wilko154

This isn't Xia's fault, its the mismanagement of the club prior to him coming in that has caused this.

Realistically there are a lot of players we can offload from the wage bill and for a fee before we start getting rid of players like Grealish and Chester. If we can get at least half of the way there selling players or giving players away for free then the shortfall can be looked at in a much more manageable way where Tony and Recon can look at sponsorship deals to cover the excess. If renaming stands and the ground is a feasable way of going about it then it needs to be seriously considered. Can Villa Park be sold to Xia or Recon, inject the money into the club and have them sell it back at a later date when we are back in the Premier League?

I would keep Bruce on, I'm not saying I like the football we are playing but the way the team has been pulled together this season has been fantastic. If we can keep the bulk of this side together next season and add in some youth along with Grealish and Kodjia's flair then we could see a style of play that we all have cried out for this season. Realistically this is the team that we can put out next season, and it's still not far from what Bruce has put together himself. New GK Hutton Chester New CB New LB Jedinak Grealish Hourihane Adomah Kodjia Green

A massive rebuild is now needed at this club. We need to drastically reduce the wage bill, retain as many first team players as possible and bring in a few new players utilising free players or loans again. GK - New GK required as we won't be able to afford Johnstone to buy, unless United let us loan him with an option to buy if we go up. Retain Steer as the backup keeper and sell or release Bunn and Gollini to free up some of the wage budget. RB - Massively overstocked in this area, we need to decide who will be the starting RB next season. Two of Hutton, Elmo, Bree or De Laet need to be sold or released on the cheap to free up wages. Personally I would keep Hutton and Bree. De Laet is an injury concern and Elmo is likely to be the highest earner. Bree can become our first choice RB given the chance. Tuanzebe will not be seen again. LB - Taylor needs to be sold, he's not good enough as he has shown this season and there are likely cheaper options in wages who would be just as good. Realistically we can get by with signing just 1 LB as Bree and Hutton are both passable options at LB. CB - Two signings required here as Terry will be off. Chester needs to be retained, and Elphick should also be kept as 3rd or 4th choice. Suliman should be able to step in at some stage as he looks a decent defender. Samba will be released and Richards is an ongoing problem that likely won't be solved until next summer. DM - Whelan or Jedinak, unfortunately we can't afford and don't need both of them. They can't be played together. Bjarnasson will leave if he isn't a starter so we are likely going to need a replacement in this area, fingers crossed he has a good World Cup so we can make a bit of money off him. CM - An area we are overstocked in. Tshibola, Gardner, Carles Gil should all be moved on, give them away if need be just free up the wages. Onomah will be gone. Realistically we need 4 players in this area, and if Hourihane, Lansbury and Grealish can be retained (please stay Jack!) then we have plenty of options in the U23's able to make the step forward, O'Hare, Doyle-Hayes & Jack Clarke to name a few. This is an area where we can make some money back on the wage bill without having to spend a penny... it's also an area where we need to retain what we have. RM - Unfortunately Snodgrass will be gone, he has been magnificent this season but again he is a luxury we can't afford. He may yet be available on loan with an option to buy if we go up but it all depends on what we can afford. Adomah is another player who has had a great season, and we can now move him back to the right wing. Here we will either need to bring another RM in or use O'Hare as the backup. LM - With Adomah moving back to the RM Andre Green should hopefully be able to slot back in at LM. This time we are going to need to bring in backup or first team LM to fill the void. ST - Another area we are overstocked in. Grabban will be going back to Bournemouth... however we will have a fully fit Jonathan Kodjia going into next season which is a massive boost to the team. With Hogan, Davis and Hepburn Murphy all ready to play we have enough players to get by. For me, if Bruce is still here then Hogan should be sold as he just doesn't fit into the style of play. Hepburn Murphy is just as good. Davis is a player for certain games but is not clinical enough yet, however with game time he can change this next season. If the above can be done without breaking FFP then we will be fine next season... but it's a big if. I don't know the impact FFP will have on us but we do have players we can let go to bring the wage bill down, and we have proved this season that if we utilise the loan system well then good players can be brought in to make us strong. We are lucky in the aspect that we still have considerable pulling power even in the Championship. It's going to be a tough season but if we utilise our U23 squad and change our style of play to be fast and exciting, with Kodjia and Grealish available for a full season we should be able to push on again. Keep the faith!

I wouldn't go as far as saying Jack has done it for years, he has been pretty inconsistent ever since the Semi Final at Wembley. However there are reason's for it, injuries, poor squads, changes of managers, various positions. Agreed though this season he has got better and better and could become a massive player for this club... if we go up...

Bought my tickets on Wednesday and they arrived on Saturday, first class post. I would imagine if they sell out today everyone will have their tickets by Friday.

Tickets booked, wanted some behind the goal ideally but there wasn't two seats next to each other unless it was in the corner. Opted for area 537 and got some extra beer money from it.

What's Jordan Bowery upto these days?

Dicey's is pretty cool, and Copper Face Jack's is also a few doors down.

