jackbauer24

We should start some form of sweepstakes, guessing where the players will go once we're inevitably relegated. And yes, for me, it is inevitable this year. Grealish feels like a Spurs signing, Gil back abroad, Traore maybe Palace, Richards a newly promoted side, Gana off to Everton. Amavi could head to a decent Spanish team as a guess. We're stuck with Lescott, Hutton, Gestede, Gabby. Guzan, Westwood and Clark will give it a year to see if we come back at first attempt but then head to newly promoted sides if/when we don't. Bacuna, Ayew, Veretout probably all go abroad. Sherwood is now a pundit and Wilkins leaves football after failing to keep us up after taking over for last ten games. Worryingly, take away Gil, Grealish, Traore and Gana from our squad and I wouldn't be confident we wouldn't be fighting a reegation battle in the Championship.

I wonder what Tim Sherwood is on wages wise. Not something that's ever discussed really, but I imagine being a inexperienced manager, young and widely considered a gamble that's it's not a great amount as far as managers go. Much like Lambert probably. I somehow doubt we could afford experienced managers, and when I say afford I just mean that in the language of Lerner. Personally I don't care if Sherwood is sacked or not. I said exactly the same thing 6 months ago when everyone was screaming for Lambert's head. When will people learn, about 95% of our success is down, like it or not, to investment. How do people not recognise that if everything from the players, to the management, to the coaches to the Chief Exec has changed that the only constant in this failure is Lerner? So who's the next manager without funds for transfers or more importantly wages? Houllier - experienced old head. FAILED McLeish - Local knowledge stupid gamble FAILED Lambert - One years Prem experience, young grafting manager FAILED Sherwood - mouthy young energetic chancer with no experience FAILING It makes practically no difference who the manager is, a couple of places in the league maybe but Lerner has reduced the expenditure to such an extent that I genuinely believe that whoever the manager is now that we're fighting for 18th to 20th. Last year we were fighting for 17th to 19th. The year before that maybe 16th to 18th. We've been going one way for five years. And with such a obvious trajectory who realy thinks our wage bill hasn't gone down again this year? Yes this is a white flag post. We aren't being relegated by Sherwood, we aren't being relegated by these first eight games, we're being relegated by systematic failures from Lerner. Chronic underinvestment has lead to this and it is now basically too late to do anything. Sherwood had to gamble abroad for cheap players, either transfers and/ or wages but it was always a gamble. Finally Lerner's luck has run out.

I can't link this because it was all online through an email, but I was just doing the annual Premier League fan survey and the questions are very similar year on year; how far do you live from ground, who do you take, what do you spend, do you want televised football blah blah blah but then at the end there were four very unusual/ tailored questions. Choose which Aston Villa badge you like (from four from our history) Do you think the lion should have claws? Why? What does the word 'Prepared' mean to you? How strongly do you feel the word 'Prepared' should be included in the badge? So have the club asked for this information? Is another badge change/tweak in the offing? Personally I wish they'd just leave it alone now and focus on more important things, teams should change badges once every 50/100 years not with each new kit...

Nice in theory. But if that's really the case then we should play Ayew, Gestede, Gabby, Sinclair, Traore, Gil, Grealish, Veretout, Amavi, Bacuna...oh and Guzan! Obviously it's ridiculous line up, but it's all about blend and I don't think we can afford three luxury type players. Players that are unlikely all to be firing on the same day, which means nine times out of ten you'll effectively be playing with nine men. Obviously that one time they are all firing will be great but scant consolation for finding ourselves with three points from every thirty available! At the moment, with where we are in the pecking order, we need graft over luxury. We need the essentials done first and the sparkle added later. As Sherwood stated last season, you can have too many icing on the cake players and in Traore, Gil and Grealish we have that if playing at the same time.

