FLVillan

A bit of both me thinks. Game is played at such a frenetic pace nowadays and sports science has these lads playing right at the maximum of their physical capabilities. And, yes with the bigger squads it's not unusual to have 6-8 players out and still have a full bench....

Potentially three centre-backs out injured yet we still have two established, experienced players who are playing on their correct side in Carlos and Lenglet. Kamara, Chambers in reserve. It doesn't seem that long ago that it was a half-fit James Chester and Jedinak as the pairing (with Hutton at left-back)! Even more recently it was Konsa, Mings, Hause.

I also think that with it being a January transfer, they will have seen this as a significant plus, as it should take him less time to settle... Curious to know how many ex Sandwell youth players we've brought in since Harrison became youth development manager.... Irogbunam, Azaz, Rogers...I'm sure there's a couple more too...

At the time he signed it's likely that a decent contract length was what attracted him and sealed the deal. 3 or 4 years is not unreasonable for a 27 year-old centre-back, especially as they don't typically peak until 28/29. He was coming into a lower mid-table squad with Mings, Konsa and Hause as centre-backs and Cash at right-back. We were short of right-footed defenders. Literally no right-footed cover for Konsa or Cash at that time. The reality is that the team has improved dramatically in the 2 years he's been here and he just isn't able to improve to keep up. We are looking to move him on now for exactly the same reasons that Arsenal did two years ago. We have evolved and bought better players in.

Good program. We actually played them when I was assistant coach at Brown. Sometime around 2008-11 if memory serves....

So, College of Charleston?

Very good on the floor too

It's a record fee for a goalkeeper, from Adelaide United, on a Wednesday, in a leap year....

Can't wait see him rolled out at Villa Park...

Good effort... younger gen may not get it - "vinyl sheet flooring" is the new lino...

Whilst I agree with you, I do think it's a delicate balance between Unai seeing if he can play himself back into form or benching him. If he is benched it's entirely possible that his confidence will drop further and then we have a 50-million pound dud. However, if he continues his current levels (especially if the team is not winning) the same could happen, especially when the fans (inevitably) get on his back. I recall the majority of fans couldn't fathom why Bailey kept playing week after week last season, yet now he's arguably our most potent attacking player.... Who'd be a manager eh.... One thing is for certain, his teammates want him to come good. When he hit that tame shot tonight and there was a collective groan from the Holte, Watkins rallied...

I hope so...

Agree that 15 million is steep, but JPB plays predominantly on the right (or at least he did in preseason) and I believe his buyback is about the same. JPB wanted a move because he wasn't content with being 2nd/3rd choice and wanted to play more (can't fault him for that). I also believe there's some accounting advantages with selling the likes of JPB, Ramsey and Archer that would exceed the advantages of selling someone who didn't come through the youth. If this lad Rogers is good enough and/or has the belief that he can come in and compete straight away then I trust that the club will be getting it right with the accounting/FFP side of things.

Well that's the first time I've ever seen anything about NSWE disliking the round badge. Have to say it seems bizarre that the owners of the club would have signed off on something they didn't like. Purslow left the club seven months after the round badge had been approved, confirmed and added. I find it hard to believe that the owners would have sat on their hands that whole time. It may not be a one-man crusade to piss off the fan base, but had he been transparent in his reasoning for ditching the round badge and shelving the north stand plans (two projects that the club had already spent significant funds on) then he may not have made a rod for his own back on that score. If he had simply said that he (or the owners) didn't like the badge then he possibly would have gotten a very short-term backlash. Had he not made a really poor excuse for not building the new stand (ie. we have 200 empty seats each match) and immediately contradicted that statement by saying "we can add seats in other ways." Had he properly consulted/surveyed the fanbase on a new badge design instead of a deliberately slanted survey and a "consultation" that was actually a one-way presentation of the finished design, then the current long term backlash wouldn't exist.

Would follow in the footsteps of our other great signings from Iceland, Joey Gudj...... Birkir Bjarna.... I'll get my coat....

I was tempted to post the exact-same list (without Spink and the addition of Colin Gibson). On the subject of international caps, McNaught (0), Evans (4) and Bremner (1) were scandalously overlooked by Scotland. Agreed on Jimmy Rimmer - as good as anyone in the world while he was with us. And at a time when English 'keepers were rightly considered the best in the world.

