Monkeypuzzle

I might just rearrange the middle three to Douglas behind McGinn and Buendia, rather than Douglas AND McGinn behind Buendia. Works better for us, I feel. Otherwise a good call. Choices and options are such a better problem to have compared to what we have been used to for so long. "How do we fit in this international winger with Champions League experience, or that England international striker in to our starting XI?" Wonderful.

Quite right, fair response!

Good to see the Douglas Luiz bashing hasn't stopped, poor boy. Interested looking back at the views here what people think now. Glad to see how much our squad has improved since this thread was last used. I still don't think 3 at the back suits us as our regular formation, occasional changes in certain situations can be good though. I think this weekend showed how much better we are with 3 in the middle. Interestingly, when I looked at what formations are being used in the premier league this season, 4-3-3 with a holding player is by far the most popular (7 teams) whilst the largely derided 4-4-2 is the joint second most used alongside 4-2-3-1 (3 teams each). Bare in mind that with fluidity of movement these 'formations' are less set in stone than they used to be. If one player pushes forward 4-3-3 quickly becomes 4-2-3-1 for a few moments. Wingers track back and suddenly 4-3-3 is 4-5-1. Likewise 5-3-2 and 3-5-2 are very similar (1 team each) and there are other examples too. For me, with our current squad, I am looking forward to seeing these players together (chop and swap to preference): Bailey Watkins Buendia El Ghazi/Philogene-Bidace Ings Traore Sanson Douglas McGinn or Chukwuemeka Nakamba Ramsey Targett Mings Konsa Cash Young Hause Tuanzebe Guilbert Martinez Steer/Sinisalo Of course we expect to lose Hourihane, Wesley, Davis, Trezeguet to either sales, loans or injuries but I would cope with selling El Ghazi too once the others are fit. I'd also replace Nakamba with a defensive midfielder but this list is based on no further additions.

In that case why did we keep Taylor for so long? He barely played. We kept him as back up as we had no other left backs. Hause and Mings could both have covered there. If Cash is injured will we play a centre back there? Maybe, or move Young across. What if Cash and Targett are both injured? It makes no sense to sell him unless he is replaced. Why bother though? He has one year left on his contract and next year I can see Kesler-Hayden being back up right back in his place. I haven't heard anything about him leaving apart from people on here and I can't see the club letting him go. As I said earlier, if he doesn't play at Barrow it will tell us a lot.

Fair enough, I guess the barrow game will be the biggest clue!

Why do people think Guilbert will be sold? If he goes we will have no back up for right back. Yes we have Young, Konsa and Tuanzebe who can play there but surely we want two players for each position?

Despite lots of moaning about how terrible our midfield is, they have been widely credited with being our best players today, all three of them described as pressing and working hard all game. Douglas, Ramsey and McGinn doing great today. Of course we could buy players that improve our midfield further and I hope we do but hopefully the players we do have already could get a bit more respect from fans?

I have been following the game on skysports website commentary and decided part way through the half to play a bit of FIFA too. I decided to use the same squad Vs Newcastle as we are today. Like the real game the first half was really scrappy with Newcastle looking more likely to score for the first 15 minutes and then we started to apply more pressure. It was looking like 0-0 at half time and in the 4th minute of extra time I scored a great goal with Ings. Barely three seconds later Ings scored a great goal in real life. It was spooky. Same player, same time in the match, same scoreline at half time. If anyone is interested my game finished 2-0 with Ings grabbing another goal around 80th minute. Fingers crossed!

It's better to put them in a promotion chasing team in a lower division than a relegation fighting team in a higher one. Youngsters rarely get picked in relegation scraps as you need reliability. This way there is more chance that he will play which is what we want. Could we have found a division two promotion chasing team? Maybe, but did any of them want him or need a player in his position? I guess not. As long as the club is happy with the move, I don't mind. It's about playing with adults and the standard between a top conference team and most division two teams is not that great anyway.

Is El Ghazi nobbling people in training so that he can keep playing, maybe? With Traore, Buendia, Trezeguet and now Bailey apparently injured, or recently injured and recovered, there is a pattern appearing for wingers ahead of him in the pecking order. Oh and people were suggesting that Watkins play out wide on the left so he had to go too! Someone better keep an eye on Philogene-Bidace.

Only way I can see there being anything in this story is if the rumours of West Ham eyeing up Hause are true. Otherwise why would we bring in another left footed centre back when we seem happy with Mings and Hause? I doubt he would be a starter for us and it's a lot of money for an alternative player to our club captain who will almost certainly start every game for us. I've heard some suggest that it allows us to play with 3 at the back but we haven't looked good playing 3-5-2 since the days of John Gregory and we looked like this: Angel Dublin Merson Boateng Taylor Wright Delaney Barry Southgate Alpay James Even then, I think we switched to 4-4-2 by the end of that season.

I'm exactly the same, he's the player I always try to get on FIFA once I have serious money to spend. Has been ever since his move to Germany.

Just seen an article saying that Atalanta and Villa are after Everton's Doucoure (4th official.com). So embarrassing what passes for journalism these days.

