terrythevillan

Culverhouse will probably join. not so sure about Karsa as faulkner appears to perform that role already.

Karsa's role is much more hands on. He gets involved in training sessions but also the transfers dealings which is why he's got this broad title.

He was complaining about how Snodgrass wanted ridiculously high wages when Norwich tried to sign him. Hopefully that will put him off wanting to go back in for him!

Gary Karsa has just come back from holiday. His nephew told me he's pretty sure he'll join us.

He doesn't seem to know too much but thought it was plausible he'll come in July.

No he didn't say when. I don't know him too well so didn't want to ask too much. If I find out more I'll put it in this thread.

Didn't know what thread to put this in as the relevant one is closed.

I know Gary Karsa's nephew and briefly spoke to him yesterday. He told me he's definately coming to Villa.

No idea about Culverhouse.

There's only 1 man who can make this doom and gloom go away in an instant. We need a crowd pleaser and a passionate man who's got potential and yet has achieved something in their career so far.

That man is PAULO DI CANIO!!!!!!

It won't be a risk as I don't think any manager other than Mcleish could get us relegated, therefore anything else would be an improvement.

The fans would LOVE him. We will never love Mcleish unless he performs miracles from now on, so at the moment we have a manager who just pisses us all off and makes Villa park a horrible place to be at. What's the point? Just appoint Di Canio or a similar character with potential and we'll shut up!

What I fail to grasp is that most people are willing to give foreign players half a season or more to adapt to the pace of the league. In quite a few cases foreign players given time has proven to be quite successful after they've adapted. However some people are quite quick at shooting the youngsters down. Surely the step up from the reserves league into premier league is a huge step up, just because they've been trained in England doesn't mean they are used to the pace of the English premier league.

I would at least give them as much time and patient as any foreign player, taking their age in consideration I'll throw in a few extra months.

I'm glad we have our youngsters, if they don't make it or turn out to be average at best, so be it! Yes I properly over rate them, I get excited when I see a flicker of talent that might, just might, turn into something great.

Will I end up being disappointed? More likely then not, but it's worth it!

The youngsters are the only thing that keeping me excited about Aston Villa at the moment. They give me hope. Hope that there will be a bright shining light at the end of a long cold dark tunnel.

So true and I feel exactly the same. When I watched the NextGen match with Marseille I couldn't help but get excited at how the young lads were playing. Clips I've seen of Grealish, Graham and Robinson also give me reason to think they will be good premier league players.

Having said that I haven't really followed the reserve or youth teams as closely as I have in the past couple of seasons. I may be getting over excited, but I have to, otherwise the state of the first team will put me into a severe and deep depression!

Another example is Delph. I thought he'd be another one to stay for a couple of seasons and move onto better things, but having seen him this season, I probably overated him. Under the current circumstances though we can't really judge anyone can we?

Yes he deserves it for the total two faced spin

& for deserting ship

You do not desert a sinking ship as leader

McLeish may be a lot of things but he has balls unlike the "general"

So the General deserves abuse just for not posting on here but McLeish, the man who has given us our worst Premier League season ever, driven attendances down, served up the most negative dire football ever seen at VP and constantly lies in his interviews doesn't deserve it?

You say he's got "balls", but is that really true? He's getting paid A LOT of money to be our manager and he resigned from SHA by email.

If he had any balls we'd play some attacking football every now and again instead of this "lets sit deep and defend what we've got" bull shit. Not to mention conceding games against the big boys before turning up.

He deserves personal abuse on a footballing level because he's the worst manager in the league and thanks to Randy he's killing our club and the morale of the fans.

I just did the predictor.

I had us getting 3 draws out of the 6 games.

Wigan, Bolton and QPR all only win 2 games out of the remaining fixtures and we go down by 1 point.

Not unrealistic by any means.

I'm very worried.

The thought of Mcleish just sitting comfortably at home knowing if he gets sacked he'll still be a millionaire, whereas if we go down my life would be about 10 times worse, sickens me right now.

The way we play after taking the lead is a disgrace. Out passed in the second half by one of the worst away teams in the league who average 35% possession. The fact that they had more possession than us is embarrassing and I hate being associated with such a terrible way of playing football.

