VillaChris

N'Zogbia was playing much better before his injury.

He has to start against Sunderland.

Awful awful manager.

I honestly can't believe how bad we've been for 99% for this season.

I knew the football would be poor but I thought he would at least get the horribe basics right like being hard to score against and not giving away cheap goals from set pieces.

He's even failing at those things which are supposed to be his forte.

I tried to give him time but lost my patience after Wigan away which was desperate and apart from the Fulham game, the results and performances have been awful ever since.

See ya later Blackburn.

Bleeding Yakubu ( He's in my Fantasy football team :winkold: )

Woops spoke too soon!

Beating Swansea away won't be easy will it, their last away game was losing 3-0 to West Brom.

They'll get 4 points from Norwich and Wigan so they'll finish on 32 points.

All this 36 point target is us not picking up another point all season again which is pretty unlikely.

Blackburn are already 2 down at home to Liverpool.

Hands up who think they'll reach 36 points?

Thought not.

N'zogbia's best games for us this season have been with Ireland in the team.

Once he gets his fitness up, those two will link up well again I think.

Last season we had Bent, Downing and Young and were awful. This season we haven't had Downing or Young and have been without Bent for a good few games now. Take the three best players out of any team and they'll struggle. Villa are no different. Not all about Eck.

We were nowhere near this bad last season. When we had Bent, Young and Downing together we actually weren't bad. "Eck"'s negative tactics are strangling the life out of the club.

Really?

I'm no fan of McLeish at all and he should be certainly fired in the summer but I think there's a fair bit of rewritting of history going on about last season due to us playing well in the final 6 games (whe Houllier was taken ill).

The home games against Sunderland and Wolves stick in my mind as bad as anything we've produced this season. Sunderland had Downing and Young playing and losing dismally to Wolves, we had Bent, Downing and Young all in the team.

I've been critical of Bannan a lot since the drink drive rap as I don't think he's played that well since the incident. I thought he was o.k yesterday. As others have said, that was a superb ball over the defence for Gabby to run onto.

The crux of this is he certainly isn't a wide player, he has to be centrally.

I hope they do it. I used to quite dislike Newcastle, but now I can't help but have complete admiration for what they have done. It's a breath of fresh air to have a club lose it's biggest asset (Carroll) and just invest that money well.

Yes, I think the relegation brought their fans back down to earth, no more "messiah" rubbish either.

I wan't them to get the 4th spot.

Same for me.

I laughed as much as anyone when we relegated them in May 2009 and I'd have laughed even harder if you'd said to me at that moment that in three years time that we'd be battling relegation and Newcastle would be on the verge of top 4.

Just shows what can happen when a previously poor owner starts making some good decisions and has a vision for the club (start scouting and buying cheaply from abroad as opposed to overpaid premier league players).

It can be done. Things can change quite quickly in Football so if Randy can actually start making some proper decisions we could be challenging the top 6 again in a couple of seasons.

3 wins in 13.

Is Saha their Heskey?

Are they going to be pipped for the champions league by....Newcastle. :shock:

I'm surprised at times our attendances haven't dipped below 30k this season. The QPR game was heading that way but the club decided to drop prices to 25 quid all around the ground, don't think they're doing the same for Bolton so that could be a 25k type attendance.

Shite it sounds bad.

Get well soon Herdy.

Safe as houses.

No great fan of Collins but he has been superb in the last month.

Garbage going forward.

Agreed.

It should be a sackable offence if McLeish can't even reach 40 points in a season or indeed the 39 he got relegated on last season.

Agreed.

It should be a sackable offence if McLeish can't even reach 40 points in a season or indeed the 39 he got relegated on last season.

The one regret over Darren Bent has to be we signed him when we were in decline as club.

He really should've been signed at some stage under MON, he would've scored hatfuls in that team with crosses flying in from Young every 5 minutes.

Bolton have a good run in compared to those three so I think they'll end up on 36 or 37 points.

If we finish lower than Bolton then that's the pits!

We won't. I have us finishing on 38 or 39 points.

Still nowhere near acceptable. It would be our lowest points tally finish in the premier league era.

City are still incredibly strong at Eastlands let's not forget, 15 wins in 16 league games this season.

And Hughes always has little digs in the press so I get the feeling Mancini would quite enjoy relegating him.

Got to say I was really excited when we got Balaban...he was highly rated in europe and was scoring goals for Croatia, similar to Savo.

Utter disaster and his career never recovered from this move.

Please don't take this as a dig at Villa, it's a serious question. But why, given your status, haven't you ever signed any really big name players? We (Spurs), Leeds, Newcastle and even Middlesbrough have all signed some really exciting names over the years. I'm not saying it's made any of those teams better than Villa, as you've more than held your own in the Prem era, but for some reason you've never seem to go after or land the big names. The players in this thread are seriously uninspiring. Again I'm not saying they were all bad signings, but by other teams of Villas stature, they would hardly be deemed exciting. For some reason you never sign any of the big international names.

Is there a reason for that and do you think it in anyway hinders you in the transfer markert thesedays as I'm sure potential big names from abroad will partly rank clubs according to the stature of their past players.

to be fair, era for era and level for level Villa have signed some really big players !!

Yeah, to me it seems that you're equaling exciting and big players with players from outside of Britain. Merson, Saunderd, McGrath and a few more I'd call big players. But big players from outside of Britain we haven't had that many, that's true. But we got Nilis, and he was both a great and foreign player. But I guess he's the only one.

But in terms of excitment the likes of Merson, Saunders and Mcgrath aren't the same as when a team like Newcastle signed Owen and Shearer. I'm not saying you haven't signed players with good reputations, but as far as I can remember you've never been a club that has signed the truely big names of the era. Mcgrath turned out to be an awesome signing for you, but he wasn't one of the stars of world football when you signed him. You've signed plenty of excellent players and done well as a club, but in terms of head turning signings, they've been remarkably thin on the ground for some reason.

Other clubs of similar stature do seem to have signed much more eye catching names. Shearer and Owen for example were not only starters, but seen as star players for the national team when Newcaslte bought them. Whilst the likes of Merson were really just good squad players at international level. But as you say, it's more evident with foreign names. I the grand scheme of world football someone like Luc Nilis is a bit of a nobody. Yet a club like Boro signed Juninho and Ravenelli, who at the time were huge names. I couldn't believe it when they signed Juninho and the press coverage was huge.

There doesn't seen to be any Shearer, Owen, Lineker, Asprilla, Juninho, Ravinelli, Klinsman, Davids, Gullit or Weah types signings in your history. Basically no really big names from abroad or star players for the England national team. It hasn't done you any harm over the years, but for some reason you've never signed any of the big names of world football. It's the same with Everton.

Well we did sign Peter Schemichel, one of the great goalkeepers in the modern era imo......but not for us. :x

And also Ginola which must rank as an awful transfer deal as he was shite for us and you sold him the summer you signed Rebrov! :shock:

I think the injury has worked in our favour, think Bent will still be here come the start of the season.

If he'd gone off to the euros and scored a few goals, his stock would be high here and in europe and I doubt he'd have been thrilled to come back for another mid table season.