weedman

Any thread of hope I had has gone now, this is our easiest run of the season and we've managed 2 points from 3 games despite playing better. I'm resigned to it now, although it would be typical Villa to go and beat Sunderland just so that bit of my brain will keep chirping up with "you see? There IS a chance!" Can't believe I just said it would be typical Villa to win a match, what a strange day

Absolutely spot on post, it looks really bleak at the moment but those numbers really prove it's not over yet, our form needs to drastically improve, sure, but it can be done

Opening up space by having teams double/triple up on him is only useful if he has it in his locker to move the ball quickly to the players in that space so they can exploit it. If he does have that vision and ability he's not shown it yet, and until he does I don't think he's worth a place in the team. If he can learn to move the ball quickly (not all the time, just some of the time) then he can become a very dangerous player. At the moment he's easy for Premier League teams to defend against once he loses the element of surprise

The main hope I have for this game is Newcastle are fairly similar to us, big club, woefully mismanaged and misfiring, bad owners etc. And if we were in their position, just out of the bottom 3, a couple of really good results against good teams, confidence growing, and about to play the team dead bottom without a win since the opening day you just know we'd lose and come crashing down to earth. Therefore, we will win

It all depends on how you rate the player. If it was Ayew or Gil or dare I say Adama unhappy at being dropped they would garner widespread support here and the manager would be under scrutiny. When Gabby or N'Zogbia or even Hutton or Westwood do it they effectively become the devil incarnate. Everyone seems to have double standards. Also, every time I see a post calling Gabby "fat" everything else in that post instantly loses credibility, if he's fat half the country is about to drop dead due to morbid obesity

He needs to create an "us V them" mentality really, Mourinho has been doing it since he whinged into Chelsea (went too far this year though and lost the players respect somewhat), it's what Pearson did last year (debatable how intentional it was), MON did it with us to an extent. Praise the players publicly and argue against anyone doubting it, blame other people for players not performing (ref/linesman/play acting/tea lady) and say it would never happen at "insert club in similar position". You may get fined, you may get touchline banned but you'll drum some determination into the players It's short term, wouldn't work for more than a season or 2 but as I also believe he's a good manager it could help to just get us going a bit then actual management can do the rest

The Leicester Chelsea game today just shows how important confidence is to football. Apart from Vardy and Mahrez I don't think any other Leicester player would get near that Chelsea team. Newcastle and Bournemouth are showing that too with a couple of results on the spin after looking horrendous, and even ourselves last season after Sherwood came in. Our squad is not the worst in the league, and I'm confident we have a decent manager at last, we just need a win - any win, and the confidence will start coming back and we will look a different team. If we get that against Newcastle then that's huge, as it will set us up for that batch of "winnable" games. We may continue to be shit and go down with a whimper, or we may actually grab a win or 2 and suddenly the whole outlook changes. Maybe I'm crazy but I'd rather end up disappointed hoping for the latter than settle for the former. There is a lot of football left to play, it's still 2015, it's not over and we CAN do it, whether we will or not is another question but it's in our hands, a little optimism won't kill us

I've heard some excuses in my time, but a boot injury? Come on! [emoji3] Boots are so fragile these days, poor things

You must be kidding right? I just can't comprehend that you think Suarez would not have had more touches of the ball than Agbonlahor did against the Spurs . Have you seen this man play? He has the appetite of 3 players, he probably gets more touches of the ball in a single game than Agbonlahor does in 3-4 games IMO OK maybe Suarez was a bad example, the man never stops running - although I never said he would have less touches, just that he wouldn't have been able to do much more. The point was the service forward that 45 mins of football was probably the worst I've ever seen, at best he competed for headers after a couple of hopeful punts upfield, I can't actually remember us even being in their half more than a couple of times. Playing with an injury to boot I'd say the problem was with the whole team that game and short of us having a Suarez in it I don't think anyone would have made a difference to that

Even when it was blatantly clear they weren't laying the blame on Agbonlahor, rather on our horrendous team that couldn't get the ball out of their own half? There's a lot of criticism that can be (and is, and then some) given to Gabby, but I'm not convinced Suarez would have helped us in that 45 minutes let alone an injured Gabby Agbonlahor

We need to close the distance and make life easier for ourselves, this lot are hardly fighters and hardly blessed with quality, we're not going to turn round a massive deficit in Feb, we will be down, we don't even have the quality that Leicester had in key areas, they could rely on Mahrez's brilliance for example. We need to be in touching distance by the end of the month, it's as simple as that. It's easy to say that now with Mahrez and Vardy setting the league alight, but last season they were bang average until they hit form. This time next year another team could be talking about Villa's great escape with someone pointing out "but we don't have quality players like them, they could rely on Ayews brilliance". My point is simply how things are going now is not necessarily how they will be going in a few months time. We all want to be out of the bottom 3 now and winning games now but there is plenty of time. I'm sure most of us would be happy if a win on the final day kept us up by 1 point after 4 straight victories despite being turgid all season before that

