sparrow1988

30 years ago sexual predators kept their jobs at some football clubs. Now it seems K Mac could potentially go because he shouts at players.... I don't know what else to say.

3 hours ago, Fowlersrs said:

For all his merits Kodjia does have a an element of Ayew disease about him where by he clearly appears very selfish and tunnel vision like.

 

 

We've all seen an AFCON game. Ayew and Adomah are some of the best players in Africa with obvious exceptions like Drogba or similar. Just be thankful they don't shoot from midfield when they get it.

1 hour ago, TRO said:

• Platt
• McGrath
• Yorke
• Laursen
• Neilsen
• Teale
• Spink
• Gidman
• Barry
• Morley
• A Evans
• Cropley
• Bremner
• Mortimer
• Rimmer
• Ehiogu

and more

Ok so I'm going back a bit....but even then , they were modest sums, even in those days

We have been more successful, with those type of buys.

These are the ones that I remember (Teale and Spink towards the end) so I can't comment on the rest. I'm taking a stab here but that a period of roughly 12/13 years from McGrath to Laursen. I've highlighted 6 so roughly one every two years. That's a pretty good hit rate.

Now let's consider the subsequent 12/13 years. We've had Benteke since then who was relatively cheap considering what we received for him. Downing also made a tidy profit but was a fairly big outlay in the first place. I'm struggling to think of more. Young, maybe. I can't remember what we sold him for. We royally f****d up on the scouting side during the Lerner era didn't we? Made losses on players left, right and centre while paying fairly substantial money. We have essentially halved our hit rate in bargain finding. 

I think we need to have a pretty good base in place first and that will require money to be spent. Although maybe the way to do it is, instead of spending £2 million on a player and hope he ends up being the next Yorke or Barry. Spend the money behind the scenes. Put the scouting and player analysis infrastructure in place and the Yorkes et al will be much easier to find.

Failing that Tony can use his Chinese government contacts and get us offering the Messis of the world stupid money while having dubious sponsor deals with Chinese companies who build some sort of flying machine for dogs. I don't care. I just want Villa to be successful again.

1 hour ago, TRO said:

YES

Really? I'm not so sure. The nature of football and the money that is involved essentially means that to go from being unsuccessful to successful means that a period of debt is inevitable to obtain players, other staff etc. With a sustained period of success then coming back into the black would be possible. 

Now that is a very basic lay man opinion with absolutely no fact to back it up but I would feel that it is roughly correct....

5 hours ago, Kiwivillan said:

If I wanted energy and nuzzling and barking at a match official I'd sign a Labrador. He's a nothing player for me and if that team performance at home against Derby is a benchmark we're well and truly **** getting out of this league anytime in the near future

Labradrors are predominantly quite timid and placid dogs. I'd go for a Jackrussell myself if that's what I wanted.

So let me get this straight... He's always late by being a minute early? 

56 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

I knew this would happen, we always screw up our chances. Hemce why I said it's like us being close to champions league and signing Harewood, then Man City getting taken over, all over again.

This was the year we needed to go up.

Conversely, we could have been better run for the previous ten years and never be in this situation but that's been mentioned and discussed once or twice on here I think.

47 minutes ago, PieFacE said:

Eh? He's obviously training with us so the club can have a look at him? He had a trial at Crystal Palace and didn't get offered a contract, we're looking at him now. 

So Big Sam didn't even see a use for him. Says a lot!

Do people think that last night is to do with Hogan being susceptible to injuries?

It just looked like a very unfortunate landing. I would wager that 99% of people landing like that, would end up in a heap like Hogan did and that it has nothing to do with his previous injuries.

40 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

I think the manager is part of the problem this time. A big part. 

Do you think that the previous managers have also been a problem? And if so more or less than Bruce?

IMO

McLeish - 

Lambert - started well considering what he was trying to build. I don't think that he was supported sufficiently when we should have been kicking on. And at the end, well, we all know about that.

Sherwood - short term appointment and it worked in the sense that we stayed up. Disaster from the minute that we were safe onwards.

Garde - I don't know what he was told when he was coming here but I think that the board gave up which was evidenced by the January transfer window after he had inherited a broken squad. Liked him at first as we seemed an organised outfit then everything just fell apart.

RDM - Did a good job of reshaping the squad although midfield was totally neglected. We played decent football and in hindsight it looks like he should have been given more time although we'll never know if it would have gotten better or worse.

1 minute ago, Mjvilla said:

Marco silva in the summer unless Bruce turns it around and hull go down.

Why 'as it always gotta be a foreign managa?

14 minutes ago, BOF said:

Just on the half time thing.  We'd have 5pts more than we do now if games blew up at half time.  So it's not that lopsided.

But we've also lost the most points from winning positions.... I think. At least I read that somewhere in the last week. Although I can't remember where now. Apologies.

3 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

I will reserve my own judgement. Their teams gash so I will wait until he has better players round him before commenting =)

When is he leaving Villa then?

Maybe it's a good time now to take him out of the team. He has potential and there is no point in constantly asking him to play if Taylor is around and Amavi is going through a bad patch. Which one of them is first choice now I don't really care. We have a squad let's use it.

23 minutes ago, kurtsimonw said:

and Leicester are the biggest club in England. 

I'd much rather be in Leicester's situation right now if I'm honest.

Just now, Wezbid said:

Berbatov is in the country...

Terms agreed according to Sky.

5 minutes ago, skarroki said:

He's already done his ACL twice, so if you're worried about it going again, it already has and he'll be fine from now on. It's like chickenpox, only happens twice. 

Same leg or different legs. I heard that it's likely to happen in the other leg on comeback because you've put so much focus in to rebuilding the injured one.

12 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

He rarely puts in a good ball under pressure though from what I've seen. 

Not a lot of people do put in a good ball while under pressure

1 hour ago, Jareth said:

Steve B looked confident yesterday, probably gave him a great facial. 

Excuse me. What?

2 hours ago, Kiwivillan said:

Don't want to be a negative Nancy but don't understand the fuss. Swiss league is a joke, yeah I know the Belgian one is too and we got Benteke from there. Was on the bench the last CL match too so not even nailed starter? 

Hope to be proved wrong

Still all the 'superior' teams from the 'superior' English Premier League have tended to struggle at times against Basel

48 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

We've enquired about Darron Gibson.

I don't know how serious we were or even if this was before our recent signings, I only know that it happened. 

Are we looking for a drinking partner for McCormack?

54 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Without being biased, I am hoping all these players will raise EVERYONE'S game, could even benefit Gabster?

Not one bit bothered if he starts every game if performing and scoring

55 minutes ago, S-Platt said:

Should be unless he is walking back!

Did a quick calc. If he's walking it'll take about 112 days. That's a lot of Gabby up front.

10 minutes ago, Corcaigh said:

When you're in the shit you need a Cork man to sort it out 

A blatant case of trolling here.... MODS - please sort it.