Foxy1

His best game in a Villa shirt by some distance. The sending off was silly but he showed passion and disappointment with an unjust scoreline that we were all feeling at the time.

Have to disagree I thought Hutton was excellent last night. Despite the result some pride was restored with that performance, if we can play like tgat every week we wilk finish top half no question.

So did we overestimate the current crop of young players or are they just being mismanaged? Do we just need more experience and quality around them? I'm starting to really wonder about them - Albrighton and Bannan are so inconsistent. Delph is a liability. Clark can't get a game despite the Collins and Dunne calamity show. Fonz flatters to deceive. Maybe we want them to succeed so much we can't see that they are not good enough?

Good all round player, always liked him ...Gives his all every single game too and cares about winning every pass, tackle and shot he makes.

Great stuff, could be 4 or 5. I put a cheeky tenner on a Villa win too - come on boys!!

The wee man was largely disappointing today, worked hard but couldn't really influence the game and made some poor passes.

Have to agree. This His skewed shot was horrendous but he really caused them problems and put himself about. I'm no fan of his but he deserves a bit of credit today.

Didn't Clark start against Man City? Hell of a game to throw him into and then not play him again. I really hope Clark comes in on Sunday for Collins or at least he plays Carlos there in his proper position.

It's a great point, our 'experinced' players treat the ball like a hot potato.

He needs to learn to go both ways, wants to check onto his left all the time and its obvious what he's going to do.

Based on...?

The premise of reducing the number of high earners rests on the ability of the manager not to recruit players on high salaries & long contracts who turn out to be shitter than expected.... surely this is always gonna happen The only way to mitigate is to buy younger players who will have some sell on value and are not at the top of their earning curve

In place of who though?

What a lovely player wee Barry is. Could be a star if he can bulk up a little bit and improve some of his decision making - will come with experience. A bit much to expect him to become a Silva or Mata but those are the players he should be studying and aspiring to.

Am very interested to see Richards response to this

very poor

QPR ?

I really hope one of Delphi or Bannan breaks through this season ....god knows we need them to

I think we've played pretty well The best thing is that we've looked solid and organised ....don't think that was ever the case last season

Brilliant news - this guy is genuine match winner ...really looking forward to seeing him in C&B

Just a point. Richard didn't say rubbish, so I don't know why you wrapped it in quotes. And while I'm in the pro-Given camp, I've seen plenty of others that aren't. The only thing I would say to Richard's point of preferring Foster is that if we do have a limited budget then the likely £12m fee for Foster would have affected us far more than the £60k p/w wages that Given will cost. So while Foster might have appeared a more ambitious move, I believe Given is the better goalkeeper and furthermore, he allows us to strengthen other parts of the squad more effectively, so for me it's a win-win. But I appreciate not everyone sees it like that. He did say rubbish ....I can't find the post (and maybe he edited it) but he definitely said it. I agree totallly with your post btw

Fantastic. Well said. +2 Totally agree - this statement should go on the VT home page ...that way some fans might start to understand the situation! In fact I'm going to put it in my sig

So are some Villa fans ! Why do you not want him? Would you have liked us to go for Casillas or a Gigi Buffon. think some fans just want to moan about anything they can No I am fairly realistic about which players would come to us actually, not sure how you could on the one hand be called negative and pessimistic and then on the other get accused of wanting Casillas / Buffon For Given I think he is too old and injury prone and I think his wages will be far too much in terms of restricting other potential signings. I would have much prefered Foster and thenhave him here for a number of years with a resale value at the end should we not have progressed. I think he would have been a realistic and more ambitious signing but there you go. You love going against the flow don't you Richard? No doubt you will be on here gloating as soon as Given picks up an injury ....theres nothing wrong with preferring Foster however to call Given a 'rubbish' signing is ludicrous although hardly surprising with your penchant for coming out with such 'shock' statements

Fingers crossed this is done soon, I will immediately feel better about the new season

He is a top top player ....better than Friedel IMO