rodigan

Flying up for this game and for the Townsville game. Any plans for gatherings before | after each game?

wasn't suggesting that i want austin for a second, but the question is what role will this striker play? if it is a back up in a team that plays a sole striker, i can understand the reasoning behind buying someone who is unlikely to throw a tantrum if he isn't the first choice every week... last season, we only played with one true striker, so everyone else was getting scraps - keeping those people happy is not easy... and there are so many new players to bed in here...

Lots to do, but its certainly getting there: GK: Steer Kalinic Nyland RB: Guibert Elmo CB: Mings Chester Hause Konza Engels LB: Targett Taylor DM: Hourihane Bjarnasson [LUIZ or PHILLIPS] AM: McGinn Jack LW / RW: El Ghazi Jota Green [TREZEGUET] CF: Wesley Kodjia Davies [MAUPAY or AUSTIN] If you add in us getting most of LUIZ, TREZEGUET, PHILLIPS, MAUPAY, AUSTIN - we're getting pretty close...

Thor was more involved, but he was spraying the ball all over the place... it says it all when Mings is a better outlet from defence than our DM

Players good enough for squad: Hause Konza Kalinic Thor Players fighting to make the squad: Davies Green Lansbury Taylor O'Hare Players who don't look good enough: Bree Hogan

My starting XI from what we saw tonight: Steer Guibert - Chester - Mings - Targett McGinn - Hourihane - Grealish Jota - Wesley - El Ghazi

i wonder with kalinic having a pre-season whether he may actually have the chance to be the goalkeeper we thought he was when we bought him...

gotta love super john doing super john.... bring on the new season...

not since geoff thomas have i seen a shot go quite so wide!!!

just realised my feed was paused while i went to get a cup of tea and now i'm five minutes behind everyone else...

great to see chester back... am liking our CB unit...

don't understand playing davies anywhere other than in the middle... he's a big lump who holds the ball up - why we're playing him on the wing is beyond me...

so far shows me that those guys who weren't good enough for us in the championship, still aren't good enough for us today, so no great surprises there... our good players and some of our new signings look class and will certainly get better when passes start going to feet and i feel like we have lots of goals in this squad already... pre-season always frustrating as a spectacle - watching man u v perth on saturday exactly the same... (axel looked fine too - they really should be thanking us for the job we did for him)... interestingly, i thought kelvin philips looked completely out of his depth for leeds against man u last night...

good window overall and a number of exciting players working their way into the team.... my only comment on all that has been said here and elsewhere in the site is that while benteke is a huge loss, the simple fact is that last season he scored 13 for us in the league and 10 the season before... its not impossible to think that we've got that many goals in our new striker signings, Sinclair, gestede, ayew and kozak, to the extent he's like a new signing.... gestede and Sinclair have scored three in the first four games...

i have simply been singing a natty little tune since Saturday early evening.... there's a striker, a benin striker called rudy gestede.... very disappointed to hear its pronounced gest-ed.... great start and welcome to the club, rudy!

with young centre backs, you should be looking to sell them when they are decline... Ciaran and Nathan baker are both still getting better (and in my opinion substantially so).... people on here are constantly bitching that we sold gary cahill for buttons before he reached his prime and he went on to great things and yet they are baying for Ciaran and Nathan b to be sold for buttons.... as an aside, I first met Ciaran and watched him play six or seven years ago in hong kong at the soccer sevens in a team of marc albrighton, barry bannan, harry forrester, zoltan steiber and a couple of others.... many of these were being hyped as the next big thing back then, but every single player in that squad looked to Ciaran on the pitch as the captain and leader of the team... it is no surprise to me that he is the last man standing of that group and I think that he will be a fine captain of villa in the not-too distant future. I also note that Nathan did not come to hong kong until several years later, so I always remind myself that we are not comparing like with like in terms of development - Nathan b should be compared to Ciaran of say 18-24 months earlier in terms of development.... i'd keep both as part of a centre back unit, all of whom can play at premier league level.

can't believe that most want him sold.... to me a centre back unit of clark, Richards, okore, baker is exactly what we need - all young, aggressive and coming into their prime... watched the u21 game against forest green on avtv , and it looked like a one-man baker show to me.... I agree that he has had a lot of injuries, but in my mind, he is coming through say 2 years behind Ciaran and two years ago, most of us would have gotten rid of Ciaran... he's the right shape, brave and athletic... I see no need to sell him at this point and think he will have an important part to play for us at some stage this season...

