mikeyp102

Was he injured today?

Needs to start now...Agree that the absence from the team was needed but, he has now been punished by the court and will hopefully learn from lessons...Needs to be the fulcrum of our team.

Our best defender today IMO.....not saying he was great but definitely better than the rest

Lack of Confidence , that all it is.Against Ure 2 seasons ago he was the best player on the pitch, Rooney included.Class is permanant, form is temprorary

One good game does not show class, he has had more bad games than good. That says more ability than anything....He is a liability waiting to happen. A yellow within 3 minutes and lucky not to see red. Lost the ball in very dangerous positions and didn't offer anything in an attacking sense. Just don't see a player there, even though I'd be more than happy if he proved me wrong.

£4,500 fine and 18 month driving ban. Could have been worse.

Has this been annouced anywhere? Any links?

Just watched the goals on the OS....all three different.

Bit lucky with the freekick but had the confidence to step up.

Good timing and good header for first

Last good bit of skill to beat defender and then a confident finish placed into corner.

We seem to have a winger factory at the minute at youth level. I wonder how much this has to do with Ashley Young being their role model?

I doubt that AY being a role model would have an effect. I would imagine John Robertson had big influence on the coaching of the youth set up when he was here. He was a winger in his playing days and therefore would have put that image to the coaching drills. I remember reading that James Milner advised that he helped him develop considerably by getting him to think of different situations that he would face in a game and then trying to think of different solutions to these.

I would also imagine that MON would like wingers developed as that is the style we played, therefore he would have had the youth set up in that manner.

i honestly think that he can reach that standard

You...my good man...are in-****-sane!

if you haven't seen him play then how can you comment

Too be fair you openly said you had only seen him once when he was 14 not much to go on really

I think our 3 senior cbs (Dunne/Collins/Cuellar) aren't good enough and Clark currently lacks experience and is still possibly a bit lightweight. That spells trouble and I think a lot of teams will look to attack us now.

McLeish needs to make it clear what he expects and when it is not delivered.....he needs to take immediate action.

The starting line up made it abundantly clear what he expected last night. Play for a draw at best and then when that quickly went tits up his lack of changes made it abundantly clear that we were playing to keep the score down. That for Aston Villa is simply not good enough.

None of us know what he said to the players before they went out but I'm sure the line up told them, like us, that we were running scared before a ball had been kicked.

I'm disappointed with McCLeish. He had a few big monkeys on his back when he joined one of which was being known as a manager that played negative football far too concerned with stopping the opposition than with the damage his team can do. I was hopeful that he'd quickly want to blow away that negative tag with us. We are twice the club Sha are and I wanted him to have an arrogant attitude, be positive, let the opposition worry about what we can do and let worrying about what the opposition can do be a secondary thought. A bit of we are Aston Villa we're here to win and we roll over for no one. Instil some belief in the players.

He has done none of the above and seems to have stuck to type. It may have been good enough for a club like Sha but its not good enough here. We have some good players who used in the right way and instilled with the confidence of the manager to go out a play could give most teams a game. He needs to start having a real go a line up with a front 6 that needs to include Bent, Gabby, NZogbia, Bannan and Ireland or Albrighton. You cannot line up with Hutton and Heskey in midfield and have NZogbia, Bannan, Ireland and Delph sitting on the bench. Collins needs **** off, Clark bringing in. He has the players. He just isn't either using them or using them in the right way.

We need to see a change in McLeish's approach to games and that will inevitably lead to changes in the line up. I won't be holding my breath.

Spot on for me...

For me last night it was try to contend spurs as long as possible. When that failed early doors a change needed to be made. Eck didn't have the guts or nous to do it and therefore just went for damage limitation....which is just not acceptable. I expected a loss but to lose without even trying is just a disgrace.

Scoring goals isn't a bad trick is it?

if it's a striker then no, midfield players are supposed to dictate the tempo of the game, gardner doesn't do this by any stretch of the imagination, his general play is woeful

Frank Lampard has made a pretty good career about doing not much more than being a goal scoring midfielder

Leaving the vehicle/scene probably means he'll do some porridge, unless he has a very good brief

Are you basing this on anything or is it just an assumption?

As mentioned earlier in the thread I work in the legal insurance industry, I see many motor prosecution offences cases on a weekly basis. I have seen worse offences than this where the driver has got off with a ban and fine. Many things are taken into consideration and without knowing the defence it would be hard to state what he is going to get. Not that I'm saying he won't get time, but I think it is impossible to call without knowing the details...

Not sure discussions on defenders has much to do with the thread title but hey....

As far as I am can remember (sky sports were running something) Spurs were very close to signing Cahill on transfer deadline day, but Bolton pulled plug last minute. Harry was very upset about it from all understanding as he really rates him.

Sitting 8th, 7 points off 4th having not played brilliantly for most of the season also having lost arguabley our 2 best players during the close season and only lost once in 11 games.

I'd say he's doing pretty **** well with all things considered.

We have lost twice in 11 league games!!

