VillaFaninLondon

Once Grealish went off for England the creativity was gone. He may have left us but he should be starting at the World Cup just like he should have at the Euros. Sterling was also very good and even though he is a frustrating footballer there's no doubt he's a key part of the England set-up. I must admit that Bellingham is an absolute superstar. Can't believe he's only 18. Hard to understand how he came through at such a joke outfit as the Noses, still at least that gives them something to crow about.

Totally agree, Bumford should be nowhere near another England squad. DCL was only really picked for his aerial ability for a so-called plan B (i.e. hoofball) and his decent form last 2 years, I think he'll struggle to get back in. If the World Cup was tomorrow and I didn't have my Villa specs on, I'd take Kane and Tammy as the strikers. But Ollie has always done ok for England when he's played and he has a chance, he just needs to up his form for us because it's been not been good enough this season and in all honesty he was lucky to make the squad this time around IMO (mainly due to lack of other options after Tammy pulled out).

Yeah it's Kane first and Tammy second. Ollie would probably be third choice now I'd say certainly ahead of Bamford and probably ahead of Calvert Lewin for now. That's only because he's had a poor season. If the Ollie of last season had turned up this season I reckon he may even be ahead of Tammy or certainly competing with him. Needs to try to get that form back to force himself into that world cup squad, did well tonight at least.

The one player from Wolves who 100% gets in our team is Neves and he ain’t playing on Saturday. Jimenez is not the player he was pre-injury but is still the best striker on their books, and he’s also not playing. Neto would have got in our team 12 months ago but he’s missed nearly 12 months of football since then, he’s only started one game since coming back (Palace home which they lost 2-0) and didn’t make the bench last 2 games so clearly got injured again. He won’t be anywhere near fully fit and doubtful he'll start. They have a strong defence playing 5 at the back and are certainly greater than the sum of their parts but if we can’t take at least a point from this game, if not all 3, then it will once again be a game where this team have let themselves down. Wolves have trouble scoring and if we can breach their defence even just once we should be at least taking a draw. I feel we need all 3 though as Spurs, Liverpool and Leicester after this and we need a confidence-boosting win really. Gerrard was always great in derbies, he needs to ensure the team he manages are because we need to be well up for this right from the start.

Neves and Jimenez are their 2 best players and they'll be significantly worse without them both that's for sure. Be like us missing Coutinho and Martinez. Really should be looking to win this one given those aforementioned injuries and about time we put in a good performance for a full 90 minutes rather than 45 minutes here and there. Do your worst Villa, you never fail to amaze me.

I'm happy to see incremental changes and agree we need 1 or 2 big signings this summer (maybe a CF too), but I'm pointing out quite fairly that many of our players' output this season has been well below what it should have been and I don't think it's because they're poor players.

We absolutely don't want to go down the MON route, if we're to sign players like Phillips (which incidentally I would be very happy with) we need to be challenging top 6 consistently for the next decade, not getting there for 2 or 3 seasons then selling our players and killing ourselves financially like what happened over 10 years ago. Fortunately I think our current owners have too much wealth and drive to follow the same route that Lerner did. I also think signing a player like Phillips is completely different to signing a player like Reo Coker (for example) back in the day - Phillips is far more established and fills a hole that desperately needs filling. I still think however the jury is very much out on Gerrard - he speaks a very good game for sure but there's only so many times you can say he needs better players. The role of a manager (or head coach) is to improve the players you have got and I see very little uplift in performance from our big money signings like Bailey, Buendia, Traore, Ings or Watkins - players who have all massively underperformed this season and none of them are suddenly bad players overnight.

I’m not talking about a top 4 side. But 8 losses in 18 games under Gerrard is really poor, come on man. Midtable team or not, it’s pathetic how easy we are to beat. Arse played less than 3 days ago yet still won comfortably and there have been many such games over last 12-18 months where that’s happened. We've now got a squad of players where it’s unacceptable to lose 6 at home at this stage, and with Tottenham and plop still to come that stat could get worse. We are simply embarrassingly easy to beat and I won’t sit back and just acfrp it. They need to get their effing act together the bunch of pussies.

No it isn’t. They constantly let us down (and I’m not talking about today in isolation, I’m talking about the season in general).

Yes it will, he’s lost as many as he’s won in the league and it’s not acceptable. You can shrug off the defeats to crap teams like Watford and Brentford if he beats the better teams, but he doesn’t. Another loss today against a team above us, typical Gerrard.

Most of this team is useless. They’ll beat lesser teams but will f up against teams above them(unlike say Watford against us). Lose against Wolves and the knives will be out for Gerrard once again.

Maybe it’s time we sacked off most of this squad.

**** you villa

Another poor result against a team above us.

