VillaFaninLondon

Agree, Heaton missing is a concern. Steer worries me between the sticks so our defenders need to put in a great performance today.

Typical that we have two first teamers pull out before ko and Wolves are still full strength (minus Boly). Still think we are capable of doing a number on them but need to get it right tactically. UTV

Strangely, the Guardian has him starting today and hasn't even put him in as doubtful, do they know something we don't?: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/nov/09/wolves-aston-villa-match-preview-premier-league Either way, if you take Jack out of that team and put Douglas Luiz in it's still a good side and there's enough quality there to get something at Wolves. We will miss Jack's quality in the final third though so fingers crossed he does make today.

Completely agree, he's doing alright, 4 goals and 1 assist in 11 games isn't terrible but not great either (particularly the assists part). Hopefully the call up for Brazil spurs him on today and gets a goal against Wolves. Either way he needs our support for now, particularly as he's our only option, but a striker in January should certainly be a priority. Hopefully we're willing to spend £20-30mil, as I think that's what we'll have to pay minimum for any of four players I mentioned. Looking at the team, I think the central midfield area is strongest and the CBs and GK are good enough. I also think Konsa has very good potential and will play more over time. Imo, we are weakest in the wide areas and up front and priorities for the next 2-3 transfer windows should be: Two new full backs to provide serious competition for Guilbert and Targett and Taylor and Elmo to be moved on At least one new winger to compete with AEG and Trezeguet A top quality striker

I think Wesley is doing ok and gets some unfair criticism, also delighted he got a national team call up, albeit quite shocked. That's not to say we don't need someone else to compete with him, he's only young and it's his first season here and he's adapting his style to the league. Competition is always good at any club especially one with our ambitions and I also think our other options (Kodjia and Davis) are not going to score goals in this league. Personally I think either Morelos or Mitrovic would provide good competition for Wes, I also think Batshuayi would and he's not getting a look in at Chelsea. A leftfield signing that hasn't been mentioned is Myron Boadu, he's a quick striker with an eye for goal, only 18 and just been called into the senior Dutch national team and is one of the top scorers in the Eredivisie. Huge talent, but probably on the radar of a lot of clubs. Osimhen at Lille is also killing it in his first season there and is only 20. Only the club know who is on the radar, but there are plenty of quality players out there who would greatly improve our first team and squad.

Wish we could press like Leicester, Arsenal just can’t find a way out. Feels strange to say it but Leicester is a team we should be looking to emulate, have made some cracking signings and play very good football. Maybe in 2-3 years we can be at that level.

Tammy is on fire this season, miss him being at Villa hopefully he still thinks about us and one day he comes back. Can see him being a serious challenger for Kane’s spot with England if he keeps going the way he is.

Knew this would be the case. Trying to make out it's an innocuous injury and he'll be back for Liverpool and has trained, then saying he hasn't trained and won't until Thursday and now saying he's 50/50 for Sunday. Can't they just tell the truth and put us out of our misery. I genuinely fear he could be out for a while as this is how it started when he was out last year. If that is the case that's us ****ed.

It’s quite ridiculous he's not in again. Southgate says he can’t call him up in the Championship. He is now playing and performing in the PL in a new side that is in transition. Imagine what he can do in a vibrant and confident England side playing alongside Sancho, Kane and Sterling. As has been pointed out he’s not in competition with Rashford or Sterling, who are pacey wide players. He’s in competition with Mount, Maddison, Alli and Barkley and the latter should have been excluded having not started for Chelsea in their last FIVE games. On the one hand it’s good that it keeps him fresh for us, but he should be in that squad and by not being selected it may be a big blow to him making Euro 2020.. His only hope may be that Mount or someone pulls out injured this time and he gets a late call. When the likes of Delph and Barkley get in over him you do wonder about Southgate. I was really looking forward to seeing what he can do in an England shirt. Should spur him on if he starts on Sunday at least.

