rjshare

With MON back on board we just need to sort out and improve our scouting and transfer dealing. MON knows the club from the back of his hand and the players who did well under MON. I want him back.

What the **** :| I think some people have lost the plot...

Do people think that little of our football club? I actually feel degraded that some fans could even think this, let alone say it. Mind boggling, completely mind boggling.

Rijkaard is surely going to be a dissappointment like Houllier was prolly a little more. I hope you ignorant people will witness this. Hire Rijkaard, Randy and show the fans how abysmal his managing skills are. 1 good spell with Barca with World-Class players makes things quite easier than turning a sub-top team into a top tier team. Besides Barca his other spells were horrorfying. Look at Galatasaray in their current state ending up on 8th place with their squad they should really be champs year in year out. Excuse my rage.

i totally agree with your view on rijkaard but totally disagree with you on mon!

Saw Slaven Bilic in the odds posted above. Anyone have an idea on how he's faring with Croatia at the moment? He seemed like an up and coming prospect a year or two ago.

no i dont, but he is the sort of person we might get - pretty unexpected and out of leftfield - as was houllier really.

what's john gregory doing these days anyway?

how about graham taylor? (seeing as this thread seems to have turned into a competition for "who can come up with the daftest idea yet")

graham turner?

ok sorry - i thought you posted it in reply to my post.

New manager likely to be appointed at the end of next week or the start of the following week. Mat Kendrick Twitter.

and that proves that we wont have hughes???

it might be just while we sort things out with fulham to allow us to approach/appoint him before july.

not saying it IS the case, just saying that you cant say anything with any certainty.

Hughes has not been promised the Villa job! He took a risk to force Villa's hand and it didn't work.

...appears not to have worked at this time.

its not like we have appointed anyone else yet though is it?

Why would Hughes quit without a job lined up? Who else is looking at the moment, Chelsea,? yeh right, it has to be the Villa.

cardiff?

it might also be part of a chain that involves redknapp going to chelsea

I hate to break this to you all but it's me that they have approached. They offered me a bottle of Jack Daniel's and sex with Imogen Thomas. I'm currently deciding what to do...

well i'd probably do her after a bottle of jack daniels...

No!

Oh. Good!

Though I like his journalism.

phil mepham more likely...

what about the portugese guy from madrid?

well i reckon it will be andy gray...

Carlo Ancelotti 2/1 on paddy power, oh my god I'm gonna lose it

If this happens we will be set up in every way except the team - and he'll sort that

.....

Without any doubt. Ancelotti is great manager. But do you really think he will arrive to Villa Park?

He costs, and do we have the money to get him and to buy outstanding players?

Do the club have ambitions to be in top four?

Why did we got Houllier? To create future team. But he is sacked after nine months. Is it possible that our goal is to create another future team?

We had MON, we needed money to buy some players. MON didn't get the money.

I think Ancelotti is too big for Villa. Sorry.

(of course I will be happy if he comes. It would be statement -Villa wants to be in Champ. League-)

I would normally agree with you, however...

The guy wants to stay in England and I don't see any other realistic possibility unless Redknapp was to leave Spurs this summer. People mention QPR will have money to spend but there has been no proof yet that the money is there and have already made a set wage budget for next season which isn't that big.

Hughes id definitely out of the question. No way would Sky Bet let his price from 1/20 on to evens if their source wasnt accurate.

As for Ancelotti being too big...

Sell Stephen Ireland, his 80k a week will pay Ancelotti's wages.

Plus Ancelooti said last week he wouldnt rule out listening to West Ham offers...he obviously like managing in England, and we are the biggest club available at the moment.

Well if he would consider Wet Spam then we have every chance because they are a nobody club run by ex scum who haven't got a clue what they are doing.

...in london.

Here's an idea, let me throw it out there for a minute..... Perhaps Villa leaked the news that they weren't considering Hughes as spin... Think about it, if that doesn't happen and Hughes joins Villa in the near future then Fulham may start pointing fingers at Villa claiming that an illegal approach for their manager was made, etc, etc.... Now, with the distancing by Villa today, it could be part of a loner term media/legal stratergy. Hughes might be the number 1 target in reality, but Villa want to give off the impression that there is no interest there, thus providing evidence in this case that they probably didn't "tap" him up.... What do you guys think?

i think stranger things have happened.

this all reminds me of when brian little stated he was staying at leicester at 9pm one evening only to turn up at villa park next morning!

...and why isnt mcleish in the poll?

Well apart from the fact that he got the scum relegated I can't think of any other plus points.

he was very highly regarded 3 months ago when they had just beaten the gooners to win the league cup and were 5 places off their highest ever finish...

i would just like to make it clear however that i, in no way, shape or form want anything to do with him - doesnt mean he isnt in the running though.

...and why isnt mcleish in the poll?

well look on the bright side chaps - it wont be allardyce...

Ratings :

Friedel 8 - made some good saves, couldn't do much about that dunne goal.

Sidwell 7 - Came on and i thought was good, did make some really good tackles but also some bad tackles

Warnock 6 - started off really terrible, came into the game a bit at the end

Ireland 6 - was dissapointed to be honest, do have high hopes for him but i dont know..

Reo Coker 8 - was probably the best player on the pitch today

Ashley Young 6 - Fairly quiet, poor free kicks/corners wasn't his fault was marked like mad

Heskey 7 - tried hard, thought he'll do well with someone partnering up with him.. doesn't work well alone.

