spacemanscott

Its his appalling passing that's the real problem :winkold: Don't we know that already? Our midfield has been abysmal this season and he still can't get into the side. At the start of the season I was hoping that he would come good this season and cement a place in the side. Instead it looks like he going backwards to a career in the championship. Maybe I'm being harsh but I haven't seen anything from him to show me that he'll be good enough for us. To be honest I'm worried that he isn't quite good enough but, following such a bad injury, I think it's only fair to give him time and allow him to get some competitive football again.

God, yes. This could be best thing to happen to football now. As a teenager, I had a season ticket during the final season of The Holte End being terraced (I still have a brick that I managed to smuggle away for some reason) and it was completely alien to football today. You could jump up and down, you could have yourself a little disco, you might even go **** mental from time to time. You could tell the right side they were shit and they'd tell you back that, in fact, it was your side that was shit. This would lead to a singing battle between the two sides that lead to The Holte End being a cauldron of noise. You could even gave a fag. All this for a tenner. I now think football is too expensive for the product provided. Why pay £30+ to sit in silence and watch a bunch of players that you know aren't that much better than you playing boring, lifeless football in the freezing cold?

This is great news, let him get half a season under his belt and rediscover his touch. If he comes back and still doesn't produce, we'll know he isn't cut out for it.

Bunch of bell cheeses. How can such an inexperienced manager create such a fantastic passing side that looks so dangerous but our experienced manager creates that utter dross? Does anyone else believe Alex tries to instill a pass-and-move attitude like the Swansea manager so obviously does? I bloody well don't, I think he wallows in a self-made atmosphere of mediocrity that doesn't focus for one second on playing incisive, clever football.

we were the same under the last 2 managers too, so i dont think its necessarily a gaffer issue You're probably right, we did look to move a bit more under Houllier but lacked penetration. MON's team worked hard but it was more a case of players getting on their bikes for the ball down the line/over the top. The problem now is that players simply seem to stay out of the way rather than offering a realistic pass for the player on the ball. This invariably leads to the player on the ball looking for something they just aren't capable of producing and misplacing the pass. In fairness to McLeish, it's almost as though a lot of them don't want the ball at times, so it could just be more of a confidence issue that anything else.

Just to pick on a couple of things by darrenm. The penalty wasn't a gift from the referee, it was a gift from Clark. He knew he was in trouble and tried to stop Walcott as subtly as he could but the ref saw it and rightly gave a pen. We didn't really test Szczesny as far as I can remember either, I'm probably wrong but I don't actually recall him making one save, other than collecting/stopping crosses??? Despite all that, darrenm is right in that a lot of us have simply been asking for better football, and that is what we got - at times. It wasn't great though, though, we still lack movement. What annoys me most is when players don't bother showing themselves for short passes. They should be constantly on the move looking to give and go, creating space for themselves and their team mates. We are still way too static and I'm not sure it's something McLeish concentrates on in training, but I hope I'm wrong.

Herd is out for another 2 weeks. Oh balls. We're struggling a bit then aren't we...I'd love to Lichaj come back in as I have been quite impressed whenever I've seen him, but I think he's still out with a hip problem. It always annoys me when players are out for so long with niggling injuries. At least with a good old broken leg you have a rough timescale, when it's something mundane that drags on, it just makes me think 'stop having such a pathetic body and get yourself fit.'

Anyone got any updates on how he's getting on at Coventry? I'm surprised he isn't being talked about a bit more really...

It's tricky because unlike players such as Rooney and Rodwell he isn't powerful and would get steam rollered in the first team at a young age. It's probably a few years away yet.

Yep, hats off to you on that one, he looks the real deal. In fact, I found myself willing every player to pass it to him as I felt as though he'd never lose the ball and would dance around however many players tried to crowd him out. A brilliant prospect, looks up there with the young Wayne Rooney, but you often see young lads who have amazing ability, only for them to simply fizzle out. We'll see in a couple of years.

First time I've seen anything of Grealish and was impressed. The kid's got bags of skills and was being doubled-up upon as soon as they realised he could skip round players with ease. Got brushed off the ball once or twice but still very promising indeed. I also thought Connor Taylor looked very comfortable on the ball and could be a little belter. Daniel Johnson looked strong, composed and skillful, Johnson was decent on the left and I thought Drennan looked a fantastic hold-up player when he got the service (is it this fella who Sir_Gary_Cahill regards one of the worst players he's seen?!). Problem was our defence as a unit looked dodgy. Rosenburg were ok but we made it a bit easy for them in and around the box. Overall, I'm very impressed and look forward to seeing these lads progress.

Lichaj is out for 4 months. Although Herd played well on Saturday I'm not sure if we should rely on him as our number 1 RB. Happy with Hutton, good player who loves to get forward.. Seems to enjoy Big Eck as well, which should help. Really? I don't know how I missed that one, what happened to him? You're right though, neither player is experienced enough to rely on yet but it just seems a bit of a shame.

I think he'll do well for us but I'm a bit disappointed that it means both Herd and Lichaj are pushed back again. I really think they both look good, especially Lichaj who looks the better player from what little I've seen. Still, they're obviously not quite there yet so McLeish decided to opt for more experience to be on the safe side.