Some people really want him to fail...During the game Nzog went down the right wing and bent and gabby hadn't got into the box yet (about 60 min mark). One bloke behind he started shouting...."there is no one in the box sort it out mcleish"......Now I'm sorry but how the hell is that Mcleish's fault...players were making runs they just hadnt got to the box yet...pathetic

Didn't know him and don't recognise his usename. Shame to hear such stories of Villa fans getting terrible illness's. It's for people like this that I ran the Birmingham half marathon on Sunday for Cancer Research. sponsor.

I too work in the insurance industry, however, I work in the legal claims and handle Motor Prosecution defence cases on a daily basis. (Those querying whether insurance is valid when drinking, the motor prosecution defence section definitely is otherwise it would be pointless having the cover)

It is not so clear cut to say that Bannan will get 18 month ban and £500 fine. Many things will be taken into account, such as the effect of not driving would have on his life, how mcuh alcohol was in his blood stream, were there any mitigating circumstances etc. It will also depend on how good the solicitor is, there are varying tactics used to get people off cases, they query the way the alcohol reading was taken, the evidence that the CPS have and various other methods of reducing/avoiding bans. I have seen cases where people have been 3 times over the alcohol limit, speeding at 96mph and pulled by the police and they have managed to only get a three week ban....

All that being said it doesn't excuse the actions of Bannan. Good player who obviously needs a few life lessons. Hopefully this will mature him. Not a seriousness offence to be sacked from the club as some are suggesting, especially when facts are not known (whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty). Wise by club to suspend and investigate and will probably result in club fining him.

His tackling is dangerous. Twice in the game yesterday he scissored...will end up getting sent off or injured. He needs to be taken out out of the team as unfortunatelty he isn't coping at present. Could still be a good player....but he needs to learn.

Can't believe no one has put this up brilliant stuff......

Bestplayer.

Getting stronger with each game and starts to dictate the pace that we play at. Delivery from set pieces is tremendous. There is still the odd tendancy to look for that killer ball every time, but that comes with experience (may also be him thinking he has to do something special to keep his place). Works hard and tracks back as well. Seems to be very well liked by the players especially the ones who have come through the ranks.

Needs to play centrally and not out on the right, not sure whether this was an individual choice or how the team was set up, but there was a lot of space on Wigan's left yesterday.

Good performance yesterday and for me MOTM, based on what he did second half. First half seemed to dwell on the ball a bit. Still made a couple of rash/speculative decisions rather than playing the simnple pass, but seemed to grow in stature as the game wore on. Still think he looks more comfortable in the middle than out wide, but I suppose it helps his learning curve. Obviously not the same kind of player, but it never did GB any harm playing on the wing.

Showed a lot of calmness and belief in his ability with the penalty.

Can't for the life of me understand why when we went 2 - 0 down vs bolton, he wasnt given the last 10 minutes run out....

Really poor signing IMO.

Complete waste of money (however little) and turned down by forest,Stockport and Yeovil.

Out of curiosity why do you think it is a bad signing? If my memory serves me correctly we signed Yorke for the equilivant of a bag of balls, some cones and bibs (obvious exaggeration) and he turned out to be one of best players of the premiership era, if Enda is half as good we will be happy. This is just the type of signings needed to boost the squad. Wolves have done it with Jarvis, Kightly, Ward etc....just because they are not big names doesnt mean that they cant be useful squad players.

Who got the 4th? as the ever efficient fa website states won 4-1 and only names 3 scorers + goals

Dont know what certain fans want from him. His performances are never good enough for some fans. Bannan probaley gave the ball away more times than ireland but he doesnt get any stick.

I'm not sure on that one to be honest, they were both like Makoun quite careless in possession last night at times.

As for the comparison to Bannan, well if you want me to be critical of him I think he tries to do too much at times, he tries the killer ball too often which is why he gives it away. I can live with that though especially in a players so young.

I think expectations are rightly totally different for Bannan to Ireland which is why their performances last night are viewed differently. Bannan is a young player making his way in the game, Ireland is an established PL player, a player who cost us circa £8m and a player who we've seen is capable of some pretty good football.

So far we've not seen it, we've seen nothing of the form he showed for Man City a couple of years ago. So a performance like his last night, though an improvement on what he has done previously still falls a little short of expectations especially given the opposition.

With Bannan on the other hand their aren't really the same expectations and as such is viewed differently.

I still think he will come good for the villa but i dont think he'll ever win some fans over. His in with the petrovs and heskeys of this world. No matter what he does it will never be good enough to certain fans!

I don't agree. The cases of those two are different, they have both performed to the best of their abilities for the majority of their time at the club, the issue with these two is some people simply don't rate them as players which is fair enough.

Those who don't rate them are never going to change their minds because these players have peaked, they are both in fact past their peaks and so aren't going to improve their performances greatly if at all.

Ireland on the other hand hasn't even got close to his best football for us so I think there is every chance if he can find some decent form the vast majority of fans would change their view of him.

I Agree with Trent's comments