I see this argument a lot but why? Why do we have to be only 2-3 points off before Jan? We can be in the bottom 3 all season as long as we get out of it on the last day surely? I know we just make it harder for ourselves with each game we don't win, but we're 7 points off now meaning at some point we need a little run of consecutive wins (looks unlikely on current form, but form changes for every team, every season - except Derby that 1 year but that was just a freak season for them), if we can continue to be 7-8 points off then surely it doesn't matter if we get those consecutive wins this month or next month or for our last 4 games of the season? There's plenty of time for this to turn around yet, and we do have time for the baby steps right now. Like anyone else I'd rather win the next 4 games and be out of the bottom 3 as soon as possible but if it doesn't happen it's hardly the end is it? Last season Leicester were virtually down, the last few seasons Sunderland have been virtually down before miraculously saving themselves at the last. We looked doomed last year but in the end stayed up with games to spare. Form changes, it only takes 1 moment sometimes and it's not over until it's over, it's certainly not going to be over by January

The whole "treat them like kids and they'll act like kids" is boulderdash when the reason they're are being punished is for acting like a kid when they had been treated as an adult. Grealish asked to make his own way back from the game, Garde himself has said there is no problem with that and happens occasionally throughout the season. He then acted irresponsibly and stayed out drinking for 2 days. He asked to be treated as a professional and an adult, he was, he took advantage of that and acted like a child, he gets punished. Simple really. Hopefully it can help focus him because while he has loads of potential he isn't good enough yet, and you don't reach your potential as a professional athlete by getting pissed on the weekends with your mates, you get it by working, working hard and working more than your boss makes you, which is the bare minimum. At the moment he is not good enough to be a Premiership player, if he's happy with that and content to slip down the leagues as his career progresses so he can continue having fun, then that's fine, but there's no reason to put him in the team in that case. To go with the business analogy, he's a new staff member, if he shows up bang on time, borderline presentable and does exactly what he has to do before he can leave bang on time again, he isn't going to progress in the company beyond the role he currently holds, compared to the guy who isn't as good to start with, but shows up early, state late, uses his own initiative and volunteers for extra training courses whenever they're available. Natural talent isn't the most important thing in virtually any business including football

Have to disagree. Its also possible that things may look better in January, (suggesting "things are likely to be worse" is simply an opinion) yet you think we should except relegation with 5 months left? I agree things are looking grim at the moment but plan A should be to stay in this league. I wonder if Leicester fans had the same defeatist attitude when they where rock bottom last Christmas. So if by January we are say, 2 points from safety, you would still prefer to be planning for the championship rather than looking to bring in players that would help to keep us in this division? As I said in my opening post, the club should of course have a plan in place for relegation, and if I had to bet my house on a finishing position come May it would probably go on a bottom 3 place, so I'm certainly not oblivious to how dire the situation is. All I'm saying is that Plan A should be to stay in this League, I'm not prepared to simply except relegation with so much time, and opportunity (by way of the transfer window) left in the season. And I would hope our Chairman feels the same. IMO there is absolutely no chance that Remi Garde accepted the job here if the remit was to plan for the Championship. ACCEPT Otherwise I agree

I'm not for 1 minute going to argue Clark is a good defender, he's been woeful this season but I don't think the 3rd goal is his fault. I'd have to watch it again to be sure and I have no real interest in doing so, but the ball was spinning away from him and he had to back towards it leaving him off balance and unable to really jump at it combined with it being in the perfect position for Deeney to attack, I personally don't think any defender would have won that header or stopped Deeney from scoring that goal. Anyone who's played football must have dealt with the ball spinning away from you in the air and know how difficult it is to actually get off the ground and head it away in those circumstances It always looks like it's a mistake, the same way that the ball bobbling a yard in front of you causes you to shin it miles off target looks a mistake, doesn't mean anyone would have been able to handle it differently

I don't think he's great on the wing, and I really don't think we can play 2 out and out wingers and a man off the striker basically in the free role. I think he's good just off the striker with a licence to roam and do his thing, but we need to sacrifice the wingers to play that way. Basically IMO it's either him with our width coming from Hutton and Richardson, or leave him out and stick on 2 proper wingers to supply our striker. Without actually having 2 out and out wingers (no one on the left) we should play a narrow 4-5-1 with Gil behind Ayew, Westwood/Veretout and Gana in the middle with Sanchez holding, for all their flaws Hutton and Richardson both get up the pitch well and will give opponents something to think about when we need them. It limits our creativity somewhat, but should solidify us and still give us options when we attack

