Peter Griffin

I hadn't thought of that, its a good point

I get the thoughts on policing but I just don't really see it as an issue myself. The police are very experienced and capable of policing football matches and have always managed to multitask with other major events happening at the same time

That would suggest that Elmo was backup to Cash and Fred was down the pecking order imo

But surely that mean Elmo was back up to Cash for the 2nd half of that season? The fact that we sent him out on loan would suggest we preferred Elmo to Fred as backup RB. If we wanted him to stay as backup RB and he wanted to go out on loan instead, he should have been put up for sale then. Players can't be refusing to play as a backup

Initially I was of the belief that this game would be cancelled but I am starting to think it will go ahead. With the cricket, golf, European games and other sports returning to action I am feeling the PL will try and get a game week in next weekend

Is the removing of him from the website not just because we are only permitted to have a 25 man squad and there are only 25 players listed on the team. There is a list of players out on loan. We are hardly going to have another list of 'Players not in squad and not out on loan'

After the first half of the first season that Fred was at Villa wasn't Cash first choice RB and Elmo backup to Cash and Fred further down the pecking order?

Where is the idea coming from that he is untouchable nor should be questioned? I haven't seen that on here, is it somewhere else?

We are doing the decent thing by paying him 40k a week. We are not a charity, we are a business and the decisions with players and wages etc should be taken in the best interest of the business and not to 'be nice' to a player. Yes, there are occasions when AVFC should do the 'nice thing' e.g. giving Barrow all of the revenue from our Cup tie, that is good for the business and good for our image. Players are commodities and very highly paid ones. Have you considered Fred doing the decent thing and suggesting to Villa that it isn't working out and it is unfair that we should pay him 40k a week for doing naff all and just ripping up his contract and pursuing a footballing career elsewhere? I am sure he could get a club in France on much lower wages if he was a free agent

Absolutely this, and not just under SG, he was loaned out under Deano too, only played the first half of one season for us. We don't know what is going on but as many people don't like Gerrard and or Purslow it is to be expected to see the blame land with them

Rafa is a very strong personality and has a bit of a reputation for being quite political and underhand. I suspect Purslow wanted rid of Rafa from early on as he had the potential to cause too much noise during a sale or due diligence. Roy would be perfect for putting in front of a potential investor / buyer and much easier to manage imo

I had forgotten that, I had actually completely forgotten about Elmo . Giving Elmo the extension was probably the precursor to these problems and getting stuck with a player that doesn't contribute to the 1st team

Again, that cause me more confusion. His wages are not that big and he played regular football last season. Why couldn't he get a loan. If we can sell Trez and ElGhazi and get Traore, Davis and Hause out on loan, what the f**k is wrong with Fred

Fred is the one player at Villa in the last number of years that poses some unanswerable questions for me. Everyone else it is fairly easy to see what is going on, even if it requires reading between the line e.g. I think SG would like to replace Mings, I just can't get my head around the Fred situation

I doubt he was trying to make friends at Liverpool and I also understand why we would want players sold while trying to sell the club. But this discussion is a bit crazy, it is not talking about hypothetical, we have the benefit of hindsight to see what happened. Purslow was employed to sell the club. He sold the club. Liverpool has gone on to have amazing success under the new owners. That is a success, it could not have worked out much better. Dragging up comments from fans who wanted to see Liverpool competing on the pitch while Purslow was there or ex staff is completely irrelevant.

But why would Deano have let him go on loan, that's the bit I don't get. If he is happy to push Cash for the shirt and there are no issues I can't understand why he was not kept at Villa

I think the whole footballing world would see Purslow's sale of Liverpool as a huge success.

It is not clutching at straws. You clearly don't understand what his objective at Liverpool was, yet you even posted it in a comment above. He was brought into Liverpool to sell the club. That was his objective and focus

That's because the comments are from people that were judging success as success on the football pitch. He probably didn't care what happened on the pitch, his job was to sell the club which he did. And the sale could not have worked out much better for Liverpool

I didn't realise he had played 30 times for Deano. I have something in my head that always wondered why Fred is not getting in the squad. There have been times under Deano or SG that I thought Fred would be ideal on the bench and coming on as a sub or evening starting games but it didn't happen. I think there is something dodgy there, hence my suggestion it may not be football related

There is clearly some issue that is preventing Fred getting in the 1st team. It was the same with Deano too. It could well be non footballing related, I just don't know. But I am fairly confident that a problem exists as I just can't imagine Deano not playing him for no good reason. In France he appears to play well, I haven't seen him play but I think he was in the Lique 1 team of the year last season. I think all the fans like Fred (me included) as his social media comments are always very positive about Villa and anytime I have seen him in Claret & Blue he has looked a decent player. But, two managers over the course of 2 or 3 years haven't been swayed to put him in the first team squad says to me there is a problem

Clearly both Gerrard and Deano think so as he didn't fit into either of their plans. Is the suggestion that Fred is actually a good RB for the Premier League and the problem is that Gerrard is badly managing him?

And FSG didn't want a safe pair of hands as they wanted to improve the football and bring the club forward from a footballing perspective. CP wanted to sell the club

He signed Hodgson to be a safe pair of hands that would accept not spending money in the transfer market and wouldn't cause any trouble during the sale of the club. Emotional fans may call that shit, smart business people would call it astute.

I don't get the notion that he has been treated disgracefully. We bought him and pay his very significant wages, its a job, not a marriage. Neither current nor previous managers saw him as a first team player, yes that is hard on the lad but that's just the way it worked out. What are we supposed to do?