Defeat no 15 of the season. NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

It's literally only Grealish where we've lost out. Everyone else who's been called up in last year or two is still here. And even for Grealish we still got 100m for him (which we wouldn't have got if he hadn't broken into the England squad). There are many players in the England squad who play for inferior sides to Villa - Pickford, Guehi, Pope, Phillips (when he's fit), Ward Prowse. No point worrying about it. Ramsey will surely get his chance soon if he keeps progressing, he's one of the most talented young players playing in his position in the PL. If we want to keep top talent then we have to start progressing too and start competing for European places, and if not then selling them on for huge money like we did with Grealish. Win-win either way IMO.

Palace have more players in the squad than us, how embarrassing On a serious note I don't mind the squad, but I'm a bit bemused Konsa wasn't called up last year seeing as Godfrey and now Guehi have made it in before him. Think Ramsey should have been called up but he's fine with the u21s for now. Surely it's time for Henderson to make way for someone younger though.

The all-out attack approach, I like it.

I look at Arsenal's squad and yes they have some good young players like Smith Rowe, Saka, Martinelli and Odegaard, but I am very surprised how well they're doing. Surprised their defence has been so good with Ramsdale and White added. On paper it doesn't look great but for some reason they've been good at shutting teams out. Really think we need to start performing better against the sides above us. Man U are the only team above us that we've taken points off this season, that has to change. Arsenal have their tails up but this is not a side we are incapable of beating. We've beaten them three of the last four games and they've lost to sides like Everton and Brentford this season. Think I'd drop one of Ings or Watkins for this and bring in Buendia or Bailey or even both. We've got plenty of attacking talent to hurt Arsenal, just need to get them on the pitch and get the balance right. Other than West Ham's 2nd goal, I thought Bailey looked sharp and he's quick so could catch Arse on the counter. Unfortunately I'm at a wedding so can't watch, hopefully when I check in on the score it will be good news. Just don't lose.

It's time for this team to stop bottling it against the better teams. We could easily have got a point off West Ham yesterday, possibly even all 3, but threw it away from 55 minutes onwards by retreating into our shell like we always do during matches and West Ham took advantage. The next 4-5 games are all games we could lose but we have enough good players to win those games too if we turn up. Our record against teams above us this season is appalling and needs to improve in the remaining games if we're to feel optimistic for next season. For example, Wolves for me on paper aren't any better than us, in fact I personally think we have better players and more of our players would get in a combined 11 (and I'm usually fairly objective with this). But they are above us in the league. It doesn't mean we shouldn't be looking to win that game. Finishing above them should be a goal of ours. We need to start grinding out some draws against the better teams if we can't beat them, that would be some progress at least. Gerrard needs to know when to rotate because I think playing an unchanged team for the third game in a week was the reason we looked so flat yesterday. He also needs to try and take the pressure off Coutinho making things happen all the time and try to get Bailey and Buendia into the side to get some more creativity. I'd hope this is fairly realistic: Arsenal (H) - D Wolves (A) - W Spurs (H) - D Liverpool (H) - L Leicester (A) - D Norwich (H) - W Burnley (A) - D Palace (H) - W Burnely (H) - W City (A) - L That would end the season on 52 points and we'd probably end up in 9th place (the same position we finished the last time we got top half in 10/11). We are no way going to get relegated and shouldn't be anywhere near the bottom 3. Anywhere lower than last season (11th) would be shocking tbh.

If Gerrard manages to get someone like Phillips or Ndidi to come here in the summer, it will go a long way to fixing it.

We all know this has been a disappointing season even if the last 3 games brought some light and hope for us all, but 14 defeats from 28 games really is embarrassing. This team is so God damn easy to beat, I don't understand why we're so incapable of grinding out draws when we're not having a good day like today. 5 or 6 draws from those 14 games we've lost would have put us in a strong position with 10 games left to go and not left such a sour taste in the mouth from having to watch us lose every other week. West Ham always beat us, really can't stand them. They're certainly quite a dirty team and it would be nice to give them a good hiding next season as it's long overdue. You can see how important Rice is for them sitting in front of their defence. Their back five today looked weaker than ours, but they have Rice and Soucek sitting in front of them whereas we have Luiz. It really doesn't take a rocket science to understand why they always get the better of us and we need to bloody fix that area of the field in summer as it's needed if we're to start winning these types of games. It doesn't bode well that our first relatively tough game ends in defeat, given we now have a run of these types of games in the next 5. We really need to take something from Arsenal next week.

That's fabulous by Buendia.

Wolves winning too. Best we can hope for is to finish where we are now in 9th.We're just not good enough and yet we play like we think we're Barcelona.

What pisses me off is we've lost again to West Ham and they are massively under strength with Antonio and Creswell going off and no Bowen. They've still battered us. Some good results recently but yet again when we come up against a half decent team (and that's all West Ham are) we've been well beaten. Have to do much better against Arsenal next week. We can't keep losing again.