wilko154

Tshibola and Jedinak are fine. Bacuna is a bit of a passenger in midfield, would be better placed at right back to prevent the liability that is Alan Hutton. Agree with Westwood and Gardner, very poor players. Two new midfielders are desperately needed. If Lansbury signs this week it will make such a difference to our overall team play.

Depressing being a Villa fan, we lost to a Premiership side chasing the title?! You're living in a dreamworld if you think we should be winning a game like that. By no means a tame, heartless performance.

Damage limitation game there for us. We set up to keep the score down first half and then have a go late on. Tactics were spot on but Spurs were ultimately too strong for us. Absolutely no shame in going out of the FA Cup to Tottenham, and realistically we could do without the extra games this season. For me Sam Johnston looks great in goal, if he can perform like that for the rest of the season it looks like a great signing. Tshibola was good in the middle of the park, passed the ball round (and forward!) and can hold on to it when necessary. With Lansbury next to him he will be fine for us. On to the next one!

This for me, realistically this game was all about damage limitation.

Do people complaining about our defensive set up not understand it would be about 6-0 if we had gone all out attack from the first minute?!

Grealish has been poor today, bottled a lot and takes too long on the ball.

Just watching this video and seeing him busting a gut to get himself in the box shows how poor our midfield is. A goalscoring midfielder is what we have been crying out for for years!

If Palace fans are pinning their hopes on re-signing a 32 year old midfielder with no pace and no passing ability they are as good as relegated. That being said we look a worse team without him, and with our lack of midfielders we need to keep hold of him until at least the Summer.

That's one expensive window!

You beat me to it

He would probably spill it

I think my 1 or 2 in 10 was a bit of an exaggeration that has been picked up on What you have just said is pretty much what I meant. Get the midfield right and McCormack should be fine. Selling him now would be madness.

Not for me, too similar to Grealish and Ayew along with an attitude that this club don't need right now.

Haha no unfortunately not! He was really disappointing against Cardiff on Monday, but when you look at the midfield behind him and the lack of possession our side has you can see why he looks so poor. With a strengthened midfield I think we will start to see the best of him. I hope so anyway as he is all we have right now!

At the end of the day McCormack like many in this division is a Championship striker, they have never been picked up by Premiership clubs for a reason. If you stick 10 balls through to McCormack 1 or 2 will end up in the back of the net. Currently we are giving him 1 to 2 chances per game (if that) and he isn't scoring... The problem isn't necessarily McCormack but the midfield behind him providing the chances.

I like Lansbury, as a starting point for our midfield he would be great. 3 million would also be a bargain! Get him in and lets move on to the next signing!

Nah I do agree, the players you have all listed all need to be moved on. Unfortunately we can't get rid of all of them and find replacements in this transfer window, due to both time and FFP regulations. We will also struggle with buyers for most of these. Best we can do is sort out players for the areas we are weak, move a few of these players out and then come the Summer move out the remaining players.

In reality we can't afford to offload all of those players A few are adequate as squad players until we can replace them in the Summer - Hutton, Elphick, Cissokho, Bacuna, Gardner Bunn, Richards, Westwood Gabby & Kozak can all be offloaded this window if anyone will take them (I would add Gardner here but we have now given him a new contract) Gestede has already left by the sounds of it I agree with you that none of these players should be getting into the first team with the exception of Bacuna until we have an adequate replacement

The main problem with our midfield is getting the ball to players like Grealish to provide the assists. In too many games this season our midfield has looked lightweight or non existent. Agree with Green, he could do a job for us on the left wing if we don't sign an experienced left winger this window. But again we need the midfielders in to be able to pass the ball and create chances for Green & Grealish to provide that final ball to the strikers.

I don't think we can recall him so this is a bit of a pointless conversation. He's also no better than Jedinak, in fact his passing last season was worse.

Did a job for me on Football Manager 2017, sign him up

Barry and Jedinak would again be the slowest CM pairing in the league. I mentioned Will Hughes yesterday but I agree he's extremely unlikely to end up at Villa. A player in his mould would be great though, along with another midfielder capable of passing a football more than 5 yards. Huddlestone would do the job, but I think we could attract better, younger players than him. Loaning Jenkinson as a right back would be good for us, in fact a couple of loan deals would be great for the other positions we could do with filling (after CM's). The less contracts we dish out now whilst we are a Championship standard team the less players we will need to move on when they are found out at Premiership level (i.e. Jedinak, Elphick) Promotion is a must though and the only target this season, and so whatever Bruce & Xia go with I have faith in! This is the one of the first January window's I am genuinely excited by!

I also want to know who voted for Jedinak as MOTM...

Watching Derby vs Blues today and Will Hughes is the exact type of midfielder we need. Great with the ball at his feet, can pass it well and isn't scared to drive forward. He also doesn't shy from a tackle. Would be more than pleased if we can get hold of him.

If he doesn't want to leave then keep him. If Tony is going to turn down that sort of money it just proves how serious he is, and how much money he actually has. Amavi was poor yesterday but he will become a world class left back over the next few years.