il_serpente

Close the thread. Godwin's law has been invoked. I would have put my money on the Bannan thread being the first one to reach this stage!

Fees aren't much of an issue. The type of players that we can get on the wages that Lerner/Lambert want to pay will never go for huge fees because they don't have the track record to demand them. Replacing underperforming high earners with low earners with potential is the name of the game. Not quite sell to buy, because it doesn't matter how they leave (sell, contract expires, allowed to go for free).

No-one that i have seen has blamed everything on the manager Seriously? Have you read any of BJ10's posts at all? They're hard to miss because he comes onto every.single.thread and turns it into the same attack of Lambert and repeats it every time someone else suggests that it's not all his fault. Thread about a player? He's terrible, and it's Lambert's fault for buying and/or playing him and making him part of the worst defense in Villa history. Trying to rebuild the team on the cheap? Lambert should have kept the "experienced" players 90% of us agreed last year needed to go and spent the money on just 1 or 2 more expensive players. A couple of the low budget signings have struggled? Should have been prescient and known what we now know with the benefit of a season's hindsight and signed the players that have turned out to be the best value in the league (regardless of knowing whether he tried or whether they would even have come here). Honestly, I've been very disappointed with a lot of things about Lambert, probably because of false high hopes after assuming that McLeish was a bigger part of the problem last year than he really was, but I'm almost driven to defend (er, make excuses for) Lambert after reading the relentless posts of a few people that seem to imply that he's the only thing that's kept Villa out of the top 4 this season and tossing out the same arguments over and over at those with any sense of moderation and accusing them of just making excuses. It gets a bit tiresome...

On the treatment table...

It's important to win v. Fulham. It will be so much better to go into the Sunderland match only needing to draw to keep them below us rather than having to win to get back above them, which is likely the position we'd be in if we beat Fulham. I can't see Sunderland beating both Newcastle and Everton but I can see them winning the derby and drawing against Everton. A Fulham draw and ManU loss or draw could put us back below them on goal difference.

Great win, and dominant display for most of the game with confident passing and good possession. But there are still worrying signs, given that we looked like throwing it away against the worst side we've seen this season (didn't think anyone could beat Reading to that title). If you can't make that kind of possession and those chances count against Stoke, you're in trouble against real teams. Should have been up by several goals before their first real chance. Why does the team always seem to decide at some point late in every game that possession is no longer important and it's better to try to immediately force a ridiculously difficult pass to the forwards? Or when the slightest amount of pressure forces the ball back to the halfway line, rather than regroup and work the ball back in it's better under no real pressure to play the ball back to Guzan to hoof it against a bigger Stoke team who have either been beating Benteke to most of the high balls or conning the ref into calling fouls on him all day? It baffles me. I knew Stoke was going to score and, if not for a Lowton wonder strike against the run of play (with no insignificant amount of luck involved), it really looked like they were the more likely team to go on and win. Credit to the lads for getting their composure back after the 2nd goal, and we've certainly been due a bit of late luck, but they sure make it hard to feel that it can't still go tits up over the final 6 games.

Disappointed in him last season. With all the hype surrounding him I was hoping for someone who would make an impact or at least show great promise. He did neither. He looked lost most of the time, got out-muscled, and gave away unnecessary free kicks. Aside from the shot mentioned above I can only recall a missed free header on goal and a scuffed shot from the edge of the box as his offensive contributions. I was hoping he just needed to settle in, but he didn't particularly impress in preseason and the injury means he'll have to get his fitness and touch back and settle in all over again. I don't expect him to play this season and am not counting on him to be a significant contributor next season. i hope he proves me wrong.

Problem is, the last few times he played he didn't do this, even when he came on late as the supposed pair of fresh legs. And when he doesn't press and harass he offers us nothing. I think Sylla can fill this role to a certain extent and shores up the midfield and offers more of an outlet playing the ball out of the Villa half.

Great to get the win, but let's not get carried away about the performance. The first half was dire. Great passing about leading to f*ck all until QPR scored and we skipped the passing entirely and went directly to giving it away with an immediate attempt at a perfect through ball that just wasn't there. 2nd half much, much better, but still looked vulnerable the few times QPR actually managed to get past our midfield. I got very nervous once they got their second. The game opened up and we still had too many attacks that fizzled because of poor choices and gave them opportunities to counter. General comment from neutrals was an entertaining game but not necessarily because of quality on show. Am I the only one that wants them to play more of a possession game when we enter the final 10 minutes with a lead? We could have done with a bit of the passing we started the game with. Instead, pushing for the 4th goal even when there's nothing on and give the ball back. Goal kicks directly out of play. I say play it out of the back. Even if you give it away at the half line it's no worse than a goal kick that's lost and probably wastes more time. A couple harsh ratings for Bannan. Bias really shows. By no means a great game for him, but I don't see how he gets rated 4 and 5 when the others all get 6,7,8. First half would have been much worse if not for him. Helped keep possession at key times and actually got stuck in and won some physical tackles, which is one of the things he constantly gets slated for. Seems some folks decide some of their player ratings before the game starts.

