rodigan

I always try to be positive in my view of a player and agree with the comment that it was the right time to substitute KEA. However, I am concerned when Sylla comes into play because, as I said after the Liverpool game, his pass completion rate appears horrible at the moment. Those last fifteen minutes were horrible last night - I had that sinking feeling that I had for much of last season that we would conspire to throw away a winning position - the fact that we didn't was fantastic, but I can't help feeling, we made it difficult for ourselves... The issue with Sylla coming on to close out games like this is that if he loses the ball in the positions we are in, there's a lot of tired legs around him having to pick up that slack.... Our closer as it were needs to be someone with among the highest pass completion rates and I don't get that feeling with Sylla on the pitch.... I'm not saying that we necessarily have anyone better, but the simple fact is that if that is all we have, bringing him on for the last fifteen minutes just gives me the sense of risk that I would rather avoid...

benteke's scores in last two games in a row... weimann back on the score sheet on sat and working well with tekkers again... vlaar back fit and tightening up the middle of defence.... bertrand joins and immediately offers stability at left back.... put all of these together, and this could be the start of a nice little run....

the one think that was glaring to me at the weekend was that sylla's pass completion rate appeared to be among the worst i've seen in ages... every time he made a pass it appeared to go awry... PL needs to work hard to rebuild a player who just looks massively out of sorts...

no brainer for him or chelsea... gives him a shop window to show his talents for the rest of the season, with a view to either forcing his way into the first team, or to attract bids for an upcoming english talented left back, as opposed to someone with 10 premier league appearances... great short term fix for us, and on the basis of saturday, certainly appears to have the potential to be a key performer for us, but not sure that we should kid ourselves that getting him in on loan shows anything serious about our ability to secure players of this nature on a permanent basis within our pay structure... notwithstanding, great bit of business by PL - well done, and welcome to the mighty villa, ryan...

out of interest, have any of the people who say that delfouneso's attitude is what lets him down actually met him? have spent time with him in HK when he was out here for the soccer sevens, and I never ever got a hint that his attitude was bad. I did get the impression that he was shy and that he was just happy to sit in the back and get on with things until game time, which was fine in my own humble opinion... not saying he's good enough for the villa, but am just curious as to why all these posters are sure that its his attitude that has let him down...

is there even one miniscule reason why AY would want to come back to Villa, as opposed to any of the other bottom 12 clubs? i can't even think of one...

to be clear, i do not for one second think that everything that lambert does or has done is right. i do however believe that what we are seeing is a strategy to strip the club back to its bare bones and then rebuild it from the bottom up - a three - five year plan as it were... the fact that this has been done over a number of windows i think is good, as to try and do it all in one go, would almost certainly have been disastrous... i think if we look forward say two seasons and if the club sticks with lambert as the man charged with executing this plan - we will see a squad of players, principally in their mid-20s, and several of which are in their late 20s (agbonlahor, guzan, vlaar, el ahmadi, new 'experienced' signings) most of whom have played in excess of 100 games together in the premier league.... we will lose some along the way, but will lose them at a substantial profit, which will allow us to 'go again' and bring in the next generation... those that we have bought or brought through the academy that don't make it, will disappear at little or no loss... we also have a number of players waiting their chance to continue to feed in from the bottom - carruthers, grealish, gardner, helenius, bowery... if i look at our fully fit squad now, i think we are comfortably a mid-table team (or at least not a relegated team) and could be so for the next four or five years without a dramatic reworking... if we add quality to that squad (both experienced and up and coming) in manageable amounts each window, we will get greater depth, while also improving the quality of our first XI - on this basis, i think the club has a sustainable and financially viable future in the premier league... i also think that the sad reality is, this future does not have villa challenging for the title, or realistically for the CL spots... to do that would require substantial outlays way beyond our revenues or the pockets of RL...

he could have bought more experienced players for sure, but lets say he was paying somewhere in the region of 2-3m per player and 15-25k per week - which experienced players could he have brought in last year (that would come and play for the villa) that would not have been met with derision here?