I think it's too early to be calling for the manager's head, despite being worryingly convinced we're getting relegated. However, I've said it a million times - the manager situation is kind of irrelevant whist we have Lerner refusing to invest in transfers or wages. I strongly suspect the current wage bill is considerably less than even Lambert's time in charge and wages hold an even stronger correlation to quality than transfer fees do. But back to Sherwood. On one hand he's had the misfortune to lose key players but on the other he's at least had the chance to create his own team. Lambert never got the luxury of spending any decent player sales figures so always had to scrape and gamble (Benteke being proof he got it right sometimes) where as Sherwood has had that luxury but I suspect could only pursue players on smaller wages. Both have been given almost crippling hands to play. So far both are having similar success... For Sherwood; well he's definitely entertaining! He deserves praise for keeping us up and he deserves praise for getting us to the final. It's still early but his transfer dealings seem about average, with Gana, Traore and Amavi looking good, Richards and Veretout looking ok, Lescott, Gestede and Ayew not really doing it yet and then Llori, Crespo and Bunn being squad fillers. And before anyone says, I'm judging Gestede on his whole play so despite being very pleased with his goal return I actually still think he's a one trick pony who'll quickly be nullified as the league gets to know him. Against Sherwood; well I suppose the transfers could go in here too! Was it wise to have such a big turnover? Why is he largely using players that were already here if he's convinced these players are improvements - Gabby is no.1 striker still, acceptable after having spent a third of funds on forward players? What the hell is going on with substitutions? Are there any tactics/ game plans or is it, as it sometimes feels like, just a ten year old boy playing manager and trying a team with ten attacking players and no defenders? Have we played well since FA Cup QF? Does he really believe what he says in interviews or is it just playing with the media? I'm worried 'banter' is more important than practice at Bodymoor Heath. But, like I've said, it's all irrelevant. With Sherwood, without Sherwood, this team is being stripped down to the absolute bare essentiallys to survive in the Premier League. There is no ambition to do anything more. And if you keep pushing the limits you inevitably fall at some point. We're now in the relegation zone, I'll be surprised if we get out of it whatever happens with Marmite Tactics Nice But Dim Tim...

We have three, what I would call, luxury players at the moment in Traore, Gil and Grealish. Three players with bags of talent but limited graft. These players are hard to find but even the best teams struggle to accommodate them individually, never mind all three. The problem with these players is it's like playing with ten men for a majority of the match and hoping that, if they feel like it today, they may spark to life for 15mins and singlehandly swing the game in our favour. That's fine if you can go toe to toe with the opposition whilst they amble around uninterested but a big problem if every game is a battle to hold on like we have at the moment. There's definitely an argument to play one of them. Grealish has the most scope to add graft to his game so is probably the obvious starter. Traore is probably the most talented but will never add graft due to that arrogant side that makes him lively, so unfortunately he has to be a sub until Villa improve. It's a very annoying set of circumstances, but I fear that we have Traore at the wrong time. Have him during the MON years and we could afford to develop and witness his genius, but having him now is a luxury we can't afford - this season, at absolute best, is going to be about scraping and fighting for points and we can't afford any passengers. Traore is basically too good for us and knows it. We'd all love to see all three playing but realistically it makes us far too lightweight, far too gungho, and in this division you'll be slaughtered nine times out of ten for such 'bravery'.

I too am a Westwood fan but acknowledge he has been poor the last few games. Much like most of the rest of the squad. But he's still ahead of Sanchez for me, both on historic showing for Villa and current form. Sanchez has been appalling, whereas Westwood has just been poor.

Personally, the quality of the opposition, whilst useful for some comparison, is relatively unimportant in my belief we're... well screwed! If you look at Blues or Liverpool game, despite differences in their quality, the point is Villa have shown so little quality, so little fight and so little evidence of a game plan or tactic nous from Sherwood that massive alarm bells are going off. Like someone mentioned previously, there's little point complaining about it now as there's nothing we can do until January. As for blame it still surprises me that there is any debate; the management has all changed, the players have all changed so there's only one constant and it's our waste of space, underinvesting chairman. Nothing will change until their is investment in the squad and we haven't had any in five years. We will be adrift by Xmas, no doubt in my mind. This squad isn't strong enough, we haven't picked up points where we've needed them and the fixtures only get harder from here. The only question is whether Lerner will react in January, but I doubt it. Ah well, I'll enjoy being a bigger fish in a smaller pond for however many years we're outside the Premier League and take solace in the fact Lerner will have lost millions.

