7392craig

I don't think I Kwan handle another thread full of those terrible puns

I think an offer to buy the club has been put on the table, at a lower price than Randolph is willing to accept. They believed he should accept as new owners would have been able to financially back the club. Randolph won't budge on the asking price just because we've gone down.

Looks that way.

As it stands I'm worried about next season, our transfers into the club have been poor for quite a few seasons. The lack of leadership on the pitch is blindingly obvious and it has showed in the results. We have nobody to command the defence and keep them in line, and nobody to run the midfield and give them a kick up the arse when their heads drop. I'd love some undiscovered talent to come in with the little funds we're bound to have, but I'd love to see a real grafter come in after all this time without any. Then again we could end up with a Lee Cattermole :/

I don't know whether Pearson would be right for the job or not, personally I don't rate him all that highly. But I don't think he can be defended for some of the things he's said/done. He can say whatever he wants to the media, I don't give a shit. But you can't speak to the fans like that, whether they're right or wrong for abusing the players, the manager should have a good relationship with the fans and should be able to deal with scenarios such as that a lot better.

Illori for me

I agree it does make sense, and I'd rather do that than sell him. But I'd much rather keep him in the team, I personally think he'd be a goal machine in the championship.

Linked in the papers with West Ham. I personally think he'll end up at a club that sort of level, just as a squad option. People can see the potential and I think he'd do well with better players around him.

I saw it the other day. I was from something like GhanaNews or something ridiculous like that. It basically suggested every player we bought in the summer is for sale and top of the list is Ayew and Amavi. Nothing to see in my opinion, just pretend journo bullshit.

As obvious as it sounds, performances mean nothing if you aren't putting points on the board. I'd rather us play desperate football and win every game 1-0. There's a graveyard for teams who were 'always in games'.

I believe he may have underestimated how bad this squad is. Also he was under the misconception that he would have money to spend in January, something that indeed could have changed things for us.

I think this is probably accurate. This season has been over before Remi came along. Imagine he'll be thinking he can make a fresh start in the summer, get a full pre season with the players and get them playing his system. I imagine players like Grealish will do well under him next season. Sure he played ok under Sherwood at the tail end of last season but that was just because he hyped him up so much and filled him with confidence. No doubt the talent is flowing through the kid, as with other youngsters. But if Remi can get them working hard then they'll push on so much more.

I think many might have an issue with the idea of what such support portrays. A team that is playing shit but is still trying 100% deserves support, the club itself does also if it's trying to change things for the better. In my opinion, neither of those things are happening. The board is doing as little as possible and in some cases, simply don't care, the same can be said for most players. Now by showing total support for that, you are effectively letting it be known that you are ok for this to continue. The worst team many of us have ever seen, no investment, no support or public backing for the manager, a hierarchy of people not qualified for their jobs and finally, an owner with no interest or desire towards the club or its supporters. If now is not the time to campaign for change then when is? Personally, I'm totally and irrevocably backing 'Out The Door On 74'. I hope that all my fellow fans do too.

C'mon guys, now is the time for everybody to step up. We've all reached the point where enough is enough, we have all moaned and complained for so long about our situation. Now is the time where something can be done about it. We get one crack at this where we can focus as much attention on our movement as possible, if we don't grab this opportunity with both hands now then we risk it fizzling out into nothing. Let's see this out with a bang, not a whimper. Now is the chance for everyone to make a difference.

Top post...wait, hang on.

In his first few appearances he looked to go forward immediately, he also seemed very confident. I genuinely believe it's us as a club who take this out of players, either through our coaching or just the lack of confidence through always losing. Can you imagine bombing forward, beating a player and then when you look to release the ball, everybody is still walking up from the half way line? It'd put you off going forward like that. When he first came here he always looked to beat his man and then get to an attacking area, not so much now. But as has been said, he always looks for the ball, most of our players look like they're shying away from the ball, as if they're thinking 'don't pass to me'. I'm sick of seeing this, players looking for someone to pass to because all our players are hiding away behind an opposition player. I genuinely think he'd be class in a better team.

It's not just a case of signing players. No doubt we will have players leave in the summer, but the board helping the manager hold onto the ones he thinks will be important next season will also be considered backing. Given our history of selling our best players though, I do have little hope.

