heystally!

Build the team around him!

We spend £24m on a striker. I'm pretty sure the plan behind that is that he'll score the majority of our goals. Especially given his previous striking record.

So why aren't we busting a gut to give him the best possible chance to score goals? Play it on the floor, play it in the channels, play three central midfielders (including an attacking midfielder). Stop playing it long, stop playing Heskey.

It sounds ridiculously simple. But I genuinely believe that our best chance of doing anything decent this season or in the next few years is to get Darren Bent scoring goals.

Really hoping MON tries to get Heskey as big man for Sunderland. They're linking him with Zamora, but we'd probably sell Heskey for £1m given his age and six months left on his contract.

Tonight felt like a step backwards with McLeish after the good performance against Arsenal.

Sure we were pretty solid defensively, but we looked poor going forward. Had one great chance and a couple of half chances, and barely tried to pass the ball. More interested in hoofing the ball into the channels.

McLeish at the end tried to claim we would have had more success if we had more finesse in the final third. Great comment coming from the man who played Emile Heskey ahead of Ireland and Bannan. No wonder we lacked finesse.

Genius.

Michael Carrick.

Not at Spurs, but ever since he joined United.

Don't get me wrong, we and he will certainly score more goals and win more games if we play like we did against Norwich. And Arsenal too. But I do think he can give more than he has been. Hopefully things will click into place and we'll get him firing in the New Year.

To be fair I don't think he's changed at all, we're just not getting anywhere near as much service to him due to McLeish's negative tactics.

That's certainly part of it, but I do think the negative tactics has changed his attitude. Not massively, but enough to affect things.

I remember the Norwich game being a key example. Bent could have had five goals that game, but he rarely made a run to the near post to gamble ahead of the defender. He did for the first goal, but the second wasn't a good run, the ball was just good enough to reach him. In the first half, Gabby even through his arms in frustration because he put another ball in and yet again Bent wasn't trying to get to it first.

He definitely spends more time waiting for the ball rather than running to meet it now. And I think it is the result of tactics, combined with losing Young and Downing. Now that we've gone long ball, he's seeing less of it and being given less chances so he's thought "what's the point of trying?"

It is no wonder Bent doesn't want to be here. Since he's arrived, he's seen the manager who signed him leave, the two creative players who gave him his chances leave, and the style of football that suited his game leave.

Hopefully we'll start to play more like we did against Arsenal for the rest of the season. Bent would have loved that game given our passing and attacking approach, so if we start doing that more often we might convince him that there is a point to staying at the club.

I agree on all counts there, but who says he doesn't want to be here? I think that's a bit presumptuous.

Presumptuous indeed, but he hasn't looked himself this season. Hasn't been making the same runs he normally would, hasn't looked confident. Combine that with being out and about rather than at the game, it doesn't really spell happiness.

For admitting what he said, and not realising the deference in the meaning here and his own country. He could have just said he never said anything. This has to be taken in consideration in my opinion.

As does the fact he didn't arrive here from Uruguay he came from Holland and I don't think for one minute what he said would have been acceptable there either.

Its a poor excuse and it doesn't wash.

I can't believe he doesn't know what that word has connotations with in Europe, let alone England, regardless of what it might mean back in Uruguay.

Caption competition?

"Ah! Don't let him touch me!"

It is no wonder Bent doesn't want to be here. Since he's arrived, he's seen the manager who signed him leave, the two creative players who gave him his chances leave, and the style of football that suited his game leave.

Hopefully we'll start to play more like we did against Arsenal for the rest of the season. Bent would have loved that game given our passing and attacking approach, so if we start doing that more often we might convince him that there is a point to staying at the club.

They won't back down over this.

This is going to rumble on for at least a year in my opinion, with Liverpool taking it to various courts etc to try and get the result they want.

Can't see them backtracking after the statements they've made (written, verbal, t-shirts, etc).

I'm not sure I'd fancy us getting taken over by the Qataris and buying the title, giving players £250,000 a week. I'll always stick up for Randy and sure the last two managerial appointments leave a lot to be desired but I can see the reasoning behind both. It's just the deadwood left from O'Neill's reign that is the problem and I really hope it's true that Randy is waiting until they are off the books before reinvesting his money. He couldn't go on giving out £30m a season forever unless they got in the Champions League so it's inevitable he'd have to scale back as he isn't quite that wealthy. He and O'Neill had a good go but it's really tough.

I'd be happy with a takeover, but not to the extent Man City have approached it. I've always been proud that Villa are a sensible and smartly run club, so in my eyes, a takeover should mean that we are able to afford better players and increase our wage budget, but more in line with clubs like Liverpool and Spurs. Not offering £250,000 per week to a player, thus alienating other squad members. I kind of hate City for just playing the game like Championship Manager, after editing the database of course.

Maybe. Then why Lerner didn't go for Hughes is beyond me as he fits the bill better than McLeish. Well I suppose it is because Lerner is supposedly big mates with Al-Fayed, which is why we won't get anywhere as we are being too 'nice'.

