HolteExile

I was no fan of the old goat during his time at the club, but we'd look incredibly small minded and petty to change it for changes' sake whilst he is still alive. Far better to change it when (hopefully) the stand is bulldozed as part of any future upgrade. It's a carbuncle, and does us no favours. A three tiered effort there, with a smaller mid level tier for corporates will also hopefully free up the better seats in the Trinity again for actual fans. It looks shit to see them continuously vacant.

When the talk initially was that we had to be one of the favourites to win automatic promotion I just couldn't see it. How does a side who only won three games last season and averaged 10 for the four seasons before that suddenly win the 25+ games it would take to make such a scenario feasible. Of course, the money spent by first Di Matteo and then Bruce changes the picture somewhat, but it would still have been a tall order. It's galling though that we were even out of the play-off race by February thank's to Bruce's New Years brain farts. Still, if we close out this season with 15-17 victories, it's easier to think that we might be capable of making the transition needed to win the required 20-25 next year.

I'd be extremely dubious about those stats. Opta, the beeb and many more besides often mark any kick even in the vague direction of the opposition half as a chance.

We're normally ace at helping sides who need a bit of a leg up. The entirely resistible force meets the movable object.

Alan Hutton was once a £9 million fullback. Cissoko moved for more than that. Neither are good enough for the Championship in 2017, as per Micah cah cah.

Mark Hughes had plenty of PL experience when he took the QPR job. He made a complete hames of it; so much so, they are still counting the cost of it now. It's weird, because in most of his other jobs he has done reasonably well. Sometimes it's just destined not to work out. What both he and Bruce have in common in this scenario is a free hand in the transfer market soon after arriving. Hughes didn't have that at any other job (he had money at Citeh, but not huge darts initially under the former Thai owner) and nor has Bruce, as far as I can recall. For managers used to working to a budget, perhaps being in the unusual position of being able to splurge is ruinous for them. Rather than targeting the one or two key players who can make a difference and trying to get a side to evolve, they rip the whole thing up -and extinguish any existing team chemistry in the process. Just a theory, not something to take to the bank. What I would say is that QPR wouldn't have been better off letting Hughes carry on on that trajectory just because he'd done OK at other clubs.

That's it. He looked like he had all the raw attributes starting out, and Citeh probably reasoned that the tactical and mental stuff would come with time and experience. But he reads the game as well now as he did when he was 18 -that is, not very. That applies to two other defenders on our books n'all. Both Hutton and Cissoko moved for large fees in their early 20s. Hard as it is to believe now.

He gets little sympathy on that one from me as he agreed to Tish going out on loan.

No. Nice guy, but the game has moved on since his time. If we did drop out of the Championship his name will forever be linked with our demise.

Genuine training ground work and innovation has seemingly been absent from Villa Park since Dave Sexton was coach under BFR. Brian Little's first few years were entertaining, until our start to the 97/98 season spooked him and he went uber conservative. Gregory got decent results -particularly in the first 18 months. But like many of the mangers who came afterwards, he seemed to see his role as signing big money players and throwing them altogether. With little thought about patterns of play and so forth. Our lack of movement off the ball can be traced back to this period, and it is criminal that no manager since -even if DOL and MON did get results for a period of time- has come close to rectifying it. So yes, a progressive coach who doesn't shy away from such things should -in theory- make almost an immediate impact. What also needs to be addressed is the players attitudes to each other. Currently, a goal goes in and heads drop, with no-one willing or able to rally the troops. Quite staggering, when we have captains of so many other sides all on the pitch at the same time. It seems to come down to trust. Put simply, midfielders/ forwards don't trust the goalkeeper or defence (OK, mostly Elphick) not to drop a bollock. And the goalkeeper/defence don't feel we have the firepower to get back into the game when we go a goal down. I get the impression that our squad as a whole just don't like each other very much -or if that is a bit extreme, they don't know each other, or feel the need to spend too much time with teammates outside of training or the matchday scenario. That's something Wagner apparently clocked at Huddersfield last year, and took the players away on a bonding trip in the summer. My normal instinct would be to naturally rebel against convoluted high jinx of that sort, but a number of Huddersfield players have come out and attributed their start this season to that trip.

