kayarcee

I disagree with that; Clough was never quite the same after he fell out with Peter Taylor. Wenger never reached the same heights after Pat Rice left. Other side of the coin, yes, Ferguson was able to reshuffle with multiple assistants, as has been Mourinho.

Or the Bobby Roode entrance theme: "MARVELLOUS! He won't give in he won't give in till we're victorious he will defend he will defend, and he'll do what he must no he won't give in he won't give in oh so Marvellous until the end until the end"

Either says a lot for him, or a lot about us, given that I don't remember Barry even getting that kind of a sendoff. Yes, his Liverpool Summer likely contributed to that, but far more frequently our support gets on the back of a player if his skills fade or he moves on for more money.

Charles N'Zombia was right there, and you reached for that?

I think we run the risk of UEFA/FIFA sanctions far outweighing what the eventual compo for Baticle would end up if we were to talk to him without permission, as he's contracted to the club. Would be similar to tapping up a player.

And to be perfectly fair, Hogg was fine -- not exceptional, but not terrible. I remember him being a decent, tidy player. He was never going to pull up trees, but was able to effectively move the ball to the players who could.

The concerning thing regarding Sherwood is that his previous job came about because the team he was a coach for sold their best player, bought heavily, and the existing manager struggled to fit all of the new pieces together (on top of Sherwood himself manipulating his way into the frame). You would think that his biggest piece of advice from that experience would have been to consolidate the existing squad and buy only a few players to help the squad kick on and improve in one or two position. Not double down on the Spurs strategy and buy a whole new squad.

Barry Bannan brought more to the team than most gave him credit for. Barry Bannan and Ashley Westwood are two sides of the same coin. With Bannan it was all "he never does the simple things! He's all Hollywood balls!" With Westwood it's "why doesn't he try an attacking pass! I only ever see him pass sideways and backwards!" When the reality is somewhere in the middle for both.

I bought the first year Macron top during Villa's preseason tour in the states, and have had no peeling issues, no snags, no issues whatsoever. Also bought a long sleeve glow in the dark from that year that's held up in a similar fashion. Then again, I always wash my shirts in cold water and air dry them.

Considering that for baseball, there are 30 major league teams with 25-man squads, plus 5 or 6 farm teams of the same, plus American universities and high schools, Central and South America, the Caribbean, Japan and Korea, the talent pool isn't that much smaller.

Not quite. While there is a draft in major league baseball, those players aren't expected to immediately contribute, and are often assigned to farm teams for a year or two. Imagine if Villa owned Walsall, Tamworth and Coventry, and then could distribute players as it saw fit amongst those four entities. That's how baseball is structured, and has been since around the 30s (before that, it was a series of regional leagues with a similar transfer system to world football). There is no salary cap. The actual Moneyball philosophy istlef is based on "market inefficiencies," i.e. players that are valued lowly by the rest of the league, but have an attribute that in the right environment could be maximized while the team has them under employ. For example, signing multiple doubles hitters while the league prefers to chase guys with high home run and RBI numbers. To an extent, I suppose that's what the emphasis on Ligue 1/2 players was all about this Summer - the French league is becoming "flatter" (i.e. the power structure of L'OL/L'OM/PSG/Monaco is eroding), and so the players across the league there are more competitive, and more likely to quickly cohere than if we had purchased a "world XI" of similar players. That said, Sherwood probably should have piped up that buying a whole new squad in one go didn't work when Spurs sold their big money player, and that we'd be better using that money for a small handful of players that could drastically improve our situation. But he didn't, and so here we are.

By that logic, Sir Alex bought Bebe, Veron and Kleberson!

Two games? Great. Roll on with KevMac until Bob can come in.

Actually, as an American, I can tell you he can be quite inspiring. He's exactly the opposite of Sherwood. He's soft-spoken, his teams play organized and disciplined, his teams are often the fittest in their competitions (we will never be outworked). He'd be working with a better selection of defenders than he ever did with the US.

Quite honestly, I'd RATHER have it sans sponsor if I could, rather than being a walking billboard for a casino.

well, we're not fickle. Once we've made our mind up about someone it stays made up. See all the McLeish out calls today.

