Villa Stu

16 minutes ago, KSV said:

When does he perform though? Grealish just goes missing. Yes he dances around defenders and gets fouled. However, he cant pass or put a through ball. Barely shoots and when he does its not good. Against Championship opposition i was expecting him to dominate but he doesnt even stand out in the Championship. Overrated is a fair call imo.  

Jack can pass the fact is that no one shows for the ball when our attackers have it. A number of times today he had the ball but had no options on.

If we get a couple of decent players that show for the ball and can also pass you will see him tear players apart in this league. The won't know if he will glide past them or look for a quick one two. The issue has been that he has been isolated for long periods during his first team career. He has bags of potential and with the right man management and support he will quickly become the player that we all know he can be.

7 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

another rather shit performance from him. Winker showed how much more of a talent he is. Greallish is so over rated. We probably one good gMe in 5 from him

I wouldn't say he is over rated I would say he is under performing mate. The main issue is that not enough people show for the ball when he is in possession so he struggles to make too much of an impact. At times through the season when Amavi has been in advanced positions he linked up well with him and at the start of the season he was linking up well with McCormack. With a couple of quality additions to the team I think it will benefit him and make him look twice the player that he has up to this point.

The thing that is lacking from his game though is goals and hopefully that is something that will come sooner rather than later.

Just now, jim said:

I didn't say they should be, but he certainly wasn't much of an improvement IMO.

He kept getting caught in position, looked hesitant and rushed on the ball. Also didn't look like he was busting a gut to do anything. Something I thought he would have been doing today, to make a point to the manager.

I can't stand Westwood but at least he looks like he is trying when he plays, just  isn't good enough.

I thought he looked pretty good today to be honest. I think he is much better than Westwood & Gardner. We won't play against a midfield like that for the rest of the season and he held his own. With him Jedinak, hopefully Lansbury and one more cm I would be happy that our cm would be strong enough to at least reach the play offs and give us a good foundation to build on in the future windows

It was tight between Johnstone, Chester and Tshibola. I would say Johnstone just edged it for me with a few great saves

Thought we done well in the first half, frustrated spurs and kept well organised. We need to get grealish on the ball to try and win more free kicks/corners and hopefully nick this game

29 minutes ago, Jas10 said:

Looks like the Lansbury deal will be a complicated one and not guaranteed, depends on the Forest takeover...

Expecting a thrashing today, no hope with Gabby starting up front. Would love to be surprised though.

I wonder if it's worth trying to go for Trippier again, we were linked in the last window

Let's hope we can get the Lansbury deal done early next week to give him a few days to train before wolves.

Not got a clue why he would start gabby over McCormack, maybe he wanted someone that can impact the game from the bench?

Trippier is a great shout mate, would love to have someone like him here

For me the most recent club legends are Barry, Mellberg and Laursen. I remember seeing Barry in my first ever game at VP against Leeds. It was one of the best performances that I have ever seen by a Villa player to this day. He chipped in with a few goals during his time and I have many fond memories of him in the claret & blue.

I think Laursen and Mellberg is the best cb partnership that I can remember in recent times and I was gutted when it came to an end.

I think that a potential future club legend is Grealish. He has all the qualities to be a true great at VP but needs to start being more consistent and sort his off pitch behaviour out. 

21 minutes ago, Jas10 said:

I agree, strengthening midfield is definitely the priority and we do struggle to create chances, the players we have that possess that ability are simply too inconsistent.

We do also need a goalscorer though, honestly the only quality striker we have is Kodjia in my opinion and we are going to struggle without him. Agbonlahor is an appalling, temporary, replacement and McCormack has not been playing well at all. We should've got rid of others before Gestede imo who appeared to start the season well and was "in the mood".

I think if McCormack got the service he could do really well. He has been the best striker in the league for the last 4 or 5 years and you don't lose that overnight. At the start of the season, before he got injured, he created more chances than any other player in the league. Players need to supply him and he will score mate, he gets in good positions and can finish, with a player like Lansbury and possibly Hourihane he will start to get opportunities instead of being isolated

1 hour ago, Jas10 said:

We certainly need one, can anyone think of any realistic and worthwhile options other than Rhodes? Midfield is definitely the priority though, we need to be more creative yet solid at the same time.

Would be good, and wishful thinking really, if we could get rid of some of the fairly useless players too. Those not in contention and seemingly unfancied by the manager also (inc Ayew? Has quality but what's the point if he's not going to be playing?).

If we were after a striker I would be happy with any of Rhodes, Will Grigg, Nakhi Wells, Hernandez or even Nugent. I think at this level there are quite a few that would offer something to the club but I think it should be a priority trying to get 2 or 3 players that can create chances for strikers mate. There's no point having the best attackers in the league if they will be isolated for the next 20 games.

18 minutes ago, TRO said:

When we had our best spells in football......we signed players none of us fans had ever heard of.....they just blended very,very, well.

nowadays its just lists of easy targets.

I was kinda hoping that a strategy of blending together attributes that would form a balanced team, would be the new order.