in hindsight, it may well be that the departure of benteke and delph force / allow TS to pull together a much more balanced squad that is something that we have struggled with for the last several years. It has struck me that, for example our midfield balance has been wrong for a long time with three lightweight midfielders preventing us from playing with a talented no 10. our lack of true wingers and therefore playing gabby and AW on the wings is another case in point. I just get the sense now that we're going to split up our one true asset of value benteke into say three players that may be net better - a forward battery of gil, grealish, cole in the middle and with Sinclair, zoggy and a new winger, say Andros townsend feeding into two strikers of the like of adebayor and Austin, as well as gabby, kozak, and I think will be just fine. if we are creating more chances, I'm sure TS will put someone there who is capable of finishing them - I can truly see what we end up with scoring more goals than we did last season... Of course, i'd have loved benteke to be that guy, but he didn't want to be.... i'm not going to cry over that... In terms of defence, again I'm ok with the way its looking - CBs of Ciaran, Richards, okore, baker - i'll take that... bacuna did well where he was and I wouldn't be surprised if that position was strengthened... Sherwood has looked to take care of the LB position once and for all and has not thrown peanuts at it - at 10m, i'll back amavi to be quality... which leaves us to midfield - cleverly and delph were high energy strong players towards the end of last season, but both of them chose not to be at the club this season... so what have we got in midfield - defensive midfield - sanchez and gueye creative midfield - grealish, gil, cole other midfield - westwood, gardner, Richardson this is light in terms of depth, but a lot will depend on whether gueye hits the ground running... i think that Sherwood is doing just fine at the moment, bearing in mind he's had to handle a number of body blows, none of which were of his making... bring on the new signings and august 8th... UTV

and all of whom were stars shining at least as brightly as delph is now....

with a full pre-season behind him and time for Sherwood to have a proper look at him with a season ahead, I think we'll know in the next couple of months whether he has a villa future ahead of him.... I hope he does, but then again, I hope everyone in out squad plays brilliantly for us...

thing is, we are contractually obliged to pay people like nzogbia - we may not agree with the contract that he was given, but that's academic now... what I would say is that since Sherwood has arrived, he has tended to start or come off the bench, ahead of the rest of the squad who don't start - weimann, Sinclair, gil and anyone else that Sherwood had at his disposal... I may be simplistic but I view it like this.... say he's paid 60k now, but worth 20k - for us to get rid of him, we'll have to pay 40k per week to him for the remaining year of his contract for him not to play for us. at that price, bearing in mind that he is still starting or participating in most of our games, who could we get (that would be prepared to join us) for 20k that would be a starter in Tim Sherwood's eyes? if there's no-one, then its quite a simple decision... he stays... whether he deserves a start in the squad that we have is something that I will save for the tim Sherwood thread...

I have no issue with Sherwood dropping any player if someone else deserves his position more. I simply hope that brad will be given a real opportunity to earn it back.... with given gone, i would expect a replacement for him and a scrap for the starting berth between new keeper and brad, which I believe would be good for the club... we should have competition in each spot and a manager willing to make the hard decisions and pick on form.... him playing blinders for the us can only be to our benefit - coming back full of confidence is exactly what we want...

what the micah Richards article fails to say is when delph spoke to him - there is every chance that delph's thought process may well have moved on since he asked, bearing in mind he is back training and heading our new kit poster.... my reading of the article is that Richards was seeking to remain as non-committal as possible - having made a decision similar to one which delph appears to be considering, which was proven over time to be the wrong one... what he said to me seems sensible - "I can understand why you would do it (I did after all) - back yourself if you want to, but know that others have done so (who were at similar stages of their careers) and it has proven to be their undoing... at the end of the day its your call though, so I won't make it for you...." I think a key thing in our favour is that delph has successfully established himself as an England player within our squad - he is first choice in his position and therefore it is his to lose.... any change (including a move to a better team at the moment only runs the risk of jeopardising that..

could cardboard be the new reo-coker???

in his defense, I'm sure joe cole wants to be playing regularly for villa more than we want him to.... I have never got the sense that he is happy sitting around taking a pay check....