praisedmambo

56 minutes ago, thunderball said:

Not that I am ITK but I have heard the same, something about him complaining 3 at the back doesn't suit him. I don't know if this was on a podcast or on a forum.

I am also not ITK and I heard the same...

...on this forum, posted from twitter. And literally none of this is evidence that he's had an argument with Smith.

4 minutes ago, M_Afro said:

I don’t agree with freezing players out. It’s the job of the manager to deal with issues and move on. He doesn’t come across as a real bad egg so Dean needs to deal with whatever has happened and move on. He is a valuable asset whose value will just decrease by the week.

You don't know there's been an issue and Chester is a decent CB too. Only one of them makes the bench. Up to a few weeks ago was Hause frozen out or did he just not make the bench? Was Targett frozen out at the start of the season or did he just not make the bench? Is Jota frozen out or is he just not making the bench?

43 minutes ago, HeyAnty said:

He can’t pass the ball 2 feet

Double down. 

13 minutes ago, villanmac said:

I've definitely heard Gregory say himself it was him and not doug who pulled out of the Keane deal.

This is definitely my memory too. 

8 minutes ago, thabucks said:

Surprised so little business has been completed overall ... Proves how difficult it is to sign players and find value in Jan.

With the logic some people use your'd expect every club to announce all their signings on January the first. In this scenario if clubs don't announce players that early then those involved are so stupid they didn't even realise the window was open.

Not good enough for this level at all. 

17 minutes ago, TRO said:

He needs to take the approach in to games....."how can they leave me out"

The " eye of the tiger" starts early....as Tammy showed.

He needs to be demanding of himself.

I don't need to look for things.....their performance needs to smack me in the face.....that's my benchmark.

 

Have you been down the gym tonight? 

12 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

Si señor, feed Ally Samatta he will score...

That's not a pun! You could change his name for anyone elses.

Sí señor, feed don't_do_it_doug he will score...

17 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Hard to take that complaint seriously, when he's also refusing to pick one who's available. 

You don't actually know what's happened. Maybe Kodjia wanted a new contract. Maybe he's refusing to play. Point is, we don't know.

1 minute ago, KevinRichardsonsMoustache said:

From what I read about that presser, I don't think DS is particularly happy with how long it's taking. While he's being obsequious and respectful, maybe I'm reading too much into a throw away line:

 

'I’m calm and confident we will get players, for sure, but we have big games and, if we don’t get one in by Saturday, it’ll be the third in row without recognised striker.'

 

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/aston-villa-transfers-mbwana-samatta-17579474

 

 

He's definitely pissed off. It's his job on the line at the end of the day. 

4 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

This situation is a nonsense. Nothing about him being out of contract in June prevents him from playing on Saturday. Instead we're going to play a nonsense formation that absolutely doesn't work for a team that regularly has less than 50% possession. 

An absolute farce. Good job it's not important or anything. 

It worked ok against Leicester. Kodjia was awful last time he played. 

8 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

I am sorry, but that's just a rubbish excuse. 

We have known for 5 months we've needed another striker. It should have been the first thing we made right this window. Saying it's difficult for a PL club with our scouting connections to find one suitable professional striker to do a job for us when we have 5 months to look around is just pure nonsense. It's obviously easy, as every club in the world are capable of doing it. 
We simply put have not done the due diligence. Whether it's because we are broke, or whether it's because our recruitment department are utter shite, or whether Deano got it all wrong, I don't know.

But lets not pretend it's not easy for a club like ours to find a single striker in the world that can do a job, when we got 5 months to do so. Most clubs got a list of players on the pad for any given position if the need should come up. Even my local Norwegian club does that, and it pays players what £ 10 k a year. We clearly don't. Time to call a spade a spade, and our striker predicament is utterly embarrassing. 

I genuinely don't think it all works the way you think it does.

Pretty inspiring @A'Villan. Good post.

6 hours ago, maqroll said:

Sort of cringey that it's a Liverpool song though

I agree. We sing it like we're being original but it's someone else's song. I'm embarrassed when I hear it. 

8 minutes ago, VillaHatesMe said:

 

Thanks above there is another Twitter post. Finally. 