Example......Leeds have assembled a very powerful back line, with only a Green having any kind of reputation, but they look very strong and cost modest funds.

I fear this model we follow will turn up, very little......hope I am wrong.

I think this approach is only viable if you have decent foundations to build on. It was the approach that was taken by Lambert and sherwood to try to rebuild the whole squad and what that shown was that for every decent signing (a Benteke or Amavi) there was 4 or 5 bad signings (Westwood, el ahmadi, tonev etc).

My point being it is a risky strategy to take in our position as we need to build a team that will hit the ground running and with 3 or 4 good quality signings in this window it should be achieved.

At this point we could then start looking at finding the next Benteke.

6 minutes ago, VILLAMARV said:

I get this as an idea. if we had any options at LB that weren't Cissokho or Bacuna but it kind of highlights the problem doesn't it that it could be argued that our best left midfielder is probably our left back?

It certainly does mate, I think it is the route that I would take though because for where we are I don't think we would be able to find many wingers that could offer what amavi does, whereas I think we could find a decent lb for quite a lot less money than buying a lm. 

100% agree about bacuna and aly. They offer very little a lb 

10 minutes ago, VILLAMARV said:

We might not like our striking options or RB or CM but we don't have an out and out left midfielder in the squad at all and I for one would be very pleased with this if they manage to fend off the inevitable interest from PL clubs.

I would quite like to see Amavi at lm and look at getting in a new lb. When he gets forward he links up well with players like grealish and always shows for the ball, but most importantly for me he actually looks for a pass/cross and doesn't try to do everything on his own.

1 minute ago, Mjvilla said:

I don't know much about schlupp apart from his name is really, really silly. 

Would have Brady in the squad though. 

I have a few mates that are Leicester fans and they rate him, apparently he was phenomenal the year that they got promotion, I am only going off there opinions though mate.

1 minute ago, Mjvilla said:

Yeah, I saw that second bit but wasn't sure if they meant we are monitoring Brady or schlupp?

I see what you mean mate, never thought of it that way. I think I would be happy with either of them

Would love to get Lansbury along with someone like Hourihane or Dale Stephens but for me my preferred choice would be Will Hughes from Derby. He is everything our squad is crying out for, sadly though I have seen nothing linking him to us. 

Just read on sky sports transfer centre that us and Albion are monitoring the situation with Schlupp.

59 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

We seem to like signing 'specialists' who are only good at one thing or only able to play a very particular role and I'm fed up of it, we need more all rounders in the squad, more dynamism. Jedinak is OK, does a good job at protecting the back, but useless at everything else, he will serve us reasonably well at this level, but clearly doesn't look among the best the league has to offer in his position. 

I get where you are coming from and whilst I admit he is not the best in the league in his position, he is our best. If we get Lansbury and one more cm I would be happy with that for the rest of the season along with Tshibola

11 minutes ago, PompeyVillan said:

Apparently Palace fans singing his name last night. As far as I'm concerned they can have him. Awful player. 

Disagree mate, his passing may not be the best but his presence and the way he protects the defence is something we need. Alongside a couple of decent midfielders he will look completely different and will be a rock in the team

9 minutes ago, Marley the Bognor Villan said:

Apparently interested in this Fofana chap

 

http://www.lequipe.fr/Football/Actualites/Stoke-city-sur-guessouma-fofana-amiens/765328

Don't know anything about him but I would welcome him here. Surely can't be any worse than Westwood and Gardner. Hopefully he will add a bit of decent competition for Jedinak

33 minutes ago, Trickster said:

 

He would be a bargain at £3m

1 minute ago, TRO said:

but we cannot keep funding cock ups..... we need to know more about these strikers and how/who has created their goals.

Completely agree mate, we need more creativity in midfield. If we get Rhodes I would possibly look at playin McCormack in the number 10 role, at the start of the season he created more chances than any player in the league.

54 minutes ago, Dante_Lockhart said:

Really could do with him IMO. Better than the dross we have at the moment.

6 minutes ago, Czechlad said:

He isn't coming back for like the 50th time. We'd likely have to pay a fee to cancel his loan, he doesn't want to play in the english 2nd division, and seems to be doing well in France again. Doubt he'd be happy to uproot his life to come back to the club that almost ruined his career. 

He would definitely improve the midfield we have now, which isn't saying a lot, but have to agree that he isn't coming back to play in the championship.

I would prefer us to get Hourihane and Lansbury in over veretout coming back here anyway, they have the experience of the championship, can score goals and will improve the balance of the squad. Veretout only ever looked average in a Villa shirt, with the exception of a couple of decent outings.

25 minutes ago, TrentVilla said:

One thing is for certain though, he is better than what we have now and would add a little devil to the side because the other week he set out to get Shelvey sent off and succeeded.

 Exactly this and at £3m he is a bargain. Unlike Westwood and Gardner he will not just be a passenger in games. He to me looks like a player that we could do with right now and is entering his "peak" at 26. Would love to get Hourihane in also to play alongside Jedinak. With these 3 and hopefully Tshibola finding his feet our midfield would be much stronger.

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