Petrov 5 - was decent whilst he was on.. didn't do anything out the ordinary.

Albrighton 7 - joint with NRC performance for me.

Purposely left Dunne out, made that good block at the end according to the match thread never saw it myself as i had switched it off already, but that own goal did blow the tactics and players mentality out the water. We need a top striker and for the love of god need to win that league cup match. Personally i wish Fonz was on the bench and would've bought him on second half - Fonz and Heskey probably would've worked imo who knows.

Did you purposely leave Downing out? :winkold:

and beye...

cant see the point in moaning about the ref - its not because of him that we lost.

first 45 we were dire, 2nd half was better, but why does no-one want to attack the goal??? albrighton came on and was more direct in his first five minutes than the whole team had been in the rest of the game.

most of us said that a point would be a good result today so it doesnt feel like a disasterous result to lose 1-0 but we cant expect to get anything from matches if we are only going to play for one half of them.

No, nothing to blame the ref for... apart from 2 stonewall pens not given, giving every 50-50 to Sunderland and generally being shit, I suppose Halsey didn't affect the result.

i have never seen us lose a game without someone on here saying the ref was dire.

how many shots did we have in the game?

none of those stone wall penalties were pens - the commentators all said so too.

...didn't look like scoring till Dunne put them ahead. Lack of communication between him and Collins for that goal.

no, kids of 8 or 9 years old know that "if in doubt, put it out" not "if in doubt, stick it in the bottom corner"

it was a terrible mistake from a player who shouldnt be getting picked at the moment and has cost us a minimum of 1 point.

cant see the point in moaning about the ref - its not because of him that we lost.

first 45 we were dire, 2nd half was better, but why does no-one want to attack the goal??? albrighton came on and was more direct in his first five minutes than the whole team had been in the rest of the game.

most of us said that a point would be a good result today so it doesnt feel like a disasterous result to lose 1-0 but we cant expect to get anything from matches if we are only going to play for one half of them.

i really think warnock is pish

Warnock has actually showed a fair amount of composure that half, despite having no help from Young.

he made a couple of outstanding blocks - he was also absolutely taken to the cleaners a couple of times too so difficult to say what he has been!

the rest of them are dire though

if this is young concentrating on his football then i prefered him when he was thinking about money.

dunne should just be dropped, its not like we dont have any other players who can replace him.

i think beye is about the only player i cant remember doing anything outstandingly bad - he made a superb tackle on bent too.

its surprising that so many people are not overly confident seeing as we are a better side, with better recent league finishes and a great recent record up there - that said, i'd take a point!

its good to feel like we will go there to try for the win and settle for a draw though rather than going for a draw and trying to nick a win as it has been generally in the last few seasons away from home (albeit quite successfully)

Friedel - 8 - Hard to fault him really

Warnock - 7 - decent game

Dunne - not on long enough to rate really

Collins - 8 - solid

Beye - 5 - he's a bit cack really isn't he

Young - 6 - not at his best today, not a bad performance but he can do much better

Downing - 9 - MOTM - was involved everywhere

Petrov - 8 - couple of silly passes aside he was great today

NRC - 7 - Mostly Dr Jekyll but sometimes Mr Hyde still came out to play

Ireland - 5 - still seems out of sorts to me, he's yet to convince me

Carew - 5 - didn't take his chances and unfortunately thats what he gets paid to do

Subs

Clarke - 8 - Great game off the bench, did little wrong

Delfouneso - 6 - didn't really get into the game

Sidwell - not on long enoug to rate

Was a decent team performance, solid at the back and didn't let Chelsea run through us in the middle of the park but we did lack the vital spark up front.

One thing that did but bug me though was Young coming back to full back position to get the ball from Friedel, please stay up the pitch Ash and let Warnock pass the ball to you where you can do damage to the opposition.

ANother thing, has Carlos Cuellar been disrespecting the entire French nation in training or something? First of all he gets overlooked for Dunne again, then with Luke Young out he doesn't step in at right back either and we play Beye who quite frankly makes Cuellar seem like Zambrotta, then when Dunne goes off injured Clark comes on. How do you go from being Man of the Match against Wolves to not getting in the team given those circumstances, very odd if you as me.

Thought the ref started off well but then just started making silly decisions.

I think we were marginally the better side but lacked that cutting edge up front so the 0-0 draw was probably what we deserved, solid defensively but lacking in front of goal

how can you rate downing and beye so far apart? you are the only person on this entire thread who has said anything negative about beye and i thought he was no worse than any other player in the side bar carew. carew certainly had room for 5 points of improvement but i cant see what more you could realistically expect beye to have done playing against such talented opposition. as a unit downing and beye worked well so i cant understand how you can effectively only credit one of them with a good performance.

as for cuellar, i know it seems unfair on the surface but houllier is obviously trying to get the team to pass the ball more and retain possession - and cuellar has got to be the most guilty player in the entire squad of hoofing/poor passing/poor control. i can see why he would be considered behind beye and clark in the pecking order despite him being probably the best out and out defender out of the three. total football was not about having the best defender in defence it was about the entire team being able to play as a unit and follow a system. perhaps a bit harsh on cuellar because he hasnt let us down or done anything wrong but now we have a manager who actually has an idea about tactics/playing style there are inevitably going to be some collateral casualities within the squad.

its a good point and we werent outclassed at all - barring the obvious difference in quality up front we matched them very well

lots of good things to take from the game and everyone played their part i thought.