New_Hope

1 minute ago, PompeyVillan said:

I'm totally on board with one Liverpool chant "Duh duh duh duh, **** the Tories". 

I'd like that one to catch on at VP.

Lol....still crying are we??

Just now, Dr_Pangloss said:

TBF he finds the back of the net, still shite

That'll add an extra £5 tohis transfer fee in January!

Just now, ciggiesnbeer said:

In principle so should Aston Villa. It was the core of our recruitment this summer after all. 

 

Keeping in touch are we?? A lot of these players were already with us before our recruitment in the summer!!

Just now, Dave-R said:

Why Smith doesn't play Hourihane every game I do not know, you can't leave the chap out.

Because he does this against inferior teams and goes missing against stronger teams!

I take it he should be starting on Saturday.....again?!?!

Rename the North Stand.

6 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

I'm starting to get to the point of not minding Championship anymore.

This constant worry of relegation and losing every week is mentally draining for me. Hate this league.

 

Seriously??? I suggest you sit back and take stock of what other people may be going through right now to think if a football club's fortunes are a real life issue!!

49 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

Don't think you can compare the clubs. They are smaller clubs with less expectations and less resources.

If you spend 140 mill in one summer the minimum requirement is survival.

We HAD to spend £140m just to get a feckin squad ffs!!!!!

We have to win the next 3..no excuses really!!

I honestly can't believe what I am reading...we honestly have an real arrogance about our club it's unreal!!!

We had to spend in the summer or a team would have been bottom of league and probably without a win....we had to invest in a backbone to the squad as we would have only had about 15 1st teamers contracted to the club which is by no means a healthy place to be.

It makes me laugh when you hear people say 'Give such and such a go' DS does this then same people slate him for it!!  In the last 2 weeks we have had people state:

Hourihane has to be in the team

Hourihane needs dropping 

Luiz came on and is a great player..must start next game

Luiz is shit...needs to be dropped

It truely is pathetic to see spoilt brattish princess behaviour form our own.

Let's see where we are in May ffs!!

Somethings are the same every week....that's for sure!

Any team from 8 could be in relegation contention at the minute!

I believe we won't be in the bottom 3 come May.

11 hours ago, villalad21 said:

Bournmouth and Burnley will be fine. Howe and Dyche are experienced enough to get them to safety

Built on their amazingly organized defences?!?!

1 hour ago, foreveryoung said:

I certainly hope Smith dont go out thinking this way.  As hard as the job is, we need to go out thinking we can beat any team. There will be zero progress if we are happy just to beat the crap.

I'm sure we do mate....but when playing the top teams belief isn't enough....yeah you might grab a plucky win....but when they are on top form and the difference in class is there to see, no point in bitchin because they have stopped us from performing due to their higher standard of play!!

8 hours ago, TRO said:

I don't look at the fixtures....I look at how we play......its about us, not everybody else.

But the nature of opposition defines how we play and perform surely....I can just imagine the Crewe fans having a right moan about how they played against us can't you?

Where we can judge ourselves is by playing the teams in our mini-league of 7....we get results against them (which we have done) and we are fine!

1 hour ago, TRO said:

Our standards need to be set against the top teams, not the bottom ones.

beating the bottom teams...doesn't in itself fix our issues.....it just papers over the cracks.

sure, it takes time, but certain improvements in aspects of our game should be able to be identified, in order for improvement to be expected.

What cracks.....we are not a top 6 team under-achieving here....we are a newly promoted team vying for survival in a new league....beating the bottom clubs is exactly our standard at the minute

2 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

As the weeks go by, i'm leaning more and more into putting him back at Left Back, and having Targett as our backup Left Back. Offload Taylor and Left Back position is instantly stronger. He likes to bomb forward and run with the ball, and has the occasional lapse which i'm not sure we can afford in the heart of defence at this level. He also has the height to clear things away from that position.

Buy another Strong, pacy Left sided CB and I feel we come on leaps and bounds.

And if we can offload Elmo, I'd be tempted to try Konsa as backup RB to Guibert, OR buy another RB.

 

Bruce....is that you??

1 hour ago, hippo said:

Me too - I can only think he was promised a new contract on promotion - but given he had a good whack of his contract to run, and this season could still end badly - It just seemed strange to extend his contract.

I don't believe it will have any impact on way or the other on results - it just means we have a whacking payout should we decide to bin DS.

Hi Hippo....not seen you in a while.

1 hour ago, jim said:

All factually correct though. 

Norwich had 9 of the starters that beat Man City!!

50 minutes ago, useless said:

It can't be true surely, but sometimes it feel as though myself and the people who like my posts (whether by actually pressing the like button or smiling in agreement as they read them) are the only ones with any sense of perspective or balance, yes of course Smith's job shouldn't be in any danger and overall it hasn't been a disastrous start, but at the same time it's okay to admit that things aren't going brilliantly currently and to express concern. We've lost five of the last seven and won only one of them, Vengloš, O'Leary, Taylor, McLeish, Houllier and Lamert all did better after sixteen games in all their seasons with us, if we're to have any chance of staying up we need to improve and do better, it's no good being passive about our current situation and pretend everything is going brilliantly.

You could argue that all of those managers had a stronger backbone to the squad than we did when we came up this year.

So the starting points of those managers was better than Smith's

10 minutes ago, AVTuco said:

I'm getting some consolation from the fact that we're not in a relegation position. If we drop down there, I think I'm going to lose hope.

Stay away then mate rather than infect us with your doom mongering!

12 minutes ago, useless said:

We've only picked up wins against a Norwich team that had an injury crisis, a Brighton team that played half of the game with ten men, an Everton side that were about to embark on their worst start to a season in many years, and Newcastle who are probably the best team we've beat this season. So it's not just the big teams we're not beating, we're struggling against everyone.

What a crock of shite!!

8 minutes ago, Genie said:

Just a small matter of being 4th bottom and winning 3 out of 4 games. 

Against 3 teams lower than us

But let's not let facts or our record against the bottom teams get in the way shall we?

2 minutes ago, Hobbit Feet said:

The problem is we are not picking up any points at all against the big teams and that makes our games against the lower teams such more important to win and that builds pressure. We are not good under pressure.

We did well under pressure when we went from 13th to 5th in that 10 game unbeaten run