Exactly. Houllier wasn't brought in to get the best out of MON's team. He was brought in to start a rebuilding based on a less ambitious financial plan and decided a change in the style of play was needed as part of that. The defenders were exposed as mediocre footballers as a result. A drop of 3 places after losing the previous year's best player and changing the style and bringing through youth actually isn't too shabby. Unfortunately, he was not a good man manager and was a walking PR disaster, but he got the project off to a reasonably good start. Appointing McLeish was a howler that undid any rebuilding progress. But the reason he couldn't get anyone better is that no one wanted to work within the new constraints that were a direct result of the O'Neill years.

I doubt there's anyone who didn't think the MON years were exciting at the time, and I don't know that that would have changed even if supporters had understood what was happening with the finances and known the consequences of failing to make the final push to champions league football. But that doesn't mean that he doesn't bear some of the responsibility for the current situation. I'm reluctant to use the word blame because he was working within the plan at the time, albeit with some big mistakes whose consequences wouldn't be apparent for a year or more and after the plan had to change. 6th place finishes with the 6th highest wages seems good value when each year is looked at in isolation, but the problem is with the make up of that wage bill, not only in terms of who was paid what, but also whose wages could/would be made available to pay other players in the coming years. This is where MON shares responsibility The big problem is that the best players/signings were the ones whose contracts were expiring and who were always going to be difficult to hold onto regardless. Barry, Young and Milner were never going to stay beyond their contracts no matter how much money was made available for their wages. Wages, and to some extent transfer funds, could normally have been made available for suitable replacements by shifting some of the players who weren't performing and replacing them with prospects on lower wages. But those players were largely the crap signed to long term deals on inflated wages during MON's tenure. So Milner, Young and Barry leave and there's not the necessary recurring budget to pay the wages to get anywhere approaching the same quality. And that has most certainly carried over to the current season and can most certainly be laid partly at MON's feet. Notice, the word "partly", BJ10 . The argument that $60+ million has been spent on transfer fees since MON left is a red herring because it ignores the fact that wages are the real problem. I don't believe for a minute that MON would have done better with the transfer funds spent the last couple of years, particularly given his record with player wages. The players he would have needed to maintain the same level would not have been within reach because of the wages they would require. This problem has only gotten worse as Villa has become a less attractive destination for ambitious, proven players. Bent was a panic buy to stay up (which paid off) and Ireland's total cost was tied up in the Milner deal and I bet doesn't earn as much as Milner would have cost even if he could have been convinced to stay. I doubt N'Zogbia is making as much as Young was, and certainly not as much as Young and Downing combined, whom he replaced. So we've mostly had to replace the top players with ones whose wages are far less because far too much of the wage bill was tied up in the overpaid flops that O'Neill played a significant role in saddling us with. The fact that this practice continued to some extent after his departure with players like Makoun and Hutton has just made it worse, but O'Neill doesn't get off the hook completely just because Houllier and McLeish didn't put a complete stop to it. Just as it's ridiculous to say our current situation is all MON's fault, it's ridiculous to say he bears no responsibility. Lerner has obviously made a number of mistakes, not the least of which was to either give MON free rein (reign to you, briny_ear ) or offer crazy wages and long deals to sub-par players picked by MON, depending on which version you believe. For most of us, it's just a disagreement about how to apportion responsibility among Lerner, MON, Houllier, McLeish and Lambert. I personally tend to view the importance of their roles in the order listed.

think you need to check the meaning of "or"

KEA on is always a negative change!

I agree with Trent. As you can see from the heat map below, Bannan (left) is mainly bollocks.

Should try to keep him for another year at all costs. Remember that a considerable portion of his value to the club is the relatively low wages he's on. Sure, 25M pounds could pay the transfer fee for 2 or 3 quality players, but each would probably demand more wages than Benteke is on. We'd probably end up not signing any players of proven quality because of the wages, just like in January. Suddenly, the 25M from selling him doesn't look so attractive compared to having him in the team helping keep Villa up another year or helping us get back up.

Away goals rule only comes into play after extra time. We need 2 more to be sure.

