DaveAV1

He’s a visionary

ACL and MCL, were they awarded in the New Years Honours?

You’re barred!!!!

He’s checking Walsall archives for a corner they gave away once during a 5-0 win.

That means we’d have to score 6!

I’m waiting until tomorrow, just to be sure.

So what you’re saying TRO is that people who agree with you are being honest and people who have a different opinion are delusional.

I don’t entirely disagree with that, it’s the nature of the business. However I’m not so sure if it’s more of a policy problem rather than the actual signings. We appear to have a policy of buying for the future, which is good, but have forgotten about the now. As in most things in life it’s about balance. We have a chance to address that now, but haven’t left ourselves with much room for error.

It’s an article by a journalist with no direct quotes or even suggestions as to a source. I don’t think it highlights anything with regards to any discord in the camp. Suso and Dean may be equally disappointed with some of the incomings, it’s never an exact science. It must be remembered that both Sir Alex Ferguson and David O’Leary signed Eric Djemba Djemba. That didn’t make the former a bad manager or the latter a good one. All signings are a complicated risk assessment. PS. Happy New Year to you too

Me neither. I’ve had my mid morning cuppa and a biscuit, but absolutely nothing! We’re sleep walking into relegation. A striker by lunchtime and a couple of wingers before afternoon tea or I’m going to start questioning the ambitions of our board.

Yes and he’s a rubbish driver, never folds his trousers properly and worse of all puts sugar on his cornflakes before the milk. He’s the worst player we’ve had since 1874.

He plays Scot Hogan, really? Didn’t he pick Bosco Balaban against Southampton too?

I know we’ve gone off the boil goal scoring wise and everyone’s favourite bad guy is Wesley, but we’ve defended badly all season. Up until recently we’ve scored a decent amount of goals as a team, even if out striker needs improving. It’s defending that we don’t do well as a team or individually. Mings has been a miss recently and hopefully he’s back soon, but another commanding figure with a bit of bite wouldn’t do any harm. Anyway if we sign him that doesn’t mean we won’t strengthen other areas.

Steve Gerrard, didn’t he fall on his arse and give it to Demba Ba?

It wasn’t just aimed at Wesley, I think we lack pace all over the pitch. And besides my Villanous friend, it wasn’t cheap I’ve just poured a glass from a bottle of single malt. Cheap! How very dare you!

Whilst I think Gerrard has done well, the Scottish PL is still a two horse race. Ok due to Rangers total financial melt down it has been one horse race for a few seasons. But take any manager from the English PL or even most of the Championship and as managers of Celtic or Rangers they would win the Scottish PL. I live in The Highlands and I know a few Rangers fans who of course, especially after they beat Celtic on Sunday, love Gerrard. But for me he is still unproven, such is the poor standard up here. For that reason I think he would jump at the chance if any PL club offered him a chance, even in our position. It would almost be a free hit for him as he could blame the previous coach. I think it’s a mute point anyway as I don’t think we’d take the risk on Gerrard if we decided to replace Smith. I’m currently of the opinion that the board are desperate for stability and will support him in the transfer market next month to try to get us the right side of the line in May. But who knows?

Absolutely spot on. Even Mr Aston Villa himself wasn’t t actually very good, believe it or not. (I know it’s hard but try).But the boy could run and even the best defenders are scared by genuine pace. Our current team have the pace of an octogenarian running in porridge.

That’s the spirit!

I think, if the players being linked, Vida, Drinkwater etc, are anything to go by the club have realised we don’t have enough experience on the pitch. Whilst the general policy of buying potential is a good one, we need to balance that with current needs. At least they appear to have realised it. Hopefully not too late.

Welcome to Villa Park Myron.

I don’t mean this season, but I can’t imagine that our ambitious owners are aiming for anything less within a reasonable time frame.

Only for knots and fire lighting.

I’d like to think that whoever we appoint next will, over a period of reasonable time, take us to the top 6 ourselves.

I don’t believe Dean Smith has a big say in recruitment. Which for me brings more worries. I don’t believe the blame falls on any one individual’s shoulders, although I know how it works and it will probably end with DS losing his job. I can’t believe many people believe our recruitment policy has worked. Some of the signings have been poor players in my opinion but I think on the whole we have signed for future potential. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the PL won’t wait for them to get up to speed. We needed to sign more players that could hit the ground running which would mean that we would be a better team in the short term and would have helped to stabilise and improve the younger players in the squad. I think it may be beyond Dean to turn us around now, but we must look at the failures elsewhere as well or we will just end up making the same mistakes.

Eddie Howe would be great for us I think. In the past he has been very loyal to the Bournemouth project, but it would be worth a try. Shankley said you can only make the same speeches so many times before either the players or you have to go. So perhaps he could be persuaded to take on a new project with much bigger potential than his current one, no disrespect to Bournemouth. Of course a wage rise and a big war chest never does any harm either.