Simple. We have no quality. Any team that puts even a tiny bit of pressure on us will win, with ease. Liverpool weren't holding on for that and the scoreline flattered us. It was easy and that's with what is arguably our fully fit first XI. We're in the relegation zone and we're staying there. By this time next week we will be at least three points adrift too. Forget looking up, we're in a fight with Sunderland to see who can finish bottom.

No excuses today about injuries, we just don't have any quality. This is arguably our first XI when every one is fit. It's not the fact we're losing, it's the fact we offer no threat, have little possession, pass success rate is appalling and not a single player looks up for the fight. Against a Liverpool team who are in 'crisis' with a manager on the brink and several high profile injuries. We're down.

I'd love to be wrong but the most optimistic I am is that we might not get trashed. Not even necessarily being Liverpool, just the fact we show so little quality. The last 45 minutes yesterday were better, but that's not to say it was good. There was still a lack of composure, still a lack of quality in decision making and we hardly looked light years ahead of a Championship team. Whilst it may have been sensible, the holding it in the corner for the last ten minutes seemed to indicate we don't have the confidence to kill of a team through goals. Understandable against Man City, disappointing against Blues. And play like we did for the first 45 mins and we'll already be four down against a Premier League team. Then of course throw in the fact we always help out struggling teams and players then this is nailed on a comfortable victory for Liverpool.

I know this won't be popular, but if people haven't sorted out their own reference number after years of being reminded to then I have fairly little sympathy! It really isn't hard. They can still be all booked together; you just assign them their own reference. If you're a passionate enough fan to want to come to the games that will need reference numbers (Wembley etc) then you should know to have individual reference numbers by now.

I could be mean and say Julian Joachim now would still offer more!! But actually I just wanted to go completely Off Topic and just say wasn't Julian Joachim the most underrated striker we ever had?! He was quietly brilliant and yet few would even recognise a picture of him today!

Thanking Sherwood for keeping us up is just and right. I don't think many could really argue he deserves plaudits for that. However, there is an argument to say that ANY change of manager at that point would have had a similar reaction as we just needed a fresh start and some positivity. It's history now, but I still maintain that despite making many mistakes, Lambert had the toughest hand of any manager over the last decade at least! As for Sherwood there are still BIG questions. the Southampton defeat was awful and the FA Cup embarrassing and now he's made the decision to change the whole squad - it's his team and we are arguably worse than last season (in comparison to games he was in charge for). With our fixtures so far this season we should have a lot more points, regardless of how we are playing - we should be scraping draws and wins from these kinds of games if we're not a relegation candidate. The settling in period may explain the odd performance or inconsistency or getting destroyed by a top team but it doesn't excuse lack of effort, lack of bottle and the really weird substitutions. 11 world class players in a new team might not hit their stride for 10-20 matches but they'd still be showing enough quality to get easy points against poor teams. We aren't, we aren't showing any team quality. All we have shown is a few stand out youngsters playing for themselves (Grealish, Gil and Traore). I don't particularly rate our departed players but a few of them would be doing better than what we've got! It's also telling that Sherwood isn't even playing a lot of the newbies which makes you question if he's realised already that either he, or whoever advised him, made a huge mistake. His hit rate so far is pretty bad. Goalkeepers - not much change other than Guzan knows they tried to replace him but couldn't and Bunn isn't quite as good as Given. Defenders - Lescott and Richards aren't showing much more than Clark and Okore yet, they just are a lot older can take better selfies and increase the 'banter' level in the dressing room. Amavi has been POTS so far, despite the one mistake and looks a great improvement. the Hutton/Bacuna area hasn't been addressed at all. Midfield - largely the same as last year, none of his signings playing apart from the unfortunately crocked Gueye who's looked good. Playing Gil and Sinclair who were Lambert buys and Grealish who too was already here. Traore looks promising but young and inexperienced. Strikers - well it's embarrassing so far! Benteke was theoretically being replaced by two strikers and yet they've so far shown they're not even as good as the departed Bent and Weimann! And what's happened to the only striker who was scoring in pre-season in Kozak? So Sherwood has a LONG way to go to prove he is a manager. And there's only one way to do that. Points, not even performances, points.

