S-Clarke

So, that'll be the inexperienced back 4 of Joe Bennett - Nathan Baker - Cerian Clark and Lowton against us. We have to work that back 4, simple as that. No matter of training will make that back 4 better, it is just lower league rubbish.

We have been seriously unlucky this year in terms of injuries, and who has had them. We've lost massive players for long periods - Lallana, Ramirez, now Fonte, Clyne.....(but should be back soon), Cork etc.. you couldn't pick a worst bunch to be injured, as we have no depth below them.

very positive news. To the best of my knowledge he can't sign a professional long-term contract until the summer, but it seems to me that everything has been agreed in principle it's just a case of him signing on the dotted line when he turns 18. Goodbye Wenger.

People will say that we can't defend etc, but throughout the season we've always had a decent set up - at the start we were just a little gung ho, and many of the goals we conceded were from individual errors, slips, OG's etc. Gary Neville brought it up a few months back, paused it before a goal we conceded and said our set up was fine...it was just a slip which caused the goal. Happened a few other occasions as well. We've cut that out, players have adjusted, and we still have a decent defensive setup through the whole side, which now shows with a little tweaking. Villa, generally, don't. They just don't work or defend as a team anywhere, that's the difference in my book.

Bradford City have now beaten more Premier League teams so far this season than QPR. great stat...

Half of these twitter transfer feeds are rubbish, so I'd ignore anything you see from them. Only worth paying attention to journos with validated accounts tbh.

It would be a decent tactic, if he was actually any good. He'd just run into blind alleys, run into people, and give away free kicks.

Yeah, we need to start well. Put them under pressure from the off. They will be nervous, and edgy after this result. The last thing they want us the fans turning on them, which they will do if we start quickly. If we have a strong start, it will probably be similar to QPR away.

I don't think having those 4 available would have made any difference to us. That 40-50min spell Chelsea had was beyond what many teams could handle, let alone us.

We will never get close to competing at their level, so there's no point comparing us. We can do well with our own strategy, but at best it's mid-table PL and an outside Europa league shot. That's our realistic ''top'' level in this current day and age.

I think there attack is dangerous, and will cause us problems, but our attack should be all over that defense. It's hopeless. No underestimating there.

We should win if we play as we can play. We showed against them at St Mary's that when we turned it on against them, they had no answer. However if we play crap, like we're capable of, it gives them an opportunity. But i seriously believe that if we play anywhere near our best, this will be a lot easier than many anticipate.

Every game is different, as we've seen from Chelsea recently, but you can't polish a turd at the end of the day. - and that's what this Villa team is. That villa team is full of complete and utter dross, not good enough for top level football. Players like Nathan Baker, Joe Bennett, Delph, Lowton, Bannan are championship at absolute best. It's painful trying to watch them play in the PL as a neutral, so what the Villa fans must feel is beyond me! Defensively they are a shambles, it's not just a 1 off either. ''Oh we'll work on this in the training ground'' will be trotted out, I'm sure, but you can't make these players good in a week. Some of them will never make it. This Villa team reminds me so much of our team under Port and Wotte, Young players given an opportunity when it's painfully obvious that the vast majority of them will not cut it and shouldn't be playing at that level. How they won at Liverpool is beyond me, although being honest Liverpool should have been 4-0 up after their first half - so they used up a hell of a lot of luck there. To put it simply, they are unadulterated trash.

You've just jinxed him! but a cracking save.

He was exciting in that team with Young, Milner etc. I don't think they use him well enough anymore, I reckon he'd do very well at another club

Compared to us, I can't see an Italian club offering more than we are. Might sound far fetched, but there's no money over there anymore. The money and opportunities are abroad, which is why many of that leagues big names are moving away. You only have to have a look at the AC Milan squad to realise how weak that league has become. It's not the pull it once was.

The same back 4 that's played in most games this year.

If we don't cause that Villa defense problems, then there is something wrong with us! They are tosh. Their attack is handy, and will cause us problems I'd guess, but we've got to work that back 4. Awful.

Tancredi Palmeri on Twitter: "Liverpool contacted Bologna for Ramirez. Still in stand-by the bid from Southampton" all you need to do is swap the names and clubs around, nothing is different.

They're losing, and look pretty pathetic at the back it has to be said - as usual.

All we really need to do here is bump up the Gaston Ramirez signing thread, and rename it to Astori. All the content from the agents and the media is exactly the same. I get a massive sense of deja vu every time I read this thread.

Count yourself shot. Seriously though, we do need to stay up - that's for sure. But I think we're clever enough not to put ourselves in the **** fi we do go down. To be honest, if we do get these players then NA will have to forget how to manage in the 2nd half of the season for us to go down. It would a joke if we went down with the players we could have. But I'm confident that we'll have a 2nd half of the season to remember, I'll stick by that.

Yep, pretty much. Said we wanted ''big signings'', and was also commenting that he wanted sexy which he was using to reason the story about NA being on his way out. Could still be true...but he's doing a good job so far. (Some will disagree, but that's another argument)

Nothing is really unrealstic with us these days. In a normal world, players like Fonte, Papa Waigo, Guly should be out of reach for a League 1 club - we had no right to sign any of those and it would have looked totally unrealistic -but it happened. Exactly the same with Ramirez, this guy was being linked with some of the best clubs in Europe and is such a coveted talent, but we did it. We have ambition and we have the clout to back that up. The vision for European football looked a bit far fetched, and it does obviously at the moment, but if we're targeting players like this - and getting them, we will end up in and around that shakeup at some point.

I think it's obviously aided because of NC's background, he obviously has built up a lot of Italian based contacts from previous times. But this is also a great time to be looking into Italy. It's not a great league anymore, you only have to look at some of the great names that have left there over the last 18months to realize that it isn't the force it once was. Matches are riddled with racism, match fixing, gambling. It's not an attractive league really, and it's why all the big players are moving away. Obviously money helps, as Italy doesn't have any at the moment - even some of the biggest clubs in Europe (Inter/ AC) are struggling financially big time, which is why players like Ibrahimovich and Thiago Silva left for the French league, which says alot - that wouldn't have happened a few years back. We're targeting ''top players'' at clubs at a similar level to us (I'm refering to Astori and Ramirez btw!), which is a clever tactic because at best those players will just be making a sideways step in order to make a bigger step in the future. In some ways some of these players will use us as a stepping stone, that has to be expected, but as a fan you pay to go and watch likes like Ramirez and Coutinho play for your club in your city. Enjoy it whilst we can.