Harry

Smith being a Villa fan bought a lot of goodwill but that has dried up I think. He has to be judged on his record which is not good enough.

Just now, MotoMkali said:

Clear shirt pull as Ings is stepping towards the ball. Obviously a pen much more than the Lacazette one. 

And you think this ref will give us a penalty?

My tip 5-0

Clueless manager, clueless players.

So its going really well!

Provocative post - Mings is our worst CB.

My top tip - Smith will not be our manager come the end of the season. Much as I like him he is out of his depth.

Also the Arsenal wank fest from the Sky commentators is pretty annoying

Utter shambles. How many games do we have to lose for Smith to work out that five at the back does not work!

Just now, smg said:

I know , I was just interested to see the names that came up.

You and me both!

1 hour ago, smg said:

it would would appear that there is a growing feeling that our manager is not up to the job and plenty are willing to explain in detail why this is the case.. Would anyone like to suggest who is available to take over and move us towards the top 6. 

That normally leads to ridiculous ungettable suggestions or managers most people have never heard of.

I think we were poor for most of the game in truth but Wolves were worse. We created some decent chances but squandered them. In the final quarter of the game we sat way too deep and just invited them to come forward. The defending for their first two goals was pub team at best. All game we lost possession way too easily and i lost count of the times we passed the ball directly to one of their players. The three at the back system does not work as it effectively relies on Cash and Targett being the wide attacking threat which is not either players strong point.

The substitutions were catastrophic errors of judgement by Smith done, I'm sure, in the belief that the game was won. I think it would have been better to have take a striker off rather than weaken the midfield.  Having said that the loss was largely down to the mental strength of the players. As soon as they scored I said to my son they will get another which they duly did. Then to concede a free kick right at the end in front of goal was just plain stupid. We just gifted them the points.

The team lacks consistency and that needs to be sorted. I'm, definitely not in the Smith out camp but a few results like today will put a lot of pressure on him.

Very poor performance. We desperately need a midfield enforcer - to be honest we have needed one for years - as we continue to have a powder puff midfield for too many games.

More worrying for me was seeing Deano outsmarted again by manager with a plan. Yet again we made the substitutions too late and the team was set up all wrong from the start. Lots of possession but no attacking intent

If we have a few performances like this I suspect the owners will not hesitate to make the necessary change. No cause for panic at the moment but some posts on here are borderline hysterical.

2 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Jack is injury Prone.  4 years ago missed half a season although was a freak injury. 3 seasons ago missed 3 months. 2 seasons ago he was ok. Last season we all know what happened. 
 

I still think 100m is great business.

As someone on Twitter said: never played in Europe, never scored a goal for England and had long injury layoffs for the past two seasons. £100m is superb business. Makes Ings look like a bargain.

15 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

Worst signing in the club's history? I'm leaning towards yes. 

Makes no sense at all, injury prone, old and not needed in any way

There really is no pleasing some people. Presumably the same applies to Messi.

Just now, meregreen said:

Great signing. Think there’ll be a couple more to come. We might be losing Jack, but the squad could well be a lot more potent this season.

Which is what I was saying on the JG thread. 

This is how you spend £100m well - not all on Danny obviously!

7 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

If the club knew he wanted out, this is all fair criticism. 

There are a few possibilities, I think

• We knew he wanted to go, and we mishandled it enormously.
• He told us he'd stay and then backtracked, in which case he's a dickhead, but the club didn't want to hold him to ransom when we had a good offer
• He was on the fence, and we gave him some time off to make up his mind, which is...nice, but slightly ill-judged?

 

If he was in two minds I suspect his head was turned at the Euros. Nothing to stop any Man City player tapping him up.

As I said in a post yesterday much as I hate MC, as they stand for everything wrong in football at the moment, footballers have a short career and I don’t blame JG for wanting to win trophies and earn much more money.

All this talk of booing him and he’s a snake is pathetic. He stayed with us through a very difficult period for the club and let’s not forget Spurs were trying to get for £15m not many years ago so he could I guess have pushed through a transfer then. I thought he would go next season not this but so be it. Just because he plays for the club he supports does not mean he has to commit his entire career to Villa.