What gets overlooked is that the success of any team isn't just about the manager/coach. Yes, they will always be the fall guy when things go wrong and rightly so, but you can't make chicken salad out of chicken . Had Mourinho had the same level of players from his first Chelski stint at ManUre, Spurs or Roma he would have won (even) more trophies. The fact that he won trophies at ManUre and Roma with lower-standard players indicates that he can actually coach. There are very few coaches in the world that can say they've been more successful in terms of silverware, even in the last ten years when he's apparently been in decline... A successful team is the ideal combination of very good players and a very good coach. A good coach can elevate poor players to a certain degree but there's a ceiling. Pep wouldn't win the league with Brentford's players. Lewis Hamilton wouldn't win Formula One races in a Vauxhall Astra. And then you can have a poor coach who will soon get decent players playing like Steven Gerrard's Aston Villa.

Yes an absolute disparity - which can very easily be explained by him being at Chelsea in the earlier time period, who at that time were spending more money than anyone else by a significant margin, basically the equivalent of what Man City are now. I hardly think that we can categorize him as a bad manager with seven trophies in 12 seasons. Other than Guardiola and Ancellotti I'd struggle to come up with a manager in Europe who has won more league titles in that time period. Klopp maybe? He's won one with the Dippers, not sure what he won with Dortmund before the Dippers. At ManUre he won trophies despite the obvious huge problems that club has had under the ownership in what was easily their best spell since Ferguson left. At Spuds he was about to compete in the league cup final - his successor there (Conte) simply proved the points he had clearly made while there. He went to Roma, a club that has always been a tier below the elite clubs in Italy (Milan x 2, Juventus) and secured their first trophy in over ten years. I love Unai and think he's a step above and I would take him all day long over Mourinho. Having said that, if you had said to me in 2010 that we can bring in a manager that will win us 7 trophies in the next 12 seasons....

Which is still more than about 98% of all other managers... During that period I would have taken him over McLeish, Lambert, Sherwood, Garde, Di Matteo or Bruce.... Of all the managers at ManUre since Ferguson left, he won the most trophies (2). Yes, he's lost some of his edge, but still a very good manager.

Well seeing as you've changed it to all time, and I'd done my list for Premier League, Im old enough to have a pre-premier league top ten.... so here goes: Rimmer, Mortimer, Little, Withe, Cowans, McInally, Gray, Platt, Spink, McGrath (yes he's on both my lists because his time with us spanned both ), And just to clarify, these are my views on most important (ie seen as indispensable at some stage of their Villa careers), not necessarily my favorites.

Martinez, McGrath, Laursen, Townsend, Yorke, Mings, Mellberg, Petrov, Grealish, Friedel

@Marka Ragnos This is a great idea for a thread. My better half serves in the US Air Force, so it's always nice to see something like this, showing some respect and recognition to those who served. I recall my dad telling me about a few local footballers from Birmingham who went off to war and never returned. In American football there are quite a few examples of players who are/were in the armed forces. We lived in Arizona for long period of time and perhaps the best-known example of military service was Pat Tillman, an Arizona kid who was playing in the NFL when 9/11 happened - he quit his NFL contract to join the Army Rangers.

They could have done it. But Ellis was the Chairman. It's a bit of a shame that social media wasn't around when the scandalous decision was made to demolish that stand with no attempt made to preserve that roof mosaic or the one on the back of the stand. Honestly though, I have mixed feelings, as that mosaic is the entire reason why we have such a crap badge now. Lerner decided that yellow on light blue was a nod to our history while not realizing that the Trinity Mosaic was a one-off, a unique piece of artwork that had never been used as the official club badge on any of our kits.

Don't think he's been as bad as that, but I do think he's physically and mentally fatigued. He's played in every game for us, most for 90 minutes, plus has played every single Scotland match. Furthermore, he hasn't got into any sort of rhythm or groove as he's our midfield utility man, plays on the left, the right, holding and even as second striker. On the left, he's rarely played with Moreno, as that was Ramsey last season. Unfortunately he's indispensable, so unless he (God forbid) picks up an injury or suspension I don't see him getting the break he probably needs.

Reminds me of the first day in my college dorm when I moved to America (1992) and told my new roommate I was popping out for a fag. His face...