The thing that stuck out for me at Hull (not that I watched them a huge amount last season) was that even with the likes of Huddlestone, Livermore and Diame, they weren't a footballing side. Despite that trio looking perfectly at home in sides that retained possession such as Spurzzz and Wigan. Westwood, Gardner > Hourihane, Landsbury. The personnel doesn't really matter. This bitty, awkward style is just what he does. You can wear it (just about) if there's results. When the style is gash and the results are similar, patience wears thin.

Shit substitutions from a shithouse manager. Even prior to Jack's meltdown we were far too conservative against a dreadful Forest side.

I was for Bruce in October, but by no means enthusiastically. Just a pragmatic acceptance that his joyless boofball does seem to have garned results at this level, and his record of success at Championship level at least was superior to the other names in the frame. I liked (like) the cut of Wagner's jib, and he was the most intriguing option. But my fear there was our cynical, entitled senior pros would have just knocked the enthusiasm out of him. Imagine trying to explain the gegenpress to Agbonlahor, Richards and co, as they look on in bewilderment, or just stonewall you with vacant shit-eating grins. No, I reasoned that Bruce had been around the block a few times, and had called out chancers (Ben Arfa plus others) in the past when he needed to. A better fit for where we are right now. But the things that I thought he would bring as a minimum (a plan, shape and taking a hard line on senior pros who see football as an optional extra) he isn't delivering on, so I might revise that. We can't bin him now though. It would cement our status as the loony bin of football. Give him every possible chance to succeed or fail. A reasonable (not even great) end to the season and you can make a case for the side needing to knit together and give him a run at it again next year.

Thing that really grinds my gears is that -on paper- we have had a choice run of fixtures since the New Year. Rescheduling the Bristol home game was one less winnable game moved, but there was still enough there to build up a decent head of steam and cut the deficit. Losing players for AFCON was a blow, but it wasn't completely out of the blue and he had three months to prepare for it. That preparation seems to have been weighted (no pun intended) around rehabilitating the fat lad. Surprise surprise his impact has been less than meaningful and we have been toothless up front. Knowing as he did that we would lose Kodjia, why not opt for an insurance loan? By all means focus on shifting Gestede and the rest to ultimately bring in Hogan or whoever. But don't leave your promotion chances in the hands of a player who has had about five decent games since 2010.

Good player going through a horrid run of form. Needs benching - for his and our sakes.

£10-£15 million invested astutely last Jan *might* have given us a fighting chance. It could take us years and countless more millions to even get close to that sort of scenario again.

3 months + maybe. Most of that lot were out for at least 6 months and usually more. Okore, Kozak, Benteke, Amavi and De Laet's injuries were all season ending injuries - at a time when they were looking like important players for us. No other club to my mind has had a run like that recently. Newcastle back around 2006-9 might have pushed us close.

We've had at least one long term injury every season since Petrov's illness. Stan 2012 Okore 2013 Kozak 2013 Benteke 2014 Vlaar 2014 Amavi 2015 De Laet 2016 I'd say that's pretty bad.

Westwood move being talked about as an initial loan now, with an option to buy.

He's had bad players alongside him and looked rubbish, he's had good players alongside him and looked rubbish. The one constant, and all that.

What will he be allowed to do there that he hasn't had the chance to do in close to 150 games for Villa?

Well that offsets any misgivings about the Ayew fee at a stroke.

Out for the season.

With Wham and Palace interested - and with us looking like a long way off being a safe promotion bet- I couldn't see Hogan going for it at all. Unless there are some seriously generous release clauses inserted.

I don't ever recall a time when we've booed a new signing. So not sure why we'd start now.