weedman

I go to about 30 people's houses a day through the year and I've never once encountered a set of electronic gates that can't be opened manually or there be some kind of alternative way in. I'm not saying they don't exist, just that I've never seen them, I'm sure there's some health and safety thing so that if there is a power cut that lasts a few days you're not going to starve to death 100 yards from a co-op. Besides, there's always a way if you want to, he said "what if I'd turned my ankle" when asked about jumping the gates but if the manager has asked you to do it then it's totally on him if that happens, otherwise you could just say "what if I pull a muscle in training? Safer to just not bother going"

Has this actually been confirmed? I ignored football altogether for a few hours after our horror show tonight now I have no idea what's going on!

I'd say that's not outrageous when compared to other teams, I'm no expert on other teams (or even Villa most of the time!) but I can't imagine it's unusual to lose a player to a 3 month+ injury each season can it? Injuries are a part of football, we may not be particularly lucky with them but I wouldn't say we're unlucky either. Without seeing other teams numbers I couldn't be sure, don't think it's a big enough issue to go digging around lol

To be fair that's 3 players in like 15 years! Apart from that 1 freaky 6 month period under GH when we had about 15 injuries I don't think we have been bad for them, sometimes players are out injured, sometimes it's bad, but we're no worse than any other club I don't think, we're certainly no Arsenal

I said the same thing about Ayew but he is like the opposite of Gabby in his prime. Gabby always looked clunky and awkward, never really looked like a footballer, but he had a great end product and the whole team seemed to improve when he played, he had a real positive impact on our games. Grealish looks classy, looks a proper footballer but offers next to no end product when he plays and often it seems that he is holding the team back (by slowing the play etc), his impact on our games is at best negligible, and at worst a hindrance If he was 25/26 or over I'd sell him without a second thought but he's 21 years old, it doesn't click into place for everyone at the same time and he has several years yet to adapt his game and improve. You can see he has potential, and at the moment that's all it is, potential, but in a few years he could turn into a very good player. He might never improve and leave on a free to a league 2 team in a few years or he could become an asset for a team at the top end of the PL, for the sake of whatever (no doubt meagre) sum Boro are offering I think it's worth the risk to see how he turns out here

OK that makes a little more sense, I still think that there are things that could easily happen while he's out there that wouldn't be immediately clear without another medical though, but I don't really know how these things work so I'll trust the experts!

Young players are notoriously consistent as you know

I don't understand the idea of a "pre AFCON" medical, I mean how many games and training sessions has he played since that medical? What if he ruptures his ACL in training out there but doesn't make it public? Will he still be able to sign for anyone because he's already done the medical? Can't imagine many clubs taking that risk, there's a reason medicals are the absolute last thing that happens in a transfer

Did he have an Italian coach there? If not it's all a bit odd

There could easily have been a little lost in translation couldn't there? I mean if I got an offer to go play for an Italian team, no clue to the culture or people, no family there etc I probably wouldn't be interested especially for a Div 2 team - now if they told me David Beckham would be my coach and work with me daily I could change my mind and would be extremely disappointed if he were to leave after 3 months and some Italian guy I'd never heard of took his place. Not being fluent in Italian means I may well end up saying something similar when in reality what I would mean is I'm a bit disappointed and homesick...

What a bell. If he doesn't get a transfer this window I'm sure he'll come out with an "honest and heartfelt" apology to everyone around February 1st

Imagine if Brees first cross for us is ballooned into the stands...I imagine 35000 dejected fans thinking "oh God we've got another one!"

Had to chirp in here, Hollywood is a proper shithole, if you want to walk to where the "world famous Hollywood stars" finish you better have a knife or better yet a shotgun handy

Look I'm not saying that no players will leave, and when they do they will need replacing with so called proven players of equal or better quality (what Southampton do). I'm also not saying that we shouldn't look to improve every position on the pitch. I'm not saying we don't need capable backup players. I'm saying it's madness to expect all this to be done straight away - especially in January! Worry about replacing our core players when we actually have to. No need to spend January rushing about trying to replace Kodjia or Baker etc when chances are they won't actually leave in the short term. These players are contacted to us remember, if a deal isn't good enough or leave enough enough time for us to adequately replace them then don't sell them. Injuries also happen. Ideally we would have good replacements for all our players so we aren't too disrupted by injuries but again, you can't expect this to happen all in 1 go, and realistically only the very top teams and everyone on Fifa or FM actually have 2 similar quality options for each position. Focus on signing quality players in positions we actually need and who can actually come into our team and improve us. 2 CM are needed, we have a terrible midfield. A new RB would be good, although Hutton is far from being as bad as everyone says, he'd be better served as a backup, also a LW as we don't really have a good option there (poss to replace Ayew or McCormack who don't really fit into our team). These players will make a big difference and it doesn't require a huge overhaul. You can't say we need a full overhaul because if our best 4-6 players get long term injuries we'll be buggered, that's true of every team outside of the PL top 6, and even some of them, I mean people are talking about Chelseas title challenge being over if Costa leaves, the first team being better than the reserves isn't unique to Aston Villa My point was only that not everything needs to be done in 1 window, it rarely works because it's a total gamble how the players will actually play together, it's much better, now that we actually have a starting point to supplement that each window with 3-4 players that can come into the 11 and improve us - this will push 3-4 of our current starters to the bench (+bring in a few youngsters that won't be expected to play straight away, young gambles if you like that can also be options from the bench or in cups). That way our team can actually grow year on year (or window on window) rather than ripping it up and starting again every year hoping to stumble on the magic formula

