Ginko

I think we will snatch a win.... And keep a Clean sheet in the process...

Even if we lose it just so crazy to get rid of the manager still so soon into his time with us, he does need more time, he does need this transfer window and then we should see... End of February for me, if he is shown the door, Benitez or Alladyce please...

:shock: Hush your mouth!

...and Fran, since when weren't you a Houllier fan?

I have never liked the old fool, he was the wrong appointment from day one. He should have stayed with the French fa, he's to old to be coming back into prem management.

Yeah... nevermind

I think we will snatch a win.... And keep a Clean sheet in the process...

Even if we lose it just so crazy to get rid of the manager still so soon into his time with us, he does need more time, he does need this transfer window and then we should see... End of February for me, if he is shown the door, Benitez or Alladyce please...

:shock: Hush your mouth!

...and Fran, since when weren't you a Houllier fan?

Watch out, Gerard Houllier, Randy Lerner's in sacking mood. He's just fired Cleveland Browns coach Eric Mangini

That was just posted on Twitter....Randy in a sacking mood huh

Difference being, the Brown's season is now over after not making the playoffs, and Mangini had 2 seasons in charge, both of which were 5-11, not impressive and showing no real progress. Not to mention that they were humiliated by the Steelers this week.

Completely different situation, not that I think you're being particularly serious though Cracker

Agree PieFacE, but 3 points wouldn't go amiss either

I agree Sellyoak. I guess the main difference I can determine from the good performance against Man U, and the good performance against Chelsea is that at Man U we played a lot of youngsters, particularly in the middle of the park, whereas against Chelsea we had a lot more experienced heads in there.

So now we have more players fit and a better squad to choose from we can get a better mix of youth and experience which might just help to get a bit more stability in the coming games. Our youngsters have been great but it comes as no surprise that young players are much less consistent on the whole.

Yep, but I feel confident. Don't you?

Not that this was aimed at me, but I certainly feel a lot more confident in the lads than I have recently, and I think we could get something from Sunderland on wednesday.

But as much as I hate to admit it since they're managed by that gigantic expletive, Sunderland have impressed me this season and I think they will be very hard to beat. Let's not forget they beat Chelsea earlier this season, and quite convincingly too. They're a very good team at the moment.

I don't think anyone is under the illusion that we're out of the woods yet Big_John_10, but there's no harm in enjoying a good result and having a bit of hope.

Just shows what a difference having our best and more experienced players on the pitch can make. It's not rocket science to know you don't do as well playing a team of youngsters and back ups. I think we'll kick on from here and finish near mid-table.

Even though the equaliser was a combination of two youth players in Albrighton and Clark?

I know what you mean though. I think Stan was a lot better today, we had a leader again in midfield, and credit to Dunne who played well, so probably another leader in defence too.

Hah well, I can see how it might be annoying for opposition fans hearing a commentator being biased towards the team they support, but get over it. The guy is a true fan clearly and couldn't contain himself, I think any true football supporter would understand this eventually.

Nice one Stan

I think I read somewhere that Warnock was suspended for today (thankfully). I did hope that it was Houllier's decision, but after Clark's performance today maybe Houllier will think a bit longer on who to play at LB. This also might spur Warnock on to do a little better, assuming the rumours about him hating the Villa aren't true.

Yeah I thought the same too, he said it in German for a bit of variety I think. Cuellar spoke in spanish too if I recall. Either way, two seconds of talking isn't enough to judge how good his english is. He's been in the UK for a fair while now and he seemed to communicate well enough with the rest of the reserve team considering how good he has been for them, I don't think we have much to worry about on that front.

Exactly what I was going to say.

I like the 'less ginger' comment too, if by less you mean, not ginger at all

I don't see many comparisons with Sidwell at all though frankly, I've never rated him and Delph is something special from what I've seen of him.

I think I must be the only person who doesn't like the away kit this season. I don't like the home one much either though to be fair. The FX pro sponsor looks naff on it too, it's got this horrible outline around it, makes it look really cheap, and on the away one the horrible reddy pink colour of the sponsor looks wrong on a black shirt.

I think all of the kits (including the horrible tiger stripe goalie kit too) look really cheap and naff this year. I wonder who it is at football clubs that make the decision on kits, I hope they do better next year.

He looked in good spirits on the Christmas Wishes video on the OS, hopefully because he's getting close to full fitness.

Ask him to sign on for one more year with the promise we will sell him in the summer if the right contract offer comes in for him.. That way he doesn't screw us mid-season (through no fault of his own if he just wants to move on with his career) and we still get a transfer fee for him and he still gets to leave to a bigger club if he so wishes come the summer.

Win/Win. Only losers being his agent and advisors who would have to wait a little bit to get their pay packet.

Wont ever happen though, makes too much sense.

He would be a less attractive proposition for the clubs wanting to buy him though, he would be more expensive since he has longer to run on his contract. Therefore, they might not offer what we value him as, meaning that this 'right contract offer' may never come and he would then be here for another year instead. This would no doubt be good for us, but by the time another year comes around, the bigger clubs who have been sniffing around him may lose interest and get someone else in.

So from Ash's point of view, if he does want to leave and go to a bigger club, this might not make much sense, so I doubt it will happen.

Sorry to ask MM, and I know MON has gone now, but I seem to remember him mentioning that Delph needs to learn to tackle properly to avoid injuring himself. Are the coaches aware of this and have they said anything to him about his tackling or general play that you know of?

We have to try to recoup the £ 10m we paid for him - try and get someone to pay £ 20m or thereabouts.

I'm convinced he will go but with all footballers I don't really give a shit anymore, they are all a revolving door of mercenaries so we may as well get a few good players with the money.

