NeilS

Oh dear, It looks like carelessness and mistakes are not only confined to the pitch.

I remember most people had an instant dislike for Houllier because he said we were traditonally a mid table team in one of his early press conferences. Personally I think if Houllier had been replaced with a manager in a similar mould back then we wouldn't be in the mess we are in now. We went from the MON British approach to trying to implement the Houllier continental approach mid season which caused us problems at the time, but if persevered with over the summer break could have put us on a sounder footing moving forward, especially as we enjoyed some decent form towards the end of the season. Lerner though, decided to rip up everything and start again on the British route again with McLeish and the rest we all know.

i'm glad your not the manager picking the team every week !!! I appreciate its all about opinions, but Gestede is only good for one thing, headers so who is going to supply the crosses from wide in that set up? The protection the defence will get from that midfield is as about as good as using a condom with a hole in it!! I am not having a go at you, but for me it just highlights the serious lack of quality we have in our team/squad. I think you have misunderstood KSV's line up, his is the top one without Gestede, the second is Sherwoods line up vs Swansea.

We still have a chance of staying up, but things need to change quickly. If we can string a few positive results together we will close the gap on the teams above, some of whom I expect will have bad runs at some point this season. The big IF is us, and stringing together some positive results to build confidence and momentum. We have not managed that in quite a while and that is going to have to change. Leicester showed last season how it can be done, we need to show similar battling qualities, and we can help ourselves here by not shooting ourselves in the foot virtually every game by gifting the opposition a goal. Hopefully the new man coming in can organise them better at the back, and get them back to at least doing the basics right so we make ourselves hard to beat again and then build from there. I do wonder whether the defenders are being asked to do something that is out of their comfort zone which is leading to these errors, the sheer volume of errors made is ridiculous.

Combined with not being able to keep his stupid mouth shut. Whats the saying....best to let people think you are an idiot, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

I think it is a case of he Richards can't play there as his body won't stand up to the rigours of getting up and down the pitch anymore, which is concerning for someone in their mid 20's imo.. Well it is concerning if it were true. Is this just a hunch or is there anything to actually base that on? he doesn't struggle getting up and down the pitch at times playing CB I think I remember him alluding to it in an interview a month or two back. I will see if I can find where he said it. Edit: having had a quick skim through, I think I have mis-interpreted a jokey comment made by Micah about being too old in one of his interviews. In an earlier interview back in July Sherwood talks about Micah's versatility and that he can play CB, RB or right side of a three. So I guess it is down to preference.

I think it is a case of he Richards can't play there as his body won't stand up to the rigours of getting up and down the pitch anymore, which is concerning for someone in their mid 20's imo..

I hate losing (which makes my support of Villa such hard work), it puts me in a bad mood no matter how much I try not to care, so would never wish for a loss. I would love for Tim to prove most of us wrong and turn things around, sadly I don't see it happening.

Haha I did exactly the same OBE. I must admit that I had to google what BBC Alba was, as I had no idea what language they were talking. Turns out is was Scottish/Gaelic. On a side note I have noticed a programme called Bannan also on BBC Alba, imagine my disappointment when it wasn't what I expected it to be.

Things look very bad at the moment, and there is a good chance that we will go down, but come on...nobody is nailed on to go down at this point of the season. Others will have dreadful runs of form, and we may find a purple patch of form at some point who knows. If we are cut adrift still at January then I will agree with you and think we are nailed on to go down.

We were broken under Lambert, and Lambert was broken under Villa. We had two spells, maybe more of not scoring for a number of games under Lambert, I think we were clearly headed in one direction at that point in time. We will never know for sure if Lambert could have kept us up, but from memory we looked very much doomed. Sherwood did just about enough to keep us up, and did well to get us to a cup final albeit the cup final was a disaster we all would like to forget. I think the final was partly down to us not turning up, but mostly down to Arsenal being on top form that day. They are a team that can destroy any team when they are firing. The result that did worry me most at the tail end of last season was the Southampton game, that was more concerning to me. As a club, our biggest mistake was keeping a rookie, unproven manager in the summer. We should have got rid then in my opinion and got in a better guy. I do understand the reasoning for keeping Sherwood, but that would have been the time to go and get ourselves a decent manager, not part way through a season. At this moment, if it was a toss up between Rodgers and Moyes for manager, I would go all out for Moyes. I just think he would be a better fit for us at this moment in time.