I think the difference is that some people look at players and how they measure up in terms of being the finished article. You appear to be one of those people. Other people look at the finer details and how good they think a player can/will be. It's clear to me that Makoun has a great touch and can play his way out of very tight situations with skill and vision. He is also calm enough to spot a pass. We don't have many players like that. The only thing holding Makoun back is his fitness and experience of the English game. I think he'll impress us this season in the right formation.

I don't really know where the £9m figure came from but if Whelan had actually said to Randy 'yes, we will sell N'Zogbia to you for £9m' and subsequently changed his mind, then yes, he is a bit of a ball sack because he has wasted our time. However, if nothing was actually agreed between the clubs, the price will simply be the amount at which we are happy to pay and they are happy to sell. That, my friends, is called an open market.

It does all seem peculiar that things weren't already sorted before we let Downing go, as was suggested by some. I'm sure Whelan does smell blood and thinks he can get way more out of the deal. If we have other targets then we are in a strong position as there don't seem to be any other clubs who can afford N'Zogbia. But, if we don't have any other targets to try for, we are a bit scuppered and may have to pay more than we wanted to. Myself, I'd probably go to about £12m but any more than that would be way too risky.

The way this is written has just been making me crack up to myself. I like the way snakevilla casually throws in that he 'torched the flag and half of the tree'! Anyway, north Brum (especially Kingstanding, Erdington and Sutton) is overwhelmingly Villa. South is more SHA but still plenty of Villa in places, east is a real mix and west is a mix of Villa and West Brom, maybe some SHA.

From what I've been told who has connections with players and also I think you'll find local journo's have backed up. I think you'll find if it's rumours off twitter then I always clarify... it's only rumours!! I don't know but I'm certain Liverpool wouldn't jump from £15m (if true) to a figure of well over £20m in the space of a few days. Sounds to me that Downing handing in a transfer request made a big difference. I'd imagine the fee of up to £20m is about right.

No I don't know who we are signing Apart from the obvious links that you've all heard about Given, Parker, N'Zogbia. I do know some who tweet and text who do have links to the club, but then again they said we were signing Moyes as manager until things changed. So I take it with a pinch of salt. Mat Kendrick is pretty reliable but he doesn't ALWAYS get it right neither. Something has changed today for definite and it wasn't Downing submitting a transfer request because he had been told it wouldn't make any difference. Yeah but who told you that his handing in a transfer request wouldn't make any difference? Don't mean to sound harsh but you do have a habit of trying to pass off tweets as some kind of ITK that you have special access to.

What a little bum grifter. Ah well, at least it's wrapped up now so we can crack on with spending some wonga.

If we can get him in for a few million and pay him £30-£40k per week or thereabouts, fair enough. If it's going to cost us much more than that I really don't think it's worth it. Surely there are plenty of decent goalkeepers in Europe or even in the lower leagues that could make the step up. I wish this could all just be finalised, though, I find goalkeeper speculation proper boring.

Personally I'm not too bothered about replacing Young if we can sort the centre out. Albrighton will come in and do a very good job, but I'm not convinced this obsession with wingers is for the best anyway. I've always much preferred quick, incisive passing through the middle with defence splitting passes for midfields making clever runs. One of the major things that annoyed me with O'Neill was that everything had to go down the line to be whipped in to the box. Predictable rubbish. The Barcelona system doesn't rely on wide players, in fact they don't have rigid positions at all. They use mobile players who move all over the pitch to create mahem. If we can get someone in who is solid but can also drive forward, play a pass and pop up with the odd goal (Parker, maybe, though perhaps a younger player from the continent, I don't know), then players like Delph and Makoun, possibly Bannan and even Ireland, could excel in a more narrow, triangular system. All that said, I'm not confident McLeish is the one to turn us in to the next Barcelona, but you never know...

Very good player, would welcome him. I actually think he's a better technical player than Young but his workrate isn't anywhere near as good. Admittedly workrate counts for a lot, especially in this league, but hopefully AMc can instill that side of things in to him a bit more...

The pace he isn't up to is in his head, he doesn't react quick enough and he makes rash decisions. He's not mentally up to the pace imo and pre-season training isn't going to give him that, the only thing that'll give him that is real game time and that is something I'm not sure we can afford to give him, especially as according to the manager we're going to be playing far more 4-4-2 which leaves little room for a passenger in midfield In my opinion you couldn't be more wrong. I think Makoun's touch and vision are both sublime, and only players who think fast can ease themselves out of tight situations the way Makoun can. His deft little touches prove that he has an instinctive awareness of the players around him and can adjust his body shape in a split second. I believe the only thing that held him back last season was that he simply wasn't used to having to cover so much ground so quickly for sustained periods of play. That affected his ability to make the right decisions at times. We all know what it's like when you're blowing out your arse, you lose the ability to control the ball, you lunge in to players a bit more because you're worried they'll just skip past you otherwise. I hope we keep him, he could be a top player.

Somebody get Steve on the phone.