bannedfromHandV

Delph will be a cracking player for us, my guess is we'll begin to see the best out of him nxt season, maybe back end of this season. People just need to give him time and also to put aside his transfer fee for the time-being, he's an investment and you don't always look for an immediate return on an investment.

This is all we, as fans, can ask for. A player cannot be blamed for the transfer fee or his wages - they are manager/owner's fault if over the top. He can only be asked to respect the club and give 100%. JC hasn't done that this year and is taking the proverbial. Heskey has, but he's playing in the wrong position and that's MON's fault IMO. Have I missed something? Last time I saw Heskey he started up front which is usually where most strikers play.

I'm sorry chief but if there's one player that should not make an appearance tomorrow night then it's Delph. He's a headless chicken at the moment with no sense of discipline (literal and from a positional sense), he'll be caught constantly out of position against a midfield full of experience and ability and in fact would more than likely directly contribute to at least one goal against us. Don't get me wrong, I think he could be a really top player but he's still very much learning at the moment and tomorrow would be a step too far in his education, IMO.

You're asking for trouble there mate IMO. At the Brighton game a couple of weeks ago there were a group of about 4 or 5 Brighton fans in the home section of the North Stand, they made the innocent mistake of celebrating their equalising goal, about 20 or 30 men (who looked and sounded as though their IQ's were less than their shoe sizes) took exception to this and hounded them until the Stewards asked them to leave. Now for me personally I thought that was excessive to the extreme, it was afterall only Brighton, it was a big day out for them and they obviously would have got tickets in their end if they could have. Anyway, I should imagine that for the United match such a reaction would be amplified by ten fold at least, plus it's an evening match so all the morons will have had a full days drinking under their belts too. Just be careful. Back to topic I can't see anything other than a 2-0 defeat.....sadly.

Hi General K. I cannot for a second understand why all these folk are kicking off at you for something entirely out of your control - unfortunately, I would suggest that this is probably why Chief Exec's have never done what you're doing before, can you imagine the level of abuse you would receive if we were struggling?!? I queued for an entire day on the online ticket office and did not manage to get one in the end, you don't see me believing that I have a right to come on here and kick off on a guy that goes out of his way to make you feel as though you're actually a part of the club. Truly disgusted to be associated with the same club as some of the posters on the previous pages. Keep up the sterling work and good luck with any and all tests.

2-1 Villa. Ash Young to score late after we've come from a goal behind.

is it beyond foolish to consider driving down? I know already it would be an almost certain nightmare tryin to find somewhere to park but has anyone on here tried it before? the missus said she'd drive too which means I can still have a drink, bonus!

speaking only for myself, I wouldn't pay for access to the wi-fi. I did manage to log on once I'm sure, perhaps it was free for a period or maybe just an error in the system on that day?

Have you just read the opening post and then purposely done everything possible to go against what this thread was supposed to be about? For me it was seeing Ash Young skin Lescott to then curl it round Howard in the 94th minute last season...purely because I work closely with an Everton fan and he was actually ringing my mobile the very minute it happened to gloat, not surprisingly it stopped ringing immediately!! Either that or Ollie Mellberg's standing ovation and his reaction to it when he was subbed in the 5-1 against SHA, that would be a very close second if not a first.

I don't think this is Villa specific mate, my phone (with O2) ceases to work once I enter any football ground.....did it at Ewood Park last week too so probably not a lot can be done. Kind of ironic that O2 stops working at football matches when they used to sponsor Arsenal......

Sadly I thought Collins got outplayed by Kalinic on quite a few occasions and even that Nouble mofo for the Spammers on the weekend made him look a bit ordinary.........Cuellar and Dunney Monster for me all the way

definitely having trouble concentrating today......... I think it'll be 3-1

Where's everyone sitting? I'm lower tier, row 4 seat 115 apparently......just wondered if I'll be sat next to anyone off here as travelling up on my own for this one...........

^^^ Yay

Ummmm, no. Were it a one-legged affair then yes, a win would be a must. As we play them at home in a second leg next week then I would suggest a win probably isn't a must.

But if they aren't 'that bad' then they don't need replacing and the poll doesn't allow for that. Surely that's not too hard to grasp? No, but this entire thread was and is in response to and aimed at a section of members (no names mentioned Richard so you're safe) who seem absolutely adamant that with our current strikeforce we will achieve nothing. This is the same guy mind you who wanted Randy out in the summer and MoN out after the Wigan game..................

^^^^^^^ Well if they are 'that bad' then they would require replacement, the question therefore is can we attract better quality replacements, I fail to see why such learned people are struggling to see the obvious link here.