Worryingly I'd rather we could play Kozak and Weimann than Gestede and Ayew. I thought we were trying to replace Benteke with two strikers to share the load. What I didn't realise was that we were actually trying to replace two squad strikers with less able, but crucially less well paid, players.

I'm sure there's a joke about 'at least he's scoring somewhere' to be had here... but I'm too classy to make it...

Am I the only one who really doesn't care about singing?! I find most chants a bit, well juvenile for want of a better word. Probably makes me seem a little pompus but I shout and scream and roar the team on during the game so I'm hardly sitting on the side politely tutting! I just don't want to get involved in any songs about the Blues, standing up if I love Villa (I'm at Villa every week that's enough!) or lying about how we're the greatest team in the world! A loud, passionate Villa Park to me is that roar that accompanies kick off, or the shouts of support when we start peppering the opposition goal. In fact I'd argue singing only really occurs when people are bored! But like a few people have mentioned previously, it's unrealistic to suggest fans can stay positive in the continuos face of such dire performances. I'd be surprised if our home record wasn't one of the worst of any team in England over the last five years.

I'm going, but I don't really want to! I have a season ticket and normally wouldn't think twice about going to cup games but this time I'm only going because my other half wants to having never experienced the true derby. An important reason behind my reluctance is the fact it's a no win situation for Villa really. Win and we should have, scrap through and we're lucky, lose and it's humilation. Where's the glory? Blues go in to this game with nothing to lose, even a loss can be covered with the 'we matched them for x minutes' line. Obviously add in our awful form, it being a generally nasty environment, it being a Tuesday night, it being live on Sky and being rather overpriced for an early round League Cup game I can fully understand people staying away. I should have.

I've said this in another thread but I don't think we currently can afford Gil and Grealish in same team. They are selfish luxury players that will look worse when they are along side someone of a similar ilk. Gil, Grealish and Sinclair all looked bad today because there was no one grafting along side them to let them do their thing and we can't have that many lightweight passengers at the moment. Gil wasn't bad today, he was just largely anonymous like the rest of our luxury players. The defence, Sanchez and Westwood must have had a good 95% of the possession we had today.

Without doubt, man of the match today. He was exceptional with his saves, average with his distribution and poor with some of his kicks but was still better than everyone else on the pitch purely by the fact I thought he did SOMETHING well!

He's not good enough for our starting eleven, his footballing brain is possibly the slowest I've ever seen. He's also surprisingly weak, he gets pushed iff the ball constantly. I'll be beginning to miss El Ahmadi at this rate!

He was offering nothing today because Sherwood set up the team badly, his position was redundant as Gil/Grealish were operating behind a lone striker and balls stopped at the half way line and were then hopefully booted high forward. He shouldn't have been subbed, he should have taken Gabby's place or played more centrally.

You have to question a manager who sets us up so lightly in midfield against physical teams. You have to question a manager whose subs make zero sense. You have to question a manager who doesn't trust his own signings to start up front. You have to question a manager who seemed to play Richards up front for last ten minutes today! Lots of questions. But I don't think Sherwood has the answers.

Grealish, like Gil, Bacuna and Sinclair, is a luxury player at the moment. He won't graft, he won't work for the team but he'll have sporadic moments of genius. Maybe he'll develop further but at the moment he's too focused on clever turns and step overs than actually looking at what's going on around him. His contribution largely comes from being fouled in dangerous areas but yet to see him provide much from a pass. We can't afford to play them all together, we need more bite in midfield and they're all too selfish for that.

It is rather telling that Sherwood isn't starting either of the strikers he signed. They were always cheap gambles but as yet, if they can't displace the 'prolific' Gabby from the starting line up then you do have to worry if they'll have any impact this season. We actually finished with Richards almost playing as a striker...