Bannan will never work on the right wing, or Gardner on the left wing. He could ruin players like Gardner by playing them out of position.

Not going to comment on the ref as we have MUCH bigger problems to worry about.

Sooo gutted the reaction isn’t going to be about Weimann’s goal as he deserves so much more.

MCLEISH FUUUUUUUUUCKKK OOOOOOOOFFFFFFF!!!!!

Taking the lead against a team with no confidence and handing them the initiative for the entire remainder of the game is not acceptable. I've seen this too many times and this is irrespective of the players we have on the pitch. We did exactly the same thing against Blackburn away this season without all the injury problems we have now.

Managers have football philosophies which they stick to. Would Wenger or Rodgers play that defensively if they had so many injuries? I doubt it. Holloway brought a reserve Blackpool side (out of choice) last season and still played the exciting, attacking football they played all season, deserving more than the defeat that they got.

I've had enough, I HATE watching us and I now HATE Mcleish. I notice him shouting on the sidelines to keep the ball etc, but have zero confidence he knows how to achieve that style of football as I've never seen it from one of his teams. I don't buy this "we did well because we played Liverpool". If Swansea had that attitude they would be down already and wouldn't have outplayed and beaten the likes of Arsenal and Man City.

MCLEISH OOOOOUUUUUUTTTTT!!!!!

Taking the lead against a team with no confidence and handing them the initiative for the entire remainder of the game is not acceptable. I've seen this too many times and this is irrespective of the players we have on the pitch. We did exactly the same thing against Blackburn away this season without all the injury problems we have now.

Managers have football philosophies which they stick to. Would Wenger or Rodgers play that defensively if they had so many injuries? I doubt it. Holloway brought a reserve Blackpool side (out of choice) last season and still played the exciting, attacking football they played all season, deserving more than the defeat that they got.

I've had enough, I HATE watching us and I now HATE Mcleish. I notice him shouting on the sidelines to keep the ball etc, but have zero confidence he knows how to achieve that style of football as I've never seen it from one of his teams. I don't buy this "we did well because we played Liverpool". If Swansea had that attitude they would be down already and wouldn't have outplayed and beaten the likes of Arsenal and Man City.

MCLEISH OOOOOUUUUUUTTTTT!!!!!

He's quick, gets forward enough and has a great cross on him (much better than L Young's crossing). His downfall at the moment is his defending and yes, Spurs fans I know say he's not good at defending. I've seen enough of him (for Spurs and Scotland) to suggest he's not worse than Walker at defending so I see that as an improvement.

He has all the attributes to be the best RB in the league outside the top 5 teams, which is the league we're competing in, so I don't know why people are dismissing him as "cack". I think he'll come good after a solid run of games.

just like the last 4 or 5 years, if a team comes to VP and is organised and solid in defense, we have no clue how to break them down. its not a problem that has suddenly come about due to mcleish, or selling young and downing. even with young, downing, milner in the team we would play poorly quite often. difference was back then we would somehow nick a goal and we would scrape a result, so the performance was overlooked.

the problem for mcleish is that given where he has come from and his reputation, he cant afford to play poorly at all, and failing to win just compounds it. he hasnt helped himself by continuing to select heskey. the guy is meant to be upwith bent, playing the link role, yet he spends most of his time on the halfway line leaving bent isolated. second half he was a disgrace and just strolled around doing nothing. i refuse to believe that bannan or ireland in that role couldnt be more effective. it took 85 minutes to put in a decent ball for bent, and that was bannan.

nzogbia was good in terms of running at the defence, but his end product was rubbish. not that he was the only one though, our final ball is consistently dire. too many of our players lack a football brain, summed up when petrov had the opportunity to play in bent in the first 15 minutes and chose one of his shit scuffed shots instead. herd was good, and why do our young defenders provide more attacking threat than the seniors. he really attacked corners and forced saves. gabby played well. delph needs to stop the stupid tackles and needs to get more involved going forward. defence is more solid but they are still incapable of making simple passes, and collins' hoofing is annoying.

Spot on!

