VillaFaninLondon

If Smith ends up getting the boot at some point he'd be a great manager to go for.

Quite simply, if you put those players in the current Villa team they would turn us into potential top 6 challengers I'm sure. Traore, Barkley and Grealish would be hell for most defences, Gana and Veretout could play in front of the back 4 with McGinn and Luiz as cover, Amavi would be an upgrade on Targett. I'm gutted they flopped so badly here.

Barkley being out is a pain in the arse. If Hourihane plays he’d better do something from a set piece as he doesn’t do anything in game - hopefully Traore, Ramsey or even Nakamba get considered for this one for extra mobility. Still think we need a result from this to get back on track. Whoever plays instead of Barkley needs to step up and produce for the team.

Always does when Villa play.

Yeah, we need to get back to Leicester type performances, not getting sucked in and pushing too many men forward like we have done recently. I also felt Martinez performance against Spam was below par and he needs to command his area better in this game. Barkley being fit would help an awful lot, when him and Jack are both at it we are a very good side and will cause them endless problems. Wolves are best on the counter attack and won't come flooding forward at us even if they are at home, we have to do similar and not go looking too hard for the win or we'll get sucker punched. A point is a decent result even if they don't have Jimenez, we are also capable of winning at our best but I don't want us being overconfident because Wolves are exactly the sort of team to exploit that.

Wolves without Jimenez will have an impact, we are good enough to get at least a draw if we defend properly but we keep saying this every week and they don’t defend properly again and VAR then proceeds to bite us on the rear. If we lose I will start to get frustrated with this team because 5 defeats in 6 in what is not even a tough set of fixtures is nowhere near good enough.

Totally agree.

OK, one full game

I'd imagine he could be fit to start against Wolves on the 12th as they said he'd be out for 2 games and that would give him 3 weeks recovery from the hamstring issue. So hopefully he's only ended up missing one game for us.

Looks a good shout and again really young too. I wouldn't be against this idea.

I think we need more pace in our team in general.

I'm a fan of Luiz but I'm not sure the anchorman role suits him. I actually think he'd thrive in his position if he was next to a Gattuso/Phillips/Ndidi type, but at the mo he's being asked to do the dirty work all on his own which I don't think he's great at. Cit£h may or may not activate his clause, no one knows, but there has been speculation and of course Pep likes him. But as Leicester have shown when losing key players, they are easily replaceable if you have a good scouting team.

I agree a general would really help the side off the ball, which is clearly an issue. Douglas Luiz is an outstanding midfielder and I fear Cit£h will at some point activate whatever clause he has in his contract, but he's still learning and for me is more of a deeper playmaker than a tough tackling midfielder like Gattuso was. This could be why at times it seems sides can cut through us easily. Phillips would be good but I think that ship has now sailed given Leeds' promotion, players like Berge and Anguissa even though they play for poor teams in this league are clearly quite good and could be worth a punt. They are probably more box to box midfielders though, if we're looking for a DM specialist we will need to do some good scouting.

Our defence has gone back to being Championship standard, I hope we'll be looking at some new defenders, a CB and a LB for me (Cash deserves more time seeing as he was signed this season). Wijndal from AZ would be a good shout for LB. I personally like our midfield when everyone is fit, but don't think Trezeguet is good enough to be starting every week and Traore hasn't exactly set the world alight. So a new starting winger should be looked at, maybe revisit Sarr from Watford. The Rashica thing is obviously annoying, but he's been linked again recently. If he's serious about joining then we should revisit, otherwise move on. Wesley coming back will be good for Watkins, could do with competition and allows him to play wide if necessary.

Barry was a fantastic penalty taker, but I recall Milner being similarly very good from 12 yards.

Yes I agree generally with what you're saying, we have improved a lot, and are starting to dominate games. We looked much better than Spam and them winning the game is absolutely inconceivable given the little they created. However, that still can't legislate for the fact that we've lost 4 of the last 5, against midtable at best teams (and yes, I include Arsenal in that). We have to start showing more resilience. One point is better than zero points and we could easily have got that from the last 2 games but for poor defending and missing numerous opportunities. VAR has also f***ed us and I wish it would eff off, but we can't use that as an excuse for some of the goals we are conceding and the opportunities we are missing. Four of the next five are games I believe we should be winning, I felt that about the recent games too but we've screwed those up, that's in the past now, it's now up to the team to turn up starting on Friday and stop dropping points we shouldn't.