knows where the goal is and how to hit it, which is more than we can say for several of strike force at the moment.... looking at this lad, i was thinking of dwight gayle at palace, who was playing for peterborough last year and breaking our hearts this year... if he's cheap and doesn't stop us doing other things, then get him in... at the same time, i'd move bowery on and decide whether or not i was ever going to give helenius a fair crack...

briny, i'm not sure what i have to explain as it wasn't me who made the decision... perhaps it would have made sense to buy more experienced players - out of interest, how much would you have spent in terms of transfer fees and wages and for that, who do you think you would have gotten? however, if you want an opinion as to why he didn't buy more experienced players, i can think of a couple of possible reasons. firstly, with limited budget in terms of transfer fee and wages, signing on established premier league players would have priced him out of the numbers he needed to buy to build a squad, as opposed to simply a first XI. He may also have needed to show RL that he was able to focus on an agreed strategy of young hungry players with resale value that was likely to increase. Thirdly, he may well have backed his own ability to spot potential and bring out talent in the players that he had identified. fourthly, by buying young players not established in the premier league, he got players who were not going to come in with the attitude that they were bigger or better than AVFC or PL. finally, bringing in experienced players would have created an expectation that they would be playing in the starting XI. by bringing everyone in all with an equal amount to to prove in terms of ability to perform in the premier league, he started with a truly level playing field where he could see who was good enough and who wasn't... when you think of those who have starred over the last season and a half - am not sure many of them would have gotten the chance to do so at clubs with more established first XIs... i have no idea if any or all of these crossed PL's mind, but they all sort of make sense to me...

couple of points - the fact that lambert is now looking for one or two experienced players to me means nothing like admitting failure. if anything, i would say it was progress. when he came in, he needed to rebuild the squad within the constraints of a very tight budget with players with reasonable (low salaries) that would hold or improve their resale value, while seeing off a number of other players who were highly paid salary-wise, and were worth a fraction of what they were brought in for. we now have a squad full of young players hungry to make a name for themselves and likely to enhance value during their time at villa. that squad kept us up last season and started this season well, although has ryally struggled in the absence of vlaar, and the loss of form of weimann and benteke. from that base, PL is now able to look at his squad and say, how do i now improve this squad - one of the answers to that is bringing in one or two more 'experienced' players. bobzy got it bang on when he said that experience leads to consistency. what was killing us in many of our games was the odd stupid mistake, or the five or ten minute period when heads dropped. adding a couple of wise heads will help our younger players develop this over time played. another solution is to find that creative 'no 10' midfielder - another area of focus that he clearly has at the moment. a youth policy or buy cheap policy doesn't mean you are stuck with that forever - the team evolves and so should the manager's view of how to improve it... seems to me that is exactly what he is trying to do... my second point relates to the fact that we are currently shit and therefore lambert should go. if we look at the shining lights over the good parts that we played last season and this - benteke, delph, vlaar, westwood, lowton, bringing through weimann, baker, clark - all of those happened since lambert joined us. those players have all been good and shit at various stages, which really is what i expect of younger players - consistency is developing over time with some, and maybe not so much with others.... my view is simply that we need to acknowledge the good he has brought out of these players equally with the bad that they all show from time to time... PL - still the man for the job in my opinion...

