OxfordVillan

Not exactly putting your money where your mouth is, is it?! How about £20 at 50-1 and I’ll give all the money to Acorns if Villa win?

Gilmore may well run rings around Nakamba & Luiz, he has done that against the Liverpool & Everton midfield over his last two games, and those two midfields are far more experienced and costly than ours. Then again it might turn out that Gilmore has flagged himself up and we do a number on him, what with being an away game rather than Stamford Bridge. We’ll see soon enough

If you give me 50-1 odds then I’ll place a bet with you. Shall we say £20 @ 50-1?

That would be a huge mistake IMO. FWIW if I were Dean Smith I’d be trying to get JT out. None of us know what’s going on behind the scenes, all I will say is that defensively we are garbage. Consistently garbage game after game. I don’t envisage JT coaching the forwards, I also don’t envisage him having much input with the midfield. Logic would lead us to strongly speculate that JT would play a big part in the coaching of the defensive lads. And history shows us that JT isn’t a shrinking violet who doesn’t speak out if things aren’t going as he’d prefer. So is JT undermining Dean Smith? Is JT the bad apple in the unit? Is it coincidence that we took a midfield problem from JTs beloved Chelsea who is now causing Dean Smith a big problem? A player who wasn’t wanted at Burnley over the like of Ashley Westwood and sent back to his parent club?! It’s worth watching for, and noting, the potential political machinations.

If you’re a qualified accountant then you’ll know that if we were to be relegated this season then we’d receive 55% of Premier League money next season (around £60m) in a parachute payment. That would be before the incoming money from player sales, which could reasonably be estimated at around £110m. Add to that existing player salaries very likely being reduced by approximately 30-50% because of relegation clauses in contracts, not to mention that any player sales will very likely be the highest wage earners gone from the payroll completely. Can you tell us, given the above, where the huge losses will be? I understand that we’ll “lose” the future revenues that we could have earned, but we’re in a much improved situation than we were in 2015-16. Relegation is far from ideal, but it’s not the bed wettingly apocalyptic scenario you seem to think it is.

Changes might be needed in the management/coaching structure, not necessarily the manager. Given that our most appalling trait is the inability to stop goals/chances from set pieces, why aren’t we questioning John Terry’s suitability for the role? Perhaps we need to get in an experienced defensive coach to aid Dean Smith and the team? Because we repeat the same mistakes over and over again with our attempts at zonal marking, or our attempts to play out. We’re a defensive mess, and getting worse.

Yes, I accept that Jota has fallen well short and that he was a Smith pick. But jota was a very cheap gamble, but a gamble that hasn’t paid dividends this season.

The people ultimately responsible for how this season is panning out are Purslow and Suso. Let’s be straight, how many of Susos players looks Premier League quality? Who put Suso in position? We all know Smith wanted Phillips, we got nakamba and Luiz. We know smith wanted benrhama, we got Trezeguet. Yes smith has shown some naivety, but ultimately we’re not good enough man to man.

It looks to me like Grealish is wearing the look of a man who realises the game is up. He knows we’re done. Who could blame him for beginning to think about where he’ll be playing next season? He’s done all he can, we look like falling well short. London or Manchester next?

Stick a fork in us, we’re done

Let’s be clear, it was clearly the top of the shoulder. How VAR has looked at it and still given a penalty is comical. But that doesn’t paper over how utterly shit we are, getting worse by the game. Nothing to take from this game at all. I’ve not seen worse than us, even Norwich.

10mins into 2nd half, no reaction. Still getting battered. Changes required. Now

The repetitive defensive calamities are down to the manager and coaches. We clearly have personnel who cannot master the zonal marking they are being asked to do. A good manager should recognise this and change it, we look like conceding from every set piece into our box. Tear up the zonal marking and go simple man for man. Hourihane is a complete waste of a shirt at this level , it’s honestly like watching a schoolboy running after the ball, aimlessly but with plenty of endeavour. Luiz seems miles off the pace, I’m afraid he needs drinkwater in behind him. All over we’re completely devoid of ideas to retain any semblance of possession, let alone get forward with any sort of plan. Get Davis & drinkwater on, sit Davis on Ndidi in front of the Leicester back line and get him ruffling his feathers and winning some ball in that gap between the lines. We’re worse than I’d thought we’d be thus far, I don’t see how we get back in this

I’m sorry but **** Reina off out of it. Nyland should have kept the shirt because of his faultless, solid displays.

