Cizzler

8 hours ago, nepal_villan said:

 Had an off night tonight. Other games this season he really has not had the chances. Not sure what striker outside the Big 6 I would take instead of him. Maybe a Danny Ings....oh wait. 

I'd take Isak, Toney and Mitrovic quite clearly. Probably would take Scamacca too on this season's form. 

DCL / Bamford are better strikers, just never fit. I suppose Ollie has that going for him. 

Can Keinan Davis actually be worse? Watkins has only gone backwards from his first season with us.

Today was utterly appalling. A half-decent striker has a hat trick.

His finishing is like Powerleague level and he thinks in slow motion. I was clawing my eyes out watching today.
 

1 hour ago, UpTheVilla26 said:

Wish we'd signed Eze.

We should be looking at that Conway kid at Bristol City, he's scoring every week. 

I remember watching Eze absolutely boss our midfield in a QPR away game. Think it was one of Deano’s first games in charge.

We spent a lot of money the transfer window Eze moved to Palace (and we signed Sanson in the January window that followed). I think it was a big miss. Guess management were happy with McGinn (as per).

The clown in charge of the first XI is rightly being called out - but what on Earth is Lange doing?

Best he can come up with is panic deadline day signings of Bednarek and Dendoncker? 

They’re two bang average PL players that have been kicking around years. Where’s the scouting network? Where’s the ambition?
 

Idiots working for this club at every level.

Gerard managing to lose 2-0 to a Bournemouth team that have lost their next three games on aggregate 16-0…

The decision to appoint him over Potter was mind-numbing at the time. Purslow just wanted to rub shoulders with his hero. 

I just can’t fathom how all of the highly paid people who work in our recruitment department have supposedly scoured the world for a new CB and then plumbed for a 26 year old, average centre back who was on the bench last week for a mid-table team who can’t defend.

If it’s £15m, it’s a crazy decision. If it’s a loan with no option to buy it’s slightly more palatable - but just reeks of panic.

Nice ball from Ings for Digne’s goal

That touch from McGinn was like something from 5aside PowerLeague, Jesus Christ 

Must be wondering what he’s still doing here if he can’t even get a start tonight against a mid-table L1 outfit, after Ings and Watkins both played at the weekend. 

Really poor that he has to use this game to figure out his best team and can’t even start Archer.

If you deliberately hold back a promising young player from going out on loan, they really should be playing the early rounds of the league cup against mid-table L1 teams.

1 minute ago, Farlz said:

He really didn't need to go that strong, surely can at least play Archer and Iroegbunam. It's the 2nd round of the League Cup ffs against Bolton.

Oh well, should be an easy win at least. 

He’s desperate for a win/ any momentum that will help him save his skin.

Clearly still has no clue what his best team is. Oh well, at least this should help somewhat. 

2 minutes ago, Lichfield Dean said:

Is it odd that Cash has been dropped? Considering it's a strong team it seems the most out of place change to me.

Tragically it’s much more likely that Cash is the one and only position (amongst the outfield 10) he’s actually sure upon. Rested.

3 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

That sounds like it was the managers call rather than the players.

Either way, his manager has deemed him not mentally right for a big cup game. The post I replied to said there’s “no behind the scenes drama with him” - that’s clearly not the case.

Really uninspiring signing (and screams panic buy after Carlos’ injury). Third choice CB for a bottom half of the league outfit. Of an age where any dramatic improvement is drastically unlikely.

The only good thing to say is he’s better than Hause. 

6 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

Another thing to add, he is a good professional and a dedicated player. No behind the scenes drama, just a decent guy to join the team. 

Didn’t he refuse to play Man City in their FA Cup game?

https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/20007279.amp/

16 minutes ago, flashingqwerty said:

I've been doing some digging on this and believe this is where we stand (players under 21 have been omitted): 

1. Martinez(HG)
2. Olsen
3. Steer
4. Cash(HG)
5. Konsa(HG)
6. Mings(HG)
7. Chambers(HG)
8. Young(HG)
9. Digne
10. Hause(HG) - likely to leave
11. Carlos
12. Guilbert - likely to leave
13. Augustinsson
14. Luiz
15. McGinn
16. Sansom
17. Buendia
18. Nakamba - likely to leave
19. Kamara
20. Coutinho
21. El Ghazi - likely to leave
22. Traore - likely to leave
23. Bailey
24. Watkins(HG)
25. Ings(HG)
26. Davis(HG) - likely to leave

So that's 10 HG players, 2 of which are either likely to leave or are unlikely to make the squad, leaving us with the bear minimum in terms of HG quota.

