Mark Albrighton

Totally agree DDID. There's no chance in hell if I was a player I'd be on social media. I'm not a fan of his. But he is still our player and even if he were to be sold he shouldn't be receiving personal abuse or a bit of goading from anyone. While the situation is frustrating it's ultimately the club's fault he's on the salary he is. If fans want to complain, this is a much more appropriate place to vent. Judging by his responses, he does seem to have a rather flippant attitude to things which to me suggests he's happy to hang around a while longer.

Ah, cheers fellas. I've elected to blank out a lot of the houllier season so that explains it. I'm still working on forgetting the majority of the following few seasons.

If he's been paid £63k a week since he joined us, I'd say "The Money Pit".

Clark scoring 8 goals surprises me, struggling to recall them all. Sinclair will be making the biggest jump up that list I reckon, 15 goals in all competitions this season would be a good target for him to aim for. Been meaning to say that your complete goal scorer list is superb BOF, love stuff like that.

Wes Craven has died aged 76.

I know what you mean. There's always going to be a slight fear that things won't work out, players won't click etc. We've had our fair share of false dawns. But I think we have the majority of the pieces, the team appears to have a bit more character about them. Going 1-0 down last season would have meant an inevitable defeat rather than being back on level terms within 3 minutes. Sherwood has said recently it's how you finish the season and I'm inclined to agree. Worries over a slightly stuttery start can be tempered with the fact we started well last season and things changed pretty quickly. There are goals in this team and if we have that, then that's a good part of the battle won.

Congratulations to all three of you.

A thread about the potential signing of Joleon Lescott goes "a bit OT" by discussing Kenneth Williams' holidays. I bloody love VillaTalk.

Gana was terrific yesterday. Veretout looks like he could be a very good signing.

I'm not sure about everyone else but every time we were on the attack I found myself hoping the final pass would ultimately fall to Sinclair. Easy to say after this week and perhaps too early to say, but I think he's nailed on to be our top scorer. Yes, the goals have included two penalties and a couple of tap ins, but he's getting into the position for those tap ins (he's a good poacher, but he offers much more than that IMO). As Richards says he's a bargain and so far he's scored 5 times as many goals as that bloke Liverpool bought for £30m more.

Frustrating game. We were clearly the better team but a single free kick and a ten minute spell at the start of the second half was enough. Richards is looking like our best defender, Amavi looks very positive, although he faded in the last 20 minutes. Sinclair has to be our first choice striker, if we don't buy another forward the front line should be centred around him. Gil looked good, should have started or at least come on 10-15 minutes earlier. Gana was my man of the match. We're going to be fine.

I reckon the attendance will be around 34,000. I shall be in attendance with my mate and this will be the third villa/sunderland match we've gone to. Previous times were the memorable 0-0 draw under Mcleish and last December's enthralling 0-0 game. We either break our goalless streak or Sherwood gets his first 0-0 draw. I fancy us for the win, but I also think there will be a scare along the way, 3-1 to the Villa. (But 0-0 is also a distinct possibility, so apologies in advance)

I've provided a detailed description of those involved to the powers that be. I suspect maybe it was because he replaced Traore, tough act to follow. The mutterings were generally about his legs going, jumping straight away on the occasional mistake made, "how's he going to help" and so on. They were fairly quiet regarding the more positive impact he had. I like Joe, he's always seemed like one of the "good guys". He still got a great eye for a neat pass to unlock a defence and he's not scared to stick a foot in to nip the opposition's attack in the bud. It's been said before, but Grealish has said himself that Cole being at Villa is a great help to him.

He did have a decent game, the odd mistake, but he definitely got stuck in with some good challenges when they were looking to press and his assist was good. When he came on there were a few around me ready to mock him but I feel he still has something positive for us, particularly when seeing games out.

I'm enjoying watching him play, so all the contract stuff is not going to worry me too much. Having said that I was wondering does the deal mean we can't sell him to anyone else for three years? Apologies if asked and answered before. In the mean time I just hope he's on course to destroy sunderland, I hope no news is good news regarding his knock.

I think as there's a buy back clause for Adama, it's fairly likely Sherwood will have had a conversation with him to that affect.

Normally when I player leaves I try and think of something positive from his time here and say "well it didn't work out, but thanks for X goal/performance". Really struggling here.

Let's give him some time. I can't help feeling that there wouldn't be half as much criticism of him if he didn't have a brother who happens to have started quite well at Swansea.

Yes I've never fully got the "Tactics Tim" nickname. I can tell that at best it's used mock affectionately but mostly appears to be used to undermine his abilities. But I don't quite get what started it, not sure if he gave an interview and stressed the word tactics during it.

If that was about four rows from the front of the upper I saw that happen too. It ended peacefully enough but it did get a little feisty at one point. It reminded me of some of the fans having a go (rightfully in my opinion) at other fans for jeering Richardson against qpr.

Sherwood's got my full support and so far I think he's doing a good job. Not perfect, there's been the odd thing I didn't like, but overall he's been good. We're scoring and we're interesting again. I know it was a second round cup game against lower league opposition but I suspect last night was one of the most fun and entertaining nights at villa park for a long while. And as mentioned before, one player scored a hat trick and he was, perhaps, our sixth best player on the night. I can't remember that happening too often over the previous three regimes.

There will be much worse examples, but my first memory of lack of class from sha was Paul Tait's t-shirt. I could be wrong but I also remember watching what I think was "Nick Hannock's football nightmares" and seeing a QPR defender (I think) score an own goal against blues and then have one of the blues forwards run up and celebrate in his face, properly goading him. The defender retaliated and got sent off. There's probably loads of examples like this, just a horrible club.

I'm not a brummie (nor have I ever been), so I would expect my hatred of sha is perhaps not as intense as a villan who grew up in Birmingham having to listen to bluenoses. However I dislike blues, but not in a "can't wait to beat them" way, more of a "why can't they just cease to exist" way. I dislike baggies (obviously) and wolves (from knowing a few fans growing up), but I have a sort of acknowledgement of their history for those two (mainly wolves to be fair). I don't have anything approaching that for sha. Hope we destroy them.

If we had games like that every week I'd buy a **** box, let alone a season ticket. It was great. I was a bit asleep last night and couldn't think - but I wanted to know if Gil did well? You might have said he did, but I was half asleep. He was one of four of our players that I think played very well Grealish Gil Sanchez Veretout Probably in that order. Don't forget Adama! I know he is very raw but I haven't been that excited by a Villa player for a long time. His explosive power is just incredible. Really hope he is fit against Sunderland and that Tim plays him. Yes, I should have included him. Make that 5. Completely agree with that top five from last night. It can only be a good sign that a player who scores a hat trick still doesn't make it into the best five players for us.

I reckon (or just hopeful) that it's not serious. When required he still managed to sprint down the wing after getting injured. If it was anything too bad I can't imagine he's have managed that. Fingers crossed but feeling positive he'll make some sort of appearance on Saturday.