Only2McInallys

I am missing football and it’s only been 1 day.

Players will need to sign to document accepting full risk. They have choice lose 1/4 of this years wages or finish season. On a more serious point this could be where big money funding premier league stops for a while .People are going to be cancelling their sky sports subscriptions .How are Clubs with very big wage bills going to pay their players?

One way to get season finished,take full squads of all teams in premier league away together ,expose them to virus so everybody gets it. Play rest of games behind closed doors. Voiding season could cause big financial problems.Sky and BT are not going to pay teams full season amount unless games are played. Who pays players salaries for next 6 months if no football ?

Seeing that tackle again has lifted my spirits .I wonder if we could do with a bit of that v Southampton today.

The odds on us to win are 4-1/5-1 are we really that bad?Southhampton have the worst home record in the prem . This is a big game for us .Must not lose. Samatta looks like he might add a bit of maturity to our squad,(which I think we have been lacking),he seems to hold the ball well and he seems to hover around the six yard box which all good strikers do. Hopefully Mings is back,keeping Ings quiet is going to be crucial. I have conflicting views on Drinkwater.The manager must see something in him and probably thinks he needs game time to improve.Smith must think Luiz and Nakamba don’t work well together and combining one of them with Drinkwater is the best option. Nakamba is a good ball winner but a poor passer Luiz is a poor ball winner but a really good passer. First goal tomorrow is vital.

My second favourite moment of his was also in the sha game where he tried to tackle 2 of them at the same time and still won the ball. Always seemed to give 110% and looked like he cared even when things were pretty bleak.

Any predictions of our results in a months time seem foolish to me.We are heavily reliant on 2 players and if either of them were to get serious injuries we would be in severe trouble. We are about to introduce 1 new striker and maybe more ,how will they adapt to this new league? The predicted points tally to be safe from relegation could be 40.Many of the top teams appear in transition and seem to be dropping points against our relegation rivals and many teams at the bottom have some really good players. Teams like Burnley,West Ham,Watford and Bournemouth have been established in the premier league for a few years and some have spent quite a lot of money. Moyes ,Dyche and Howe have done well in previous seasons.We are now second favourites to go down and I can see why outsiders think we look weak. There is usually one team that drops like a stone at this time -I hope it’s not us. I think we turned a corner when we won at Burnley.The team has a bit more steeliness and now is coming back after letting in first goal. Its strange now we are winning away and doing better in second halves which I hope is due to work being put in by coaches. Good recruitment next week is essential.

That Burnley result has made me realise relegation is now a real possibility. You look at teams like West Ham ,they have some really good players and will probably have enough to escape.aWatford are looking really good now and are getting great results against top 6 sides. What got us promoted last year and what we need now is. Momentum.I think yesterday’s draw and the win away at Burnley may be the beginning of our second wind.We seem more determined and with Mings back are holding on better at the end of games. We need some luck with our new signings but let’s not forget this time last year we were 12 th in the championship. We also need positive energy at Villa park similar to what our away fans provide.

Let’s not forget Watford finished 10 th last season.They have a strong spine ,central midfielders good ,goal keeper good and horrible scum a good solid striker.They have been in premier league for last 6 years and have never been close to relegation.Paerson has been lucky that Deeney has just got back and reenergised them. My big worry this season is our other relegation competitors could put a run together .Burnley are struggling at the moment but I could see them suddenly finding form and being safe. This has coincided with the top six dropping a lot of points against the lower teams (except us) We are finding some solidity especially away from home.I think we will do better away from home in the second half of the season than we will do at home ,our players will feel a lot of tension at home and we play many of the better teams. The key for us is central midfield.Do we need another signing or will our existing midfielders be able to rectify this problem area. The next few weeks and any further signings will decide if we stay up.

The only way we could have signed a sought after player early in this window is if we offer the selling club a bid way over the actual price of the player and we offer the player wages way above what they would expect to get . Would this be wise considering we may have FFP issues next year?Do people remember everyone critiquing Xia and co when we going bankrupt saying how we shouldn’t have been so reckless with money. I don’t think any big deals will get done until the last few days of this window.We have 2 games before then and will just have to manage without a striker.

Not sure if signing him is good idea or not. Pro 1Was brilliant for us for 3 seasons,great relationship with fans. 2 Very good in the air,something we have problems with defensively and offensivelyand we cross the ball into the box a lot. 3 The celebration when he scores his first goal in front of Holte End 4 Out of the names we have been linked with eg Rudy Gestede etc seems best option. 5If we get him playing to 80% of the player he was with us ,we stay up. Con 1Very poor recent goal return,lots of injuries . 2 Does he suit our style of play,is he too slow? 3Wages ,he is on £110,000 a week currently our highest earner is Heaton on £40,000.I can’t see us buying him with a loan more likely. I saw him play for Palace about 3 weeks ago and I thought he looked good in patches. Still not sure but only makes sense if we sign another striker with a lot of pace.

Has anyone given Gabby a call?

