Woodytom

Instantly becomes the best player at the club for me.

Stands up and takes responsibility and delivers.

Will go on to be one of the club's best signings in years.

A player, who unlike Westwood, it genuinely would be interesting to see him with decent players. 

Really has no excuses for me now. Bought well and now it's time for the dreadful football and poor results to end. Simple as. 

This is one shower of shit league and bar abother striker, we have easily the 2nd best squad. 

On 23/01/2017 at 11:35, Mantis said:

Of all the players that have ever played for Villa, I don't think a player has inflamed passions as much as Westwood has. As I've said before, I don't think he's that good a player at all but the level of hatred he gets is totally disproportionate.

Maybe it's something to do with the position he plays? Petrov played in a similar position and he used to get a ton of abuse, and he was a lot better than Westwood ever has been.

What position does he play? Because after 5 years, I'm still none the wiser.

To ppl saying it would be interesting to see him in a better midfield. No it wouldn't.  Not at all. Itd be a sign that we as a club are still willing to put up with sub standard players.

We have 4/5 players now who are better than Westwood. It really is time for him to leave so we can all move the **** on.

6 hours ago, BOF said:

The sin is not in giving out high wages.  The sin is in giving it to shit players.  Unless people are against high wages and want to remain at our current level.

Last time I looked we had a team of players (some on high wages) that didn't look anything like a set of players that can get us out of this current level.

Chester, jedinak, probably mccormack and the fact were willing to quadruple the wages of players who are currently on a higher level than us shows that your statement that it will not happen again is well wide of the mark.

The vast majority of the players wages are frankly embarrassing considering our position and it seems to be continuing. 

I can't think of one plater we have who is worth the salary he is on given that there are players all over the championship performing much better on much much less.

1 hour ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

nice people, nice town

People are second to none. However, I can assure you the tarn is a shit hole 

My Barnsley mate doesn't rate bree like he does hourihane. Really doesn't understand the hype around bree and tbh the first few clips of his YouTube video is just him giving the ball away. 

Don't get why ppl put them videos together let alone include clips that amount to know end product.

8 minutes ago, Tommo_b said:

Preston are a good team, you all sound like we lost to a crap team, cmon lads, stop being so negative all the time! 

We got a draw against a team who beat Brighton in their last game, that's a decent result! 

Playoffs still in sight easily, no stresses 

I've said it many times on here. Being realistic is not negative.

If you can find the positives in us, as Aston villa, having spent miliions upon millions to crack this abysmal league, laying 13th, miles off the pace and struggling to beat teams like Preston then good luck to you. Imo, you're completely deluded. 

1 minute ago, DK82 said:

Been the same for a few years now. I wonder who the ringleaders are? 

GABBY!!! Blatantly obvious and ties in with what I was informed of under GH.

Deary me. Not looking great is he?

Just now, Jareth said:

Just cos you can't grow one..

It infuriates me that I can. A total irritation in my life tbh.

I'm very pleased we've decided not to spend 12m on Jordan Rhodes. 

23 minutes ago, AshVilla said:

So many beards in midfield if we sign Hourihane as well

I approve

Beards are wank.

Otherwise, delighted with this signing.

2 hours ago, briny_ear said:

Ah yes, Gestede....

That dynamic goal machine, full of pace and movement and nuanced passing...

How crazy were we to sell such a key figure in our attacking success so far this season...

Scored a few in a lot less playing time than mccormack and gabby. And he at least gives us a different option which was my overall point..... wasn't saying he was a prolific goalscorer but he would have give us a target yesterday. 

7 minutes ago, TRO said:

without coming out and distressing the clubs reputation.

I'd rather they just be honest. Then I can have a fair judgement of whether it's worth spending money going to watch it.

I don't mean that in a spoilt way I just think we deserve to know whether we're planning on competing.

Oh and just on a bit of an off point...... I reiterate that being at a game doesn't necessarily make anyone's opinion more valid than say if they watched it on TV.

I swear it took half the villa fans twenty  mins or so to realise Nathan baker weren't even playing.......

All together now..... Nathan bakers magic 

The fact that January is so difficult to bring players in (as ppl keep pointing out) only makes me question Bruce more for selling gestede without clearly having a replacement in line.

If he thinks gabby and Ross would score the goals through January then I'm really concerned.

It's almost like we've thrown the chance away to be in the mix because we've hoped we can just rock up to these games and wing it. Massive misjudgement imo and poor squad management.

11 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

Mate you will get no argument from me in the fact he is hindered by the fact we have glaring holes in the squad. However that doesn't excuse the fact that some of the crap served up as not just been lacking due to a lack of ability in certain areas but due to a lack of effort and desire as a collective.

Regardless of the issues with the squad it is a better squad than Cardiff. Due to a lack of desire though we got murdered for 45 minutes. Yesterday Wolves were no great shakes and certainly they are no better than us but they seemed to want it more.

