rodigan

gabby was never a number one striker to lead the line... he needs space to get in behind the defence and is very much a confidence player... if only we could feed him into space, in a system that didn't have him as the sole attacking focus, we would be back to the gabby we know and love..

agree with this. The Club should at least be seen to run through its process, provided that it does, of course, come to the correct decision...

BOF, excellent post, eloquently put. At the end of the day, the tightening of fiscal measures that we have seen this season, had to happen. that made it very difficult for a new manager to succeed, regardless of how good they are. even if you take eck out of the equation, in all likelihood, we would have done worst than last season with the squad we had, and certainly would not have been in the 'pushing for champions league' situation that we were in the seasons before that. if we had a great manager, that anger would have turned to RL, and he would have had to face up to it, while still carrying out the measures that he needed to do to ensure the financial stability of the club. by appointing Eck, he created a focal point for the fan's ire - for long enough to complete what he needed to. I think that he will come to an arrangement in the next couple of weeks, where the club will agree to part company with eck. Eck will be paid well for dealing with the situation with a jutting jaw and a decent demeanour throughout - Randy will make sure of that, which I think is the correct thing to do. What we will then have will be a new manager, who will have the strong support of the fans, a grace period, and the ability to build a squad, where those remaining players are either cheap, or established first team players. He can then ensure that the bigger contracts go to those who are going to be certain starters, and not to squad players, that aren't going to regularly play. The new manager will mean that we will keep our marquee players, bent, ireland, zog for another season, and will hopefully be able to turn the squad that we have back into one playing attractive football. I, for one, am optimistic that the future looks bright... i may be in the minority.

and we only lost 13 games all season - despite the bucket of shite that we have had, if we could have actually scored a few goals, we'd have been happily mid table... ciaran, herdy, lichaj, baker have all held their own in the premier league. stevie ireland has actually become a presence at the club... expensive contracts have expired or only have a year to go... ian taylor has launched his ace new bluetooth iT7x headphones... and being the eternal optimist, i can sense we're going to get our club back...

don't forget HK for the soccer sevens next weekend. academy (ish) team, but always good to see the young stars coming through all 8 HK villa fans will be in their usual spot, being mistaken for Wet Spam fans.... I remember my lad age 4 a few years back, being asked if he wanted to mascot for wet spam by someone who couldn't tell the difference between good claret and blue and shite, and the look of utter dusgust from someone so little.... pure magic... always a great weekend for anyone in the region who fancies coming over, although i haven't seen the squad for this year yet... last year, by way of example, had, if i remember correctly, herd, lichaj, baker (although injured) siegrist, forrester, weimann, D johnson... bazza bannan, sharky, ciaran, nathan delfouneso, gary g have all been out on numerous occasions, in recent years, and if you go back a few more, gabby and gary cahill played... strong competition this year - chelski, newcastle, sunderland, wet spam, rangers, celtic, leicester... although none of them have won it anywhere near as many times as we have...

sure, but the 10 cut last year weren't all first team squad players...

we're all working on the heskey hat-trick dance, which will be performed by both villa and norwich fans when he delivers it to us as a farewell present on sunday.... nice touch for king carlos...

for example at the end of last season, villa released 10 players: NRC, Big John Carew, Robert Pires, Moustapha Salifou, Isaiah Osbourne, Harry Forrester, Arsenio Halfhuid, Durrell Berry, Ellis Deeney and Calum Flanagan I can see a similar sort of clear out this season, with the four big names (salifou, of course, nrc, carew and pires), being replaced by guzan, king carlos and emily, with a bunch of other fringe players, academy kids and people like andy marshall and jenas (who returns from loan). You also have collins, dunne and warnock with only 1 year left, although they will not be included in this 10, as they will need to be sold, as opposed to released. I also note that Lichaj, of all the kids, is the only one with only one year left on his contract - the lads certainly done enough for an extension... sign him up...

very few players came out of this season with their credibility enhanced, regardless of whether it was their second or tenth season... i think its best we just write this one off as a bad dream and look forward to next year with a clean slate all round...

don't want anything with a SHA connection... next manager will have a tough enough job as it is... lets not destroy his chances before he even starts...

and it still didn't have a single quote or attribution or anything to suggest any sort of substance...

wasn't that brad friedel?

i'd rather spend the money on a new pair of ian taylor's iT7x headphones...

at least we'd all still have his shirt to wear...

i have not seen a quote credited to anyone on any of the coverage of this. best i can see is that karl henry was on a list of potential players available on the cheap... utter journalistic rumourmongering...

i guess spearmint rhino is a lot more expensive than the rocket club...

i see big john carew has just been declared bankrupt... lets get him back on the cheap....

is the villa scouting setup independent of eck? ie were they in place before his arrival, or did he bring a number of scouts with him? just curious...

my concern, and its been pretty apparent to me in the last few games is that we don't have anyone with a large presence to hold up the ball for our other attacking players to play off... its an option we've always had, and fortunately the role was performed by big JC for the last few years, but with both him and heskey gone, we are relying on playing on the ground and getting behind defences, something that we have proven woefully inept at adapting to this year. i'm not saying for a second that i think that emile should stay. i'm just concerned that without him, we look awfully small up front.

anyone have any idea of the squad villa are bringing to hk for the soccer sevens?

the point in signing him up for another season would be to play him in position, as and when required...

look at the young players who have played up in the first team, or least in the squad this season, and its perfectly clear to me why the U18s struggled this season. albrighton bannan clark delfouneso lichaj herd gardner baker carruthers johnson they have had to come out of the reserves / academy team and move up, which has had a trickle down effect to the feeder teams. strong performances in the reserves and the nextgen series to me suggest that we are doing just fine in the academy system.

at this point, eck doesn't even have a job next season, much less a transfer kitty - until the club has told eck he has a job, and funds to spend, i couldn't care less who he is interested in. this is an absolute punt from the journo...

even without signing anyone in the summer that isn't already announced, if we were to line up with zoggy, ireland and holman feeding him, i can see bent scoring goals for fun next year. two real wingers and a genuine attacking midfielder is what he didn't have all season, playing in front of heskey, gabby, delph, petrov, herd, clark etc. if we get a new manager who can get us playing some attacking football again, i can see db9 smiling again at villa park...

as a theoretical exercise only, if he agreed to a one year deal for say gbp20k per week, would people want him to stay? he doesn't have a contract or one on the horizon, so perhaps it would take very little to keep him around for another year, but on the other hand, he is the only big striker we have. at that price, he would be a squad player that would be cheaper than replacing him. just asking...