I love VAR

We have to be careful who we critcise in games,is it the player who shows for the ball and makes a mistake or is it the player who avoids taking a pass in a difficult position. He made a big error today and didn’t have a great game.I remember Mings getting a lot of criticism before his injury for mistakes for overplaying in dangerous positions.The reason was he was the only player taking the responsibility trying to avoid just hoofing it . We need players to have courage on the ball and accept that it can go wrong and lead to a goal.

It’s seems to me the emphasis on the new signings is -premier league experienced. When I heard the news ,like someone said above my heart sank.Financially it’s fairly low risk and he could be the kind of player we can bring on with 20 mins to go ,to hold onto a lead.Its the kind of player we don’t have. We have signed players before who have had a lot of personal problems eg Merson and McGrath but proved to be brilliant signings so there is hope.

I remember when the FACup final was the only live game on tv and winning it was only second to the league. How times change .I think a dull 1-0 defeat is best outcome for us.We have key players out through injury and our second string players are now our first string players.We can not afford injuries to even the likes of Nyland ,Elmo,Taylor,players who many on here would say are rubbish but who are going to be crucial in the relegation run in .

It’s true that Heatons age will make it more difficult for him but you could say a goalkeepers knees is not going to have to withstand the kind tackles that Wes is going to face when he returns. Zlatan had this injury when he was at Manu and seems to have recovered ok but comparing any other player to him is probably a mistake.

The only good news about injury suffered by both Wes and Heaton is that many famous players have had these injuries and came back stronger.Ruud van Nistelrooy and Alan Shearer both had this quite early in their careers and 90 % recover successfully.

There are some seriously deluded people on here. Poch ,Allegri ?Why not Klopp or Pep.They are not coming to Villa. Allardyce is probably possible.So all those people critising bruceball will be happy. Alladyce appointment would remind me of Sherwood a short term stopgap. Our problem is not the manager...it’s the players.We have 4 premier league players and currently 2 of those are injured. Good recruitment in January is what we should be concentrating on.

The bookies have us 3-1 to win this which says a lot about how our form is perceived at the moment. This is a must not lose game.A draw wouldn’t be a bad result keeping them 6 points behind us. i hope he doesn’t risk Mings if he isn’t ready. 1-1 Wesley for us and Deeney for them.

We should get rid of the royal family(although Andrew is helping to make this popular) The honours system is completely corrupt and outdated,what empire? The BBC is very good especially bbc4 and radio stations Christmas dinner-why do you need 2or 3 different meats and 5 different vegetables

We have the strongest 2nd 11 we have had for many years hence our success in the Caribou cup.So our strongest 11 is more difficult to pick than in previous years . For me Heaton ,Mings,McGinn and Grealish are not negotiable. Elmo or Guilbert I think is difficult . I think Elmo is very underrated by many Villa fans,he makes mistakes but he can make a difference going forward. El gazi can do brilliant things ,gets into position and has good chances but can also be rubbish. Hourihaneis our best dead ball deliverer and deadly in the penalty area but can be anonymous when we lose the ball.

The key to us improving our away results is in new signings in January. We need to add some pace upfront and some physical presence in central midfield. Looking at the table after today’s results there are a number of clubs within 3 points of us.The problem is they all seem to getting points in games you expect them to lose which is what we have been unable to do. The confidence of the players at the moment is the lowest it’s been all season.Many of the players are avoiding doing anything for fear of making a mistake with one notable exception.Today was a poor performance but a clean sheet is a good starting point for our recovery. We had a spell like this last year and maybe the return of Mings a couple of new additions will lead to a similar upturn in second part of season.

The spine of the team apart from Heaton is weak.Hopefully Mings returning soon will help our defence. There probably has been too much emphasis on young players who have potential to improve rather than experienced players who are near the end of their career let’s not forget Merson Snodgrass and McGrath were fantastic players for us. Morale is low at the moment and a couple of good quality loan signings would give us a boost. I can’t see us spending a lot of money in this window because relegation is quite possible and dealing with FFP in tha championship is going to be difficult.

I am convinced a lot of clubs are losing on purpose to get villa relegated. Watford concern me because I think they have some really good players and with some additions in January could escape relegation zone. What has been shown this year is there is no really rubbish teams(except us as some on here might suggest) and avoiding relegation is going to be major task.Southampton and Watford have been establised premier league teams for a number of years and have some good players. We on the other hand finished 5th in championship last season ,yes we spent £130 million on 13 players .We didn’t have an established team and then spent heavily adding quality to it as other clubs have egWest Ham,Brighton or even Newcastle all these clubs have spent over 100 million over last 2 years. One of our problems is when we were in the championship is we didn’t notice Premier league clubs were investiing in high quality players and managers.This league is much stronger than when we were relegated in 2016.I think it’s fair to say it’s the strongest league in the world..Some people at the start of the season looked at clubs like Burnley and Brighton and assumed we would beat them easily.We have found that to be a huge error. We have underestimated the strength in depth of this league.As we saw in the European completions last year the top teams are the best in Europe.