VillaChris

Is he the guy who Sunderland wanted to sign or am I confusing?

The bottom 3 will be out of us (definite), Sunderland (probables), Newcastle (are they ever going to sign any decent defenders????) and Bournemouth. Bournemouth had a great run but they're dipping again, don't really win many home games and has anyone seen their last 10 games in the run in? Got Man. United, Everton, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Man. City, certainly the hardest run in of them all. I think the only chance is if the survival rare is really low like 33 or 34 points. To get there is 6 wins and 4/5 draws, that's not out of the question if we play like we did tonight. I think something like 38 points is though, simply too many games we need to win or draw.

If we can still be in touch by March we have a reasonable run in....two huge 6 points at home to Bournemouth and Newcastle and also games v Southampton and Watford who will probably be on the beach like Palace. I agree with DDID...think we've left it too late. We really need this result v West Ham and then get something from Norwich and Sunderland. Leicester could easily beat us 2/3-0 and then Pulis grinds out a 1-0 v us again and we're back to square one, miles adrift with even less games.

Why are our fans worse than likes of Chelsea for instance? In answer to the title, I wouldn't say hated bar the local rivals and Newcastle who want us down after 2009, just indifference. In fairness it's always amusing when a big team is in turmoil and looks about to be relegated. I loved it when Newcastle went down in 2009, not just because we did it and was also enjoying it when Spurs were bottom of the league for two months a few seasons back, it's natural to take amusement from hyped teams so don't have an issue with it. Only way we can shut people up is winning games and looking like a proper football team again.

I noticed after the final whistle he seemed to want to get all the players in a huddle in the centre of the pitch but too many of the players were throwing their shirts into the Holte so it didn't happen. Didn't Fox say at one of the fan meets him and Hutton are the leaders in the dressing room?

Will he smile if we stay up?

Well played Leo. That's our best defensive unit, it will probably struggle v Leicester as they have much better strikers than Palace but we need to keep that together.

Still doing well at Bristol, they're in the bottom 3 and conceding shed loads of goals. I'm surprised as they were one of the best teams I've seen play at league one level and I've been watching that league regularly for the last 8 years. They totally outplayed Walsall at Wembley. Thought they'd adapt to the championship easily.

Probably a bit OTT saying Godin should win it but he didn't get in the team of the year did he? He's an outstanding defender, tough as nails and pops up with goals in big matches.

Our defensive unit is always better with him in it and whoever his partner is. Underrated for me, think he'll be very important next season and will be fine against championship strikers.

Best performance for the club tonight, best response possible to the weekend. Him and Okore seem to have a good thing going, don't break that up.

Yep now I'm looking at the list and thinking "if we get 4 points from Leicester/WBA....beat Norwich etc" Realistically it's not going to happen, we still have to win 8 more games to have a good shot but play like that tonight and we can win 3-4 at least and get some pride back and maybe not finish bottom.

His crossing was excellent tonight, a nice surprise considering he was slicing them into Row F last season. Good to have him back anyway, our defensive unit is starting to look better.

Best game since August.

Limited but at least he moves and makes runs unlike Gestede. I was sitting in the Lower witton tonight by the Holte so what probably wouldn't be noticed is the amount of times he headed it away from Palace free kicks, was marking Scott Dann's who's obviously a big danger.

Well if you look at the teams doing well this season likes of Hull and Burnley kept most of their squad and added a striker or two e.g. Andre Gray. Boro have a very good squad, Downing is still a good player at prem level, they have Nugent plus existing good players like Leadbitter, Adomah etc. Same with Derby, already a strong squad for the level and added Bent, Weimann, Butterfield and Bradley Johnson. To me try and keep Okore, Ayew, Adama, Grealish (if he can be bothered), sign a decent striker as I doubt Gestede will be feeling as good about life as he was at Blackburn after this season and get a solid defensive unit going e.g. new keeper, someone to partner Okore. If we just naively go in with mostly the same group of players who have been so used to losing then we will be found out particularly as to me this is a very lightweight group who hide when the going gets tough in matches. It was a very good point made there's hardly anyone vocal in our team and no leaders. It's a problem we've had since the MON years when the team was full of them so surely we can find 1-2 players capable of this a division lower.

It would've been better to appoint Garde when we'd potted Lambert. Yes risky given there were less games that season but he can grind out draws so with an inform Benteke I'd have backed him to get us over the line like Sherwood did. Then he'd have had a summer to overhaul the squad. As ever we seem to make the right sort of appointment at very much the wrong time, I'm not at all confident he'll bring us straight back if I'm honest but will reserve judgement until we see the sort of squad he assembles by the end of July. If he's still here.

I could've made a fortune on that Oxford United game with the timing of the goals given they were very generous odds considering Swansea's team, sigh. That's the problem with my method....if I have a couple of low scoring games in a row or a either team dosen't score in the first 30 minutes that knackers me as I normally have a 400 quid budget for the weekend and that can go very quickly on a Sunday.

Leicester-Spurs should be on again, was a very enjoyable watch and both will probably play stronger teams.

Not a premier league player but was excellent at Brighton and Leeds fans seem to like him in his loan spell there.

Yes I read somewhere some of the PR people employed at VP have to browse the fan sites from time to time to judge the mood and relay that to the board. Back to the Garde bit,,,,,surely the relevant question is are you confident Remi Garde is the person to bring us straight back next season, either automatically or through the play offs. To do either we'll need to win 25/46 games at least so just over 50% win ratio. I've said before in recent years premier league teams who've gone down with foreign manager or rookies have struggled. Cardiff went down with Solsjkaer, he was sacked by October. Same with Fulham and McGarth. QPR went down with Ramsey, same result. When Wolves went down they appointed Stale Solbakken who'd done well in Scandinavia, he lasted just past xmas. Whereas likes of Hull and Burnley who have managers who know that division inside out are in the top 6. When I said before this I was told "totally different situation." I'm not sure why as we'll probably finish on lower points than most of those teams who were relegated and our club is as badly run as some of those clubs, indeed Fulham's a bit of a decent comparison with us. Were in prem for years and years without getting relegated, gradually got worse as they sold key players and the money got withdrawn and then they got a new owner in that Khan bloke and he's so far been clueless appointing managers and they don't look like going up anytime soon.

Getting on at Five Ways is a clever idea, done it a few times as it's the same distance as New Street to where I work, as you get a seat as 90% on from University then get off at New Street before the rest of the Cattle get on. I last caught it from there on the night of the Man. United home game funnily enough (I wasn't going to the game but meeting my Dad to watch it at the Yenton)....took 40 minutes end to end! I think also looking ahead with this talk of more homes being built on greenbelt around Sutton it would be good if the Vale-Castle Brom stretch of Freight line that runs by Sutton was reopened to cope with the rise in population in the next 10 years. No idea how feasible that is though but the roads are already choking.

Yeah pretty much what my Mother says when she hears another old icon has been charged with these offences "you had to live through that time etc..." Still let's draw it at that and keep paying tribute to Bowie and his genius.

Just type David Bowie allegations into Google and you get stuff....not different to what other 60s and 70s stars have had accusations of in recent times. Anyway just add like many, not a fanatic of his work but now plenty of his stuff and a damm fine sound it was.

Just to be helpful Ayew dosen't play the loan striker role at all well, much better running off someone even if it is Gestede.