Peter Griffin

Oh Aston Villa, sorry, I thought you meant Villa-real

Maybe we may have thought we could get him on the cheap with only hours to go. It is not completely uncommon. It appears Arsenal tried to do that with Doug

Is arithmetic the issue or maybe poor research skills or is it just plain old changing the facts to suit the narrative?

The ex Villa players are a little too predictable. Lambert's record and performances at Norwich made him a predictable choice for a PL club. Garde and DiMatteo, yes, I will take that on the chin, they were not predictable. Garde needed more time, we turfed him out too soon.

I feel that if we got Poch, he could be our manager for many many years. I think he could build a legacy at Villa and in 20 years time when Poch's name is mentioned the instant association would be with Villa and not Spurs or PSG or Saints or Espanyol. He would be a Villa man and the man that brought European glory back to our club. (Yes, I do like him )

In the last 40 years we have never taken a risk or gone top shelf. We go for predictable. I didn't want SG as manager but I do like that we tried to change the usual type of appointment and take a risk. But my preference is for top shelf and I have dreamed of Poch at Villa from the days he was at Saints. There is no manager in the world I would take ahead of Poch today.

I think Villa fans would turn on Potter quite quickly and wouldn't give him the time he needs. To me, Potter appears to be a slow build type of guy and would take a long time to get Villa to where we want to be. They have gone through quite a long time without a striker that can score goals and spent a long time passing the ball to each and dropping points. That would not be tolerated at Villa Park

I have absolutely no doubt that the problem is the managers we employ. We keep getting it wrong. Deano was the right manager at the time and that was to get us promoted to the Premier League and it is no surprise he is doing that job again. Besides that, none of our managers go on to any success and I believe that is on them and not us

Poch for me is the standout too. However, I wouldn't lose too much sleep if we got Potter

It is twisting. You said people are putting Saturdays result down as a sign that things have changed. Absolutely nobody has said this. If the next 10 games are W7D3 then yes, we will reflect on previous games and correctly say that the Man City point was a turning point. But we do not have the benefit of knowing the results of the next 10 games. The poster said we need to start, as in start to get some points and start to show improvement. It is a fact that we improved on Saturday and got a point. It is not an opinion. All I did was highlight that we appeared to start on Saturday. It is no ways says we have turned a corner

I agree, if he can't demonstrate that he can learn and improve he will be a goner

How come u have stuck around here so long?

I think we rejected the take whatever u can get stage. If Doug wants a pay rise we should be doing it on our terms as much as possible. But 25m release clause would be a poor deal for us, we would be under constant threat of him leaving in every window, that't not the sort of position we would want to be in with a key member of staff

Yes, it may be a PayDay loan style overdraft but I just can't see him going after Leicester game. The next 4 games should give a decent haul of points, I think he will be given this opportunity and if it is poor then I can see him getting the axe.

25m release clause is not enough commitment imo and wouldn't warrant a signing bonus and pay bump. It would need to be at least 50m. If Arsenal rate him at 25m with 12 months left on his contract then with 4 years left he must be worth in excess of that.

I think he may have a small overdraft facility. Next 4 games are his to prove himself I think

Just compare the way our players reacted and played as a team compared to Leicester against Brighton. Chalk and cheese. Emi1 epitomised the full team effort on Sat with the way he worked up the crowd and played a real captain's role on the pitch. I have been worried about Emi1's performances over the last while but on Sat I saw the old Emi1 back. I am not keen on GKs as captains but I would love to see him given the job.

Yes, I can see the difference Nick. And a poor game for them is still right up there with a top 4 performance. Do Villa get any credit for influencing how City played or is our performance all down to Pep's team having a bad day at the office?

Context to the original post please Nick, I thought tabloid style twisting of comments was below u. The post said we 'need to start now' and I pointed out that we appear to have started on Sat and we need to continue and build on it.

Interpreting football results, sequences of results, scores and games etc does not only yield two outcomes. It is not a case of one outcome proves SG is the right man or otherwise SG should be sacked. There are so many factors that, quite rightly, influence the resulting opinion. Too much of the debate on here is centred around result X means such a thing or comment X means u want nobody but SG and all u can see is a future with SG. If you post something on here you are categorised into one of two groups and are then subjected to a litany of snide and sarcastic comments. Not every opinion or outcome is mutually exclusive of the other.

In the pre match thread it was commented that the City starting 11 was probably their strongest starting 11 possible too

Just on the chances of a Villa relegation this season. The bookies have 8 teams (40% of the league) as shorter odds than Villa for the drop: Leeds, Wolves, Saints, Fulham, Everton, Leicester, Forest and Bournemouth.

It does appear we did start on Saturday, it is now up to SG to show he can continue on from Sat and push forward

Okay, maybe no risk of relegation is not correct, there is always some risk as we don't know what will happen and we could sack SG and replace him with worse. My assertion that we are at no risk of relegation is that I don't believe there is any likelihood will will go down just as I don't believe there is any chance I will fall and break my arm today albeit that could happen. I am not a gambler but I would be happy to bet that we don't get relegated this season as I think it would be money in the bank. The last line of your comment adds to why I can't see us going down. Purslow won't let us, he will sack SG first and the changes that have to be made would be made.

It is not blinkered nor ignoring the fact that he has been manager for 32 games and what the results have been like. There are two discussion points at the moment 1) Suggestion we will be relegated and 2) Is SG good enough 1) I believe there is no chance we will be relegated and as I have said in the last few pages, it is because we are only 6 games into this season. We can only be relegated on points for a given season, hence it is futile to include last season's games. With 32 games to play we have lots of time to improve. Yes, the current run rate is not good enough and when u include last season's run rate (valid to include now), it doesn't look like we are improving. Even at that, we are still on about a point per game which would normally be enough to avoid relegation. So our current and previous season's run rate has us at the borderline and not being cut adrift. Just about everyone agrees that the squad is better than its performance and that SG is the problem. On that basis and considering we are currently on a point per game, I see no risk of relegation as Purslow can sack SG and bring in a new manager. 2) I don't know whether SG is good enough or not but I do know he is a novice manager and has only managed 32 games in the PL. I don't want the club to waste the last 10 months investment in him and replace him without giving him a chance this season. We could live to regret that. I want to see SG staying with us for the next 5 or 6 weeks to see if he can demonstrate improvement. If he can't then he should be fired.