bobzy

So you think that Holt was going to go straight from being a fat, unfit, unwanted Championship player to banging them in in the Premier League with no bedding in period? You are Paul Lambert and I claim my five pounds. Why would anybody want "experience" is that experience wasn't of any use? Bizarre. Holt isn't fat or unfit, though? Lambert has worked with him before, knows his strengths and presumably has seen him as decent cover whilst Kozak is out - maybe even with the added boost of being more vocal around our quiet, young squad. This experience is useful. It doesn't make Grant Holt a good player.

Agreed - and fair enough people saying "Grant Holt was a terrible loan signing", but you can't call a manager out for not following through on what he said... when he actually did. Well, that's a level of pedantry that would make even me blush. By "Premier League" experience, I think that most reasonable people would assume that it meant somebody who could come into the team and make some sort of positive impact straight away, without the need for a bedding in period. Ie NOT another foreign youth player, and not some fat has been either. I don't think Grant Holt has needed a bedding in period and he's certainly not a foreign youth player. Unless "experience" = "quality" in some version of the English language that I'm not aware of, Holt is a Premier League experienced player but not a Premier League quality player. I fail to see how that's being pedantic; it's two completely different things.

Yeah, of course. But we should get him.

Let's just spend £17m on Lukaku and play the 2 of them up top. Screw the rest of the transfer window

Agreed - and fair enough people saying "Grant Holt was a terrible loan signing", but you can't call a manager out for not following through on what he said... when he actually did.

You mean he said we needed Premiership experience and brought in a player (on loan, by the way) with... Premiership experience? Paul Lambert, you liar! He could have signed Mick Quinn in that case. In fact, there probably wouldn't be a lot to choose between the two. Yes, he could have - and he still wouldn't have lied.

I agree actually - I think we're safe now (on the basis that the bottom 3 won't pick up enough points) so why not give him some relatively pressure-free games? I'm not one for rushing youth into the side for the hell of it, but he seems to be teetering on the edge of the first team squad so might as well give him some game time.

You mean he said we needed Premiership experience and brought in a player (on loan, by the way) with... Premiership experience? Paul Lambert, you liar!

Depends what you see as the spine of the team I guess? I'm perfectly happy with Guzan/Vlaar/Delph/Benteke as "the spine" but there's a lack of quality outside of this that needs to be added in the summer.

This guy needs to play every game whilst we have Benteke up front. The only player who looks to cross every time he gets the ball, and there's more than a fair share of dangerous ones included.

His decision making is appalling but it's refreshing seeing someone at least run at the opposition.

His touch and composure when controlling a ball are crazy good.

It wasn't harsh to lose - the scoreline was harsh though. Completely different things. It should've been a 4-3 loss in all honesty. Shame we played Emile Heskey upfront.

That probably has something to do with Southampton being in League One four seasons ago.

**** lol at blaming the tactics

What annoys you about Lambert? Players making terrible individual decisions? Once a hater...

I have to question whether you have watched Liverpool at all this season reading this. I think the more prominent question is; Have you seen football? (given the range of comments across the threads) Clearly not as much as you as you must hold the correct view on everything, right? Way to misread dude

Not sure who overrates Welbeck, unless you like strikers who cant score. Henderson has been quality this season Seriously, this. Henderson has been absolutely superb for Liverpool this season and Welbeck is underrated if anything (I don't think he's that great at all, mind).

He's played in 18 league games this season (out of 30) and also in 7 Europa League games. I don't see why he'd move from a side pushing for CL qualification to come to Villa for the sake of an extra 10 games in a season?

You would surprise me if you came up with a realistic prediction.

You make is sound like you either have to play like West Ham or Barca, like there is nothing in between See bit in bold; I'm not stating that we wouldn't want to have more of the ball - just that it's irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. It's what you do when you have the ball that matters.

I'm pretty sure (although it would need checking by someone with time on their hands) that the team who averages most possession per game, most passes per game and the highest pass completion rate per game is sat in 14th place in the table. That's 4 positions and 5 points worse off than Villa. Whilst we'd obviously like to see more of the ball, let's not get too tied up in how important possession is overall.

Clark is much more positive in possession than Baker - Baker is a hoof monster. (As an aside, kudos to Bennett against Chelsea. He could've panicked in possession often but he didn't and always looked for a pass down the line). I think part of Lambert's thinking with Baker is that the better central defences (on the whole) have one comfortable on the ball centre back and one brave, head on the line centre back. Ferdinand/Vidic, Terry/Cahill, Laursen/Davies - if you have the right pairing, they often work well. Both Vlaar and Clark are comfortable enough on the ball but neither are particularly brave to the extent that Baker is. Can only assume this is why he's generally picked ahead of Clark. I like both Baker and Clark as backup/subs/occasional first team options by the way - can't see the need for another central defender.

I'd agree if he was actually our player... but he's not. If we can get Bennett both a) in good form and b ) in the team for a decent stretch, it may well do him/us the world of good. Obviously, I'd choose Bertrand over him if you gave me a simple "pick one!" scenario, but there's no harm in playing Bennett right now for me.

In fairness to Tim Howard, he's also been pretty awesome this season. Not a bad problem for the US to have.