It was OK but owed a lot to the awful finishing of City, had they got their finishing right they would have won by three or four We were far more unlucky yesterday than we were lucky against City. Against City we restricted them to only a few real chances which on another day they may have scored, but because we restricted them to only a few chances they snatched at them somewhat Yesterday we dominated the game until they very effectively killed it in the last 10 mins, but they scored from a lucky double deflection landing perfectly for their best finisher which you wouldn't be able to replicate 99 times in 100, an own goal which, while not the best defending, would not have ended in a goal 9 times out of 10, and another lucky deflection resulting in the ball spinning away from our defender and perfectly positioned for their best header to get on the end of it - a couple of feet away in any direction and that's not a goal. We're shit, truly terrible and look odds on to go down but we were unlucky yesterday. If we were generally playing well and higher up the table everyone would just be putting that down to "one of those days", it's only because we've been so bad this season we're slaughtering the team for that performance which was good and 99 times out of 100 we'd have won that comfortably.

For all the hate, Richardson is the best left back available at the current time so he should play. I'd rather see Cissokho in there but he is away, unavailable and therefore not worth worrying about unless we manage to get him back from his loan early. He's had a few stinkers, but hasn't everyone? He's cost us less goals this season than Amavi for instance, I'd feel far more confident with him there than with any of the other options I can see

Exactly. It would be daft to deny he's abroad. He says so himself. However, it is daft to use a picture of him obviously at night to criticise him for not doing training/rehab. A person can train all day, then go out at night. A person could do 12 hours training and still go out at night. And he's clearly not wasted, or drinking on that picture. Looks like he's just in a restaurant. It would like pulling up a picture of an office work who is abroad on business, eating a meal in the evening and saying 'LOOK THEY'RE CLEARLY NOT DOING WORK' Senseless. Ok I take your point. I will go back to my original point and say that I don't think he should be away on warm weather training. Every new signing raves about how good a facility BMH is. Why go away to recover? Especially as club captain and also considering we have a new manager. I'm no ITK or anything, but just putting the idea out there that it probably wasn't entirely his decision to go there? I can't imagine he just popped in to training one morning with a brand new manager waiting and thought "screw this I'm not dealing with this weather, I'm off lads" and jetted away? I would have thought the manager and physios etc sat down with him and decided this would be the best course of action for him to recover and get fit...I mean I could be wrong, it's happened before, but I doubt it

His latest Instagram video shows he's clearly a fat lazy waster swanning off on holiday mid season....

Well Bennett is not good enough, letting him leave was a no brainer, and I have no inside information but I'd wager that the reason we let Cissokho go and kept Richardson is pretty simple - we only needed 1 as backup and no one wanted Richardson

I get the impression that if he'd never played RB before most would be hugely impressed with him since joining but because many came to the conclusion before he'd arrived that "he's rubbish at CB and should only play RB" they are highlighting and over amplifying every thing in support of that theory, possibly even without meaning too. But what do I know, I'm no #stevoITK or anything

Leicester are basically us under MON, never say die, bodies on the line with a couple of real runners in the team (Vardy-Gabby and Mahrez-Young), their style of play will see them burn out (like we always did, and like West Ham did last season after also emulating ourselves under MON. They almost certainly won't get relegated barring some ridiculous implosion of Villa proportions but they won't challenge the top 4, somewhere between 7th-12th for them. Anyone from about 11th down could get dragged into it, it's very early in the season but I would have a cheeky outside bet on Swansea if I were a betting man

Excellent performance by all, funny how we've spent all season being a disorganised mess and we've seen countless individual errors and bad luck, we turn up today organised and the individual errors were gone and we got "lucky" 9/10 you make you're own luck, we made ours today, progress!

Premier league experience is very useful if you have a load of experienced premier league players to work with, because you will understand them better and how to get them playing at their best. Our team is far more European, and it's primarily the European players we need to start playing to their best. Ayew, Amavi, Traore, Veretout, Sanchez, Okore, Bacuna, even Richards is used to a European style and Westwood is that sort of player too. A Remi Garde will be able to utilise those players and work with them better than a fat Sam or Pulis would IMO, whether that's enough to keep us up is up in the air at this stage - but it's by no means an impossible job, Leicester were further adrift than we are and they had half as many games and survived comfortably last season. There's a long way to go and a lot of points to play for yet