KMitch

Didn't we have a buyout clause for him... Or was it only if we loaned Cleverley and two others...? Can someone please clarify if we can loan him still, considering we already had Cleverley on loan last season??????

Pretty harsh critique considering he's 19. If he was 22-23 you'd have doubts. All the best attacking players in the world got a lot of stick for being selfish and arrogant on the pitch when they were at that age. You can teach someone to make better decisions, but you can't teach the raw talent this kid has in abundance. Suarez has a reputation of being a selfish player, but in his last season at Liverpool, he was probably the most unselfish striker I've ever seen, and he set up a lot of goals. Look at Ronaldo at Madrid. He arrived at Man United, a selfish kid who loved doing a ridiculous amount of step overs before ballooning a shot well over the bar. He's developed into the greatest player on the planet, who is another fantastic team player. I'm not comparing Adama to being as good as these two, but he could be, if he works hard enough. I'm just happy that in the summer when we've sold our arguably best player in the past 20 years, we've signed a player who has the potential to be even better. UTV!!!

Welcome, Adama! Adebayor on a deadline day loan and this will round out the greatest transfer window ever for us.

I'm sorry, but Gabby is absolutely abysmal. He is one of the main reasons we've been so poor over the past few seasons. He's made 64 League appearances in the past 2 seasons and has only scored 10 goals and recorded 6 assists during that time. That's a goal or an assist every 4 appearances, which is awful for a forward or a winger. His first touch and dribbling ability is so poor, that I think the average central defender in the league is pretty much on par with Gabby's ability. He doesn't have any tools or tricks to call upon in his locker other than his speed and above average strength. His finishing ability is poor to average at best, and he makes the wrong decision, more often than not. His workrate is hilariously bad. He'll make a brief effort to chase down loose balls and hassle defenders at the start of a match, but after he gets called for a few fouls, he stops working all together. The worst part is that he's now our highest paid player now that we've lost Bent, Benteke, Given, and Delph, and his wages in now way reflect his contribution to the team. There is no way we'll be able to offload him to another club. Even Sunderland, and their squad of overrated English one trick ponies, wouldn't touch him with a 10 ft pole. The Championship is his level, but no team at that level can afford to match his 65k a week salary. Here is a chart of how I see his performances. 1 in 10 games - Stormer: He's unplayable. Everything falls into place for him and he can run by defenders with the ball and put the ball in the net with ease. Multiple goals/assists. 1 in 10 games - Good: He pushes our attack forward and draws defenders out into making mistakes. Either logs an assist or a goal. 2 in 10 games - Average: He chases down balls, sometimes gets into good positions, and occasionally, he'll get a goal or an assist by a complete fluke or a defensive error. 4 in 10 games - Poor: Disappears for long stretches in the match. When he does get the ball, he runs into multiple defenders and loses possession. Gets frustrated, and doesn't work to get the ball back or to make forward runs. He might make one good pass or makes it through on goal a game, but will bottle it more often than not. 2 in 10 games - Abysmal: Completely anonymous on the pitch. Touches the ball maybe 1-2s a match and does nothing to help the team. Basically playing down a man. In 8/10 games, you're more likely to get a poor showing from "Mr. Aston Villa" than you are to get an average performance, and his average isn't good enough for us. He's the first person on the teamsheet I'd drop, if I was Tim Sherwood. At his very best, Gabby should be nothing more than an impact sub, to only be used when we need someone to run at tired defenses in the last 15 minutes of a match. I used to be a huge fan of his in the MON era. His hat trick against Man City is still one of my favorite Villa memories of all time, and I thought he was going to be a top top player for both the Villa and England after that game. Unfortunately, he's no longer that young, hungry, unknown player who just wants to play for his club anymore. He's been slacking and just going through the motions to collect a paycheck for over 5 years now. If he wasn't a Villa supporter, we would have been calling for his head a long time ago. I hope Sherwood can get him to find that desire to win again, but I think it's long gone now, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

lol... Writing Crespo off and he hasn't kicked a ball for us more than 10 minutes in a preseason game... Typical VillaTalk... Adapting to the English game will take some time. One thing that stuck out to me about him during his very very brief cameo for us, was that he muscled off the ball twice by an aggressive Forest player and Crespo gave up thinking he'd been fouled. In Spain, they would have been called fouls, but not in England. He'll hopefully adapt quickly, but he might take a while to adjust. Arsene Wenger has stated many times that it takes around a year for foreign players to fully adapt to English football, both on and off the field. Writing off any of our new signings at this stage is incredibly stupid.

As an American "Free Agent" fan, who started supporting the Villa 9 years ago, I love reading stories like this. I regularly get sneered and laughed at by glory hunter Sky 5/Madrid/Barca fans for supporting such an "awful" team, but they can't even name their team's entire starting 11 or name their club's legends.

Craig Gordon. What about Willian? He was at Spurs undergoing a medical when Mourinho called. Willian said "See ya!", packed it up, and went over to Stamford Bridge. I loved laughing at all the delusional outraged Spurs fans who were angry at the player for disrespecting their great club by turning them down to play for the best manager in the world, at the moment.

Solid defender, awful going forward. 99% of his crosses didn't even make it past his mark, let alone the first man in the box. Whenever he'd go forward with the ball last season, I'd say to myself "Yep, that cross is going to be blocked for a throw in..." Hopefully returning to Porto will get him back to his roots and he can learn how to cross a ball again.