Have him in ahead of Grealish... head and shoulders above our current players... first name on the team sheet... He has spent the season on the bench for a team that were relegated from La Liga, the blokes pants. Grealish was better than him three years ago, he's now lightyears ahead of him in terms of ability.

I don't care who we play out of Cardiff and Fulham, if there's even the slightest chance of 2nd going into the last 2 games then i'll take it. If the Fulham from this first half turn up at Wembley we would bury them, same with the Cardiff that turned up at Villa Park. We shouldn't fear anyone. Hope Sunderland go on to win this and then Hull do us a massive favour tomorrow, stranger things have happened.

You realise he's not going to release one of his t-shirts for the team and the fans to wear... he's going to design a football shirt of which we have not yet seen.

It will be interesting to hear what our american fan base know about Fanatics later today...

I reckon that Millwall are going to beat Fulham tonight, I will then start to believe again and then come tomorrow my dreams will be smashed to pieces... I don't want to believe anymore

Great manager who has done a massive amount for the club. Won them trophies, created the Invincibles and brought through some of the club's and the world's best players.. The way the Arsenal fans have treated him over the past few seasons has been nothing short of a disgrace, looking through twitter and listening to phone in's this morning with fans celebrating as though they are now the automatic Premier League and Champions League winners is ridiculous. Also the hype over Arsenal fan TV and the way the media have published their rants about Wenger has been bullish and unneccesary. Fans at football clubs such as Arsenal don't know how good they have it, it summed it up for me as I left Wembley after the 2015 FA Cup Final. Arsenal were lifting the FA Cup yet the street was filled with Arsenal fans making their way home. For Wenger's sake I hope they give him a good send off, and I hope he goes into a job such as PSG or the French National Team and proves himself a success once again. For Arsenal, I hope this is just the start of their struggles and that they go the same way as United did after Ferguson left. As we have found out in recent years, no matter how 'big' the club is you are never far away from falling apart in football.

I wouldn't say Elmo, Chester or Taylor are particularly slow. I just don't think we need to be playing a defensive midfielder in games, it hinders our attacking intent and is a contributing factor to the lack of style of play our team has. Between Lansbury and Hourihane in the midfield they should be able to track back between them to cover defensive duties as well as providing more of an attacking outlet.

Johnstone Elmo Chester Jedinak Taylor Lansbury Hourihane Snodgrass Grealish Grabban Hogan Really want to see us play with a more attacking midfield, drop the anchor man and see if we begin to play football on the deck feeding balls to Hogan. For me there is no need to risk Kodjia, Terry or Hutton in this one. Adomah could do with a rest, then bring him back next game and rest Snodgrass for a week.

I still want to see what out midfield would be like without a holding midfielder. I get that in games having Bjarnasson, Jedinak or Whelan massively helps the team, but are we negating our attacking intent and ability in not playing 'footballing midfielders' We've seen recently that we are a better team when we go at the opposition, and playing Hourihane and Lansbury together with Grealish playing a free role ahead of them could help us to do this more often. Lansbury Hourihane Grealish

Any players price tag should be set on the importance of the player in the team and the value in comparison to buying a replacement. For us Grealish is our best player currently, and in today's market 20 - 25 million wouldn't buy us a replacement of the same calibre. Especially not a future England international. How many years does Grealish have on his contract? For me if we don't go up we should just play hard ball for another season as we will need him.

I hate when this thread opens at the end of a season and suddenly the names being banded around are all ex players. Milner, Young, Delph, Benteke, Barry, Albrighton... move on, they all have.

Bit of a blow that, realistically we aren't going to be getting 2nd and it would have been nice to put it to bed today and rest players for the next three weeks now. Also would have preferred Fulham to Cardiff in the playoff final. Cardiff now have to lose two games and draw one for us to get 2nd... after the season they have had it's not happening.

It doesn't help that second half Bruce throws all of the strikers on at the expense of the midfield, Grealish then drops deeper and deeper to help out and becomes ineffective in games. This leads to us only seeing the best of him for 45 minutes. That being said he's still been our best player in 90% of the games since he has come back from injury.

No chance

Tonight is all about clawing Cardiff back for Fulham to overtake them, along with trying to hit some form going into the playoffs. If we draw Cardiff in the playoffs over two legs I feel we have a chance, Fulham on their current form will blow us away. Johnstone Elmo Chester Terry Taylor Jedinak Snodgrass Grealish Hourihane Adomah Davis or Grabban Elmo and Taylor have been poor, unfortunately we have no one to replace Taylor with and we need Elmo to start hitting form as he links up well with Snodgrass when on his game. Jedinak in to deal with the height advantage Cardiff have. Davis or Grabban up top, I think we play better football with Hogan in the squad but we have no intention of playing to his strengths and so he is wasted. If we are going to continue launching long balls we might as well give Davis a run of games and see how he handles it.

Thats the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen on this forum... You are actually annoyed that should we go up we won't challenge the top six... This season is all about getting out of this league before we begin to hit financial ruin. The over-reaction to missing out on automatics is absolute madness. Granted we should have been acheiving 1st or 2nd this season but we are still going to be going into the playoffs with a chance of promotion this season.