I'd say N'Zogbia was as consistent as Downing last season. He played 7 games less, scoring 2 more goals and only assisting 2 less than Downing. This is Downing's only "consistent" season to date anyway whereas I'd say N'Zogbia was pretty good the season before last. He may not have his crossing ability but he is faster, a better dribbler, and he scored more than Downing, and think he has historically as well. GREAT SIGNING!

N'Zogbia got his numbers with zero competition. He practically kept that team up with little attacking help. Even Rodallega had a crap season. Downing had Albrighton and Young getting pretty decent numbers alongside him. So Zog had a free run at the stats. Anyway, I don't want it to sound like I'm constantly picking fault with him. I think he's the perfect replacement for us. I think it is vital that we get him and I believe he will do well here. I just won't have any of the 'he's way better than Downing' stuff because for me he really isn't.

Spot on. He's an average player in a shite team. Has the odd good game but goes missing in most. He is not fit to lace the boots of either Downing or Young. £10m down the pan. Once Mcleish wastes the rest of the money then I predict a November protest when we are in the bottom 3.

Oblivion here we come.

You do realise he wasn't saying that at all in his post?

Have to say I largely agree with BOF. Good player, good price and should fill Downing's boots, but I'd say they are of similar ability.

I'd say they are of similar ability but the fact that "he practically kept that team up with little attacking help" backs up my argument surely? What did Downing do as captain of Boro when they got relegated? He looked okay but didn't do half of what N'Zogbia did. N'Zogbia is more of a match winner I'd say and even after Downing's impressive season I'd say he's still more of a passenger.

Reading the comments from Wigan fans on SSN website - not only do they all seem absolutely gutted but all seem to make reference to the fact he is MILES better than Downing.

He's not miles better than Downing. If he was, Liverpool would have bought him for half what they bought Downing for. It's just subjective fans thinking their player is better. The numbers don't add up. N'Zogbia is a demon for going on dribbles but Downing does crosses better, scores goals better and is way way more consistent. Liverpool will get a player with a great attitude on the pitch who will probably give them 35 good games next season. We have a player who has the potential to peak higher than Downing but who will do it on fewer occasions and is more likely to go the 'glory' route than the team route. That's not a criticism, it's just what I believe to be a fair analysis of what both players bring to the table.

But the objective gauge here is that ultimately Liverpool were willing to pay twice as much for our seemingly inferior player.

But Liverpool are primarily going for British players which is why they may have overlooked N'Zogbia. Is Henderson that much (if at all) better than Meireles to be worth spending that amount of money? Not a chance, but they want their English base which has been missing for years to be fair.

I'd say N'Zogbia was as consistent as Downing last season. He played 7 games less, scoring 2 more goals and only assisting 2 less than Downing. This is Downing's only "consistent" season to date anyway whereas I'd say N'Zogbia was pretty good the season before last. He may not have his crossing ability but he is faster, a better dribbler, and he scored more than Downing, and think he has historically as well. GREAT SIGNING!

Has no one posted this from The Birmingham Mail yet? Hope its not true.

Ireland can't win, from the moment he was first benched the press have been on his back and putting him in every kind of bad light. He either wants to leave, isn't prepared to work hard, and now he wants to sit it out. They are covering all angles but I'm sure he is not all of these.

Anyway if I was Ireland, I would either REALLY want to prove people wrong and work hard to get in the team, or most definately want to leave. I just hope its the former.

Regardless of personel, we are so uncomfortable on the ball when we play decent teams. That comes from the manager and coaching they are given.

Not feeling confident for this season, especially Europa League wise!

So nobody is having commentary problems?

Is anyone having trouble with the commentary? It keeps asking me for my username and password and then it wont play.

Briggaman you are spot on. I don't think we have played well in any of our recent wins, but we have been winning so naturally I have been happy. Today I blame O'Neill more than the players though, that sub was horrific and I said it at the time and I also would have played Reo-Coker. I just cant stand watching Heskey in a Villa shirt though, its depressing.

It would be nice to get to play some good teams in the next stage but I guess that won't happen now. Quite pissed off actually.

And he said "Brennan" provided the cross for the goal!