BG_Villa_Fan

coz it was a player who would add more options to what was always a hot and cold attack (granted in previous times its been that carew was injured more than out of form - but i doubt theres ANYONE on here who wouldnt have thought we were far better equipped with a carew/bent/agbonlahor front three, than just the 2 we have right now)

You're right, of course, but I'm sure Randy is also far better equipped being 15M richer. You see, the difference of having someone like Bent in the squad is not the difference between finishing 6th or 4th, more likely , at best, it'd be the difference between finishing 7th or 6th, which is not worth the investment.

That is, if Harry was into doing business with us at all.

I think people are just too impatient and unrealistic in their expectations.

I wonder where these expectations come from? Since we last won the league, we've had a couple of decent 2nd place finishes, other than that we've generally been around the top 8, but also had a relegation and a few low-mid table finishes. O'Neill, by Villa's recent standards, is doing an above average job. Then consider that he's also come to us in the era where any team not playing regular champions league football is massively handicapped from the off, so I'd say he's doing a great job.

I can't remember too much of the football we played before Taylor's first reign, and I was too young to make a judgment on it anyway. But apart from Big Ron's team, most of the recent sides have played some pretty dire stuff a lot of the time - DOL was the worst I've seen, Gregory and Little's sides were great on their day but too often sent me to sleep and both really struggled to score goals. My enduring memory is endless low scoring draws. By Villa standards, I'd say O'Neill's team fit right into expectations.

Basically, based on the size of our club and resources and the current benefits enjoyed by the CL clubs, I would expect Villa to be competing regularly in the top 8, anything better would be something special. I don't agree with everything he does, but I think O'Neill is doing as well as can be expected.

My thoughts exactly.

Where exactly does this 'spent too much to not be in top 4' approach comes from? We haven't spent nearly as much as the top 4 clubs, and we've started from a much lower base to begin with. Let's list the team with the most expensive MON signings ( rough numbers ) :

Friedel - 3M

Young - 6M

Cuellar - 8M

Davies - 10M

Warnck - 7M

Young - 10M

Milner - 12M

Petrov - 7M

NRC - 8M

Carew - 6M ( swap deal, assumed price )

Heskey - 3M ( instead of Gabby )

A grand total of about 80 mil. Meanhile, let's take Man C, for example :

Robinho - 35M

Tevez - 25M

Lescott - 24M

...enough, that's already more than our most expensive 11 in 3 players. Just about a year ago Man U spent a fortune on two totally unproven serbian youngsters ( about 17 million if i remember correctly ). And I'm not even going to start talking about wages because we might be in the bottom half of the Premiership table in that department. So how come people would accuse the manager of not being good enough to take us into top 4, when he has to work on a much much smaller budget, and has started from a ridiculously low point to boot, compared to these teams.

I think people are just too impatient and unrealistic in their expectations.

As far as having anything good to say about anyone at the Villa, well, the ball boys do a good job. :winkold: Concerning our manager and present squad, nope!

Yea, thought so. Is it safe to conclude that you've never had anything good to say about any Villa squad and manager you've watched?

No, is the answer to your question. Wouldn't be a Villa fan for some 40 years and counting if i thought that.

Rather than spending the next 20 minutes telling you which Villa squad and managers i did admire, please refer to AlienVillan's post!

True martyrs, the two of you. I've always enjoyed being a Villa fan, there's more to it than winning every weekend. The need to slag off everyone from your supposedly favorite team is alien to me, but fair enough.

There are more than just a few fans on the internet who don't like him very much, the majority on here are happy clappers aswell so they're always going to say stay because they never take their claret and blue tinted specs off.

How ironic, words escape me.

As far as having anything good to say about anyone at the Villa, well, the ball boys do a good job. :winkold: Concerning our manager and present squad, nope!

Yea, thought so. Is it safe to conclude that you've never had anything good to say about any Villa squad and manager you've watched?

Our squad is better than Liverpool's squad without Torres and Gerrard. Those two are the difference for them. If we had them we'd be challenging for the league.

But that is a massive "if". They are fabulous players.

What a load of bollocks 'Stevo.' We would be in the same predicament as Liverpool, in the top four, but no chance of winning the league, as our present squad is just as bad as Liverpool's. There's is maybe slightly better as they have Benayoun, Mascherano, Johnson, Carragher and Kuyt. We have, well, imm, Young and thats it. The rest of our players come under the headline, Distinctly Average!

So, you only rate Young,yet in the thread about selling Young you said :

'I would sell him for less than 24m. He is too limited in his play and too easy to stop!'

Surely a contradiction. Do you actually have anything good to say about anyone at the Villa?

Well...we had Barry...that didn't do anything....

IMO this was because we didn't use him properly and Citeh aren't either. Again, IMO, I would love to see Barry in a Plop type set up with a DCM (Mascherano/Essien type) plus an attacking CM (Gerrard or Lampard type) with GB as the playmaker (Alonso or Pirlo type).

I think that this would be the optimal formation for Gareth.

This is not the optimal, this is the only position he thrives in. He's nowhere near the level of Gerrard, Torres, Alonoso, etc.

Southgate was the best player. Southgate and Laursen would be the best pair. Id give Southgate the captains armband too.

agreed Voted for Southers.

Laursen would be my 2nd pick

Totally agree and said much the same earlier in the thread.

Southgate comes second only to McGrath in the list of defenders I've seen in our colours, superb player.

yep.

I think the fact that it looks like he isn't going to make it into the first 11 in our team is a sad indictment on us fans.

Before condemning all Villa fans take a look at what the poll is about. I doubt you would have liked Southgate's contributions to Villa in this decade.

Mellberg represents the 00's for Villa,and not just the defensive line. If not for him we would have been in the fizzy pop league. Excellent and underrated player due to the cack he was surrounded with. True legend.

Milner works very hard and I think he's wonderful, but Ash is a match winner and he's shining in our team because we're severely lacking the type of players who make things happen out of nowhere. I'd compare Milner to Barry - both excellent players, who work hard and help a team, but then you need players like Ash to work their magic.

Bottomline, there are way more players who work hard than players who are match winners.

I'd never even consider changing the colours, we're the original claret and blue, however, the new badge is terrible.

He was playing excellently, he had scored 24 goals one season and had scored 16 before GT MkII turned up and bought that waste of space Crouch, dropped JPA, whilst Crouch was being shit, JPA lost fitness, got injured and never really recovered.

JPA would have IMO been one of our best strikers ever, had GT MkII not ruined his previous reputation (GT's) and come back to manage Villa. GT really has gone down to numpty level, by neqarly relegating us and **** up JPA's career, by replacing him with Rodney Trotter.

Agree with most of this bar the extreme hatred towards Crouch. Crouch should of been bought and just used in the reserves until he was ready for Premiership football at a big club IMO.

But the team should of been built around Juan Pablo, the best thing DOL did was notice this and get him back to somehwere near his best.

The man was class and could of been playing in the champions league, we **** his career up and he never complained - and was just a gentleman about it.

The same goes for Mellberg, he had 2-3 seasons where he could of been playing in the champions league when we looked like doing absolutely **** all, but thats another topic.

I wish Juan was still here, even if it was just as cover - but I guess after his loyal service he couldnt be denied the chance for one last pay day and to be a hero and score regular goals again.

I agree wholeheartedly! Mellberg and Angel were the two bright spots on a very bad team in a very dark period.They both could have left but sticked to Villa because they loved the club and I will forever be grateful to them. Both heroes, without them we would have been playing championship football.

Also you could argue anything about Angel's ability, but you can't question his desire and his love for the club. That's good enough for me as a fan.