wilko154

This just reminds me of the scene from Elf... I'm also aware this is the second time I've dug you out in separate threads today so for that I am sorry

I had that over the last month whilst playing Metro Exodus, finished it Friday. Put Witcher 3 back in on Saturday to finish off the game and haven't been able to put it down all weekend.

I hope he plays, put's in some monstrous challenges, sets up with the winner with a classic Tyrone Ping then sails back to Villa Park above the heads of a sea of opposition fans who have been slating him for the last week.

I think it was to be expected, the amount of signings we made meant that it was going to take some time for it all to click. We certainly haven't been playing badly other than the second half against Palace though we were playing with 10 men. There are signs that we will be alright, McGinn, Grealish, Mings, Engels & Heaton are a solid spine. I think we will be fine over the next few months and January will give us a chance to re-recruit if required. The Everton game fills me with hope for sure.

The league table means nothing right now. It's not arrogance. We are 3 points off 8th. The mass panic from fans is the only thing that will put pressure on the players right now, not the league position after 4 games.

If's and But's The end of August and we are 1 off the pace. It's become clear that the target right now is to avoid relegation, anything other than that would be a bonus. 40 is the magic number of points we need to beat relegation. Last season this would have achieved 15th place in the league. To achieve this we would require 4 points per month. August - 3 points September West Ham - Win Arsenal - Loss Burnley - Win Predicted Points - 6 We are now 1 points off the target after the first month. We only have 3 games next month to get back on track with 5 points being the target. The two home games are massive.

Give your head a wobble, why are you looking at Wolves fixtures as though it's going to define our season after 4 games? The league table means nothing until October.

Why do we need another left back? Wide player and Striker I agree with.

We'll be fine. At this stage last season Fulham had 4 points, they then accrued 1 point in their next 8 games. If we only manage 1 point in our next 8 games then fair enough we can start to worry.

This time last season we lost 4-1 to Sheff Utd and people were writing our season off, there's a long way to go!

People are getting a bit carried away with the doom and gloom already. The league table right now means nothing, it's all about the points we can get on the board. Yesterday was a joke, the referee was against us from minute one. We went into half time after playing fairly well with 4 bookings, the red card was always coming and we couldn't play our natural game after that. Bournemouth we made early mistakes and struggled to make it back. Tottenham we were outclassed in the last 15 minutes. We'll be fine, it was always going to be a struggle in the first month with the amount of new players we have brought in. The last 5 minutes were the most important yesterday, we didn't give up, we pushed for the equaliser and players started doing what they were doing in the Championship. Grealish finally started running at the defence, took on the midfielders head on, as did McGinn. We now have two weeks to sort ourselves out and go again at a packed Villa Park.

Why would we need 10 points from our next 4 games? Thats top 6 form. Are you saying you'll be disappointed if we don't finish in the top 6? 4 points a month is the target to beat relegation. We have taken 3 this month, we have one to make up. If we can take 5 points in the next 4 games we are on track, any more than that is a bonus.

I would much prefer FUT if they were to make it a much, much harder game. If you were to start with a bronze squad and really have to work to get better players by winning tournaments and leagues in order to upgrade your squad. Right now you can have a world class starting 11 within 2 days of gameplay. The values of the better cards drop so quickly before they start handing out specially rated cards like sweets means I lose interest within a few weeks. However I guess FUT is now how EA make their money.

The thing with FIFA is in the early years they could change the game quite drastically with improvements. Nowadays the changes are so subtle you can't really notice them, sometimes they make major changes that work and sometimes they don't. It's quite easy to forget just how far it's come, just look at the difference in gameplay from 2015 - 2019. I remember FIFA 1999 coming out and thinking that it would never get any better.

Alan Hutton is a guest on Soccer AM tomorrow morning! Unfortunately I will be on the bus to Crystal Palace but have it on record ready for the evening. The Scottish Cafu!

How Barkley has got in ahead of Jack I'll never know. Also after all of Southgate's comments regarding playing games in the PL, how has Oxlade-Chamberlain been called up?

Am I right in saying there was a clause in the deal for first England call up? If so I guess we now have to pay Bournemouth some more money. Not that it's a problem with NSWE.

Great news, the first time in a long time where a new player has been called up to the England squad. Normally we develop a player, they get called up and the following Summer they leave the club. No danger of that here. I look forward to seeing fans of other clubs who laughed at us for paying £20 million appreciate just how good he is.

Yeh I was just past the halfway line, second row back. It was hilarious

Will this be like Notre Dame where businessmen and celebrities offer millions/billions to save/rebuild yet when it actually comes around to sending the money they fall silent? Notre Dame has barely received a penny from the billionaires who have likely used it as a publicity stunt.

Have you tried a wired connection? I have Virgin and my connection was good online but since switching from wireless to wired it's now perfect.

The above team from @HalfTimePost is exactly what I would go with. A winnable game against a pretty poor Palace side, if we can dominate the possession we should be fine. After the win at Everton a point here wouldn't be the end of the world. But 6 points in our first month would be fantastic.

Really enjoyable night, great performance on the pitch and great banter in the stands with the Crewe fans. Dean Smith proved himself once again as the changes he made had absolutely no effect on the performance. It's refreshing to see that even with changing 10 players we still play the exact same way. Defence was a little shaky at times, Targett was poor before his injury but Guilbert was impressive once again when he came on. Midfield was strong. Marvelous grew into the game second half, Hourihane was fantastic and Lansbury showed glimpses of what he can do. Keinan Davis was very impressive, his hold up play throughout was really good and nice to see him cap it off with a goal. It's nice to go into these games and not slip up, the way Smith sets us up with his philosophy throughout the squad is exactly what the club needs. Roll on Saturday to a very winnable game in London.

So we should never try again in the cup competitions? We were able to play midweek games last season, there's no reason why we can't now.