I'm not actually joking. 

1 minute ago, Kiwivillan said:

Benteke 4 goals in last 62 for Palace just a stat outlier

He's still getting games in a much better team than we are. He's someone who can hold the ball up and win headers. Wes has, what, four goals or something? Yet even with his low goal tally, at least up to a point this season, scoring goals wasn't our problem. It's a team game. We are shockingly light up front and I think he'd make a huge difference to having nobody.

5 minutes ago, hippo said:

All I asking is if you think quality  players are arriving at VP towards the end of window ?

I agree on all the other stuff 

Oh OK. All good! As I say, I have no idea. I just hope so. I'm ready for people who can do a job in the prem. N'Zonzi, Benteke—seriously I think these types of players can make a difference. We're light and we lack experience.

5 minutes ago, hippo said:

Agreed.

My point is those players have produced very little.

We went on that spending spree to preserve our premier league status - objective on target to being achieved ?

The truth is we needed to fill the squad up too. How much did we spend on average over all those players? It was peanuts for players in the premier league. They have produced about what could be expected for their prices, generally speaking. This season was always going to be this kind of challenge.

That's not to say we couldn't have made some shrewd alternative signings, but it's far too easy to say all that in hindsight.

EDIT: It also doesn't help that it's our most important players who keep getting injured too (so far we've been without Grealish, McGinn, Mings, Heaton, Targett (important when the backup is Taylor) for periods, Wes to a degree (he has had some good games), and Davies (as a useful alternative who can hold the ball up)).

8 minutes ago, hippo said:

So you think new players of sufficient quality will arrive in the next couple of weeks ?

Do you still think we signed all those players at the beginning of January?

What I think is completely irrelevant tbh! I don't have a clue. Obviously, I hope so.

EDIT: My opinion is that the basic truth is that we're likely not a very attractive option for 'top notch', and if we're hamstrung by financial fair play then that is serious: there are potential points deductions to be had. We can achieve what we want without 'top notch' anyway. We obviously want 17th+ and then a chance to build with a bit more balance next season.

50 minutes ago, hippo said:

Yes - my concern as a supporter is we have so little to show for our £127m spending spree

I wonder how the owners feel ? It's effectively there money !

 

Without that spending spree we wouldn't even be able to field a first 11, let alone subs too!

The team would be (of those fit, which seems relevant): Nyland, Guilbert, Chester, _________, Taylor, Hourihane, Lansbury, Grealish, Elmo, Kodjia, _____________ and we'd have the subs of: __________________, _____________________, _____________________, ____________________, ______________________, ________________________, _______________________.

And we'd have literally zero points.

25 minutes ago, hippo said:

Dunno last year we got kalnic on day 1 (a big deal for us at the time) - Bent arrived pretty early in the window - as did Carew and Ashley Young.

Sure it's going back a few years - but big deals do happen early in the window.

Is that Darren Bent who we signed on the 18th of January? Or John Carew who we signed on the 22nd of January? Or Ashley Young who we signed on the 23rd of January? 

Every year it's the same—people expect these transfers to be simple. Every year it blows my mind that people haven't learnt yet that the whole market in January is pretty much a stagnant mess.

Not to mention that back in the day when we signed Young and Carew, we were a pretty well-established Premier League team not in the relegation zone. Sure, we were struggling when Bent came, but we were still an established Premier League team.

So we signed one player early (Kalinic) once, therefore all transfers in January are easy.

1 minute ago, sir_gary_cahill said:

Harry Kane didn’t pull up any trees when he went out on loan a few years ago, look at him now. Loans very rarely give a true reflection of a player’s ability in my opinion, they nearly always need time to adjust to new surroundings and teammates

He's 21 and he's done little of note in League 1. You sound overly optimistic imo! 

1 minute ago, useless said:

Taking a closer look at Hogan's stats for this season, in the league he's played 574 minutes worth of football, that the equivalent of just over six games, during which he's scored twice and also assisted a goal. In a struggling Stoke team, that's not bad going. Sometimes in the forest you can't see the jungle for the trees.

Your name should be madness. Or insanity. Or nonsense.