praisedmambo

I don't understand this. My brain does not compute the conspiracy theory.

Nobody with any connection to villa is suggesting otherwise. I've not seen a single post doing what you're saying. We're aiming for playoffs this season (but need an improvement asap).

I agreed at the time and I agree now. We had some fans turn viciously against him even though he was completely screwed by Lerner. We should be more patient with (some of) our managers.

It was his decision though. That's what the Everton official site says.

Wow! Didn't see that coming. I don't think he's been that bad, but the wages are insane. I mean he's no worse than anyone else. Based on last weekend, you'd go with Green and El Gazi as the wingers. EDIT: So it was his decision. OK then.

May as well give him a go. Maybe. Seems we may be struggling to get our targets in, or Smith fancies seeing all these players on our books.

Still going.

If it is true he'd be having an injection pre game for the pain, I imagine.

That or that he needs a more physical CB beside him. Surely that's the other option?

His lack of pace is what's getting found out imo. He needs pacy players around him for his positive aspects to really shine. That's obviously not to say we should be building a team around him. Ultimately we need a DM with pace asap—so many attacks just wouldn't happen if the person in that position wasn't getting ghosted past every five minutes.

Can we have two threads—one for the same people repeating the same things and the other one for new things.

This thread though.

McGinn is trying his best but the rest. Bad.

Hmmm. He is holding his own in the Premier League now. At least when he first came under Lambert we stayed up even though Lerner had pulled all investment from the club—he was part of better Villa teams than we have now. Do you think Burnley would swap him for Hourihane? Do you think if we go up we'll want to be relying on Hourihane?

You pretty much implied it before he even started and haven't let up since—except when he was doing well when you went a bit quieter than now.

@TRO I find it strange that people don't automatically doubt football transfer rumours as a default! Maybe it'll turn out to be true now I've said that. He rarely if ever seemed to get off the Shrewsbury bench at any point during a game. Not sure if stranger things have happened.

To be fair clubs mostly do a bit of both—especially, er, Brentford. They pick out players and develop them. But it could also be bullshit. Seems to have been an unused sub in all the Shrewsbury Town games I just looked at.

Pfffft. From the majority yes. Bit cheeky to say such a thing coming from you who didn't even wait one game before doubting him as the right manager. I think most people have a different definition of giving someone time than you do.

I more or less agree. We have also lost Tuanzebe though and I can see an argument that having a 'proper' Dm in over Hourihane may be to counteract that loss while we wait for Grealish to come back. The other noteworthy thing is that Hourihane was also responsible for about 2 goals conceded the last time he played as the deepest midfielder. Either way, there aren't actually any ready made answers anywhere in the squad, which brings things back to Smith needing time to bring in players and recognising that our actual squad is lacking. TIme for a deep breath.

My word. Anyway—to pick your misrepresentation of the truth apart a bit, Whelan and Bjarnasson have been playing DM, not AM, and O'Hare played there against Swansea to very little effect. Sure, maybe El Ghazi can play there. You don't know that though and neither do I. Oh I get it you're the tactical genius—if you're so vitriolic against Smith. You say two losses on the bounce have made you give up. Did the wins on the bounce beforehand do the opposite I wonder? At the very least and in the name of fairness the better form beforehand should maybe leave you somewhere more like indifferent rather than riled up. Nobody is in love with the last five games. You'd hope the majority of people would be looking ahead and back a little bit and taking in the bigger picture.

Nobody said that this year imo. At times last year maybe, but we were screwed badly with injuries then too. Our first team is good—I'd fancy them to compete with anyone. But recently we have, unarguably, been screwed by injuries. Bruce left us with a bad and unbalanced squad. You say we can't rely on a 22 year old (not sure his age has anything to do with anything) but we have nobody to replace him with—last year we, at least, had Onomah (he had some good games when Jack was out early on)! I know he wasn't great overall, but he did make a difference in some games. Then just look at Tuanzebe and Taylor getting injured—we put right backs anywhere. This is context and it can't be ignored in a fair view. I feel I'm repeating myself a lot so I'm going to stop now.

Nonsense. You're twisting things with a cliche. As if you don't miss your best players. Look at City when they lost Fernandinho and a million other examples every week every year. Losing your best players makes no difference?

It's a good squad (team really) when we have Grealish and Tuanzebe and few injuries. It's a bad squad when we don't have them. We demolished Boro and Derby with those players and we look lost without them. You've ignored that and that is a fact.

Not only that. Grealish compared to Hourihane in the AM spot is night and day too.

I completely forgot about McGinn! Yeah I like him too. Apologies for my over-strong vocabulary at times. I get carried away. Hopefully this bad period disappears soon and a bit of positivity returns all round. I really do feel that even with Jack back Tuanzebe, the way he brought the ball out of defence, is going to be a massive miss for the next month. Especially after Hause's debut and Elphick looking a bit average as ever imo.