villaglint

Not been biggest Stan's biggest fan in recent times but have to say his performance against Blackburn was his best in a long time.

Yes Blackburn are poor but Dunn and Nzonzi are by no means the worst part of their team.

Biggest difference for me was that Petrov had his head up and was looking to play probing balls rather than just continuously keep it moving. Nice to see him take some responsibility for building the play.

1st half he was our best player. Looked really up for it and was causing some problems.

2nd half it became clear that the only way we were looking to score was to hit Heskey it in air and try and build off the knock downs.

Frankly that is a scary strategy and what was more worrying was there seemed to be no plan B.

Heskey is no attacking midfielder or deep lying striker. Equally Gabby is no winger. If we keep with that plan/team it will be a long season.

They might not be worried about pissing off Gabby but I feel that Randy would remember this incident so could well put paid to any deal.

Nice to see him get his debut after all this talk.

Was surprised at the size of him and on first viewing looks like a fairly complete kind of player.

As others have said if he is good enough he will play if he needs nurturing/bringing through then it will be more of a bit part.

Problem he has is that we have a lot of players in his position. What plays in his favour is that we don't seem to have found a combination that works yet. So maybe while AM is experimenting he will get his chance.

Anyway long way to go for GG as we have seen with Delph, Bannan and Albrighton all the talent in the world is no guarantee of success .

Thoughts on today's game

- Delph did well

- Defence looks much better, glad to have a motivated Warnock back, very strange what happened with him last season. (I know he went mad at club but why)

- In terms of midfield really feel we need a defensive mid to cover/challenge Petrov. Delph seems to have bulked up a bit so maybe they see him doing this. Interesting to see them put Clark in there. Not sure if it was out of necessity or experimentation but I thought his best games last year were Blues at home and Fulham away both in CM. Maybe a new Barry on our hands.

- Though game highlighted our current plight well - Neither Heskey, Gabby or Bannan are wingers. We are light in this area even with nZog coming in.

- While the youngsters are exciting we would be wise not to rely on them (showed today but two poor passes from Clarke and Albrighton).

- With Makoun, Delph, Bannan, Ireland we have some real ball players and we may see ourselves playing some good stuff at times.

Pleased we finally got this done.

I'd say he is a different player to both Young and Downing who will bring us more in some areas and less in others. Overall seeing as he is much cheaper think we have done some good business. AS LONG AS AM GETS THE REST OF THE MONEY TO SPEND

Positives

- He is stronger than both Ash and Downing

- He is more skillful than both/more likely to go past his man rather than just make a yard

- Fits better into a top three

Negatives

- Not as good a football brain/might frustrate us as much as he entertains us

- Passing and awareness not as strong

You have to hope that AM comments last night were part of the negotiations over N'zogbia.

i.e. saying to Whelan we don't have to buy your man because we only want one and we are looking at others.

I could live without us making loads of signings but I think we need 2 wingers at minimum. Marc cannot be relied on for whole season.

And I really hope we get a defensive midfielder as well because for my money Petrov is the only one capable of playing that role right now. And you can't rely on him for a whole game let alone a whole season.

So your saying Houllier took the Villa job and just decided to pick on Ireland for no apparent reason?

I'm sure there's a reason why he did it. I can't fathom it though.

The reason was as follows and you don't need to be ITK to work it out.

January was all about moving on some of the high wage dead wood to get in his own players without adding to the wage bill.

Ireland was clearly a player Houllier didn't warm to, surmising that he didn't have the character to fulfil his potential (and jury is still out as to whether he was wrong). He actually spoke about this in some detail after the Sunderland away game where SI didn't get a kick.

So Houllier identified Ireland along with Carew, Sidwell, Davies etc as players he needed to shift if he could.

Gazton - If you were Big Eck how would you set up to get the best out of SI?

If he can recover his form he can still be a big player for us and I remain hopeful he can do that. But I'm not sure

To sell Ash and NZogbia in for a profit is not bad business at all in my opinion.

I think Ash has better football intelligence but NZogbia unquestionably has more talent and can be pretty devastating at times.

Be interesting to see him alongside some decent players rather than Wigan

I think Ancelotti would be great and agree it would be a big statement from the club.

If Hughes did come though it would bring a certain SI back into play...

I'm sorry to say that unless Randy does something incredible this is the future for us. We are there with the Bolton's, Wigan's, and Sunderland's now. As soon as someone has a half decent season they will be off pronto, citing the lure of the Champions League and the handy pay rise that goes with it.

It really does pain me because in the course of a season you go through everything with these players but at the end of the day they don't really give a ****.

I just wanted to say I thought he was excellent yesterday - so pleased he has come out and said he wants to stay.

Thought he played great when he went into the centre too - hoping he could mature into a giggs type player. He has certainly got the intelligence to do it

Situation seems pretty clear to me.

GH came in and club said you will have money to spend but you need to slash the wage bill. (A la what MON was unhappy about doing).

So he looks at his squad and pinpoints a number of players on high wages he doesn't want - Carew, Sidwell, Ireland. And he basically says I don't want you at the club.

Gazton - You are simply giving us the other side to the media storey and the truth is always somewhere in between. GH says I don't see you as part of my plans, SI says well in that case I better find someone who does want me. GH says OK hand in a transfer request (trying to save some money) SI says feck off you are the one who's getting rid of me.

I dont see anything bad in all this surely if you backed GH in the beginning you have to back him to pick his own squad.

I along with everyone else had high hopes for Mr Ireland but it hasn't panned out (of course with more time he could still shine but it looks like its not to be and if GH brings in someone with similar ability and a bigger heart I'm happy).

I don't think GH has lied. As previous people have said its not in his interest to do so. He's just telling his side of the same storey.

I think the point is we wont know until either of them get a run of games.

Albrighton never looked the player he is now when coming on for 5 mins here and there.

If they get the run like Luke Moore did and still do nowt then fair enough.

But if someone gets injured and Delf scores a few goals I'm sure we will being seeing a different player.