VillaChris

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.

How much were you winning weekly/monthly for your accounts to be shut down out of interest Kingman? I watched the Coral documentary before xmas and they covered this but didn't mention a figure so just wondering not that I'm anywhere near myself!

Find it a bit odd Sunderland are longer odds than Bournemouth to win, they are 7/4 compared to Bournemouth's 7/5. They are at home. Norwich 4/1 at home to Liverpool is worth something I'd say aswell. Maybe Chelsea to beat Arsenal aswell, they usually frustrate them at Emirates and could nick one on the break. About 5-2 they are.

Tbf Remi has settled the defence down...we looked a half decent unit at long last and only conceding 1 goal for most games which gives us a basis for getting points. Things can always be improved of course e.g better keeper, RB etc and they may come this window. The biggest priority has to be upfront surely. I'm a bit bemused why all the striker links have dried up. If the club claim they're serious about staying up we need to desperately get a new forward in as the options apart from Ayew ain't good enough and that has been the case since the summer.

As it stands Lescott is the better bet for premier league as he has a nice combination going with Okore and is better in the air. Obviously if we drop his wages won't be sustainable in the championship.

That will happen in the summer, people like Senderos, Richardson contracts thankfully end, likes of Cissokho and Kozak will have I think 1 year left on their deals so decisions there, the established players who got good offers from elsewhere to stay in the premier league or other major top divisions.... It will be a clearout of the scale we've not seen before.

Ronny Johnsen was actually quite good for us I thought...him and Mellberg were pretty solid. Yeah Vidic, great defender in his day and all that but he looked completely finished at Inter last season, in a weaker slow Seria A and hasn't played at all this season so if we thought Lescott turned up here in a state....

Oh right didn't realise that had actually gone through. Rayo are actually the Spanish team I follow so I'd certainly be watching more of him than I did here, they certainly need fresh blood in defence.

Wouldn't lose any sleep if we sold him...would imagine Baker would be more suitable to championship football especially as he's had a year at Bristol. Okore and someone new with Baker and another cheap reserve is probably what I'd be looking for next year.

Crespo's still here I think.

And then sell him to Newcastle on the Monday afterwards...

Think this is 1-0 WBA all day long...bit like the Villa Park game but we'll play better this time. Trouble is Pulis will sit them deep and we won't have a clue how to break them down. Think they'll nick one from a set piece and that will be that. If we could win it though it would be a real shot in the arm result especially with Norwich at home coming up shortly afterwards.

Remi saying a few weeks back he wanted Loic Remy means he realises that aswell and also talk of Sinclair moving on hints at creating a bit more space in the wage bill. I do think we'll get one in this window, loan from somewhere.

No, new striker is a must. Nowhere near enough goals in this team to stay up unless we have about six 1-0s in the run in.

I was thinking back to 13/14 and when he came in and scored a few goals just today...I remember a few on here saying well we can sell Benteke now as we have someone who can score regularly e.g. if he can score 4 in 10 games he can score 15 over a season. I remember arguing vigorously at the time that shouldn't happen as Kozak's all round game was nowhere near Benteke's and we'd majorly decline as a team. What has happened is we've actually replaced Benteke with an even poorer forward than Kozak in Gestede. At least Libor moves, creates space and shows good positional sense, Rudy has no idea on any of this. Yeah he has 5 goals but if Libor had played his minutes I think he'd have scored more and we'd have looked a bit more threatening going forward as he can link things a little better and Ayew seems to like playing with him. Keep him until the summer and then re evaluate.

He been called up much by Croatia?

I actually do that method during games e.g. if a big team is one down and at home there's usually crazy odds for them to be winning say by the hour mark. Very rarely comes off obviously but when it does it's worth it...one that sticks in my mind is PSG one down to Marseille and they scored twice in 2 minutes (two Zlatan pens) and they were 2-1 up by half time and the 50 min mark so that won me a fair bit as did Ajax in some random Dutch game.

Yep a good time to play them, similar to Crystal Palace as Deeney and Ighalo have gone off the boil and Watford have little else. I've always said 9 wins would keep us up as we're capable of drawing under Garde. I still reckon that but to get 7 wins we need to win a couple in the next few weeks, Norwich for sure as that would drag them back towards us. Way I've broken it down is we need 7 points per month....we have 4 so far so we need to beat WBA to get that. 7 in February, 7 in March (probably unrealistic given there's only 3 games and two of them are v Everton and Spurs) and 7 in April would get us to 36 before Newcastle at home who may or may not be safe by the time we play them. If we're still in contention by early April we'd still have a shot as we'd be playing likes of Southampton, Watford and Newcastle who all could be safe by the time we play them. We saw last season in the run in when playing Everton and West Ham who barely lifted a leg for an hour that mid table teams are the best to play in the run in.

Well he's on a 5 year deal so will be expensive for newly promoted clubs or mid table teams abroad which will probably be his level of interest.

What I can never understand is why they never sign a really good young keeper to challenge him, there's plenty in the lower leagues. Instead they have jokers like Brad Jones and Bogdan who make Mugnolet semi competant.

How come you never mention Bet 365 Ben? That's actually the one online site I use as I find their website easy to read and follow plus you get live feeds of most of the european leagues and FA cup. I get a free 5 quid bet about every 2 weeks, go on Ben make me a millionaire from that.

Yeah him being this window's answer as a CB dosen't strike me with confidence. Stokies like him as an LB most so that might be the long term solution. http://oatcakefanzine.proboards.com/thread/252937/marc-wilson

Someone on the Stoke forum says Marc Wilson joining us for 4.5m. Always struck me as average but has been a regular for Stoke last 5 years. Can play RB, LB, CH and DM.

I'd actually play as near as full strength team as possible....we certainly are nowhere near good enough to think we can walk this playing a weakened team, it certainly didn't work in the first game and Notts County ran us close in the league cup. Plus given where we are any game we win is good and indeed it would be an unbeaten run of sorts. Of course Remi knows better who is knackered and who isn't. I'd imagine our French players will be feeling it from playing over xmas for the first time, a few have said Veretout needs a rest so maybe take him out, put Bacuna in midfield and bring back Richards at RB is a shuffling you could make.

Man. City have just replaced Liverpool in the Sky 4 pecking order really.