I don't think we can match his ambition anyway, the only club who can is in the Top 4. I reckon he will end up at Man City like all our rejects and will rot on the bench.

Oh christ the first thing I thought of when you mentioned Man City was a swap deal with SWP... noooooooo!

Sell, I at least wanted to recoup some money.

We should be able to make a profit really, what did he cost £9.5 million?

If we can get a decent amount, sell him. I like him and he's done a lot for us but if he wants to leave you can't do much and losing him wouldn't be the end of the world. We have two quality wingers and perhaps we could use the money on another striker or a player who is really effective in the hole, because Ash hasn't been that good in that position in my opinion. Whoever he ends up going to, I bet he plays back on the wing.

I'd say that was an incredibly accurate prediction of 2014

They forgot to mention why Bannan would want to leave Villa who were crowned the Premier League and Champion's League Champions two years running though.

They forgot to quote Bannan's other teammate Kaka too.

I think GH's style of passing will suit his game and he will be able to stamp himself on a game. I saw Delph play against Fiorentina and Brighton and in both games, we played more passing rather than direct and he looked very good indeed. Plus his goal against Brighton was a quality run in beyond the front man and finish.

I was at the Brighton game and he was our best player (Albrighton came off early though unfortunately). His goal was great and he should have had about 3 if I remember correctly.

What I remember most about watching him was that he dawdled in possession a little, mainly due to the other players not getting into positions to pass to, but even when someone tried to nick the ball away from him, it was like the ball was glued to his feet. He kept possession brilliantly.

I really hope he gets a run of games and he stops injuring himself, he will be a great asset.

I knew women were useful for something!

And as for his comments after the game, I really couldn't care less. I don't care if the manager likes or respects the fans. I don't respect the Villa fans! I think they're a bunch of whining tits on the whole. all that matters is if he is a good manager or not and he hasn't even come close to having the chance to prove that or not at Villa. Honestly, who can blame him for for being warmer to Liverpool fans who still like and respect him years after he's gone than he is to Villa fans who want him out before he's finished clearing out all of MONs unread scouting reports from his office!

Welcome to the board, Gerard.

The way some people are reacting on this message board, they're hardly giving good reasons to give them respect.

I hate most football fans at the best of times though.

MON signed some shocker's aswell in his time, i think all manager's have at some point. I just feel in January if we spend moey we really cant afford to get it wrong with who GH chooses to buy

Hopefully they will have had a good long think on this very subject when they had that meeting earlier today.

Bicks, without looking up his transfer history, I'm pretty sure he also signed some decent players.

Jan 1999: Jean-Michel Ferri Istanbulspor £1.5m

Jan 1999: Rigobert Song Salernitana £2.7m

Feb 1999: Djimi Traore Laval £550,000

Jun 1999: Titi Camara Marseille £2.8m

Jun 2000: Bernard Diomede Auxerre £3m

Sep 2000: Gregory Vignal Montpellier

Sep 2001: Anthony Le Tallec and Florent Sinama Pongolle Le Havre £6m

Jan 2002: Abel Xavier Everton £800,000

Jun 2002: El-Hadji Diouf Lens £10m

Jul 2002: Bruno Cheyrou Lille £3.7m

Aug 2002: Salif Diao Sedan £5m

Those are his French related purchases whilst at liverpool, which is what I was talking about. There were probably some French youth players in the academy too but I can't find records of them, I can guarantee you wont have heard of them since though

Most of his other transfers were almost as bad but the French ones were horrendous

Wow what a bunch of world beaters! Have any of these players ever set the game alight?

For those saying that he should be given time to bring in his own players, all I can say is from what I can see he isn't likely to bring in players that will radically improve us either.

Just look at the players he signed for Liverpool. Very inspiring. And the one he's rumoured to be interested in? Michael Owen. Yeah Owen will catapult us back up the table.

The same Liverpool players that he won a treble with? The same players that won The Champions League which Houllier hugely credited for since it is widely stated that depite Benitez being manager, it was Houllier's team?

As for Michael Owen, you said it yourself, a RUMOUR.

I find it quite funny too that the 'Yes' % seems to be rising.. we obviously have people visiting this site who are not villa fans and thinking it be funny to vote yes to try and keep him here and keep us a laughing stock a little bit more.

Genuine villa fans after last night want what is right for our club and not make it suffer further!

HOULLIER OUT!

Or maybe some of us who voted yes are actually Villa fans, but aren't still crying over last night because we have better things to do with our time?

It's nothing to do with who is a proper fan, it's to do with circumstances and also the fact that some people believe a manager should atleast have a transfer window to work with before they get the boot.

I'm not happy with the way things are being done at the moment, no-one is, but that doesn't mean getting rid of our manager with no-one to replace him (anyone who is a realistic option anyways) is the answer, it's more a kneejerk reaction and an automatic response that makes all of us fans look like morons.

So you agree with the fact he insults the villa fans and waves and claps the kop? (not the villa fans who are there for the team no the liverpool fans)

You agree the game was over at 2-0 like gh said?

Wasnt worth us turning up really was it?

Makes me laugh even more people who make excuses for someone who is out of touch with the fans and the players.

I guess its ok to be beaten by liverpool 3-0 i mean its liverpool so it dont matter.

Yep now i can see why fans vote no for!!!!!

I've mentioned in other threads my feelings towards this, but for your benefit, no I don't think any of the things he did last night were particularly smart, but I do think people are overreacting to some of them.

My point, which you may have missed, is that managers should be given time, and I don't think sacking him now would be a good idea because there's nobody we could get realistically that people would be happy with, and all of the problems of coming to a new club and getting to know the players etc. would just start over again.