Honestly, it's quite bewildering how we managed to lose that game. We had so much more of the ball, loads more chances, and somehow contrived to miss a pen and a sitter. Spam are a really shite team and can't believe they are 5th in the league, they've mugged us off last night. It seems to be a common theme at the mo that all the opposition we face score with virtually every shot on target. Spam had 2 shots on target, 2 goals; Brighton 3 shots on target, 2 goals; Southampton 4 shots on target, 3 goals. On the other hand, we've had 6 shots on target against Spam, 1 goal; 4 shots on target against Brighton, 1 goal; 10 shots on target against Southampton, 3 goals. Do we blame the GK? I don't think so, as I don't think he could stop any of them. The defence is clearly a weak link for us though, we've reverted to being sloppy, and still can't defend set pieces properly. Trez's miss is unforgiveable given he did the same against Brighton, he might work hard for the team but against the barcodes I think he has to be taken out. Not good enough to constantly miss sitters, it's costing us points. We've lost 4 games this season and 3 were completely undeserved, why we always lose when we concede the first goal I don't know, this team is still weak as p*** mentally, it has to stop now. Must beat Newcastle on Friday and must be aiming to win 4 of the next 5 games. We're now 4 points down on last season just from the last 2 games, overall we're still up on last season but if we keep losing games like last night all that good early work in the season will be undone. I'm expecting a response on Friday.

Sorry about your mum, that must have been a very painful experience. Yes, I agree about Luiz and why he was left on is a mystery. He had blood leaking from his wound out of his bandage and it is genuinely reckless leaving him on heading balls in that situation. Luckily he was taken off at HT but that was 30 mins too late. It's an incredibly tough situation to be in when football is your passion and your career, but I know I'd rather walk away with my health intact than risk something awful like going into a coma if it's aggravated. Very sad for Jimenez nonetheless.

It's great news he's regained consciousness, but I have serious doubts he'll play football again, or at the least come back the same player. Ryan Mason never recovered and he was younger than Jimenez. In that case he wanted to return to football and felt able, but doctors ruled it out given the risk to him playing again. Either way wishing Jimenez a speedy and full recovery. Fantastic player and will be a huge loss for Wolves.

Sad news - 60 is a very young age to die but unfortunately Maradona was a troubled soul and for many years didn't look after himself. As a footballer, even though he was just before my time, there has never been a player who's wowed me just from watching highlight reels. Watching him playing with a football was like watching art. Was blessed with superhuman talent.

Newcastle will stay up purely because there are at least three very poor teams this year who have started woefully (Sheff U, Fulham, Boggies, Burnley), but yes they are not very good. Despite adding some decent players in the summer they don't really look any better this year than last year.

Yes it's frustrating. I think we need to be more patient in our play and also be more intelligent off the ball. There's no need to go desperately looking for that first goal. We played reasonably well against Brighton but the first goal was just a ball over the top which only came about because all of our back four were 60 yards up the pitch. You could say tiredness from international games didn't help but that's exactly why they shouldn't have been so far up the pitch. Against Southampton we gave away three free kicks in the first half in dangerous areas knowing full well Ward Prowse would inflict damage from there. For me that's lack of intelligence rather than having bad defenders (though I'm starting to think a starting CB and full back may be necessary to improve further). Two concerns for me are the home form (three losses in a row to midtable sides is certainly not good) and not being able to come back from losing positions. The last time we got anything from a game after going behind was Newcastle away in June and the last time we conceded first and won was against Watford in January. Considering we're capable of putting 7 past Liverpool and 3 past Arsenal this is mystifying and suggests we've got some kind of mental weakness when going a goal down.

Inexcusable if we lose the next 2 games even if Barkley is out. We've got to stop dropping points in games we should be getting something out of, beating Arsenal, Liverpool and Leicester was great but then losing to Leeds, Southampton and Brighton made it painful as we should be doing much better in those games. We need to try to grind out a draw at Spam and beat Newcastle. If we lose this ridiculous high line and Mings stops making absolute howlers then we should be capable of that. We can't be accepting of poor results just because we have one player out and we have started the season well.

F*** it, think I'll try to ignore everything Villa for the next few weeks/months again. Life's easier that way than having weekends ruined by a cr*p football team all the time.

Oh back to that old chestnut again. The players fault not the manager.