Unfortunately I can see us losing this by 2 or 3 goals. I’ll go 3-1 for Leicester

Man Utd have better players than Aston Villa, that’s all there is to it. They played more effectively against City because they have better players, in every area of the pitch.

For what it’s worth I think the postponement of our home game with Sheffield Utd works in our favour. It’ll very likely be a midweek match under the floodlights, and McGinn will very likely be back and up to match speed. I always fancy us in midweek games under the lights at Villa Park. Sheffield Utd will also be very likely safe in the league but away from chance of top4, and possibly still competing in FA Cup. They won’t have as much to play for IMO, which might just remove a bit of edge from their game. There is still over a quarter of the season left, whilst performances and results recently have left us feeling a bit flat, we aren’t adrift and listless.

I point people in the direction of Giroud for an example of a near non goal scoring CF that can make a whole team better. Now before anyone kicks off I’m not saying Davis is the equal of Giroud, I’m merely suggesting that the styles are similar. Look at Chelsea on Tuesday night with Giroud back in the team, transformed. He allows others to play better, he brings others into the game more. Davis, for me, is similar in that we do appear to be better with him up top. Just my opinion!

You have to be cynical at this level, it’s what we’ve mostly lacked. And you have to be cynical in the right areas, the opposition half. Two incidents in the last few days; (1) Rodri blatantly takes down a Villa player when he sees the break is on from Villa’s own half. He happily takes the yellow card and the danger of a breakaway goal is gone quickly. (2) Milner last night against Chelsea, does exactly same as Rodri, arguably more blatantly. But takes the yellow card and stops any hint of a breakaway goal. Personally I’d like to see a rule change where any player blatantly taking another player out in circumstances as above is red carded. For me it’s a professional foul. But until the time of a rule change comes Villa have to become like Milner & Rodri. Nice guys don’t finish first.

What’s happened the last two games is that clever managers have correctly identified Villa as a one man team, stop Jack Grealish and you stop Aston Villa. They’ve sent their teams out accordingly to lessen the impact of Jack Grealish, either man marking or using two players to nullify him. If we had decent & clever players ourselves we could counter that and use the extra man & space accordingly, but we don’t. We did see glimpses against City that ElGhazi stepped up a bit more, but unfortunately he picks and chooses the bigger games to show up. I think the way to look at it is this; how would that game have gone if Jack Grealish was wearing a City shirt, and Foden wearing a Villa shirt? Imagine a scenario where Jack Grealish is surrounded by players such as Gundogen, Rodri, Sterling, Aguero etc, and the opposition can’t simply put two players on Grealish because that would leave space and time for players like Sterling & Aguero. The entire debate I’m hearing in the media about Grealish/Maddison/Foden is completely flawed when two of those players play for top teams competing at the top end of the table and are surrounded by arguably better players who create space and time for them. Jack Grealish is, by some distance, the best of the three. In a team like City he would be viewed as truly world class. People are comparing apples with oranges, as the saying goes.

This debate over Luiz/Hourihane/Drinkwater ultimately boils down to where the here & now lays, as well as the future. The future is most definitely Luiz over the other two, and for me the here & now is also Luiz. I’ve seen glimpses, small, that Drinkwater could play an important part if he manages to get up to speed. Unfortunately it looks like taking longer than anyone thought to get up to speed, but that might still pay dividends if he is 100% for the final 4-5 games. We love Hourihane, of course we do. He’s played his part over the last couple of years and scored one or two belters. But games pass him by, there are times when you literally don’t know if he’s out there. Luiz has made mistakes, but he’s not shy. It’s his 1st season in top flight English football, 1st year in a new country. There’s undoubtedly a player there, a player that we need to benefit from next season in the Premier League when he’s had a full season experience and a pre-season under his belt. The mistakes will lessen and his influence will grow. IMO

Nope. Just a deluded clown with no concept of reality.

No we didn’t. We competed far better than the 1st half and won a lot more 2nd balls. I think you’re a bluenose or blind.

I would agree with this. The Premier League and FFP has sucked the ambition out of every club outside of the established “big” clubs. Barring the occasional lightning strike (Leicester) the title is a closed shop. Those bigger clubs with an already established worldwide fan base will simply keep hoovering up revenue and spending on all the best players to retain their position. There’ll be the occasional season or two slip where an established club falls away slightly, but they’ll soon bounce back because of the weight of revenue behind them. The romance of a Jack Walker at Blackburn funding his club to a league title is gone.

I personally can’t stand ManUtd or Liverpool, Liverpool especially. Both sets of fans are complete arseholes. I’d be really pissed off if Grealish went to either of those word removed clubs.