Absolutely, our mistake was allowing the squad to get to a point where it needed the overhaul 2 years running (thanks Randy). Unfortunately you need to get lucky for that to work, very lucky, and we didn't. The rebuild was necessary this summer as a result but we don't need it now. We have some good players and we need to supplement them and replace a few of the weaker players (midfielders) with better ones now. I've seen lists where people say we need 2 x CB, 1 x LB, 1 x RB, 1 x GK, 3 x CM, 2 x LW, 1 x RW and 1 ST to compete. It's madness. We have a nucleus of a decent team now, we need a few to supplement and improve upon it, then same again in the summer, then same again next Jan etc until we are where we want to be. Full squad overhauls don't work. We've seen it first hand

Then, with all due respect, he needs to grow up. At the moment he's not "the clubs next striking talent" he's essentially a young player on a 6 month loan - and to add to that, he is not good enough right now to be in our first team. He is worse than Gabby and McCormack at football at the moment, and Gabby is only playing because our first choice is away He wouldn't be playing because he's our best option, he'd be playing because the game time would help him to develop into potentially our best option in a few years. If he isn't going to commit to those few years then we have no incentive to play him now, not one. It would be a detriment to our team in order to improve someone else's team next year. Madness He knows this as well, it's no secret, we've told him he won't play unless he signs the deal, told him we won't continue to develop him as a player if he won't be here. It's an incredibly risky move on his part, it's apparently the best contract any academy player has been offered, and it would be his first major contract. If he gets a career ending injury in training in the next few months he'll be working for McDonalds by the end of the year and why? Because he didn't want Gabby getting minutes ahead of him when he refused to sign a contract that would see him getting more game time? Doubt it

We have the same (ish) problem this year that we had last year, we have a hugely unbalanced squad because we tried to sign a whole team in 1 transfer window - this also meant it takes months to figure out our best team. The reason that buying a ton of players in 1 go doesn't work in reality is because you just have no idea how those players will connect until they are together. If we brought in 1 or 2 midfielders now, we know they'd improve us because we have at least seen and have an idea on our best team and can see our weaknesses, if we declared that they're all crap and went to buy another 11 players we'd be back at square 1 again. Should be no more than 3 first team players signed per window (supplemented with some youth players) and let the team grow naturally. It's basically what Spurs did after their disaster of buying 234 players with their Bale money. Year to year now their team is basically the same with 1 or 2 added in. Forget massive overhauls, we need progress. If we can sign 2 midfielders and a winger this window it will make us so much better, maybe not enough to go up, but 2 or 3 good signings next summer and we'll be a proper force in this division, no dramas, no shipping 12 out and bringing 15 in rubbish, a couple out, a couple in and watch the team improve

And up until this season our midfield has been world class, of course

Ayew seems like the anti Gabby (of a few years ago). He looks great, a classy player, good feet, capable of special things but it just never quite comes off, we seem to play worse as a team with him in it, whereas Gabby (of a few years ago) always looked awkward, like he was struggling to ever control the ball, barely capable of running in a straight line but always seemed to effect the game and pop in with big goals. Its strange to watch, I'm not sure if it's just a bit of bad luck on Ayews part, or if it's his decision making, or if he's just a bit low on confidence and trying to do too much all the time but for all his "flash" he has not produced anything like he needs to yet and he really needs to pick it up if he's to have a career as a top level player - if you're struggling to impose yourself and have an impact at a mid table championship team you've got some real work to do

So we've maintained our gap from the top 2 but gained massively on everyone else, we're showing Top 2 form since Brucey, but in order to actually close the gap on them we need them to lose form or us to do better. At the moment playoffs look the most likely then

I really can't understand why some people are so anti giving him a chance to see what he can do in this division, or at least to get a little match fitness through reserve games or the odd sub appearance or whatever, I mean, genuinely what is the worst that could happen? If he gets in the 1st team squad he must have earned it in training by being better than the other options, which means Aston Villa will be in a stronger position than we were before, and if he doesn't get in the squad then we're in the exact same position as if he'd never started training again. We're already paying him anyway, he's clearly already friends with the current players so his "influence" on them won't have changed. Chances are he still won't get near our team since the attacking players we have should be better options anyway and we're clearly top heavy, so where exactly is the harm in having him train and get the same chance as everyone else of getting in the team? Obviously he let the club down last season and didn't appear to give a damn, but isn't that true of everyone last season? If it's attitude alone I can't comprehend why some are clamouring for Grealish to start every game and Gabby to be sent out for a pre game public flogging every week, aren't they both guilty of basically the same thing?

This may actually make me buy the game, I don't play online and I'm bored with fifa career mode

My best mate is a Boro fan and texted me this when we signed him. "Decent signing Albert Adomah. Quite shocked we let him go tbh he was quality in championship and did it against prem clubs" so sounds promising, let's see if he can deliver for the Villa!

As a goalkeeper I can assure there is no 1 thing keepers are trained to do. Sometimes it is better to parry than to try and catch, just like sometimes it is better to punch the ball rather than catch it from a cross, but even if you're not 100% sure you'll be able to bring it in he should be trying to claim that shot all day long, no power on it and parrying it was only ever going to put it right out in the danger zone. If he had tried to hold it and failed he probably would have been in a better position to get it at the 2nd attempt or save the rebound (by virtue of being closer to the ball), I can only imagine he had his positioning a bit off and in the split second assumed he was closer to the post than he actually was. He's young and this sort of thing will happen and he will improve on it in time. In the meantime we need to start putting games to bed when we have the opportunities as Gollini clearly has some work to do before these mistakes are removed from his game