Yeah I remember the last relegation, I was 11 years old when that happened and it was horrible. Luckliy Graham Taylor came in and got us straight back, we still meant something back then so could lure the man required for the job to us. These days it is a different playing field, and lots of teams that have gone down in recent seasons have not come back. The financial implications of going down would pretty much put us back many years. Lerner and Co need to go, we need someone in charge who knows what they are doing and how to appoint a good manager. I now make that 4 bad choices on the trot now. As we are stuck with Lerner and Co for the foreseeable future we are going to have to take our chances and roll the dice again and hope this time it is 5th time lucky.

Foreign coach with new ideas please. Save that for when we're a boring midtable team. Too risky I understand this point of view, but with the amount of foreign players bought in during the summer transfer window maybe a foreign manager wouldn't be such a bad idea? Also, changing from a British to Foreign manager mid season didn't hurt Southampton, although at the time I thought that appointment was the final nail in their coffin. Also the last three managers we have had have all been British and that hasn't helped our performance at all, maybe a time to change things around and think outside the box. The sooner we stop the expectation that the next manager should be someone to lead us for decades, the better. We need to take much smaller steps and look shorter term with appointments. The short term goal of this club should be to re-establish ourselves as a premier league team. Not a shit team scrambling around to survive every year. If a foreign coach fits the spec of a manager who can do that then obviously I'm fine with it. But we're not in a position to be gambling on the next big thing from the continent, imo. It's all well and good saying we want "attractive" or "progressive" football, but I couldn't give a shit what we look like when we play. At this stage I want results that keep us in the league. We don't NEED the next big thing. Continuously searching for that is why we're appoint unproven chancers like Sherwood. What we need is experience and proven ability to make a team play well relatively consistently. If it means we're boring for a season or two then so be it. I'd much rathe rbe borign and safe to give us somewhere to build from than attractive and relegated. I agree, no more up and coming managers We have had our fill of those. It doesn't matter to me where they come from, I just thought with the influx of foreign players that maybe a foreign coach could get them playing to their potential. I wouldn't be overly disappointed with Allardyce, as he is a safe pair of hands and will most likely get us to a steady mid table position. If not him, then we are starting to struggle on the British managers front, unless we go and take a manager who is already employed like Pardew, Hughes or Moyes. If none of those can be tempted then we have to gamble on a foreign coach who is experienced at a big-ish club.

Foreign coach with new ideas please. Save that for when we're a boring midtable team. Too risky I understand this point of view, but with the amount of foreign players bought in during the summer transfer window maybe a foreign manager wouldn't be such a bad idea? Also, changing from a British to Foreign manager mid season didn't hurt Southampton, although at the time I thought that appointment was the final nail in their coffin. Also the last three managers we have had have all been British and that hasn't helped our performance at all, maybe a time to change things around and think outside the box.

I see various reports in the internet that Tom Cleverley has been the victim of an armed robbery in his own house. The robbing of PL footballers seems to be a common occurence in the North West, does it happen elsewhere and I haven't noticed? It just seems that when I see these stories they are always players from teams in the NW.

No, I disagree with this. The punt on Sherwood worked. We stayed up. He actually did well last season. He earned the chance to have a crack with us this season. What will be embarrassing is if we stick with him for game after game if nothing is getting any better, and eventually it costs us. That will be embarrassing. If we act with enough time and appoint a good manager to replace him then I won't be embarrassed at all. I agree with that Stevo. I wasn''t keen on his appointment as he was too inexperienced for my liking, Manager of Aston Villa FC is still a massive job, not for someone learning their trade. However, he earned some time by keeping us up and getting us to the cup final. However, the way our form has fallen off the cliff at the tail end of last season and the beginning of this season has pretty much meant he is running out of the time he previously earned. He doesn't help himself with his comments, he might be better off taking a vow of silence and perhaps putting Ray Wilkins in for the after match comments in the short term. The way it is currently going he is just giving out rope to for his own hanging.

