Grumpy_Lion

Pleased with this, I won't pretend to know a great deal about the lad but what I do know seems positive. More signings like this please and lets start to get rid of the ones that don't want to be here.

I agree. I thought he looked so cross tonight, it must be so frustrating to set up a team and then see them perform like that. It's one thing going 2-1, 3-1 down to a side two leagues below you but then to have no reaction to it, how does he fix that? that's the key for me, the mentality still seems the same and that has to be first on the list to sort.

I thought he was a great signing when we bought him and he first started to play but in a poor side he has become worse and worse. In my opinion your CBs should be, a leader and one that does the dirty work. I think Okore is one who does the dirty work, so along side Elphick he would probably be ok but when with baker, Richards etc he gets in such a mess. I think this was half our issue last season as we didn't have any real leaders back there. Tonight against Luton was really poor i thought, he looked slow and off the pace against a side he should be controlling quite easily. For him to come out at the end of last season and refuse to play etc then play how he did tonight really finished it for me. I would have loved him to be a great for us but i'm past it now and i think he has had enough chance, time to move him on.

I think he looked OK, but on tonight's midfield performance we need a proper ball winner in there. Our midfield tonight, including Tshibola were bullied by a side in league 2.

I agree, I think he thought this would all be solved over preseason and we would come out up and running. I think a lot of us realised that wasn't going to be the case unfortunately, there are so many players low on confidence and simply not good enough, it's going to take time to filter these players out and get a good squad again. Hopefully he will see that. This might be an odd positive, but at least Xia can now see how badly we do need quality signings and a full rebuild. He has now tasted what we have been tasting for a few years and hopefully this encourages him to do something about it.

it's certainly interesting reading his tweets, he seems honest and open with us at the very least. When I read his latest tweet I did think it meant some players out there tonight weren't worth the chance but reading other posts perhaps he meant players that were left out. For me I think a number of players out there were playing for a chance to feature this season and a few really let us down yet again, so i'm hoping he means players tonight don't deserve another chance if i'm honest. Nice to see some passion from the chairman.

I agree with you that his touch is poor and he's slow but i think calling 'we don't play to his strengths' pathetic is a bit harsh. Correct me if i'm wrong but last season we created very little chances, I was at most home games and I can't think of many good crosses we put into the box. It's the same this season. We seem to put him into games then continue to play short passing stuff where he is a waste of time. So i can understand your frustration with him and for the most part i'm with you but we are, at least imo, yet to see him play in a villa side thats able to create chances for him and play a game around him. In my opinion if we go out and get some good creative wingers who will create chances for him he will be a useful player but if we have no intention on doing that, which we don't seem to then sell him as he's wasted with us.

I was really hopeful it was finally his year to be a big part of the club, and fingers crossed he still will be but looking at the first two fixtures this season he has been quite poor. Bullied out of both games and not produced enough, really disappointing

I love his intro video of him saying hello Aston villa with the rock music playing, quite amusing

we got rid of a massive amount of our wage bill with the players we released. The players we have bought in i doubt are on high wages as they are still quite young, probably have a wage rise depending on certain factors. I'd have thought we probably actually balance out similar to last season to be honest.

sounds like a good buy but i'd be very surprised if we did buy him after they have said he isn't for sale

wow! let the party begin!

I'm happy with Richards, i'm not one that thinks you should give it to someone just for how long they have been at the club. Richards is a leader and hopefully will lead us forward.

Stoke have just signed a youngster from Real Madrid, maybe they were looking at one of the other, leaving him open for us....

I wondered how long it would be until he got a thread of his own :-) really hope we land this one, really excited.

I can't see him being used much more than cover but if he's happy to do that then fair enough

If we end up with the 3 strikers we are apparently in talks with that means we have 6-7 strikers. It might not happen of course but I've been trying to wrap my head around why we would need them all., this is what I've come up with. Sherwood isn't building a team to stay up or even to finish mid table, he is building a squad that can maintain a good premiership standard for many years. So if we do sign adebayor and Berbatov then I think these will both be short term things, 1-2 year deals or a year loan in ade's case, so these sort of patch over the hole left by benteke. Alongside that we buy two young strikers who can feature and learn the game, ready to be the main men in the seasons to come. Kozak and gabby hopefully can push on now too. I don't really see how some won't get left out a lot but I can sort of see the idea

Sky sports reporting his medical will happen tomorrow

I'd like to see him get a proper go this season, he could be great

I think it's an odd move if true, he won't be happy to sit in the bench

Any more news on this? Yesterday morning there were reports we signed him but nothing has been said since

I quite like the sound if this guy, quite French heavy now but let's hope we get this done

Well they kept that one quiet

I would be pretty cool to bring Ashley Young back to Villa park, I highly doubt it but the reports are interesting. Saying that weren't we linked with him last summer?

Please don't hate me but I think if we get Adebayor on loan that could be a good bit of business. I don't really want him but we have a huge gap to fill with Benteke gone now and if we got him on loan this would patch this up for a season and allow us to spend £40m else where, which were in desperate need of. I wouldn't want to buy Adebayor though.