AvfcTheObsession

You can't blame the International break, it wouldn't have been tomorrow anyway

It's probably a case of those who want change will always be the ones posting. For one, I agree with most the criticism of Sherwood - primarily those relating to his team selections considering our opposition and failure to respond to what's happening on the pitch quickly enough, I'm less concerned by interviews and bravado that I perversely still quite enjoy - but I think it's such a risk changing the manager now for someone we still have no idea would be an improvement, even if the momentum is looking like its swinging that way. I guess from some people's perspective the scales don't look quite as tipped that way, yet. I also think it's very easy to say that Allardyce could come in, or whoever else, and turn things around and make things OK for now, but there is absolutely no guarantee of that. Are we forgetting his stint at Newcastle? I think that is a far more familiar situation to us right now than his work at over achieving clubs he got promoted. Put it this way, if I was in charge I wouldn't sack Sherwood right now, but if he was gone tonight I wouldn't be at all cut up about it. In general I feel quite deflated as I don't really envisage a situation where it gets considerably better. It's exactly how I was a month or so before Lambert got sacked, everyone was calling for his head and desperate to get a new manager in that would be instantly better just because he wasn't Lambert, but I still felt there was a chance to recover and the other options wouldn't have made a difference. Then, After the Hull game, those scales tipped for me and thankfully Fox made the right decision. Maybe another month from now the same will happen with Sherwood. Then we'll hire the next man who starts well, stutters and we'll be sat in 17th place again, thinking about who else will save Aston Villa. Whilst Big Sam is not the messiah, he did get 30 points from his 24 games at Newcastle, 1.25 points per game. If he came in to Villa now and managed that ratio, we'd end the season on 41/42 points, and almost guaranteed safety.

Sherwood lost to Stoke in his first game, if he loses to Stoke tomorrow will that be his last game? Probably still be too early but food for thought.

And 5/2 anytime scorer, those odds seem a bit short for a keeper, I'll pass on them!

I completely forgot about Townsend. Not getting a game for Spurs is he, not that that stops Roy picking players like Gibbs, Phil Jones and Walcott who often aren't first choice for their club.

Sinclair flatters to deceive for a winger. I think it's about time we put faith in our big money buys, Ayew over Sinclair, Veretout over Westwood. We won't ever do better than battle relegation if the spine of our team is players like Westwood, Agbonlahor and Sinclair. If players like Veretout and Ayew play to their potential that's the only way we will improve.

through no fault of his own they all left Yeah I get that, I should have quoted the person I was mainly aiming my comment at, who said 'what Sherwood did last season was remarkable given the players at his disposal. They really weren't that bad, certainly better than at least 4/5 other squads in the league.

I don't want to see both Sanchez and Westwood, too defensive at home, I'd prefer Sanchez of the two. I also don't want to see Gabby, nor Sinclair (as I don't think he offers enough aside from the odd goal). Let's see the flair players; Gil, Grealish, Adama, Ayew get game time.

The players available to him weren't that bad. He had two England midfielders in Delph and Cleverley, one of the best CFs in the league Benteke, and an experienced defender in Vlaar. The Southampton game was absolutely shocking, and then we couldn't break a rubbish, already relegated Burnley side down at home. The warning sides were there at the end of the campaign with the way we ended it with those games and the Cup final no show, albeit against better opposition. Most Villa fans were saying literally anyone other than Lambert would do better as the players weren't bottom 3 quality.

Netflix and chill.

At half time I went for Man City to win BTTS at 6/1. Sadly I doubled it up with Atletico to win at 23/20 so won sod all.

