VillaChris

Well congratulations on anyone who was betting in play on the Norwich-Liverpool game....do send me a postcard from the Bahamas. Seriously I left the game at 20 minutes to watch the rest down the pub. At that point Norwich were 25/1 to be leading at half time. God knows what odds Liverpool were to win at 3-1 down. Even then at 4-3 up I'd have been lumping on at Norwich to score the next goal as every point is vital in a relegation battle. Frustrating. An interesting thing I was thinking about is which of the 4 regular TV game kick offs on a weekend has the most goals? It must be the Saturday 12.45pm surely, there always seems to be goalfests which I'm watching and unable to bet on while the Sunday games seem to have hardly any, plenty of times they've only had 1 goal between the two games as I know only too well.

Yeah while I thought we would lose 1-0 so can't really complain we did better but to stay up we simply have to win on weekends like this. Pretty much every other result went for us today....Norwich lost and surely in the manner they did will knock the stuffing out of them for a good few weeks (good news as we've got them in two weeks) the relegation 6 pointer at Sunderland ending in a draw so derived both of 2 points and this "great" Newcastle team some are already declaring safe on this forum lost yet another away game. Still think we'll do well to clear 30 points this season. One thing I would say though....since the defensive shambles of Everton and Watford we have conceded 11 goals in 9 league games. For a bottom of the table team that is very good going so Remi has done well there as it at least gives us a base to get points. Even more reason to slaughter the board as who can Fox and co watch this and think we don't need a new striker, we are toothless upfront and simply won't win enough games with the personnel upfront.

And so it begins again....Norwich 0-1 Liverpool. #if we can win today and then beat Norwich in two weeks.... I do certainly think Norwich are a realistic option to catch, don't think they'll be getting much more than 35 points this season.

Breaking news...It's not a 12.45pm kick off.

Ah yes I forgot Berbatov who seemed to be the plan B for Adebayor. Dwight Gayle was a last minute panic move. That said he'd be one of my targets for next season. Not quite premier league quality but scored a lot for Peterbrough at that level, quick and a 6 yard box poacher and could grow with a club where he starts every week.

If you remember we were going to announce Adebayor on the same day as Gestede who signed the start of August. Then Adebayor consulted God and decided not to come here. We had therefore 4 weeks to source up another alternative from Paddy Riley's FM Manager game (Ayew had been signed by that point aswell btw so you couldn't declare him a Benteke replacement, more Weimann's replacement). I can't help thinking it was more than a co-incidence that Gestede scored at Bournemouth, the mass hysteria on here that he was going to score 15-20 goals this season no problem and talk of a new striker died down, I think some people got carried away and Sherwood seemed content to wait for Adebayor to possibly change his mind on August 31st. A massive massive error. At least Randy was still suitably motivated in 2011 to get in Darren Bent. My belief was we'd had stayed up that season even if Bent hadn't of arrived as Young and Downing were at the club. Too late now.

Yes the season you're probably on about was 09/10....Spurs won 14/19 home games, we won 8.

A quality striker to replace Benteke would've papered over some of the cracks in our team and get us ticking over until January. Indeed him scoring in 1-0 wins for us would've helped some of the new lads to adapt quicker as it's easier to settle in a winning team. It was a horrendous decision to effectively replace Benteke with Rudy Gestede. Most of us were saying at the time we needed an experienced premier league striker while Rudy got used to the league and we will pay for that decision very soon. As much as I defend him on somecounts, I hold Sherwood responsible for that. He wanted to sign Adebayor, it broke down and then he seemed content to wait until August 31st without a back up plan. Along that point I believe he decide after Gestede's winner at Bournemouth that getting another striker wasn't a huge priority. Next time we're in this league from August whoever our board is needs to learn the simple lesson....break the bank and sign a quality striker and life is easier in the premier league.

Another interesting point from your good self Mark....on revenue I remember at the time the frequent threads here and elsewhere questioning why our wage bill was so much higher than Spurs when both teams were on a relatively equal footing between 2008-10 and they probably had a better starting 11. One of the things that always stood out to me was how much more coporate revenue and sponsorship Spurs were getting from Hospitality box deals, shirt sponsors. I do think the club tried it's best during that time to raise our profile here and abroad but how much demand was there really to buy a Villa shirt in say Milton Keynes. Sports shops there are overflowing with Spurs tops. Their location helps big time in selling the club whether we like it or not. Again back to the point....how many clubs at the time would give a manager 30 odd million to spend on a back 4 in 2008 (Cuellar, Shorey, Luke Young, Friedel, Curtis Davies permanent) and then give him a similar figure to sign another new defence the next summer (Habib Beye, Warnock, Collins, Dunne). I'm pretty sure during one of those summers we were in the top 5 highest net spenders in europe not just the Premier league. O'Neill got his own way for too long and when champions league football was not achieved it was not an unreasonable request to inform him to move on Sidwell, Beye, Luke Young, Curtis Davies if he wasn't going to be using them before he could go on another spending spree on Aiden McGeady, Scott Parker and Robbie Keane. I do agree nearly 6 years have passed now and it's futile to keep harping back to that era as plenty of managers could've done better and got us out of the negative spiral.

