VillaChris

Just can't believe game after game how dire Man. United are. Watched most of their game tonight and then looking at the stats...2 shots on target and one of those was the pen so only one shot on target in 90 minutes at home to a league one team. Very poor even if they were well organised. I'm not going to fall into the trap by saying they were amazing every game under Fergie before Zatman pipes up but in a game like that under him they'd have a minimum of 8-`10 shots on target imo.

Hutton dosen't set up any goals though, yes he gets a lot of the ball down that side but he dosen't do a lot with it, certainly compared to all Bacuna's assists second half of last season although that was partly due to the brilliance of Benteke.

What does Hutton do so well in your mind that makes him this amazing RB?

You wonder what the tipping point is with Garde and the board...if there is one. There was for Sherwood and Lambert (eventually). How long can he get away without winning a game....could he survive Wycombe knocking us out in the replay?

No Grealish in 18 today....unless he's picked something up looks like he's going out on loan somewhere. We must be close to a forward signing or two as we're very light in that area now for 3 league games in 11 days.

Any chance it might be an attempt at 3-5-2 to maybe try out in the prem from now on, Richardson and Bacuna as wing backs. As a straight 4-4-2 it looks very bog standard.

As I said a few weeks back Pulis loves Agbonlahor and wanted to sign him for Stoke around 2012. If he goes there he plays out wide imo or back up to Rondon as they will surely sell Berahino this window. Remember this is a club that signed Anchiebe for 6m.

West Brom were lucky to stay up in the calendar year of 2014 when you think they had Pepe Mel (from January-May) and then Alan Irvine which remains one of the most baffling appointments in PL history up to December. They collected enough points under Steve Clarke to be o.k in 13/14 (just as they actually finished below us in the end) and then Pulis did his usual. So I wouldn't say he's much better at appointing managers in recent times, just realised he couldn't afford another f*** up otherwise they would be down so went for Pulis so that's maybe the one thing we should've done. Edit: They also seemed to have struggled a bit internally since Dan Ashworth left for tthe FA, they were making some very clever signings under him. Less so nowadays...

I've got to be honest first 3 matches he barely touched the ball and made little impact so I had no issue with him being taken out of the team, same with Ayew. It's normal for foreign players to take a while to settle in.

The thing with the money is it's not like clubs are getting peanuts now, we were told about 3 years ago we couldn't go down as a big deal was coming in then. We stayed up....and continued spending 20m net as is Lerner's perogative. If by some miracle we do stay up how much do people really think we'd spend. I'd guess at the same as usual as the man wants to sell and going on a mass spending spree hasn't been on the agenda since 2009 (yes last summer was entertaining but it was funded by losing two key players so we had to strengthen). Yes going out of the PL will be a blow but Southampton were out of the league for 7 years, Palace 9 years and Stoke for 24 years at which time established clubs were spending millions on millions and yet all 3 will likely finish in the top half this season. Teams stagnate at the top level, we have, the North east lot have. Who's to say when we do eventually return to the prem teams like Swansea will have their time to get relegated or Everton will have sold their key players and replaced them with bargain basement players and so will be falling down the league, you just don't know what will happen in even 5 years time as you'd have got long odds on all this happening to us in May 2010. We just have a losing mentality in the club and we do probably need to drop a level to attempt to get the winning feeling back as it sure won't happen in the prem anytime soon. Then positivity can hopefully return with a promotion and we can attack the premier league again in better spirits, hopefully with a new owner.

Disappointing as I've always rated him going back to his Wolves days and always wanted us to sign him. Sadly looks a case of another big name player we've signed years too late. That Pulis guy...he sometimes knows what he's doing eh? Play him at CB against us in the league game...saw Gabby demolish him for the first goal (and it's not like Gabby does that to many centre halfs anymore given his lacklustre performances) and pretty much from that game play him as a left back and with them playing so deep didn't get exposed much at all. Big different playing for us and yes you can see his legs have gone big time. With regards next year Clark will stay as he's on a 5 year deal remember, Baker will come back and be cover I'd imagine, I think Okore will be a first choice as long as he stays fit and you have to think with their wages one if not both of Richards and Lescott will be moved on. I'd probably go for someone like James Chester. Knows the league, has a promotion with Hull, wants to move on from WBA, I wouldn't be against taking him this window tbh. Michael Keane at Burnley is another I'd look at.

It's worth a go surely....Lescott and Okore weren't too bad as a pair and Okore and Clark has previously done well for us. When you think the amount of ball Hutton gets in a game, Richards could surely do something with that given how he used to bomb forward at City in that position.