:oops: :?

Why would Clark start over Bannan? Because our midfield got overrun without Herd to play destroyer.

Every bit of this.

No, what he's saying is that the complaints have gotten to the point where they're completely off base. Look in this thread where everyone's saying "same old negative McLeish," while he set the team out to attack (even during the last 20 minutes, Hutton was practically playing as a midfielder). Now, the ability of that team to maintain possession and create chances is in part down to the players for not being able to move for each other, but also to McLeish for not better preparing them to pass the ball on the deck this preseason. McLeish had a few bad habits to get rid of from his days at the circus. He didn't have 16 months out of the game to "watch Barca." But, he should have seen that there's some passing quality in the side (the sale of Jonathan Hogg and loan of Makoun seem incredibly short-sighted now that we've seen a handful of injuries, suspensions and general lack of form (read: Fabian Delph)) and adjusted during pre-season, not three months into the season. Collins and Dunne have been out of sorts on set pieces for a while, and to the point that 2009's defensive record was better, including set pieces, remember that most of that season saw us playing with a center back (Cuellar) at right back. It's worrying that our first choice center half pairing needs a third CB to even approach competency. Let's also remember that the midfield at that time included James Milner, who defined "box-to-box" midfielder for us that season. We have one midfielder who approaches his energy and industry in the center of the park (Herd), and he's only just getting a run of games for the first time (and he's being asked to play more of a protectorate role, to allow Warnock and Hutton to support the attack). I do think it took McLeish a bit long to "figure out" what he had, but I think if he can finally drop the hammer on extricating Dunne and Collins (I had faith in Dunne, which was squandered on Skrtel's goal, where Dunne not only waltzed behind Skrtel as he made his run, but didn't seem to communicate it to Hutton at all, which is his chief job in a Zonal Marking system. Sure, Hutton's reaction time was poor, but the lad doesn't have eyes in the back of his head) we might actually go on a little run and see some of our ball retention issues cleared up.

"We were great for the first five minutes of the second half". He also threw in his weekly "We must have a winning mentality" bullshit. If it wasn't so laughable this situation I'd cry. I shouldn't even laugh because I and everyone here supports the damn club. What an absolute pathetic state of affairs. Kudos Mr. Lerner sitting in his American mansion. £10 on if we get hammered tomorrow he'll say how it was because of the fact they're Manchester United, champions and Sir Alex is their manager, nothing to do with his defensive, negative tactics or the fact he's a shit manager. Last week we drew because of circumstances that happened earlier in the day beyond our control, even though only 3 players on our side knew the man I'm referring to. Last week we drew because Michel Vorm made a wonderful save on Gabby, the linesman incorrectly flagged Bent for offside, and Chris Herd couldn't get his header on target. But you know, keep your head down and believe what you want.

No room for Herd even on the bench?

I don't think Villa played half as dire as a lot of others in this thread. The first half started negative, but I thought that we looked like an O'Neill side during that half- the team sat back, and created a few breaks, but Swansea's attempts to "Arsenal the ball into the net" made it a lot harder for us to get the ball. Fair play to McLeish for showing a quality Martin O'Neill never had-- the ability to go to plan B-- by setting the team out to press high and possess the ball in the second. Villa knocked the ball around quite well in the second half, even before the introductions of Bannan and Jenas, and but for a very nice save from Vorm, a misdirected late header by Herd, and a poor spot by the linesman on Jenas's chipped ball to Bent, we might have walked away 3-0 winners.

Wonderful cross, wonderful header . . . and wonderful save from Friedel. That's a lot more like it.

Only he's not playing 5 at the back. He IS playing Hutton, who practically plays as a midfielder anyway, in the right midfield position, and using Cuellar to cover the deep flank. Now yes, I would have preferred to see a proper winger on the right, with Hutton forcing Bale to cover him deep rather than invite Bale to run onto Cuellar, but there's some decent thinking in this approach. For one, I think the more aggressive tactic may backfire, as Hutton is a little less fit than Bale. How I'd like to see supporters take a moment and be patient. Typical AshNegative.