I didn't actually have a problem with us signing him when we did despite my dislike of him now. It was a low fee, yeah he's probably on decent money but how many prem players aren't and he did score a few goals here and there last season. I was under the impression he was going to be a squad player, mostly on the bench but can come in for injuries and fatigue. The usual problem occurs and our squad players end up starting 3/4 of games this season with predictable mediocre results. Start of season I was thinking Grealish.............New quality striker......Adama/Ayew as our front trio this year with likes of Gabby, Gil and Sinclair back up. Instead we totally balls up the striker recruitment so we have Rudy f***ing Gestede masquerading as our forward for three months before Remi finally puts him out of his misery and picks Ayew there even though it's not his best position. Grealish comes back from injury, sees the shambles we have that has replaced Benteke and seemingly can't be bothered, same for Gabby and we have Sinclair not liking the physical stuff and running up blind alleys. Has he actually had a decent game for us since August? And some are still shocked we're in the relegation zone.

Could be on to something there....think Spurs to win at Palace who couldn't buy a goal atm is a near cert and it's feasible if Stoke could defend very well they could nick one at the other end and beat Leicester....bet the Championship lets you down though...such a random league as we will find out next year. PNE in excellent form but Brentford are a good team going through a dip.

Trouble is he wasn't quite a multi-millionaire back then nor had Helen Flanagan as a WAG. The last 4 years have made him for life so what makes you think he's got the motivation to be slogging it out in Rotherham and Huddersfield like it's 2009 all again? Especially when there's rumoured interest from Newcastle and Swansea so he could quite easily con another premier league club. Want shot of him in the summer, same reasons for Gabby.

Yeah back then Leicester just claimed Chelsea wanted to sign him and hey presto the application was processed. He has made little impact. Difference here is Kalinic and would come here and be starting keeper as Guzan is halfway out the door and Bunn is a squad keeper, not a long term number one. This is a bit more info on his permit case http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jan/08/leicester-andrej-kramaric-work-permit

I'd be hugely confident of staying up if we were just 4 points off 17th with 14 games to play...even 10 games as we'd have won further games to close the gap so would have momentum and more winning feeling in our group and looking at our fixture list we have several winnable games in April (Watford, Southampton, Bournemouth). Trouble is can we get to that stage as even when we win a game like v Palace other clubs suddenly start winning again like Newcastle and Bournemouth so think we won't close the gap enough and then run out of games.

Surely you could claim that about any young player though, only a small percentage amount to anything special. He's nearly 23 and has played the grand total of 2 games for Chelsea in 6 years, played twice for Czechs (so would presumably fail the criteria now) and has played about 20 times on loan at Boro. The work permit process has always appeared random to me and does favour the bigger clubs with better lawyers. I'd imagine we'd appeal this but they have tightened up the regulations so we may have to look elsewhere. Pretty sure Guzan had his permit rejected and we won it on appeal, Bosko Balaban aswell.

O.k so that's the sort of odds you bet on then....I actually do similar. I tend to bet on the timings of goals....e.g look at a high scoring match and there should be some goals that are scored near the end of 10 minute periods like 18th minute, 49th minute. So if you bet in play on Bet 365...sorry 265 they have a market where even high profile teams who score a lot like Arsenal and Man. City can be 14/1 to score in the next 5 minutes so that's the market and odds I tend to play at. The problem I have is when games end 0-0 or 1-0...that knackers me it's fair to say! On Tennis I like betting on players to break serve...anyone playing Raonic is always 10/1 at least. Seppi playing Djokovic today was 12/1 in most games. Incredibly frustrating though when those players get break points and screw up, not a good idea if you haven't got much money in the bank.

And what exceptional talent is Kalas good at?

Yet that Kramaric bloke who moved to Leicester this time last year got one despite not playing much more for Croatia, we should just claim Chelsea want to sign him.

Whenever we used to play Stoke Pulis always used to say on the Friday 3 key players were major doubts, they always played. He's done that at West Brom aswell. In fairness Brunt and Morrison are injured, Fletcher will play though imo.

Surprised no one in the prem has got him back given how some clubs give injury prone players countless chances. Fantastic striker who's had ridiculous luck with injuries.

"Business decisions" they say. Just intrigued as to what figure they start to seriously take notice of and then act.

I've seen a bit of Luiz Adriano playing for Meelan and he looks like a bloke who's won a raffle at half time, certainly compared to Bacca. Very mediocre striker even if he did score a million goals in the Ukraine league. You'd think Brazil would call him up seeing as they were playing 35 year old Ricardo Oliveria in the last round of World cup qualifiers.

Do you not know forward thinking hipster clubs build their team around Rudy Gestede.....

Anyone know who this Alex Texereia guy is....

Him and Grealish were easily marked out of the game by them at VP. I actually think Richards will start at RB for this, Remi will want a more physical approach to deal with them, especially at set pieces. Bacuna has been doing well lately though so should find a home in central midfield.