I'm a fan of Gabby's, I certainly don't think he should be shielded from any criticism. But the amount of abuse he gets is ridiculous. He has not been the sole reason for our position, in fact I imagine most level headed fans could name you five players straight away who've been worse than him in the last 4/5 seasons. Yet he will take more stick than any of them, this probably is down to the fact that he hasn't been the great hope that we thought he would be when he was younger. He had so much potential, but he has scored a decent amount of goals for a striker who's been thrown out on the wing most of the time because of his pace, yet it being ignored that he can't cross as its not his job to. I'll support him because we'd have already been relegated on two seperate occasions if not for his late surge of goals, plus the goals against the scum certainly elevate him for me

I completely agree with what you said. The problem is we're not in the position to put impact players with the potential to win a game on for the last 20 minutes, as we're usually losing by that point. Wins are the only thing of any use to us now, so players of his ability need to be played from the off so we can get ahead in games. As opposed to putting them on so we can start chasing games with 20 minutes to go. I appreciate that it's a gamble, but gambles are all we have left now.

I don't see Gabby nor any other of our players touching the ball much except for kicking it in frustration after conceding. So I'll go with him getting 22 touches.

Since we've been so poor for so long, I've been avoiding anything Villa related lately. I've started to watch the first 20 minutes of games then gave up because it just infuriates and honestly upsets me. I've not even been watching MOTD or coming on Villatalk because it's just depressing hearing everybody talk about how shit we are. But I've been watching the Leicester/Tottenham game, and it really is enjoyable watching two good teams play great football. I honest forgot how much I love watching football, and how upsetting it is that I've been avoiding the team I love. Due to how hard it is to see how bad we actually are and how far we've fallen behind. On topic- I believe it was the day O'Neill left. That was the day the really bad decisions started, and the day Lerner showed he'd lost interest and there was no more money coming.

I know it's thrown around a lot, but confidence is a massive thing to players, and apart from Richards, Gil and maybe Ayew, none of our players have it. Amavi certainly but he's out for the season now and I imagine will leave for better things when we go down. The crowd don't help, look how Leicester's fans reacted when we were 2-0 up, the place got even louder, they egged them on knowing they could do it. Where as with us, you can feel the tension and unrest before the first whistle is blown. Now I'm not blaming the fans for that, there really is only so many times you can get your hopes up to have them dashed, before you eventually expect the likely scenario of going a goal down, watching Guzan pick the ball out of the net and the players walk back to the centre circle. The thing is even as a kid playing for my first ever team, I remember being told that if I wasn't too confident in the game, to work as hard as possible and something will happen, then confidence comes on its own. Watching the players walk about the pitch, or lose the ball and then not chase after them to get the ball back, just shows how the outlook for the rest of the season can only be dark, unless something changes very, very fast. Watford this week as daft as it sounds really could be make or break for our season, and as Steve has posted, I'm not confident.

I was going to post on here about how I think we're gonna take the game to Watford, how we always pull ourselves out the shit when we really have to. Then I sat down and had a serious think about it, that even though I am only 26 and other posters will remember longer than me, this is easily the worst side I've ever seen us field. I can't remember a Villa side so completely inept, without leaders and without any fight whatsoever. When people say men against boys, it is literally the case, almost every player looks petrified, gets bullied off the ball and offers no challenge to opposition players. Teams play against us as if they expect to absolutely batter us from the first whistle, most teams don't get out of second gear against us any more, and we seem to just accept it and roll over. I wouldn't mind if we got stuck in or ran our b******s off but as we all know, our players walk around the pitch as if they're just waiting for it to be over. My early season optimism has truly been crushed, for the first time I actually am convinced it's over and I just hope we don't go down in an overly embarrassing manner. I originally thought it was ok getting a point out of city and Everton, albeit the other way around. But I just don't see us beating Watford, and thinking about our performances more seriously and the rest of our fixtures, I can see 19th place being out of reach by February.

I'm concerned that if we do lose against Watford then our confidence and form will be so bad that we won't look back on our way down. We don't need draws to 'stop the rot', we need a win, a win will mean so much to the players confidence wise. But they really need to put up more of a fight.

Let's be honest, before the city game most of us expected a city win, a draw at Everton and a win at Watford. We got an unexpected draw and then lost today, yeah it was shit but if we win next week then we got the points we all wanted.