Moysie? Ummmm, no thanks. Allardyce? I'll take a pass on that sauce, too Team Nat From To Record G W D L Win % Preston North End[103] 30 September 1992 30 November 1992 12 3 4 5 25.00 Blackpool 19 July 1994 29 May 1996 102 44 23 35 43.14 Notts County 16 January 1997 14 October 1999 145 56 39 50 38.62 Bolton Wanderers 19 October 1999 29 April 2007 371 153 104 114 41.24 Newcastle United 15 May 2007 9 January 2008 24 8 6 10 33.33 Blackburn Rovers 17 December 2008 13 December 2010 86 30 23 33 34.88 West Ham United 1 June 2011 24 May 2015 181 68 46 67 37.57 Total 921 362 245 314 39.31 . Any more names? Winning more games than you lose at Bolton and West Ham is pretty impressive. How many managers at either of those clubs can say that in the last 20 years? He got sacked at Blackburn and Newcastle but his record wasn't actually bad at either of those. He isn't the messiah but I think his brand of football is better than Pulis and he could get us to around 11th/12th if we needed someone to come in if things haven't picked up in the next couple of months.

I'd like to see him given a go at RB, can see him being better than Bacuna and Hutton.

I doubt you'd get outed, unless you can't contain yourself if by some miracle we score there? Spurs aren't exactly gonna be bang up for this, at home to a struggling side on a Monday night, as long as you can sit there and watch the game and don't have an obvious brummie accent you'll be fine.

Looks like tickets in the away end should only be £12-15 for adults then. Wanted to go to this but am away during that half-term week.

I wouldn't worry too much about that, there were plenty on there for the Baggies game and we had over 36k. Stoke have sold 2.5k and the crowd won't be far off 35k for this one. Team I'd like to see: ------------ Guzan ------------ Bacuna Richards Lescott Amavi ------ Gueye Sanchez ------ ---- Traore Gil Grealish ---- --------- Gestede --------- Hutton (over Bacuna), Clark (over Lescott) and Veretout (for Sanchez or Gil) also pushing for starts. Ayew as an impact sub.

Shocked he got no game time at all at the weekend. Even if Sherwood felt it was too big a gamble starting him, for him not to get at least 20-30 mins when it looked like he could be finding his feet after Tues was very poor.

On Allardyce, if he has the players at his disposal, is his football really that bad? I mean West Ham scored 44 last season and finished joint 11th, I don't think we'd complain if that was us this season or even next. If we are scoring goals are people going to be saying 'not happy with that, wasn't enough passes in the move', I highly doubt it. He has mainly managed at small clubs like Bolton and Blackburn where survival was the main goal, once he got a bit more money at a bigger club than those 2, West Ham, and brought in Valencia, Sakho, etc. I think there was an improvement.

I thought they were out of the Europa league You are correct, they got knocked out by FC Midtyland (sp?) previously.

Very worried about this one if Gana, Gil and Adama all miss out which sounds likely. Hope we break them down early or it could be a frustrating afternoon.

I'd say they prefer the sight of empty seats over the sight of them having Blues fans in them, and the carnage that could cause. All you need now is a booking history from the past 3 seasons. If your mates don't meet that criteria then I fully support the club not selling them tickets. Not because I don't thinkyour mates should have tickets. But if they can blag tickets with that small of a booking history, then so could Blues fans. I agree with that. I'd love to see a 40k+ attendance, but we are more than able to manage this with fans who have any booking history from the last 3 seasons, that covers literally hundreds of thousands of fans. If it doesn't reach 40k, it isn't Villa's fault.

Bet Blues are struggling to take more than a coachload of fans to Ipswich tomorrow night, hope they get stuffed and their confidence is knocked before facing our flair players next week.

Maybe closing the Upper Trinity would have been an idea, just like they do for normal rounds of the cup against other opposition. That way the atmosphere would be better as we'd have a crowd of say 36-38k packed in with all the stands at least 95% full. Whereas the way it's looking the Upper Trinity, Upper Witton and probably even Upper North will have rows of empty seats.

Sadly closed, along with the Aston Hotel. Main options now are Aston Social and Aston Tavern, or of course the Holte Pub/Holte Suite.

He didn't even last as long as a vine last night, pathetic.