Do we? I seem to remember Barry and Petrov getting a lot of stick for passing 'soidewayyyys'. lol... Petrov was slated by a lot of fans by being a "crab" with no stamina or pace before the discovery of his leukemia. I don't remember Barry getting a lot of stick at CM, but he certainly got a quite a bit on the left and in defense.

Am I the only one who thinks Richards playing central is an experiment until Okore comes back from injury? If he plays well, Okore will have to bide his time and prove in training he is the better option. If Richards continues to make the same schoolboy errors he's made all preseason, he'll lose his spot to Okore, and I can see Sherwood pushing him out wide and telling him he has to earn the center back spot again. Richards - Okore - Clark - Amavi This defense looks beastly to me. Clark and Okore were our top performers last season, according to WhoScored, and I have to agree. They looked extremely solid together and were only let down by the awful Lambert "possession" system. IMO, the defense only looks bad because Hutton is out of position too often, Richards can't mark or position himself, and we don't have a starting goalkeeper in the net. Bring Okore and Guzan back into the lineup, and it's very strong. I'm more worried about a Right Winger/Inside Forward. I love Bacuna as a squad player, but I think he lacks the pace and guile to be a starter on the right. He was fantastic at right back last season because he was afforded the space to whip in an early cross for Benteke to get his head on (Same as Lowton in his first season for us), but he's struggled to make an impact all preseason when he's further upfield. N'Zogbia is useless and I'd rather play Gil as a number 10 and Sinclair & Grealish on the left. The right is where I see us being very weak.

I'd like to see what Lambert can do with a bigger budget. As much as everyone wants to write off his signings, I happen to think he is, or has, a brilliant scout and I'm not writing off any one of his buys yet. Look at how bad KEA, Vlaar, and especially Bennett were last season. They look like different players all together, and I think we're only 3-4 quality players away from being a top 8 side. I think Lambert will be the new David Moyes, a great scout and team builder, but a frustrating tactician and man manager.

If it is Micky Arison, we'll finally have a great owner. He's transformed the Miami Heat into the best team in the NBA, knocking the Lakers off the throne and building a legendary team of all stars in the process. Granted, haters will claim that the three star players of the Heat (James, Wade, & Bosh) were the ones who orchestrated the move and Miami just happened to be the club they decided to meet up at, but nevertheless, this Miami Heat team is one of the best of all time in the history of the NBA. I'd be very very very happy if he bought Villa, or at least helped provide investment.

Lucked out there...

Vlaar charging forward like Beckenbauer... lol... At least we're pushing forward in this half...

This half personifies my frustration with Lambert, and I'm one of his biggest supporters. 5-3-2 relies upon the fullbacks bombing forward EVERY single attack to provide width, but they aren't doing this because they're too worried about the counterattack from Puncheon and Bolasie. Gabby and Holt are static up front, and our three midfielders don't have anyone to pass to, so we aimlessly pass the ball around the midfield and the back line, before someone hoofs the ball up to the front two and we lose possession. Need to bring on Albrighton in the second half and switch our formation in order to get something from this. It's almost McLeish-like, the way we're set up not to lose, as opposed to at least trying to have a go at them.

I thought he defended alright, but his passing was atrocious. He'd win the ball, then immediately put Baker under pressure or pass the ball straight back to Fulham in a dangerous position. He seemed extremely lazy and lacked confidence. It seemed as if he just tried to get rid of the ball as soon as possible, without taking the time to make a good decision. I was glad he was subbed off, as Dejagah was giving him a very hard time in the second half and his mistakes would have ended up costing us a goal or two.

I didn't understand all the flack he got last season with Vlaar. Wenger has been quoted in the past as saying that foreign players need a full season to adjust to the Premier League, and KEA has proved this. Outstanding workrate, relentless pressing, and a good tackler. He'd be a top top player if he had a better passing ability and shot, but he is still an important part of the team. I'd still like to see him switch roles with Westwood for a few games, as I feel his passing is his weakest aspect of his game, but Westwood's strongest and we rarely get to see it, when he's playing the holding role.

Gutted... More disappointed that he'll miss the World Cup, but the good news is that he'll be with us next season. I wish him well in his recovery and I hope he'll be fit in time for next season.

Rumor going around is that Gabby will miss the Fulham match this weekend. Holt will probably get the nod, but am I the only one looking forward to see what he can do for us? I liked him when he was at Norwich. Big, strong, nowhere near as slow as everyone made him out to be, and had good touch and vision for a big man. Granted, he has looked a bit off pace in his brief cameos for us so far, but he hadn't really played a game since the start of the season for Wigan. I can see him bagging 2-3 goals for us to finish the season out and will justify Lambert's decision to bring him here to back up Benteke.

I can't watch this garbage anymore.

ANOTHER ONE! COME ON BENTEKE!

What a chance! How did he miss that?

Completely biased Manc commentary here in the States. Saying Villa needs to start getting yellow cards because we are "Destroying the game", Manchester United are "dominating" the match, Westwood's free kick was complete luck and we are "lucky" to be in the game. Lol. To be honest, if it wasn't for that questionable penalty, we'd go into halftime two poorly playing, evenly matched teams. Lots of mistakes all over the pitch from both sides. What a free kick by Westy, though.

Westwood has been out best player this half and he gets subbed off? Sylla has been off the pace all game. Lol

Westwood and Delph seem to be the only ones trying to drive us forward.