tom_avfc

I don’t think it’s exaggerating to say that that could have been a repeat of the 7-2 Liverpool game. I’m excited to see where this project is going because when on song this is the most enjoyable Villa team to watch since I’ve been going. With the right quality additions we could play some frightening football.

What change do you propose? Neil Taylor on as a second left back to help out?!

I thought the Chelsea one was a foul but I think the difficulty is that its a foul that gets given anywhere else on the pitch but not very often in the penalty area. I'd suggest that if Mike Dean had known that the slight touch was in the box then he wouldn't have given the foul in the first place and it wouldn't have been given by VAR. Probably not how it should be but that's how I saw it.

This for me too. He's worth far more to us than he's worth to any other team in the league so I don't see him moving. If you add in the fact that he's hardly played for us in the second half of this season then I genuinely don't see who's going to drop the money that we'd want on him.

This is true but I don't think we should be signing a £40m striker on the off chance that Watkins isn't as good as he is this season. If we had all the money in the world to spend then I'd be all for it, although still wary as to how we'd keep Abraham happy with limited minutes. As it is I think there's about 5 positions where I see a need to spend money before we start splashing out on a backup centre forward. Yes, Watkins has played on the left before but I've seen nothing this season to suggest that we should be exploring that seriously as he has been as good as most strikers in the league playing through the middle. As for Wesley, I'm not sure why we'd write him off already. He's got the perfect opportunity to have a full pre-season where the coaching staff can have a proper look at him and make the judgment as to whether he's likely to get back to the level required. The fact that he's been on the bench this season suggests to me that Smith isn't writing him off just yet.

We've got a striker at the club who has scored 13 goals and got 5 assists this season. He's also had a number of goals ruled out for the most marginal offside decisions going. He's achieved this during a season where we've been without our best creative player (one of the best in the league) for over a third of the season. Why would we be looking to shunt Watkins out to the left given this? I get that he can play on the left and don't see an issue with him filling in there when required but I never get the obsession with moving players around when they are performing so well where they are to start with.

Its a bit different sitting on the bench at City playing in cup competitions and in games where the squad is being rested than coming to sit on the bench at Villa. The only way Abraham is coming to Villa is to start matches week in week out. Can we offer that to him? I don't think we can. For me Ollie has shown more than enough this season that he'll be first choice striker. Why would Tammy come to Villa when he'd not get masses more first team opportunities than he currently gets at Chelsea? Ideally it would be great to have Watkins and Abraham competing for the centre forward position here but realistically Abraham is going to want more than that and given the choice there's plenty of areas where I'd rather spend the £30m - £40m to improve our first team.

I agree with this although I guess the question is whether there was actually anybody on the bench who could improve the team. Given that the obvious sub was made with Grealish for Traore on 64 minutes at 2-1 up and we subsequently conceded two goals in 20 minutes to lose the game it’s a question worth asking. The squad that we have doesn’t lend itself to many substitutions which will positively impact the game in my opinion.

The other reason he’s on the bench is because we don’t really have anybody else. He might have been on the bench anyway but we don’t actually have any senior players left to make up the numbers on the bench do we?

For me personally if he made subs at half time every week, played every kid from the under 18 squad and sat on a bucket I’d be delighted. In all seriousness it’s difficult to know what he does on a day to day basis to know what he needs to improve on. He’s done a pretty good job over the seasons with the limitations imposed on him by the squad we have. But he does need a bucket.

They’re 17 and 18 year old kids. How many other teams are playing 17 year olds in premier league games? Given the rush to write off Ramsey’s career on the back of a handful of appearances I can see why we’re not throwing a load of kids in. Might be better to get them some experience before fans are back though I suppose as we don’t appear to be the most patient fan base with our players or manager to be fair.

He’s 17 years old and played a full 90 minutes for the under 18s on Friday. How many times have you seen him play to know that he is more than ready to be starting premier league games? I wouldn’t mind seeing him get some minutes off the bench but chucking a kid into an out of form starting eleven less than 2 days after he’s played a 90 minute match would seem a bit odd to me.

Jota is out for the season.

If you look at those last 10 games I’d say the particularly bad results are draws with Newcastle and West Brom and today’s loss to palace. A win away at Everton is a very good result, a draw at home to Everton is decent enough and a home loss to Spurs slightly annoying. Beating Fulham is to be expected as is losing to city, Liverpool and United. Our run of fixtures has to be one of the more difficult of the teams in the league over the last 10 games and we haven’t had our best player (one of the standout players in the league this season) available. It’s not great form but looking at the fixtures were probably only a few point short of what would be deemed acceptable from those 10 fixtures.

I find this signing the strangest we’ve made since Smith came in. He doesn’t suit the way in which we look to play at all. I think he’s one I’d be looking to shift on in the summer. His stats are actually pretty good and belie his actual contribution so we could probably get a decent chunk of money for him.

They don’t play in the same position though surely. If anybody was to be replaced by Eze it would have been Ramsey, a move which would have improved us dramatically.

To not finish eleventh now would need Wolves to beat both United and Everton or palace to beat both Liverpool and Arsenal. I don’t see it happening. Agree that falling away has been frustrating but given our small squad size making us particularly susceptible to injuries and tiredness it was probably to be expected. As silly as it sounds I’d love it if we could get one more point to reach the 50 mark even though it really doesn’t matter!

It’s a really pointless comparison though. You’re comparing two completely different teams who were in completely different positions when they were promoted. We had to spend the best part of £40m on re-signing loan players before we even started to strengthen. We had no centre forward at the club. Last season everybody would have said Chris wilder was doing a fantastic job and look at Sheffield United now. For me the only comparison that needs to be made is against our expectations at the start of the season. If you’d offered me an eleventh place finish I’d have bitten your hand off and we can look to improve again next season.

Yeah fair point. I did mean to mention that to. It was the same for both teams it’s just that they were looking to foul for the entire game so it played into their hands.

I’d take Eze without a doubt. Feels like he’s being wasted a bit in that Palace team and looks a perfect fit for that attacking midfield slot for us. Given his age it’s a bit of a no brainer signing. Would be expensive but the resale value is likely to be there for some time anyway.

This is what I don’t get. If we swapped places with Leeds to finish one place higher would this suddenly be some great season? We’ve shown great progress from last season regardless of finishing below another team who have also had a great season against their expectations. The fixation with Leeds on here is more annoying to me than the invasion of Leeds fans when they win a game of football.

This isn’t even true. Wolves are 4 points below us unless you were counting a game as a draw which was 10 minutes old. They need to turn this game around otherwise they’re going to have to beat both Everton and United to finish above us. Wolves finished 24 points ahead of us last season. It does feel like O’Leary knew what he was talking about with a lot of Villa fans.

I’ll add that he also let players do whatever they wanted once they were yellow carded. Kouyate had a couple of clear fouls after his booking which the ref didn’t give seemingly because a second yellow might have been needed. He was just really poor in general and refs like him are an encouragement to play the way teams like palace, Burnley and Newcastle for example do.

Mings is one of too many players in our first eleven that if they’re injured leave us severely weakened this season. Need another summer of good investment to rectify the fact that one injury makes us so much worse.