Why don’t Steer nor McGinn count?

On 14/07/2022 at 15:57, useless said:

I wish we would hurry up and name our new scholars for next season, we seem to leave everything late, would be nice to know that we've managed to hang onto our best sixteen year olds, noticed a few other teams have been losing theirs, I think brexit and not being able to sign U18s from Europe means there's now more competition for U18s in this country, good sign that Kadan Young played against Hednesford though.

Any surprises now we have the announcement @useless ? 

I don’t follow the academy (apart from on this thread!) but would you say Kadan Young and Travis Patterson (plus the two new signings from Derby / Rangers) are the most promising prospects of the bunch at the moment?

Why is Kesler-Hayden not there?

Bissouma, Spence and Richarlison all look like fantastic signings to be fair.

They’ve massively upgraded at centre mid and right back and added a great rotation option for Son/Kane/Kulusevski.

Also have brought in Perisic to play LWB, which is an underrated acquisition. 

Lloris, Romero, Son and Kane are already easily amongst the best players (respective to their positions) in the league.

With a great manager too, would bet on them being closer to 2nd than to 4th.

He’s never a £100m player, is he. Two great chances when he came on. Was he trying to square the first? A goal looks on if he went near post. The second was a great save by Courtois tbf - no slight on Jack there.

Did he do anything in extra time? I can’t remember any contribution. A few comfortable passes from the left wing. He wasn’t close to unlocking the Madrid defence.

Surely you want a £100m player to take the game by the scruff of the neck, to demand the ball and actually create something.

Despite the way he left, I couldn’t help but root for him a little bit tonight. I wanted him to prove he belongs on this stage.

Can’t lie that I’m happy City crashed out though. “Champions of Europe, you’ll never sing that”. Real to win please. The idea of a Liverpool quadruple is sickening. 

1 minute ago, KentVillan said:

My Lai was horrific and indefensible, yep. About 500 Vietnamese died (according to official Vietnamese govt account). I feel like Russia are currently doing stuff that is an order of magnitude worse than that.

Ehh both cases involve innocent civilians (defenseless children + women) being raped and murdered - I think they are the same magnitude of absolutely awful.

44 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Given all the whataboutery doing the rounds at the moment…

I’m interested in any calm, reasoned perspectives on where Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine rank against the worst things the Western powers have done.

I’m not an apologist for US aggression , but my instinct is that you have to go quite a long way back (maybe Hiroshima & Nagasaki?) to find anything as bad as what the Russians are doing at the moment. (Edit: and yes I realise there was a different context to the atom bombs, Japan being an aggressor, etc. But massive civilian death count)

People saying Iraq / Afghanistan are wide of the mark IMO… yes, those were low points for the west (esp Iraq), but the civilian death counts were lower and certainly not systematic ethnic cleansing.

But open to hearing about genuine examples of similar horrors. Just trying to put this in perspective… how bad exactly is it? It feels like it’s exceptionally bad

My Lai?

19 minutes ago, sidcow said:

If they don't beat Burnley that could well be 8 defeats in a row. 

They beat Leeds the game before this.

Although agree if they lose to Burnley they’re in trouble

13 minutes ago, MessiWillSignForVilla said:

Russia's response definitely makes me suspicious it could've been a false flag to undermine peace talks

Who does a false flag op benefit?

They are already performing atrocities on Ukrainian civilians, they don’t need to conjure up a ‘justification’.

And they already feed their own citizens whatever information they want - so it’s not like they need to ‘sell’ Ukrainian aggression. I find it hard to believe they’d deliberately blow up their own fuel supplies when they already control what their citizens believe.