VillaChris

Chelsea....

Yes I did quantify by saying when he gets 50-100m budget he's like a kid in a sweet shop for some reason. Very good though at building competitive sides on 20-30m budget. He's proved that at Blackburn, Fulham and Stoke.

Was it infront of the Tilton again? Great stuff from him.

I didn't think he was that great today and I normally cut him some slack. At fault for the goal today anyway, got the wrong side of Romeu far too easily.

Thought he was our best player today, like how good he is hanging onto the ball as none of our other players can do that. He needs better than Gestede alongside him though, that's for sure.

Woeful player, what is good about him in this league? Ah well look on the bright side, the championship must be an awful league if he can score 20 + goals down there in a season.

So sad to see how much better Stoke are than us...it's not even like they spend that much every summer or that they even finish in the top 6.... Just look at the way they've attacked City though...scored 2 and it could easily be 4. We got a good 0-0 off them but we barely crossed the halfway line. It's not just a like of quality but belief and mentally from the 11 on the pitch.

Man. City team is too lightweight today...Silva. KDB and Sterling works well at home but today in the wind at Stoke isn't the sort of game when sleeves need to be rolled up. As poor as Kompany was for most of last season they've been a shambles defensively this season when he hasn't played...conceded 4s at Spurs and home to Liverpool without him and could easily concede 4 today way they're playing. Whoever wins the league this season is surely going to be the poorest league winners for a long while...I'm being serious but I wouldn't rule Liverpool out yet. If they beat Newcastle they'll only be 3 points off Man. City.

Shaqiri is having a stormer, his best game since joining. On the other hand, Bony just looks an awful fit for City. He was good at Swansea but one of those who just isn't good enough for a champions league club so take note people thinking Vardy would just score every week at one of those clubs. Wouldn't shock me if City sign another striker in January and send him back to Swansea on loan.

Berba didn't sign for that Greek club until September did he? We can't have offered him that much as I'm sure he'd rather still be playing in the prem.

Amavi could cross the ball, look at the couple he's scored already. Gestede is so limited... he dosen't have a skillset to worry back 4s. He can't stretch them with his pace like Gabby used to, he can't hold it up and link play at all. That's something Benteke was underrated at. Not only could he score goals but when he was on form his touch and link up play with the midfield and other forwards was very good. Now we have nothing upfront. Ayew is giving it a go but he isn't a centre forward. More an upgrade on Weimann.

It's what Mark Hughes does best reallly...he produced very good sides at Blackburn and Fulham on little net spend. Has a good eye for a player and can fit them all into a first 11 without unbalancing things. It's when he goes to clubs and has 50-100m to spend it all falls apart for some reason. He did actually sign some very good players for Man. City though. Last few years would've run much more smoothly if we'd picked him up in summer 2011.

Lovely start to the day...Stoke already won me 200 quid in first 15 minutes as they're ridiculous odds to score goals just because they're playing Man. City.

Aranutovic is one of those...he has his shockers but he also has that one game in five when he also looks one one of the best in the league. Stoke have done a really good job at sweeping up "misfits" from the bigger clubs for little money e.g. Aranutovic, Bojan, Shaqiri cost a bit more..... 2-0, another 100 quid in the bank, cheers Stoke!

Sweet....had Stoke to score in the first 10 minutes at 20/1. 126 back from 6 quid stake. Quite fancied them to win today...Man. City missing a few key players plus the wind conditions are predictably horrific up there, don't think they've got enough battlers in there today, surprised D**ph didn't start actually as he knows what this sort of game is all about.

#FreeAdama.

Will need a fitness test OBE, barely trained this week.

The thing with the Adebayor deal...it's debatable whether he'd have been in mental state to score goals but where on earth was the Plan B once he'd said no. Hanging on hoping he'd change his mind on deadline day wasn't good enough from Sherwood and imo will be one of the reasons we go down.

Think Richards will have to play through the pain barrier as the other option isn't worth thinking about.... Lescott AND Richardson in the same back 4.... Edit: Mane running at those two, oh my days.

My Dad's Birthday been this week so going to the Miller and Carter in Sutton Park after watching/enduring today's game. Personally I really like the Argentine Steakhouse on Hagley road, think it's called Fiesta del asado. Another one I like is these Generous Georges pubs that are starting to pop up, there's one in Cofton Hackett just past Longbridge. Best Pizza I've had in ages there and there's some good stuff on the menu. Anyone ever been to a Taco Bell? Was the highlight of a friend's visit to the Arndale in Manchester a few months back, don't think there's one in the Midlands.

Just checked from early March to early May we won 5 of 8 league games. That must be the best run we've had since MON, did Lambert ever come close to that, maybe end of 12/13? Can't see us winning 5 games rest of season.

Really enjoyed some of the stuff we were playing at the end of the season...well not the last 3 games but beforehand we were playing well. Our form actually wasn't far off what Leicester were doing...I think at one stage we won 5 league games in 9 which must've been our best run since the MON era. Yet just like in the run in to Lambert's first season we just couldn't sustain the momentum into this season. As you've seen from my posts I cut Sherwood more slack than Lambert. IMO for most of his reign his style of Football was what I wanted to see and far better than Lambert's plus. It didn't take that long for him to be potted when things started to go wrong either, Lambert's reign really did seem to go on forever, so many shite goaless and winless runs. The more I think about it I think losing Benteke was just too much and too early in his managerial career to cope with, there didn't really seem a succession plan there. You've seen more experienced managers like Rodgers and AVB struggle to replace Suarez and Bale when they've gone. Benteke gave us everything in the final third. I have no idea what happened once Adebayor changed his mind overcome and why we then botched up signing another striker. Remember Adebayor and Gestede were going to be announced on the same day signing, I would've been happy with that. Instead we've had Gestede as first choice striker for a lot of the season when he's nowhere near good enough. I honestly think Sherwood came to the decision on the way back from Bournemouth that Rudy would be good enough to fire us to safety after his debut goal. A very wrong and naive decision and one which will cost us.

Went to my local in Sutton to watch the Sunday games end of last season and suddenly went up to the bar and Merse was there. Before anyone thinks he was drinking the place dry he was with his family so they were doing the job for him.

Mmmmm I'm not totally sold on Garde yet either but there are deeper routed problems in the club that are now hurting us big time this season than this managerial appointment. And also Sherwood spectacularly messing up a very kind opening few months in the fixtures which has presented Garde with a bit of a hospital pass. Still I just want us to win a game or two. Yes our squad is poor but there are plenty of other poor teams in this league, it surely shouldn't be beyond Garde's capabilities to get us 3 points in a game or two which we have over the xmas period. Let's see how this season pans out but my gut instinct is I wouldn't fancy him to get us promoted from the championship.

He needs to get games surely, he isn't just going to retire as seemingly endless Villa managers don't rate. Yeah you can play these friendly/reserve team games for eternity but they're not going to get you match fit in the way competitive games do. If he goes to championship and scores 10 goals in second half of the season then to me he's a good option for our strike force for next season along with Gestede and Sinclair as those two are proven down there aswell. One things for certain, after this summer I'm not trusting our "recruitment" department one bit to blow another 30m of this clubs budget on a squad who could supposedly get us promotion, I'd rather make use of some of the existing squad members as that league will be closer to their natural ability.