I also think whilst we do have the midfield issues he had to try to come up with a different way of playing to get around that. Now whilst defensively we look more solid under him going forward we look clueless even with Kodjia in the side. That is in the main due to a lack of drive and creativity in midfield. With Kodjia away I don't think it was a good idea to also allow Gestede to go. That left us with Gabby, no goals in Christ knows how long, McCormack no goal in 15 games who can't play up top on his own, and a couple of 18 year olds one who won't sign a contract. You throw in no creativity in midfield then for me it wouldn't have been a bad option to have retained Gestede and by passed midfield and lumped it up to him and built from there hoping something would drop. Not pretty but at least it may have been effective. At present we look zero threat going forward.

Bruce can't fairly be judged at the moment due to what he inherited but whilst he can be praised for grinding out enough results to have taken the amount of points we have under him he can also be criticised for the half asked collective performances dished up away from home and not coming up with any kind of solution to our lack of attacking threat when he knew for 3 months we would lose Kodjia.

For what it is worth I think he will get it right here and I think he will make the signings in midfield that will address our lack of attacking threat. In the mean time though he has to ensure we serve up better than the crap that has been served up in the recent away games. Simply acknowledging it isn't enough.

100% correct. 

25 minutes ago, kurtsimonw said:

But that's the thing. You say the players are garbage. Bruce then clearly over-achieved with them with the Brighton performance, so why hold him to that standard all the time? Surely he should be praised for getting rubbish to play like that, rather than criticised when he can't? It'd be like demanding Ranieri is sacked because they aren't in the title race "Well, he did it last year, why can't he now?"

I'm not holding him to THAT standard all the time. Just a better standard than what we witnessed last night, but Cardiff, v Wigan, v Leeds, v Norwich etc. 

These players are simply not good enough we know that and so does Bruce so I'm not calling for his head or demanding that he gets us in the playoffs (like some are suggesting). I am however asking why we're not achieving a SOT for example away at wolves....  something that even these platers are more than capable of.

20 minutes ago, VillaCas said:

I feel the need to preface this by stressing that I am in no way suggesting that Bruce's position should be under scrutiny until he has had a chance to bring his own players in. I felt exactly the same about Garde and say what you like about yesterday but Bruce has made a far far better fist of it than Garde did (albeit with much better players and in a much worse league)

HOWEVER, really really not good enough - I'm losing patience with Bruce's "honesty" in the after match interviews. Don't keep telling us, F***in' fix it. 

The Wolves performance was dismal - poor selection and poor tactics. Baffling that he can allow Gestede to leave and to believe that Gabby can fill the gap.  Hutton tried his best and I'm not blaming him but everything broke down when it reached him. Early days but Johnstone doesn't look an upgrade on Gollini, Amavi is going backwards, McCormack looks lost, Bacuna is poor anyway but totally adrift in that position. For me only Chester, Elphick to a degree and maybe Green with a short cameo came out the game with any credit at all.

Bruce had done well at the beginning but just when you imagined that we would start motoring its all falling apart. We knew key players would be leaving for AFCON so why are we halfway through the window with no reinforcments.

I didn't want SB and still don't think he will be the answer. I think we can forget the play-offs this season now -  I predicted a 10th place finish and I think we will be lucky to hit that. His insistance to persevere with Gabby is infuriating - the guy is a total and utter waste of space.

I love Villa but sometimes it's F***in' hard work being a a Villa fan

 

 

Exactly where I am.

Good post.

Just got back to Doncaster from coming down to see the game. I've never been to a local derby before but that was as flat as a game as I have ever been to. Beats the Bolton 0-2 in the cup for me. Utter dross.

Johnstone - looked a decent addition last week. Made a glaring error for the goal. 4

Hutton. At least he tried. He is rubbish though. Really rubbish. 4

Chester. Not his usual decent performance but still made some decent tackles. 5

Elphick. Made some important tackles early on but he's not good enough. 4

Amavi. One moment of brilliance. The rest I want to forget. 2

Jedinak. Game completely passed him by and gave away the ball cheaply. 2

Tshibola. A lot of huff n puff but very little guile. 3

Adomah. His worst performance to date. 3

McCormack. Quite like Ross, but he was awful. 2

Bacuna. Again. Another who at least looks half arsed but has no quality. 4

Agbonlahor. I can't remember one contribution. 1

Grealish. Did not effect the game one bit. 3

Green. MOTM. Came on and looked like he wanted to actually achieve something. Went forward at every available opportunity. 6

Davies. Not on long enough

Bruce. At no point did that team look like they had any clue what they were supposed to be doing. No reaction after HT. 1

I don't think every player is dogshit either but just more BS from your keyboard.

Just now, a m ole said:

Ah yes, delusion. Like comparing your own injury recovery to Amavi's? Like thinking every player is 'dogshit' but the manager isn't doing enough to have this team at least in the play off places?

Hahahahaha..... where did I say he needed to have us in the playoffs? Or just at least competing in games and having a go more like. Don't let that get in the way of making stuff up.

As for amavi... I think he's dogshit. You don't. That's fine but I know what I saw last night and in many other games recently.

A man that can't defend, or even pass the most simplist of passes.