Apologies for the awfully ended post above. In response to DDID, messiah really? He never got them into the CL or close to a title challenge. They did both under Herbert Fournier last season, I saw plenty of their games last year and they were excellent to watch and really should've won the league, could Remi not have prised a bit more out of them especially in his 3rd season? FWIW anyway I don't blame him that much for the present situation, I think we all realise there's far more problems at the club than who the manager is and I'm delighted he's starting calling out some of the wasters in our squad who've been here too long and not produced for a long time. I am disappointed we haven't made a better effort at staying up e.g. winning some games but Sherwood had a much easier fixture list and messed up the winnable games which ramped the pressure up. My main reservation is I'm not convinced Garde will win promotion for us.

I admit I wasn't sure when exactly PSG were taken over....I assumed it was somewhere around 2013 but turns out it was late 2011 so yes I concede that one. Monaco were actually relegated from ligue 1 in 2011 (look research) so another well established team that could've challenge Lyon who weren't around. These were his 3 finishes for Lyon anyway 11/12 Team 1 Montpellier 82 2 Paris SG 79 3 Lille 74 4 Lyon 64 5 Bordeaux 61 1 Paris Saint-Germain (C) 38 25 8 5 69 23 +46 83 2013–14 UEFA Champions League Group stage 2 Marseille 38 21 8 9 42 36 +6 71 3 Lyon 38 19 10 9 61 38 +23 67 2013–14 UEFA Champions League Third qualifying round 4 Nice 38 18 10 10 57 46 +11 64 2013–14 UEFA Europa League Play-off round 5 Saint-Étienne 38 16 15 7 60 32 +28 63 Pos Team v t e Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Qualification or relegation 1 Paris Saint-Germain (C) 38 27 8 3 84 23 +61 89 2014–15 UEFA Champions League group stage 2 Monaco 38 23 11 4 63 31 +32 80 3 Lille 38 20 11 7 46 26 +20 71 2014–15 UEFA Champions League Third qualifying round 4 Saint-Étienne 38 20 9 9 56 34 +22 69 2014–15 UEFA Europa League play-off round 5 Lyon 38 17 10 11 56 44 +12 61

What worried me though was that Lyon actually finished 5th one season under him did they not? This was a team that dominated France for years and years, they won leagues with Houllier, Le Guen and even Alan Perrin. I know they were in transition a fair bit but to still finish that low (equivalent of Man. United finising 7th under Moyes) suggested to me he wasn't a messiah. Remember aswell PSG hadn't been taken over so they weren't that strong back then either.

Early doors Gana looked reasonably capable of getting his foot in and breaking out from midfield but in reality he's been very poor for months now (since the injury) and he certainly dosen't look 9m pounds worth of football. We have lost plenty of pace and drive from what wasn't a briliant midfield in the first place with him and Cleverley moving on.

After seeing that tonight (against a league 2 team) I can fully understand why he never got close to premier league action. Would imagine Liverpool will send him on loan to a championship team once they get players fit again.

When he played for us second half of season under McLeish he looked slow to me but had a decent pass on him and got forward well, was unlucky not to score at Newcastle and his shot created the Weimann goal v Fulham which pretty much kept us up. That was incredibly 4 years ago though and since then he's had bad injuries and barely played for us. I'd like to see him though get some chances start of next season. If he does well for Forest then no reason not to.

Got a weird feeling we'll actually win this, no idea why as Palace have a tight defence and are excellent away from home but I dunno we've got to win at least one home game this season surely. I did see Palace play Chelsea and they were pretty toothless going forward although Cabaye will be back for this. 2-1 Villa.

Amusing that Poyet wants to sign him, if there's another squad in this league where he'd fit right in it would've been Sunderland.

He's struggled as they've lost a lot of quality around him....last season him-sako-Dicko was really ripping up the league but Dicko got a bad injury so teams can concentrate on just marking him out of games. Not sure how well he'll step up tbh but would've been a good signing for us looking long term.

Good game. In a funny way Exeter would've been disappointed to lose once they saw the Liverpool team. I think even we'd get a draw off that.

Delph wasn't as good for us as Milner but he really stepped up last 18 months, look at his contribution in the cup run for example. Big thing for me is Milner and Delph were both capable of breaking out from midfield, running with the ball and scoring the odd goal. Who exactly in our middle is capable of that from the present squad. Veretout is slowly showing signs of it but we don't have any matchwinners in that area just like the other areas of the pitch.

How's Ward Prowse doing these days? Lots of hype about him but people like Dele Alli seem to be making more impact this season.

Relegating them in 2001 was a very funny day indeed...shame it's gone near enough full circle as they look likely to be promoted to the championship so we'll probably be playing them next season...no doubt that mug with the banner "we'll be back" will be there, yes mate but I'm sure you meant the prem.