villaglint

CI you have to be the same person as Sir Gary Cahill ??

If what MM is saying is true that Dunne, Collins and Warnock are poisoning the club.

It explains why they have all been playing better of late - not to save us from relegation but to put them in a more positive light in shop window.

It does not explain why we are getting rid of Carlos - the only decent bloke who has given his all and been far more consistent than the lot of them.

How about Capello?

Shame he only wants to manage a team that is already successful.

Well he did agree to manage England and they are anything but successful...

Out of the 6 teams competing for the champs league, at the age of 65, who would have him? Not many.

Come to Villa!

I would assume Liverpool would be his best bet or Chelsea may well be looking too.

Trouble is I think if we hired Capello we would have no money left to pay anyone else.

Me too last Wednesday for the first time in my life I genuinely thought we were on our way to Championship and if the league were one game longer we probably still would be.

However I think we will get one more point this season - and that means Bolton and QPR both have to win both games which I cant see happening.

It is essential though that we get that point because I can easily see both of them getting 4 points. Football is mental remember.

What is scaring me is if we lose on Sunday and they both win. Then Norwich, the week leading up to it and life in general is going to be pretty shitty...

I honestly do not think our style suits him.

And not just the style of non-football we currently play, but the more "English" style Villa seem to have had since I first started supporting them:

- Effort over grace.

- Graft over guile.

- Speed over intelligence.

- Athleticism over ability.

- Percentage plays over ball retention.

- Physicality over position.

I'm not saying that our style needs to change (though I'd like to see better football than we saw this season), I just see Makoun as more "refined" than we have use for.

That's pretty worrying because we now have one of the slowest, least athletic squads in the league.

Ha that's true - we have the best of neither right now. Which is whay we resemble a championship team much more than a PL

So our players earn on average, the 13th highest of any football team, in the world, yeah I'll say that again, IN THE **** WORLD. 41st highest of any sport. Oh dear Randy you silly f**kin sod. We are currently in danger of being relegated, but at least our players can refill the bath with £50 notes each week.

Holy Shit!

I realise this seems ridiculous looking at it now but you have to remember that most of the players were bought with the intention of getting us into the top 4 of the Premier League (one of the top 3 leagues in world) so 13th highest paid football team should be seen in that light.

Obviously the players we bought weren't good enough to get us there but still that was the intention.

Is this an ITK off?

I have nothing to add I'm afraid

Don't know why everyone is up in arms about this.

This is a season when the attackers couldn't score.

The defenders couldn't defend.

And the midfielders couldn't string more than five passes together.

Is it any wonder then that a player like Stephen Ireland who is actually capable of playing a pass and keeping the ball moving sticks out like a sore thumb in this team.

No were all hoping that the Villa can scrape a point against the Spurs this weekend.

However that does seem to ignore the fact that this lump will be marking Gareth Bale for most of the game.

Yey

Lads it's pretty obvious isn't it. Randy agreed a deal with Guardiola last summer. He needed a stooge to take the heat whilst he saved every penny he could before unleashing the master plan this summer.

Making some assumptions on fitness I will go with the following.

-----------------------Given----------------------

Cuellar -----Collins ----- Dunne --------Lichaj

----------------Herd------Ireland---------------

N'Zogbia ---------------------------Agbonlahor

--------------Heskey ----Weimann-------------

I am sure this wont be the team and Hutton and Warnock will feature somewhere. I've gone for Gabby out wide because for me Albrighton has been pretty poor for most of the season. Heskey played great for 60 mins the other night so maybe he could do that again.

Ireland coming back is essential.

Also I've brought Dunne straight back in - crossing my finger and preying to he can have one of his monster games. Though Baker has done OK I think he has cost us a fair few goals with rookie errors cant really afford that now.

So just three "kids" in team for one of our biggest games ever.

Kept Lichaj in who for me has been very positive and a lot more consistent than both Hutton and Warnock.

Weimann stays in because he looks like the only bastard who can score these days.

Herd stays because he seems to be one the only players who has the heart for this battle. Thought he was absolutely outstanding for first hour against Bolton then faded with the rest of them.

A lot of how you defend corners comes from your keeper. We were one of the best at defending them under Friedel. We are now quite spectacularly the worst. Given stays on his line with his gob shut. It might be hard to pin-point Given directly on any given corner, but over a season I'm afraid he has to be the reason. So he is a significant part of why we are where we are.

You're right, but we were awful defending them with Friedel last season as well.

This

BOF you are normally a man of sense but we were garbage at corner last season too.

Peno defo

No way that Ireland was dropped for any reason other than injury last night.

Now the manager is a useless waste of space but he is not mental - he needed that win last night as much as the rest of us.

And no matter what Ireland did he would have started that game being one of our better players in last 2 months.

Taking too long to get his shot away is very much a rookie mistake and he will learn from that for sure.

I actually also think its a function of his being absolutley knackered by the end of the games. Both of those games where he cut back rather than shooting came in the last 10 mins or so after he had run himself ragged.

Again his fitness levels will improve when he gets used to the pace of the Premier League.

On the positive side though is he is getting the chances. His movement really is superb - finally Ireland has someone to find with a through ball.

As people have said about Michael Owen for years - he will get his goals because he puts himself in the right places.

Very similar to Bent in that respect will be interesting to see whether they can play together.