by my reckoning, PL is the fifth longest standing premier league manager, and he hasn't even been in place for two years. that is an amazing stat to me, and i think is a massive reason why so many of the squads are underperforming. the vast majority of PL's starting XI had virtually no premier league experience at the start of his tenure. Despite that, he has put together a squad that are not in the relegation zone, that seem to have solidarity and are not heard whinging or moaning, that are developing a new leadership group with guzan, vlaar, gabby and ciaran, as well as players like delph and westwood stepping up. i absolutely loved gabby taking the whole squad over to the bench when he scored the other day - the players are still behind PL, and thats a big part of what a manager needs... our two key players - vlaar and benteke are out or struggling, and the results have gone against us, as a result. Take the key players out of any squad out of the top six, and i reckon you'd see the same - that is the problem with thin squads... i just don't know what a new manager would do, or want to do with our current squad - RL is not going to give anyone massive funds - he'll give some, but that's it... bearing that in mind, the question now becomes, who out there do we think would do a better job in both the long and short term with PL's existing squad? the only player that i think PL should be giving a run, and isn't is probably helenius... throwing in players like GG, or grealish, when we're on a run of getting spanked is just likely to break those guys as players.... Times are shit right now, and with arse and liverplop coming up, they're not going to get better quickly, but what i think PL has created is a base squad of players that he can enhance now player by player... none of the young players that he has bought in will be sold at much of a loss if they move on, and he certainly hasn't looked afraid to do so, if he thought it was necessary. lets see if he addresses some of the holes in this window - at least we can see where they are, and in my opinion, we're not many players away from being a good upper mid-table team... PL still has my support...

top bloke, trying his heart out for the claret and blue as he always has done... tells you something about our established starting XI when he's so noticeable on the pitch since he's come back from loan... particularly with the opinions of the majority of posters in this thread over the last six months... in my opinion, i would start him over weimann at the moment - on current form, he just looks more likely to do something that will lead to a goal...

like us all, i'm frustrated with results, but i must admit, i think randy is actually a better owner than many out there... he hasn't saddled us with debt, he hasn't made us play in new colours or change our name, we're still in the premier league, in fact, in aggregate terms, he's put his money where his mouth is since he bought the club - i suspect his net spend on the club (particularly if you compare it to his net worth) is actually far higher than most would give him credit for... in fairness to him, he doesn't know about football, but has had the grace to put people in place to run with that side of things. now, they may have been the wrong persons, and may have gotten us into a period of financial strife, but randy hasn't pulled the plug on us and panic sold the club... when i look at the owners destroying clubs around the league today, my heart goes out to their fans.... here's another way of looking at it... if randy were to up sticks and sell - what do you think the commitment of a new owner would need to be? i guess it would comprise the purchase fee to make randy whole, investment in players over say the next three years, infrastructure improvements, ability to cover substantial losses each year... the question then is where do you see that purchaser coming from and why would they buy a club like the villa? the UK, asia, the middle east, india?

we should only be looking at players who are worth a first team start in the second half of the season... our squad is full of players that may or may not be relevant in the future, but when i look at our bench on matchday, i don't see many players who i think will improve the 11 on the pitch... (helenius perhaps, excepted, although he is, as yet, relatively unproven in the PL)... i do think we need another CB that is going to be solid and not make stupid mistakes to partner / back up vlaar - the stats when he's not playing speak for themselves...

big fan of jack, as is my son, who has his shirt up on the wall here in hk... he ripped it up out here in may at the soccer sevens - head and shoulders above the rest of the players on show... great to hear he's found hs feet and is doing great... fwiw, in my opinion, if jack is staying out on loan then it makes sense for him to keep playing in a squad where he is performing well and is now an integral part of the team... he has done the hard work in persuading manager, players and fans that he deserves to be there - let him keep going and hopefully by the end of the season we'll be hearing similar things to other young players carving out reputations for themselves in the lower leagues... in a game where confidence is so important, it sounds like he's playing with buckets of it at the moment... perhaps we should benteke and weimann there for a couple of weeks... as far as making the leap up to the premier league from there, it didn't hold back messrs lowton and westwood...

of that academy crop, ciaran was always the leader and the wise head... great player who's developing nicely into a quality premier league defender... nice game again last night - good work fella!!!

looked fired up and hungry when he came on... immediately causing trouble leading to the first goal.... success and failure at this level is a real fine line - lets hope that a couple of weeks off gets him back to the right side of that line.... go on andi, lets get the goals in...