Quite insane how bad Stoke have gone. Three years ago they were a top half PL team with players like Shaqiri, Arnautovic and Afellay (what a waste of a talent) turning out for them. The season we went down without a whimper they finished 9th for the third consecutive year. They were never good enough to challenge the top six but were always decent and competitive. In the space of three years they've gone from that to serious relegation candidates in the Champ. We looked more in trouble when we went down than when they did, but thankfully we managed our situation a lot better than they have. Players like Joe Allen and Jack Butland have seemingly massively declined. They could still stay up if a new manager can get a tune out of some of their better players but they're in big trouble that's for sure. Don't see them being back in the Prem any time soon.

In time we will replace players like Elmo and Taylor. We had a lot of new players come in and I think DS didn’t want to change too much too soon. We need proper competition for the wingers and full backs, as well as a new striker to compete with Wesley. I think these will be the targets over the next few transfer windows. If we consolidate this season we should be able to attract higher calibre players than we did in summer

Also, to add, Grealish’s performances have been brilliant recently. He started the season slowly, sure, but his performances against Norwich and Brighton were top class. He didn’t do as well at the Etihad but still had moments of class. He’ll start the game if he’s fit on Sunday, absolutely no doubt.

Sorry SGC, I usually agree with you where others don’t, but have to disagree here. Did you watch the Liverpool game? We worked our socks off but had no one to carry the hall 50 yards up the pitch, hence why we kept giving Liverpool the ball back especially in the 2nd half. That’s one of the reasons they went on to win. With Jack playing we’d have had a much better chance of seeing the game out and getting something. Also, we will see more of the ball against wolves than against Liverpool. As he is our most creative player, he has to play. Trezeguet deserves to keep his place so I’d have to drop El Ghazi and have him as an impact sub. Agree about Elmo though. Great pro but Guilbert is just miles better. Hopefully he’s fit to start the game

Agree, that's why Smith can't be too harshly blamed, not for his subs anyway. Liverpool could bring on Oxlade Chamberlain, Origi and Keita and still leave Milner, Fabinho and Gomez on the bench. Unfortunately, as much as they've been good for us in the past, if we're to compete at the upper ends of this league we need to have better squad players than the likes of Kodjia, Hourihane and Lansbury. We can only do this by investing and investing cleverly. We could certainly take a leaf out of Leicester's book in this regard - signings like Pereira, Maddison, Tielemans and Soyuncu would easily take this club to the next level. We desperately need another quality playmaker to cover Jack if he gets injured too - and someone of a much better level than Jota.

I'm surprised by DS's 'good' rating from yesterday, thought we were very negative and worse than against City (which was away btw) and he only got 'average' for that. Maybe people were watching a different game but I just thought we lumped it and kept giving it back to Liverpool. We worked hard and deserve credit for that but we were so, so bad in possession. I'm pretty sure our passing stats are amongst the worst in the league and it has to improve imo, especially against the weaker teams. I also saw on Fan Cams one guy say we dominated for 85 mins. I'm sorry but this simply is not true in any way.

Not necessarily a must-win but a must-not-lose. Considering how much effort we put into the last two to come away with no points we really can't afford a third loss on the bounce. Wolves are a decent side but have dropped points at home to the likes of Burnley and Southampton so we are very capable of getting at least a point there. It is also three days after they play in the Europa, so that will work to our advantage. We need Jack back for this one as yesterday we had no one to carry the ball and kept inviting pressure on ourselves. Obviously best thing would be a win but I'd take a draw at Molineux as long as we beat Newcastle at home on the 25th. We've got Man U, Chelsea and Lesta after that so it's important we take some points before that tough trio of matches.