It wasn't the defense that turned sour in the 2nd half so much as everything else. Don't know if it was positioning, laziness or what, but every loose ball, clearance, miskicked ball ended up wth a WBA player; For about 20 minutes after their first goal our only touches consisted of either: a. wild clearances to no one in particular (which means to Baggies- see above bullet) b. goal kicks from Guzan where the ball was given away after at most 1 touch (usually a flick from Benteke to Gabby, who took a heavy first touch and lost it. How many times in a row did this happen??) c. someone miraculously found themselves with the ball and hoofed it even when the forwards were in no position to get on the end of it, or tried to open the defense with one pass and bypassed the midfield entirely. d. Villa throw-in directly to a WBA player. I wasn't that upset by the Holman substitution, as it was obvious we weren't going to have any more attacks for N'Zogbia to participate in if we couldn't put Baggies under some pressure and make them give the ball up. Unfortunately, the Holman who harrassed opponents into mistakes earlier in the season stayed home and sent his evil twin in his place. Although Bannan certainly didn't impress, the blame for that is not all his. It's hard to run the show when your team doesn't have the ball and, when your teammates get it they decide to hoof it or give it to an opponent instead of you. Poor lad, must have strained his neck watching the ball fly over him off his teammates boots. I was screaming at the TV for the boys to slow it down and keep possession. Sure, Baggies had more energy and passed it about a lot better in the 2nd half, but that's because we gave them so many chances to practice until they got it right.

Even if we could get 6 players for $1M in transfer fees it wouldn't matter...6 players good enough to improve us would mean way too much in additional wages until we're rid of the magicians whose signature trick is turning large wages into ass-splinters. When are people going to realize that the long-term commitment of the wages is the thing that matters, not the transfer fee? If the transfer fee is high enough to be of concern it pretty much guarantees that the the wages will be out of our range. People on here keep moaning in disgust that we're not in for player X because he's quality in is available for "only" $3M. If player X has proven quality his wage demands will not be $20k/week or less. Finding proven quality/experience in the right position that wants to come to Villa, at reasonable (for Villa in the current situation) wages from a team that wants to sell is not easy. It may leave no options but a somewhat unknown from an inferior foreign league or young, lower league players. Whaddya know? That's pretty much all that's been signed since Given, Hutton and Zog. Unfortunately, I don't expect anything different this window, unless PL decides there's no one fitting these criteria in the needed positions and doesn't sign anyone at all.

Sorry, mate. I was getting excited myself, but started thinking that it just doesn't fit the mold. Plus, as someone mentioned above, what good is an flair attacking mid to us if we're already down 2 goals before our defense and DMs even get the ball to him in an attacking position. He certainly doesn't look like someone who's going to track back and tackle anyone, nor should he have to if his skills are to be properly utilized.

Anyone besides me get the feeling that the very fact that there such a public link means that the whole Coutinho thing is either just plain BS or a smokescreen? Look at Villa's recent transfer history and how hush-hush things have been kept bar the odd freak leak (Randy's plane spotted in Norway, Vlaar spotted at VP). The club deliberately keep things under the radar and I suspect would tell Coutinho's agent not to put things in the papers until it's a done deal or we'll go elsewhere. Would his agent even know if a bid was put in and rejected? I would think that Villa would at least tell Inter not to spill the beans until something is agreed. Inter wouldn't have any reason to go against Villa's wishes. Telling his agent would only give the agent ammunition to push for a move or a promise of playing time, hemming them in. They don't need his agent to get a bidding war going if that's their goal. I just don't see this happening.

The track record I think you're referring to doesn't include very good, young impoving players who wanted to stay being sold for $8 million. It was well-established players at the peak of their value who made it clear they wanted to go and weren't about to sign a new contract. Big difference! While I don't think he's valued anywhere near $20 million I agree that it's pretty negative to suggest the club would be happy to sell him for $8-10 M.

I am il serpente, le serpent, slangen, Morty the Snake, etc. I change depending on which country I'm in, but I'm always snaky. I can whistle in 6 languages and I like lemon tarts. This is my first venture into OT. Either everyone here is batshit crazy or I am. Hard to tell which...

Can't believe people are actually suggesting KEA start! Apart from a yellow card, he's not good for anything but giving the ball away and passing backward. No matter who we play in midfield, it will be lightweight. Let's at least put in some players with a little skill and who will try to push forward. I didn't see the Wigan game and understand Ireland was bad, but he seems to be the only midfielder who has shown any signs of being able to pick a forward pass that doesn't fly 50m in the air, and he hasn't stunk any worse than anyone else in the other games. Guzan Lichaj Lowton Clark Bennet/Stevens Westwood Bannan Ireland Weimann Benteke Holman If Ireland doesn't put in the effort, bring him off and bring on Delph. If Holman doesn't press and hustle enough to compensate for his lack of skill, bring on Albrighton.

That alone should earn him another 6 months' time

Keep Delph and get rid of El Ahmadi. They're both guaranteed to give away silly fouls and odds on for a booking, but at least Delph can occasionally beat a man and pass the ball forward. If Villa ever get good enough to where they're actually moving the ball forward without being pinned back he could be useful in a rslightly more advanced role, and he's still young. El Ahmadi, on the other hand, has shown that his only use is as an emergency bench player when even the most shit of our other midfielders is out injured or suspended.