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It is weird that trend for 'racing seats' in dugouts that started with the recarro seats about 7ish years ago. All seems a bit American football to me, but I don't suppose it makes any real difference, I just preferred the old proper benches. Any way, I'd love a win today, would take us to 11th I think, ahead of everton and stoke. It seems like we always give struggling teams a way back instead of capitalising on their poor form. Hopefully a couple of goals and a clean sheet though.

Cheers. I really hope we get to see Ron in claret and blue again, I know a few people who are resigned to him going in Jan and him either being injured until then or left out of the side, but I hope that's not the case. From the press release it sounds like he will be back sooner rather than later, I assume he will displace Clark from the side, rather than okore, but we'll see. We could be sitting on the back of three straight clean sheets by the time he's back (fingers crossed), but I'd expect him to regain his place pretty easily.

I think this is the probable starting XI: Gooooz Hutton Okore Clarke Aly Sanchez Westwood Clevs Gabby N'zog Benteke If it was me I'd be tempted to start Grealish for N'Zog, but I don't think that'll happen. What's the ETA for Senderos to be fit?

Hahahaha…..What a load of bullsh1t! I doubt Lambert would even have the balls to claim any credit for Huttons form. FFS he left him out of the squad for 2 seasons for no reason. He never gave the lad a chance even when he played well on loan and for Scotland. If anything the form of Hutton actually highlights how poor a judge of a player Lambert is. What an intellegent, diplomatic and polite way of disagreeing with my viewpoint. The same argument has been had roughly a million times on VT now, so I'm not going to bother here. But I will say our defence is demonstrably better this year, and that is evidenced in the stats. Anyway thanks for that, made my day. Apologies, did not mean to cause offence. We can agree that Huttons form this season has been one of the few positives. I should be in a much better mood seen as we finally won a game and are up to 12th in the table. Who knows if Cole didn’t go off injured we might have played some entertaining football. No worries. I've been buoyed by our league position too. It is a shame about Cole, I sort of expected it when we signed him, but I didn't expect this many injuries.

Hahahaha…..What a load of bullsh1t! I doubt Lambert would even have the balls to claim any credit for Huttons form. FFS he left him out of the squad for 2 seasons for no reason. He never gave the lad a chance even when he played well on loan and for Scotland. If anything the form of Hutton actually highlights how poor a judge of a player Lambert is. What an intellegent, diplomatic and polite way of disagreeing with my viewpoint. The same argument has been had roughly a million times on VT now, so I'm not going to bother here. But I will say our defence is demonstrably better this year, and that is evidenced in the stats. Anyway thanks for that, made my day.

If we ever needed an example of the influence of a manager on a player; its Alan Hutton. Only saw highlights of yesterday, but he played really well. Once Vlaar and Senderlols is back, or even just one of them to play with Okore or Clark then out back 4 is one of our strongest assets... Who'd have thought that would be possible last season, or the season before that.

Oh god, Richardson on so time to concede

Any chance of us sneaking another goal?

Boxing, Homer Simpson style. One of the best simpsons episodes, love that one. How are we looking now?

Joe Cole hamstring injury confirmed

Good goal? Any GIF's knocking about yet!?

Ahhh **** yes! Benteke, love that man.

Yes! This is bad even by our standards Oh god. It's not festive period 12/13 again is it!?

Can't watch the game, is it as bad as many are describing? I thought we'd be able to get a bit of service to the big man against palace.

Come on Villa. 2-1 with Benteke and gabby to score.

Ha! You'd think that would've encouraging, but we do have a habit of helping teams out of tough patches. Not today though, utv.

Nice touch from Joe Cole, and some of the other lads, to shake the lads hand, always good to see players interact with fans.

Everton haven't got the fire power Man City have got, so I can't see this being 90mins of frantic defending (not to do our lads down, we did have some decent chances, and looked comfortable for some periods), but they will give us some problems I think. I would love a win here, it would really help us get over the 'big' teams we struggled against. Realistically, I do think we could grab a win, but I doubt a clean sheet so might have to score 2. 1-2 villa win I reckon. Come on VILLA!

He was a unused sub for Denmark y'day, still gets their number 4 shirt though, so surely just a matter of time before he's back.

Aha! Apologies, thought I was in the Okore thread.

Unused sub for Denmark.

Just to give us a chance, which language are you speaking in? Welcome to the painful world of VT punathons! Be afraid..be very afraid. Guilty. It was a terrible pun, barely even a pun really. I asked the missus if it was funny and she didn't understand it, so thought that was a seal of approval. Is he in the squad for Belgium tonight?

It certainly has Benteke him a while to heal...

Before the game I expected a loss, but at 80mins 0-0 it seemed like a draw was fair and that we'd hold on, so I am a bit gutted by the loss. But we didn't play badly, just got beaten by a better team. Onwards and upwards though, bring on Everton, we'll seriously give them a game.

****.