many ifs and buts, but Mings has made a lot of blunders at crucial times which have changed matches. This season alone he's had a few massive errors which have changed games. He's mentally weak and inconsistent and should be no where near the captaincy again.

That's just supposition on your part in both cases. TBH I rather start anyone over Mings, it's been shown time and time again, even across Smith's time here, that for all of his good play he's always got a relatively unforced game losing mistake in him. If you added up all the points he's lost us over the last few seasons, we'd probably have been top half.

The only chumps making a big deal of it were the press and some fans... and guess what, if we change captain again, the same will probably happen.