NeilS

I reckon Hull are goners too, I just can't see them beating Man Utd, plus West Ham have been dreadful for months so I think Newcastle may get enough to see them across the line.

I never used to mind Newcastle too much, but the comments from Carver and Taylor have shown them to be particularly bitter. It would be funny if West Ham sent them down, and their fans unravelled a banner similar to ours from a few years back. That would probably send the fans over the edge.

I may be wrong here, but I think he is referring to the style of play rather than the signing, ie big man flicking it onto smaller nippier forward.

I think it won't be long before a break from football is enforced on him, as he will no doubt be sacked if/when Hull are relegated. Hull look pretty doomed to me, I know things strange things happen in football, but I can't see how they will get out of the mess they're in in the final game of the season. Newcastle are Hull's only hope in my opinion, but West Ham seemed to have stopped playing about 3 months ago, so I think Newcastle will get what they need from that game although it would be hilarious if Newcastle did go down.

I agree, I am struggling to remember seeing a worse one that that in 35 years of watching football. I don't think that will be making it into the final edit of Stevie Gee's farewell video compilation of his career.

Yes, i just watched again and it made me wince seeing it. I don't remember the tackle hitting so high up on Boateng's leg. Luckily (as Gazza found out later) George was made of Steel, otherwise that would have finished his career.

If that's true, that would be a pretty poor deal for a guy who's likely to be a squad player. It's daz. So it's not true. And even then it's not a poor deal in the slightest. Delph was 8m from the same league and Luongo is a full international. Most recently you have Spurs paying £6m for Delli Ali, So I guess that is the nearest and most recent comparison in terms of value for money. I have no idea how either stack up against each other in terms of ability though, so I am still none the wiser as to whether or not that would be a good deal?

Looks like Spurs have just been ran over by a car!

Is Cisse injured? The reports I see are about him returning from injury.

Me neither, one thing I have learned over the last few years is to give up trying to predict other teams scores, as you tend to get some shock results at this time of the season. We just need to make sure we get ourselves another 5-6 points in my opinion, and I don't care how we get them. I am hoping for a minimum of:- Draw vs Everton, Win against West Ham, and a draw with Southampton (although I have a sneaky feeling we may win that one).

They might sneak in one year if all goes well, and some of the usual suspects have a duff year, but to qualify regularly is going to be very tough for them. We saw it ourselves, if you start to assemble a decent squad and threaten a top 4 spot then the best players get poached and you are back to square one. Replacing the poached players and improving is easier said than done, and just because they managed it this season doesn't mean they will be able to keep doing it. They have done the easiest part of the journey of getting into the top half of the PL, this is where it suddenly becomes a lot tougher to make those final few steps.

The facts are we need to do this ourselves, we cannot rely on others to help us out. This Hull result shouldn't be seen as a surprise, these kind of results happen at the tail end of the season. I didn't think we were safe after the Spurs victory, and I still believe we will need another five points to be safe. The goods news is, we appear to have some life to us now which was non existant a couple of months ago. We have a chance, and we have to make sure we get the results we need to see us safe. If we don't we can have little complaints as we have been dreadful for three quarters of this season.

When I see people rating Benteke at £20-£25 million, and then see the likes of McCormack and Rhodes who are basically Championship level forwards being valued at £10-£12m, then that tells me their is something drastically wtong with Bentekes valuation. If we sold Benteke with the idea of using it to improve more than one area of the team, then we aren't going to get far with that £25m based on the values I am seeing other players going for. If we are looking to sell to improve our team, then it has to be £40million minimum in my eyes. That then would need to go on 2-3 players. Anyway, in my opinion we should be looking to keep hold of Benteke and offering a contract extension this summer, he appears to be enjoying himself here again, and has built up a decent understanding with Grealish and Delph.

I have had a bit of a soft spot for Watford. Probably because they were Villa's opponents in my first ever match in the early 80's when we beat them 3 or 4-0 at VP, but mostly because of SGT and him coming to save us in his first spell in charge. So I am quite happy they are coming up,

Also to add, they do always manage to provide great moments of comedy like the European Cup Winning Diary incident, Barry Fry urinating in the corners of the ground, dodgy owners going to Jail etc. Even when we are having tough times, they manage to go out of their way to make us feel better about ourselves. However, they can do that from the lower leagues where hopefully we will never have to meet them again.

The individual errors keep costing us, and I guess with a back four that never seems to stay fit for more than a few games, that individual errors are more likely due to lack of understanding and rustiness. Going forward we are much better now, but that means nothing if the individual errors keep costing us goals at the other end of the pitch. The Everton game is going to be a tough one, as they seem to have hit a decent run of form, We really need to get a point from that game. West Ham is a must win game, and maybe look to get a point from Southampton. To do that we will need to cut out the gifts and have a bit of luck. I am still very nervous about relegation with only a 2 point gap, and the teams below appearing to pick up surprise results. The Hull win against Palace being a real kick in the teeth. However, if we get the five points from those three games then I think we will be more or less safe.

As stated above, a good chunk of Bent's wage should go towards a contract extension for Benteke. We should be looking for another year at least from him, as that will leave him with 2 seasons left after next summers Euro's where I expect Benteke and Belgium to be hot property. Then we can command a massive fee for the lad if he decides to move on (I hope he doesn't, but accept that he will probably end up at one of the CL clubs in the next few years).

To be fair he is in his 70's now. On the other hand though, Chewie is holding up quite well, not a grey hair in sight!

Yeah I think that is probably the best stance to take Pieface. After last years rumours/speculation and disappointments, I am not going to get excited by some exciting new dawn for Aston Villa FC as we never seem to get that lucky.

Amazing what a run of games in the same team can do, something he has never had the luxury of in his short first team career with us or out on loan. It has been a bit of a stop start career for him so far, and hopefully he can now put those injury doubts behind him like Delph has and push on and take a chance here. I guess it is another step up to play in the Premier League (If we stay up?) , but hopefully these games in the Championship will help him do that and he can take Cleverley's place if he does decide to join someone else in the summer.

Yes, the first one was never a yellow in my opinion. If you book all players for those kind of shirt pulls there would be no players left on the pitch by half time. To me it didn't look like It was a cynical pull back to stop play and a counter attack which is usually the type that gains a yellow. Like has been said before, I think the referee had lost it by that point and was trying to even it up. In fact on the replay, the speed with which the ref is already indicating he is going off suggests that the ref had already made his mind up on the matter without a second thought.

Jonathan Pearce should have stuck to commentating in Robot Wars. As stated previously he doesn't half talk some rubbish, and often gets basics wrong.

A great few days for us results wise, but it is still way too early to be relaxing. We are still deep in trouble at the moment, and I would like to see us string together a few matches gaining points over our rivals before I can feel any confidence in the team. We have seen odd wins before, followed by moments of confidence on here, quickly followed by long runs of defeats and doom and gloom. This team hasn't strung together a decent run of form for such a long time that I can't remember, and that is why we are down the bottom of the league. We have to do it ourselves and not rely on others to be worse. A win against Sunderland and I will start to feel a little more confident, although the pessimist in me won't allow me to relax until we are mathematically safe.

Yes this was the one thread of hope that I am clinging to in my brief moments of hope, before the pessimist in me kicks in. I am hoping we have bottomed out in terms of badness, and hopefully the players can galvanise themselves and produce a decent end to the season under Sherwood. Although we have been so bad for so long, that I am not sure the players have it in them?

Isn't that a similar quote to what JG said about Hitzlesperger in the past?