I'm as frustrated as anyone that we've lost 6 in 11 and can't seem to hold on to leads, but I'll back him this season as long as we stay up. So I guess yes. I'm probably also a bit biased as DS is Villa through and through and I know he's desperate to get the club in a good position and be the man to make that happen. Like you though, I want to see this club competing against the best. I look at Leicester and feel ****ed off that isn't us, but we've been overtaken in the last 10 years by smaller clubs who've shown more ambition than us while we've been badly mismanaged. But there does seem to be a plan in place with the current owners and I think DS may make a great manager in this league once he learns from his shortcomings, I can't say that for sure but I think we need to give him a season at least to see how he adapts. Unless we look in serious relegation trouble as the season goes on he should be backed imo. He'll need to make sure he's picking up points against the bottom half teams as that is what will define our season. The dropped points against Burnley, Bournemouth, Palace were probably more where DS deserved criticism than today I think, as those were games we should have got a couple of wins from.

I'm not sure how serious you're being, but while you may have a point that his game management needs to seriously improve (I agree with this), sacking him at this point would not be right. I don't know who could replace him but he deserves more respect than this given what he's done for us. He definitely needs to improve his ability to get the team to see out games and be fit enough to play for 90 mins, but he is held back somewhat by his lack of options on the bench. It's going to take two or three windows before we will feasibly have players to come off the bench and make a difference at this level. I'd also like to see us play a more possession-based game like he did with Brentford that we're yet to see here. We play the long ball too often, which is maybe forgiven a bit more against a top side like Liverpool but we even do it against teams like Brighton. We have a quality midfield and I'd like to see Luiz, Nakamba, McGinn, Grealish get the ball more and hold possession. DS will not come under pressure for losing games like today and City. We do need to break the consecutive defeats I think by getting something at Wolves next week (three days after they play in the Europa League) and we have some massive games coming up in November and December against Newcastle, Sheff Utd, Southampton, Norwich and Watford which we should be looking to win. If we struggle to win those games and we're in the bottom 3 come the new year, then yes DS may need to be moved on, but I'm confident we won't be and we'll win the majority of those winnable games.

Outplayed really, better team won. Stopped attacking second half which always ****ing happens. Disappointing to throw it away so late but it was coming, they have to start playing for 90 minutes or this will keep happening. Liverpool are clearly some levels ahead of us though. Two defeats in a row, need to be getting something at Wolves next week and beating Newcastle.

I like the links with Morelos, bit of a gamble but he's young and would probably take to the Prem with his style. Maybe too similar to Wes though. I'd like to see us try and get Batshuayi at Chelsea, not playing regularly for them and did a great well at Palace on loan last season. Has always scored goals, whether for Belgium or at previously clubs. Think Chelsea might be unwilling to let him go but would like to see us enquire. Wonder if we'll revisit Benrahma in January too, or maybe look at Bowen who is killing it again with Hull this season. It would be nice to see a player of real quality come in but it's always a tough time to buy.

Hopefully we field a relatively strong side as I think Wolves will definitely rest a few players, a good opportunity to go far in this comp.

Gutted if he's out for Liverpool as despite what some think I believe we are capable of getting something from that being the home team. Without Jack then I wouldn't expect anything really but who knows. Back to back defeats will be hard to take even if they are against the two best teams in the league. I'm expecting a few changes for Wolves in the cup but if he misses Liverpool I'd like to see El Ghazi come in for him and then the same side that played City. Maybe Davis in for Wes depending on how he gets on tomorrow night. We basically need him back asap and hopefully he gets back in time for an England call up because he deserves one. He missed three months last season and we were absolute dog **** in a league with far less quality, he's absolutely essential to our team.

Davis definitely puts himself about more than Wes does, that's for sure. It's alarming how immobile Wesley is tbh. Davis is less likely to score a goal but perhaps more likely to create something for the midfielders. He looked decent when he came on and allowed our midfielders to get on the ball more. I'm 50/50 whether to start Davis against Liverpool, but Wesley definitely has to do more if he does play against Liverpool.

I love Mings to bits but unfortunately he has made several mistakes at this level. Hopefully Terry, while he is with us as assistant manager, can coach it out of him. He should never in a million years have been beaten to the header by Jesus, who is about 8 inches shorter than him.

Oh ffs!