GREAT_BEARD_OF_ZEUS

I only needed to watch the first couple of minutes of his youtube video to know he'd pretty much own the Championship. Going to go into dreamland for a second, but him and Tish could run the heart of our midfield for the next decade!

Well thank god we lost then, heaven help us if those lot were given another chance off the back of a win at Luton!

What on earth are those diving headers about? It's like one of those cat videos where a kitten tries to jump between two chairs, over-estimates it's own ability and falls down the gap.

Seriously, we've been waiting season after season for him to finally be fit and ready... and we get this? WTF?!

Dr Xia's face still be like...

If you were take an extremely nervous cat, spin it around until it was dizzy to the point of vomiting, then blast an air-horn in it's ear before chucking it out onto a football pitch... I still believe that cat would look more composed than Jores Okore does right now.

How are we still playing Hutton??? HOW!!!!???

I think i'd cry knowing I was stuck playing with these lot for another season

Him and Westy were largely anonymous... biggest fix needed IMO (and i include the fullback positions in that)

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City away last season, I sat in the home fans with a mate of mine. Think it was 3-0 at the time and we lost the ball in their half, Gueye couldn't even be arsed to run back. He had players sprinting past him and all he could muster was a half hearted, limp jog. City fans around me were disgusted on our behalf!! I'm willing to accept that was probably a bad day for him, but we can't afford players with anything like that attitude this season. Plus it sounds like he's given up on us before the it's even started. Good riddence.

----------------- Gollini ----------------- Hutton -- Elphick -- Baker -- Cissoko ---------- Gana --- Tshibola ----------- -- Ayew ----- Morrison --- Grealish -- ----------------- Kodjia ----------------- I think we'll sign Kodjia and Morrison. Then if Gana goes, quite possibly a replacement for him, possibly even another player to fit within that secondary attacking 3. Defensively, it sounds from Dr X's tweets that the management think we're ok there for now. I think we'll start with Hutton and Cissoko, with more attacking options on the bench in Bacuna and Bennett (note: I don't advocate that, it's just what i think will happen - it's a far from perfect set of fullbacks and I for one would love to ship both Hutton and Bacuna out asap!). Hopefully we'll introduce Amavi gently as he gets closer to match fitness and a new right back in Jan.

I'd be pretty pleased if I was him. The owners just committed to keeping two of our best players, promised to buy a striker and he's publicly backing RDM's ability as a manager. I can think of worse people to work for.

Fortune favours those kind of people...

Sign Morrison and employ Petrov as his personal coach/mentor. Having Stan in his ear, advising him, buddying up to him, both on football and a personal level... t'd be a smart move.

Marca

Going to Deportivo de la Coruña on a season long-loan by the looks of it. Option to buy

Don't forget that as well as the 3 new signings, we've also got the following upsides: Amavi and Adama coming back from injury hit seasons. A seemingly more sensible and dedicated Jack Grealish. The emergence of young talent such as Green and Hepburn-Murphy. The frenchies in their second season - typically when you see foreign talent improve after a season of adjustment. Kozak fully recovered and a full preseason under his belt. Now, you may not see all of the above as having a big effect and hey, of course I'm being massively optimistic in thinking they'll all be around at the start of the season, but... ...add to that a settled, more professional and talented coaching set up - then remove the bad influences such as Gabby/Lescott/Richards/Bacuna, and all of a sudden that squad doesn't need as much surgery as initially we may have thought. If we were to add 2 or 3 big talents to that group then I think we're in a good place come Sheff Weds away.

Cheap in comparison to who we're signing next VillanousOne

Exactly. Last season Sinclair hit a hat-trick against Forrest and fooled us all into thinking he was going to be amazing, (even put that mutha in my fantasy team )... if he's playing as badly as some are saying then at least RDM is getting the 'real' Sinclair experience.

My theory for what it's worth... We've signed a few fairly cheap targets early on, because they were available or we needed to act fast. From there RDM has given the squad a chance to impress him (or change his mind, as he's no doubt studied footage of us last season). Whilst that's been going on we've been testing the water with bigger targets... a few enquiries etc, finding out who might be available for what price. Now RDM and Wyness are flying out to China this weekend to meet up with Dr X, for a press conference to introduce them to the Chinese media. Err ok, but that can't be the main reason can it? I think its also a chance for them to have a bit of a pow-wow and agree the second stage of our recruitment plan. RDM is probably using this time to propose who stays, who goes and which targets we now push hard to get in. Who knows, may be our new mysterious technical director is out there too? I think by the end of next week we'll begin to see some exciting links popping up!

Not sure he is a lost cause, but he needs rebuilding that's for sure. He's just come off the back of a dreadful season and an equally dreadful euros (from his personal point of view). His confidence will be shot to pieces and he needs a lot of ills coached out of him. Personally I think Villa has been very bad for Ciaran. For years now he's had to deal with being in and out of a very unsettled back line and too often he's been in amongst a defensive unit made up of kids or useless journeymen (the odd exception such as Vlaar aside) and it's had a hugely detrimental effect. You only have to look at the likes of Baker and Bennett for similar examples of how the Villa experience can effect a young defender... and look at them now. A bit of time away and they've both proved that they're actually good players - both had strong championship campaigns last season. I think a bit of time out of the starting XI to take him out of the firing line, surrounded by better players and coaches and he can still come good - especially in the championship which may well be the right level for him right now.

My order of priority for getting rid: 1.The 'gotta go' category Bacuna Gabby Lescott All of them are (a) not good enough and (b) their attitude stinks. Ship them out as soon as possible, they absolutely cannot be here next season. 2. The 'last chance saloon' category Guzan Richards Both for me could redeem themselves and may have their uses - Guzan as reserve keeper and Richards as an option against more physical one dimensional teams. It would need them to do some serious grovelling to the fans though. 3. The 'jurys out' category Sinclair Sanchez Hutton Westwood Clark Wouldn't be upset to see any of them go, don't think any of them do enough to warrant a place in the first team, however we can't ship them all out so RDM may have to decide on which of these can do a job for next season vs who just isn't worth the place. Everyone else is good for either a first team or squad place next season.

I'm massively torn on Micah. The best game he had for us last season was against blues in the cup where he was a beast and didn't give Clayton Donaldson an inch all night. Now i'm under no disillusions, all they did was lump long balls up the pitch so it played to Micah's strengths in that it just became a physical battle, BUT if we sign/keep a good number of quality players, I think we'll force the majority of teams the resort to this type of football, so i think he'll have his uses in the Championship. Half of me says ship him out with his buzzy mates Gabby and Joleon. Then the other half of me says, keep hold of him and stick him in a group of more professional players like Elphick (and hopefully more of his ilk) and i think we'd see a different player, albeit one which we'd need to utilise in the right positions/situations.