And you have the audacity to accuse me of trying to "score points"! A while back I would have bitten by now....but **** it, we're all adults here allegedly, I believe I've made my points fairly clearly, or at least my point anyway, I'm sure others haven't had quite as much difficulty in keeping up.

do you know if it's possible or not? Yes actually I pretty much do, I would be quite willing to bet my mortgage that there isn't a single striker out there who warrants being in the £20-£30M value bracket that would be actually interested in linking up with us. If you think otherwise then I want whatever you're on....... What about the 10M to 20M bracket? Does it have to be 20M to 30M or are these not good enough? Why do you think that they wouldn't be interested in joining us by the way? I think your whole argument is far too prescriptive Because as I thought I had illustrated in the opening post a £10 - £19M striker doesn't seem to necessarily get you very far, Sunderland are below us in the league and yet have spent over £20M on their two up top, Citeh are only marginally ahead of us having spent upwards of £40M on strikers, Spurs are only marginally ahead of us having spent around £30M on strikers (again not including Pavlyuchenko), the genuine top strikers, which is what I believe we are crying out for (not flash in the pan players, people who are great for two weeks then shit for two weeks, i.e. guaranteed 20 goals a season), will cost upwards of £20M, feel free to disagree, I already know you will.

Yes, it's called John Carew and to a slightly lesser extent Ashley Young, two players signed in the same window.......... Ashley Young is a winger, and therefore irrelevant to the discussion at hand, and Carew's official cost was £4.5m as well, the same as Harewood. So, signing players between £4.5m and £30m, surely has to be a possibility. Even for somebody with as poor a record of signing strikers like O'Neill. He is now a winger, which is why I mentioned "to a lesser extent" however, at the point of signature he had been playing up front for Watford and indeed has played up top for us, so not entirely irrelevant I think.......I appreciate that you'll disagree but then that's where difference of interpretation comes into play. Also, wasn't Carew a straight swap for Baros? Baros cost us £6M so..........

do you know if it's possible or not? Yes actually I pretty much do, I would be quite willing to bet my mortgage that there isn't a single striker out there who warrants being in the £20-£30M value bracket that would be actually interested in linking up with us. If you think otherwise then I want whatever you're on.......

Yes, it's called John Carew and to a slightly lesser extent Ashley Young, two players signed in the same window..........

I'm sorry but what's the point in banging on about wanting something if it's not possible, if there was a point in doing such things then I might just start asking the missus for a Ferrari every day, maybe one day she'll cave in and find the £220,000 required to buy me one, becuase obviously she's been holding back to spite me up until this point.....so actually I think it's quite relevant to ask both whether we require and can afford a new striker in the same breath, this isn't fantasy football afterall Richard. Other clubs, and I assume you're referring to Spurs and City, are quite happy to pay over the odds in both transfer fees and wages for players that may or may not come off, the reason being that in City's case they are rich beyond anything you or I or Randy can comprehend, and Spurs for starters charge £1000+ for a Season Ticket, as it seems most Villa fans feel loathe to spend even less than half of that on a ST I would suggest that the club is somewhere between a rock and a hard place.

Good point re: Spurs v Wigan.......and indeed the rest of the post......

Spurs have scored 10 goals more than us from their strikeforce. Your average figures are clouding that fact. So not only are their averages higher, they have more strikers doing it. City are similar. They've scored 9 more than us and your average is clouding that too. Averages are not the be-all and end-all. As I said in a previous post, the total goals from the strikeforce is the only proper number that is not affected by minutes on the pitch. By your measurement, if Delfouneso was to come on in the next game for 20 minutes and score, our average would be 3.75. Your figures are affected too heavily by minute changes. BOF, the figures don't cloud anything, particularly in the case of Spurs, as you can quite clearly see their strikers are going almost at a rate of 2:1 over our own, I cannot see where you think the figures are clouding this, my point though, to again reiterate, is that Spurs have spent what? Around £30M to assemble that strike force (not to mention the millions spent on Pavlyuchenko who isn't included). We've spent a mere £10M (arguable) on our strike force and are currently only slightly worse off than them, one result and we're on a par with them again, better in fact. I hate to keep repeating myself but this is kind of the point of the whole post, it's in response to all those clamouring for a change of strikers but who seem unable (outside of Darren Bent and Carlton Cole) to actually come up with feasible suggestions. Darren Bent not being feasible as he would cost £20M+ and is not actually worth anywhere near that and Carlton Cole not being feasible as we've seen the worst of him before and it still wakes me up in a cold swear at 3am each morning.......