Also for those who haven't seen him much in reserves he is fantastic in the air. If we can get him a good supply line of crosses he will be a threat there too.

I'd like to say a few things which I think are not that controversial

He is more comfortable on the ball than most.

He does have an eye for a pass.

He is not covering himself in glory right now. (Trying too much and suffering from inaccuracy with a number of his passes. Sometimes I feel his vision is better than his football ability.)

I don't think this is all down to the system we are playing. He has to take some responsibility and grab his chance when he gets it.

He is not however a winger and never will be.

Ecks teamtalk

"OK lads we know we've got no chance so I'm putting out a team to minimise the damage and maybe sneek a 0-0. Stop **** laughing Steve Ireland you word removed. In all honesty if we can scrape a 2-0 loss I'll be happy. And I think the fans are getting the picture by now. So I think they'll be happy too. Line up is as follows".

--------------Given----------------

Cuellar - Collins - Clark - Warnock

----------------Herd------------------

Huttin - Heskey --- Ireland --- McLeish

---------------N Baker ------------------

If we go 3 down by half time I'll swap Emile for wee Baz after 70 mins and see if we can get back in it.

Best of luck

I think Guzan would be well worth keeping.

However by all accounts he's on fair bit of cash (25k someone said?) which does seem a lot for someone to sit on bench.

Heard Scottish people say good things about this guy so if he can be half decent and come in on threepence ha'penny - give us more wage money to spend on first team players then overall I'm in favour could be a good bit of "trading carefully".

Of course he could be shite so who knows...

Has very good recovery pace and really looks a much more solid player than when he had a short run last season.

He has the ability to offer us something going forward to which he is not really showing at the moment. He's just bedding into the team and first team squad and is (probably correctly) just keeping things solid.

For the ressys though he has shown a few times the ability to take his man on and get good crosses or shots in.

Champions!!

A ray of sunshine in a very grey season.

Didn't think he had the best game yesterday but he admitted as much himself.

I was surprised he played to be honest because he really ran himself into the ground against Liverpool - he could barely walk when he left the pitch.

For those saying he doesn't work hard watch that game.

For me there is a terrific player in there but we aren't seeing it yet - earlier in season I thought he was great for a few games before the driving ban which has set him back. Right now he is trying too much and showing plenty of poor decision making. Needs the premier league experience before we see the best of him (which by the way goes for most of our young players - all of them are making errors which is why we are still not getting results despite showing far better desire).

I think our best bet is to have him as a squad player, have him playing with some more experienced players who will hopefully come in during summer. In 2 years we might just see him become a proper first team player and hopefully a successful one.

Ireland is too smart for our side.. I know it gets said every time but we have to rebuild the side around him. If we sign another lot of players that are thick as shit we'll continue to be using him at 50% of his potential.

Not saying i disagree but who on our team is thick as shit?

Gabby mainly though the rest are thick in a footballing sense players like Bannan, Bent, Hutton etc.. They are "good" (excluding Hutton) at what they do but just don't have the brain to keep up with him. They are always in the wrong places and never on his wavelength.. Maybe they will improve the more they play with him, but some just don't get what he's trying to do.

I actually think Weimann, Gardner and N'Zogbia are on his wavelength much of the time.. The link up play with Weimann yesterday proved it for me, but so many in our side just don't get him.

I very much agree with the overall point that the game intelligence of our players is woefully lacking.

I think your being harsh on Bannan though. Having seen him play a lot for reserves I can say he is a very clever player. He is trying too much right now and hasn't got the Premier league experience to show it yet. I hope he gets there but jury is out on that one for me. As for rest of them.

Hutton - Poor football brain and often poor execution to boot.

Warnock - Seems to know what he is supposed to be doing but is limited by his ability and tendency to do something massively stupid at least twice a game. Maybe 4/5 times a game when he is out of form.

Herd - Isn't allowing his brain to get out of "make no mistakes" mode so who knows.

Albrighton - His game intelligence is his worst trait and he has a lot of learning to do in this area.

N'Zogbia - Actually has a pretty poor football brain in my opinion often tries to beat a man at wrong time (i.e. when if he does beat him he is just running into another one).

Collins - Again his worst trait - often struggles to find a pass - gives it away more than he keeps us playing.

Gabby - Very little thinking in what Gabby does - though it has improved over the years.

Not to say these players don't have other attributes but the fact most of our first team is on this post is a large reason why we often struggle to string 5 passes together.

Gabby is not in best form for sure. However to say he is not interested is pure bollocks

My view on him is that he is only a real threat when he is 100% fit and match sharp. At start of season after a good pre season we saw the best of him and I would say for the first 10-15 games he was by far and away our best player.

I think he has struggled to get it back since his injury in mid season - wouldn't surprise me if he is still playing with some niggles now.

If no one else is going to say it I will.

1st half was the best I have seen him play for us. All our play went through him and though he weren't really able to create much that wasn't for his lack of trying. Faded a bit second half but as always the whole team went into defend only mode. I dream of the day when we will try to score a second after tacking the lead.

Showed he has the physicality to play in a 442 as well - made a number of good tackles and interceptions.

Quite exciting really cos if we can surround him with some other players with a football brain (ie Keane type players) then with SI in middle we might be able to string 10 passes together next season!