How about this formation as a way of fitting in our best players and not playing them out of positions they are familiar with? Ings Watkins Ings Bailey Watkins Buendia Bailey Buendia Douglas McGinn or Douglas McGinn Targett Mings Konsa Cash Targett Mings Konsa Cash Martinez Martinez Subs: Steer, Hause, Young, Sanson, Nakamba, Traore, Philogene-Bidace Rotation: Guilbert, Tuanzebe, Ramsey, Chukwuemeka, El Ghazi Anyone I've not mentioned I am assuming we won't see at any point this season. Don't worry if you'd swap the odd player here and there from the bench, it's the formation I'm more thinking of for this. Lots of people keep talking about 4-4-2 or some other way of playing two up top but we are best when using 4-2-3-1 or some version of 4-3-3 I feel. Obviously this list requires everyone to be fit and settled so I don't expect to see it straight away, but the formation allows our better players to all play in areas they can be effective. Watkins is a big upgrade on Grealish when it comes to closing down on the wing or as a wide forward, Ings is similar to Watkins at closing down and I believe that someone showed stats that suggested that Bailey was better than Traore at closing down. Most importantly, Buendia's defensive work is head and shoulders above Barkley's. Combined, that should greatly reduce the pressure on the defense and deeper lying midfielders. Both Watkins and Bailey can cut inside on to their stronger foot, but both are quite comfortable on their weaker foot if needed. Buendia's defensive work is a key reason I think he would be best in the middle rather than on the right. To be fair the front four can largely mix around throughout games to disrupt their markers. The majority of our bench and rotation players don't feel like a huge step down in quality any more. Another deep lying midfielder would be lovely but isn't vital and we have several youngsters who can really start to make an impact this season. Good times. Let's just try to keep everyone fit and healthy!

Hearing a lot of rumours about Correa, the Argentinian forward from Lazio. I'd be a bit surprised to see use sign another attacking player. Sounds similar to Alvarez in many ways. I would have expected more defensive targets from now on.

That's getting dangerously close to a Willem Dafoe smile, if only I knew how to morph from one pic into the other!

People making a fuss about how much we spent on a 29 year old but that's only one year older than Kane and Lukaku and people are talking about £100+ million for either of them.

I hope that we don't spend the money on English players, with the possible exception of James Ward-Prowse. Not because they're not good players (Tuanzebe, McNeil, Cantwell, Abraham and Ward-Prowse are all great players) but because they are all so over priced. We have a great core of players already at Villa that are acclimatised to the Premier League so don't need to worry about instant impact (no burning NEED for Europe this season to keep Grealish either) so we can afford to take a bit more of a risk with bringing in players from abroad. What I mean is that if £35-40 million gets you a very good English player BUT it can get you a really fantastic player from abroad. The risk is whether or not they can adapt to the Premier League. I think we can afford to take that risk with the Grealish money. Those English players are not going to raise the club to a higher level (not the same as saying they won't improve us) but 3-4 fantastic players would raise us to a level above hoping for Europa League but happy in top ten. We would be on a par with Leicester, a team that it doesn't shock you to see in the top four. Fingers crossed all our transfers work out, as long as we support the club and our players I am sure they will do their best to make us proud! Many fans are highly critical of our own players when they are not in form but I hope this Grealish saga will help people appreciate our current players a bit more.

Assuming he goes.... There were loads of people who booed when the Villa players took the knee in the last few games of the season. I will be shocked if he isn't loudly booed every time he plays against us too. Whilst I am appalled by booing the kneeling, I feel that Grealish will thoroughly deserve any booing he receives from Villa fans. I am intrigued about how he will react to it though. He doesn't go with my blessing, I don't understand his decision on any level and I've never been keen on his private behaviour. The only reason I liked him was because he was a Villa player, the only reason I was proud of him was because he was a Villa academy product. If he's gone then he's just another overpaid party boy with stupid hair. I just hope we can do what the likes of Brentford and on a bigger scale Leicester, Leverkusen and Dortmund have all done and invest the big fee into improving the whole squad and actually having more success without him than we did with him! Grumpy old man rant over!

Anyone else feel Gary Cahill would be a good shout as our back up centre back? Another experienced head to pass on wisdom, previous links with the club and won't block our own youngsters progress, just like Ashley Young. Not resigning with Crystal Palace it was confirmed today.

Quick question, have the press ever stated that they expect a club to accept an offer before, rather than waiting for an official response? I don't remember ever hearing them say that before and it seems so disrespectful to the club (no surprise there).

I'm not just talking about last season, some of these examples may be from 2 or 3 seasons ago. Hence formation changes over time. Even then you highlight Reece James playing in Chelsea's back 3 and he is a full back, not a centre back!

Apart from all those teams and countries that put 2 centre backs and a full back in their back 3, usually to add a little pace. Examples such as Kyle Walker for England, Tierney for Arsenal, Azpilicueta for Chelsea, Cresswell for West Ham. Although I agree that 2 full backs in a back 3 is not normal.

Cantwell doesn't make sense to me, Will Hughes doesn't either. Both players are no better than our current back up players and block the development of our numerous youngsters. Cantwell to replace El Ghazi, Traore, Trezeguet or even Chukwuemeka and the Ramseys? No thank you. Even if you judge him to be a slight improvement on any of them, is he so much better it's worth paying millions for? Not in my opinion. Will Hughes vs Douglas Luiz, Nakamba, Sanson, McGinn, Hourihane, Chukwuemeka or the Ramseys? Same problem again. The only back up players we should be looking at are in central defence and maybe up front. In the middle of the park we need people who can displace our current first choices, like Buendia and Bailey do to poor Traore.