CrackpotForeigner

he he he.

Spot on, I think. We have two new strikers who have pretty good track records and we should have a bit of faith in them. Not convinced there will be any money around for an extra striker in January anyway. There will be if we're in relegation danger again. Lerner's not that stupid.

Scratching around to work out where to put refugees is ultimately just arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic imo. Socially, economically and politically we've got things so completely wrong at the moment, and the refugee crisis is a symptom of that. Obvously population pressure is the main underlying cause, but even this could be made less of a problem by improving wealth distribution and education worldwide. Unfortunately the powerful people in the world are either rich people wanting to get richer or politicians wanting to make things look sweet for the length of their term of office, so there's no real powerful driver for addressing the real problems. Maybe things were ever thus, but with 7 billion people on the planet now the margin for error is much smaller.

Think deeper, hombre. They benefit all parties in the short term, which is why everyone accepts them. In the long run, though, the contracts of the best players end up in the hands of the biggest clubs. As they tend to do regardless of loan deals along the way Yes, but in the loan system you have far, far more players joining big clubs by preference. There's a fallback option for them of going on loan. Without the loan system, players have to think very carefully before they back themselves to make the big club's first team.

That's a depressingly realistic way of looking at it. But really we have 12 new first team players, so there is just no way of knowing how the season will go. I'd say we've got about a 1 in 15 chance of finishing anywhere from 6th to 20th.

Think deeper, hombre. They benefit all parties in the short term, which is why everyone accepts them. In the long run, though, the contracts of the best players end up in the hands of the biggest clubs.

Many clubs accept those terms, including ours in the past. I hate loans. They skew the game even further towards the `big' clubs. Totally. Players just try to join the biggest club they can, and not making the first team is no longer a factor for them because of the loans option. Changing this would improve things overnight. I wonder if they will...

The bloke knows what he's talking about. This is pretty much a perfect little writeup on JA:

A 76yo striker who only scores headers at the wrong end? What were they thinking?

Brilliant transfer window. I'm most looking forward to seeing Joey Barton in the claret and blue.

5th - 18th, depending how many goals we can score.

This is very good news. It will give him a real boost at the right time. Winning the game to make you the team's hero when you've probably been the opposite, and hitting the back of the net when you haven't been. Here's hoping he brings some good confidence back to VP with him.

Vlaar, Benteke, Delph, Bennett (L), Baker (L), Given, Tonev, Bent, Luna, Weimann, Lowton That's more or less a team there. If you played them (ignoring positional issues) against a team made up from, say: Amavi, Gana, Veretout, Traore, Richards, Lescott, Gestede, Guzan, Ayew, Ilori and Sinclair I think, the Benteke factor aside, the new boys would kick the very arses of the old lot. The only factor is how much of a factor the Benteke factor is. If we find we can score goals, I think we could even possibly be a fairly devastating side. We might not score too many and just struggle in a highly entertaining manner. Either way, well done to Tim and the club for a pretty heroic transfer window overall.

No facials today. Tim's pulled his hamstring! If that's true he won't even need to give him a facial.

Can help you there. It's Bristol City. I'm ITK ish.

Well, you did say you had been drinking. I think Okore's performances at the end of last season were because he was carrying a bit of an injury (but I could be wrong about this, obviously). I like Clark. He did very well last season, but he's already made at least two big mistakes this season. It's not that I've forgotten that he was good last season, it's that he's making mistakes this season. Hopefully he's just been a bit rusty and will come good, but he can't really complain if someone else gets a run in his place now. To me, the uninjured Okore we had at the start of last season was a better and more athletic defender than Clark, as well as being far, far better at playing it from the back, but maybe I'm just blind to his faults.

Don't know who this is, but I'm guessing, no, hoping she's a GOOD witch.

A witch?!! Where? Let's burn her. Him, whatever. As a wise person once said: A witch hunt is only a bad thing if there isn't a witch.

We're focusing so much on the future we need to take care of the here and now = Lescott. Clark, Baker Okore are all future. Agree with the first part, don't agree with the second part -I hope Clark and Baker are not the future of Aston Villa IMO Clark > Okore. IMO Clark < Okore.

We're focusing so much on the future we need to take care of the here and now = Lescott. Clark, Baker Okore are all future. Agree with the first part, don't agree with the second part -I hope Clark and Baker are not the future of Aston Villa Hopefully they improve SO much...that they are...the future. (I like home-grown players and also may be a bit drunk. It's night time in Sydney)

The memes are perpetuated by fellow transfer deprivation sufferers. People have different responses to transfer deprivation. Crap Cavani/Berahino memes are one response, being a miserable sod is another

I'm a bit worried Cavani won't link up well with Kozak.

Still needs time to develop IMO. All we've seen of him so far is a snapshot.

Nice bit of skill from Sinclair from 0:55. Damn, I hope there aren't any more sunny UK Saturdays this year, watching football on a partially shaded pitch makes my eyes sore.