How do you know that he didn't?

Well obviously I am not ITK and therefore it is speculation but IMO Hughes quit Fulham expecting to get the Villa job so it was all in our hands.

Isn't there a clause in the contract that Hughes can't join another club til next summer because he quit with one year left? I thought that was the reason we didn't/couldn't go for him.

But we've seen AM working on a shoestring at SHA and he failed in the Premier League. Twice. Why did they think he was good enough to work on a shoestring here? He even outspent clubs like Wigan and Wolves, but still failed. Now it seems in the January window he wants emergencies to get us out of the relegation battle. That's not exactly working on a shoestring if he needs funds.

At least with an unknown prospect he could work out in the top flight. The whole 'Premier League Experience' is a farce if that person has to proven be a failure there.

I'm assuming the logic is that at SHA he had worse players than he would inherit at Villa, so they believed that he could do a job with a better squad.

Also they could have looked at the likes of Paul Ince and Tony Adams and got scared that an unproven manager might not get the respect of the players. Unproven managers have come into the league, but the likes of Rodgers and Lambert have had a year or two to work with their squads so know the players.

I'm not defending the McLeish appointment. It's just kind of obvious why the club did it. No point in questioning why they made that move.

You sure your not watching West Ham by mistake? ;-)

I'm not that stupid. They're actually winning things at the moment

Have to say that Petrov is the best player in our squad, even with his legs going. Really hope MON isn't sniffing around him in January, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. MON will want a leader for his team, and I can't see Cattermole being that player.

For the majority of the time he looked relatively uninterested.

Amazing how people see things differently, I thought he looked the complete opposite. Always looking for the ball and when he lost it tracked back and looked pissed off when he had made a mistake.

It is amazing. It might be because I think he looks pretty uninterested in nearly every game I've seen him in this season.

But even so, I still don't see room for him in our starting lineup. Gabby has proven this season how dangerous he is on the left, and Albrighton is starting to show some decent form again. They for me are our two best wide options.

Plenty of good upcoming managers would take the job at the Premier League regardless of the budget. To manage at Villa, a club with a Premier League status is a massive bonus and privilege.

I completely agree, but that doesn't mean that there are no logical reasons why the board went with McLeish.

They wanted someone who would work on shoestring. They wanted someone with Premier League experience.

Martinez fell in that bracket. They went after him. They failed. So they went for McLeish, who was also in that bracket. They got him.

I don't think it was a good appointment, I don't think it'll turn out to be a good appointment. But I understand why the board did it.

Personally I think they should have looked down a division, to a bright, young, upcoming manager. But they didn't.

I don't think N'Zogbia played that well really. He started brightly but then faded out of the game apart from maybe two moments in the second half. For the majority of the time he looked relatively uninterested, and once Coqquququququqelin (pretty sure that's how it's spelt) got into the game he dealt with N'Zogbia effectively.

I think we'll be much more dangerous having Albrighton on the right, Gabby on the left and either Ireland or Bannan behind Bent. Personally that is our strongest attacking lineup.

There's still no one who can come up wtih a logical reason why hiring AM was the best for this club.

1) He would take the job on a limited budget.

That's a logical reason. Whether it's a good reason or not is another matter.

But even if Collins does put in a "world class" performance, does it really warrant him starting against a team like Swansea?

I don't see why not. Collins can be a top defender but just hasn't shown it this season. He probably knows it as well as we do. But if he has a solid game, that'll give him confidence which we are clearly struggling with.

Players who played well against Arsenal should be first on the team sheet, that being Dunne, Cuellar, Petrov, Ireland, and Albrighton. I'd also drop N'Zogbia, but Gabby on the wing and play Bent up top, and make sure we don't hoof up to him.

If we do that, hopefully those players with confidence after Arsenal will pull the whole performance together.

Collins is the logical option to bring in at Stoke. He actually has his better games against teams like this who are more aerial and don't have a nippy striker to drag him out of position.

I agree. However, Collins better be dropped for the Chelsea and Swnasea games, particularly the latter.

What if he's world class against Stoke?

What if he's his usual oafish self?

Then of course drop him. But you're making the assumption that he will be three days before the game is even played.

It's the making of assumptions like those that create negative atmosphere at games. People turn up expecting us to lose, expecting us to be terrible.

I'd much rather judge McLeish and the team on what they did in their last game, rather than guessing what will happen in the next game.

Collins is the logical option to bring in at Stoke. He actually has his better games against teams like this who are more aerial and don't have a nippy striker to drag him out of position.

I agree. However, Collins better be dropped for the Chelsea and Swnasea games, particularly the latter.

What if he's world class against Stoke?

Keep hearing about Randy not attending games. Sheikh Mansour has attended one game, I think, since he bought Citeh. People aren't questioning his commitment. I agree about McLeish being an horrific appointment.

I think people are more annoyed about the idea that Randy attended a fair few games when things were going well, but as soon as we have a bit of disruption at the club, look like we have no money to spend, and look like we are a poorer team than previous years, he's nowhere to be seen.