We need as a club to remove our reliance on one player and £100m really helps in building a much better squad to do that. I suspect that the club have known this was a likely outcome hence the signings we have made and are looking to make. 

2 minutes ago, MessiWillSignForVilla said:

Oh no, a football agency set up companies for their client that is probably just something to do with sponsorships or image rights.

Exactly - move on no news here.

I check in on this thread a couple of times a day and the only conclusion I can safely draw is no one knows anything.

As I am typing this I have 21+ unread replies and increasing as. Based on no ITK whatsoever I think he will be gone and to be honest if I was him I would go too. We can all get dewy eyed about the fact he supports Villa but every footballer has a short career and wants to win trophies and Jack is no different. Whatever plans our owners have, have to be compared to where City are today which is miles ahead of us, much as I grit my teeth writing that, as for me they represent every single thing wrong with football.

The various ITKs on social media know jack sh*t about what's going on (no pun intended!) as do various VT posters who say they have a source but can't tell us who that is. Sorry if that offends but that's my view.

The real debate should be how we spend the money we get for him.

15 minutes ago, StanBalaban said:

Just had a WhatsApp from Franny Lee's son saying £68m + Gabriel Jesus going to Villa is a done deal. 

Not sure if this is a joke. Frannys Lee's son???

3 minutes ago, ramshackler said:

It’s an incredibly difficult , complex situation.

 
the snake comments are ridiculous. Jack has shown tremendous loyalty to us and surely we can all accept (however begrudgingly) that a player of his talents deserves to test himself at the highest level. He doesn’t have many years left until he is at his peak so it’s not like he is 21 and can just give us a few years.

 

on the other side of it, we are and have been for many years been over reliant on Jack. That isn’t healthy for the club, particularly when he does miss on average a third of every season. He has questionable injury history and an injury to an area which often turns out to be chronic (I genuinely believe there is an issue with the shins with recurrent stress fractures) the club have done everything to down play it each time it’s occurred but on each occasion it’s been 3/4 months out.

 

£100 million for a 26 year old with that kind of injury history (with a currently managed problem) doesn’t seem like such a bad deal. We have to avoid getting dragged in by the romantics of one of our own. As hard as that is to say. Jack literally gave me my love back of club after a torturous ten years. 
 

we currently have an exceptional set up and recruitment team, better than we have ever had. If we get £100 million we can trust it will be reinvested well and in other areas of the team to improve the overall quality of the squad and becoming less reliant on one player.

 

as much as it breaks my heart to say it, now is probably the best time to do it, his shin issue is still being managed and if he has another period out his value will go down and we will have another huge drop off in form. 
 

I think in a strange way it may be in our best interests (and probably Jack’s) that if a few can be agreed we both part ways. We end up with a stronger more competitive and consistent side full of young hungry and valuable assets, he goes on to show just how brilliant he is.

 

I just hope we invest the money well in young hungry players and not waste half of it on JWP!!

Spot on! If he goes he goes. A great player and a loss for us but £100m plus for him is a good deal and if we spend that money well we will have a better team.

I'd pony up the money for Tammy. He's a good lad with a great attitude.

Can anyone see Wesley scoring 15 goals this season?

£40m is however a tad optimistic as a price. I suspect Chelsea are keen to sell him to finance more marque signings so there may be a middle ground.

6 minutes ago, nick76 said:

I agree I know no more than anybody else but his agent would be spreading about like wildfire and we would’ve heard about it.  His agent can’t keep his mouth shut and he obviously wants Jack to move to make money.  Given we havent heard it, that’s a good sign there isn’t one.

I think City are just using their local journalists to create this unstableness like many big clubs have done over the decades to get players out of smaller clubs.  His agent is probably doing the same because that’s just who he is.

As you say, time will tell.

Agreed its a win /win for his agent. Stirs it up with a Man City move so he gets his money whether Jack signs a new contract or moves to them.