I don't think Sherwood is under immediate danger of losing his job, but I think if we lose the next two games then Sherwood will be feeling the heat big time after that. It sounds a little unfair that defeat to Chelsea and Swansea could seal his fate ath this club, but unfortunately this run of poor form has cranked up the importance of these two games to our season. We desperately need a victory as soon as possible to get out of this rut, at the moment we look pretty doomed and destined for relegation. However, it only takes a win to change things sometimes, just look at Leicester last year for instance.

I think he may have looked good for WBA last season due to the defensive nature of their team set up, put him in a team where he isn't so well protected and his short falls are exposed. I do wonder whether the same could be said for our defenders last season.

In the sense that not many of us wanted him in the first place, maybe,but i think the comparison ends there. The thing with Tim is, that a lot us saw the petulance, the arrogance and lack of any tactical nous from his time at Spurs and thought that this was a bad appointment. But then, he kept us up, got us to Wembley which included 2 wins over one of our rivals and then had a good summer in terms of bringing in some good players and seemingly a good number 2. At that point i think a lot of us looked at it and thought 'hang on i might have this wrong' and our opinions changed. Fast forward a few months and all our initial worries are coming to the for and we now realise our opinions were probably right in the first place. In a funny sort of way he is like Darren Bent, he came in and saved us from the drop when all looked lost,gave us a good couple of months and for that we should be forever grateful, but like Darren we just are not suited long term, and the quicker he is off the payroll the better. That is kind of my thoughts on the matter as well. I must admit that I am still in two minds a little, as during the summer I did think that we may struggle at first due this season to the rip it up and start again nature to our squad rebuild. I don't see as much of the team as you guys though, so have kept quiet a little on this situation. My gut feeling has always been that he wouldn't be a good appointment for us, This is based on what he did at Spurs rather than any arrogance or cockiness. He started well at Spurs then fell off the cliff (Until they played us in the last game), which made me think he was a short term manager. I really hope I am wrong as we all need some good fortune, and an end to this miserable run of relegation battles.

Yeah I agree with Zatman and The Rev on this one, the less teams in the CL the better. Personally I have always thought it should go back to the 1 team from each league being in it, you know the Champions of that league afterall it is called the Champions league. Whilst they all have the gauranteed cash cow that the CL brings them other teams have less and less chance of winning trophies, so screw them. Personally I have quite enjoyed the lack of CL football on my tv this season, the teams in it epitomise everything that is wrong with modern football.

I am guessing that with the physicality of the Stoke team and Gil having had a tough time last time we played Stoke, that he will most likely be on the bench for the next game.

I reckon/hope Gana will play and Traore will be on the bench. Guzan Bacuna - Clark - Richards - Amavi -------------- Gana - Vertout -------------------- Gil Ayew ---------------------------------- Grealish --------------------- Gestede we can but dream You could well be right, it would be nice to see them back. If there were any doubts on their fitness though, I would prefer we be patient rather than set them back on their recovery.

Adama is back in light training according to Sherwood in the pre match news conference, with Gana being assesed for fitness before the squad travel. I guess we won't see these two this weekend, but hopefully soon they will be back in contention as long as there are no set backs.

I thought he lost his man too often. For the open goal that blose should have scored from in the second half it was Amavi who didn't track the runner who ended up having the shot. His defensive positioning needs work but it should improve with experience. From watching the match highlights I agree, he needs to be touch tight to his man in that situation. He was a good five yards away, and he had no chance of blocking the shot which in the PL would probably have resulted in a goal against.

Libor has shown in his few games with us that he does have the knack of sticking the ball in the back of the net, which is something our other strikers have failed to do so far. It cannot hurt to give him a few games, even if coming off the bench. I guess that Sherwood like most managers would, is going to favour his own signings.