good that he's back.... marc is a top lad, both on and off the pitch.... model professional, and as always, i'd love him to have a long and successful career at the villa.... having seen tonev's performances for the last couple of weeks, am sure he's chomping at the bit for a run, and if he's turning in MOTM performances at Wigan, who were in the premier league last season, that's good enough for me.... welcome back and good luck, sharky...

a couple of thoughts.... for the first time in a couple of seasons, when we concede a goal, i am not filled with the sense of dread that that's it and we're about to concede a whole lot more... i get the sense that there has been a strategy since PL got here, and that we are not a year and a half into that plan... build a squad of young, hungry players, who are willing to bust a gut for the club and who's sell on value will almost always be higher than what we paid for them... i think he has achieved that - and the spirit among the squad seems fantastic now... when was the last time there was word of a bad egg among the squad or players being unhappy? even those who are not playing seem happy to chip in with positive comments... was looking at the list of current managers and their tenure at their respective clubs - PL actually ranks 7th... Arsene Wenger is first at seventeen years, and Alan Pardew is 2nd at less than three years... the league is in an era or rapid turnover of new managers, the degree of which was actually surprising to me.... what was noticable to me from that list was that there were very few managers among our peers that i can say have done a better job than PL has, pochetinno has done very well, pardew appears to be turning things around as he approaches his third year, steve clarke at west brom and maybe laudrup, although i am not sure whether this season's perfornamces suggests that swansea outperformed last season on the back of a stunning season by michu... beyond those clarke, i am not overly impressed by anyone else at these clubs that we have seen since PL came on board: hughton jol hughes di canio pulis allardyce holloway redknapp mcdermott finally, i would note that last year, our turnaround was driven to a massive degree by one talismanic player with very broad belgian shoulders carrying the team for large parts of the season, much like michu did for swansea... this season, that has hardly been the case - villa have found a way to keep racking up the points even when the beast is not firing on all cylinderes or even not on the pitch at all!!! i'm happy with how things are progressing and happy with PL at the helm of the club...

bringing on weimann and gabby, recereated a proven attacking midfield 3 that has been the core of our success over the last six months, with each player adding their part and playing off the other one.... makes absolute sense to me to recreate that three, notwithstanding that individually, libor may have been playing better than benteke... at this stage, its not really a case of who is the better of the two. benteke is the incumbent in the no 1 position and last season made the position his own, and libor will need to take his chances and consistently put in better performances to ahve a chance of dislodging benteke. if he gets to that position, he will have to keep his game at a sufficiently high level to keep his starting place... i, for one, would be thrilled if the competition was for who is the better player, rather than who is the least bad player... two big strikers playing out of their skin would be a great luxury to have...

i think lambert would rather not have played any of the three subs tonight if he could have gotten away with it... he put out a team that had beaten cardiff before the break, who are not dissimilar in quality to the baggies.... if we'd been ahead or the game was tight, we would have seen less of those three almost certainly, as he would have had the luxury of giving them another week to build up match fitness.... as it was we were in dire straits and he had the balls to put it all on the line and bring all three in with more than half an hour to go... if any of them had broken down, we would have been playing with ten men.... as far as it making the difference if we had started those three, i don't actually think any of them being on the pitch would have prevented either of the two goals, and at that point, we'd have been bringing on tonev, bowery and kozak to try and get us back in the game after an hour.... i have no issues at all with his decision making last night.... good point and bring on sunderland...

the sooner mr moon returns to fitness the better.... no disrespect to ciaran, but he should be allowed to play in his natural position - we will be stronger with a left back playing in that position....

couple of weeks off to get his head straight and has come back and been part of the turn around of our fortunes... hopefully that gets him playing with confidence again, and we start seeing good andi back.... nice assist for the first goal will have done him lots of good....

think he goes about his business without standing out... as i watch him more closely in games, am liking his contribution more and more... think he's much better than last season and seems to be playing with confidence, which is not something we can say about a number of the youngsters... nice goal at a key time...