TWar

Have a good time!

Oh OK, cool. Yeah their net spend was nuts for 2 seasons but unfortunately they are the second worst team effected by FFP right now so the spending will have to stop pronto, just like Everton have had to. This was kind of shown in the summer where they actually made a profit on transfers. We aren't in a great spot either, but tbh the £37m of wiggle room we have we aren't spending regardless. I think this might be why people think Villa are on the up, they spent big two seasons on the bounce and maybe people assume they will keep doing so until they are a european side but there are rules against such things, unfortunately for them.

His character wasn't so resilient in the 5 game losing spree which got Smith sacked. He was woeful against us in Smiths last game, misplacing everything. Romeu and JWP bossed that midfield battle.

I don't remember Tadic being dropped for us and fans clamouring for him to play. As I remember it was the opposite, the manager kept starting Tadic and our fans slagged him off.

Of those, I'd have Martinez and Ings. Watkins isn't as effective a partner for Ings as Che is so you could play him as a lone striker but I think I prefer the Adams Ings partnership, Mings is pretty useless, definitely wouldn't have him over Salisu who is our LCB, I'd have Konsa as our RCB in a heartbeat. McGinn plays the JWP role for them (not the pure DM) and the disparity in class between those two is massive. JWP is about 100 miles ahead imo. My combined team would be: Martinez Tino Konsa Salisu KWP Romeu JWP Bailly Buendia Ings Adams And honestly, that's generous to Buendia as Stu isn't fit and on form this season. If he was I'd put him ahead of Buendia at the moment certainly. Also, while Ings Adams is definitely the best first choice forward pairing from the two sides, I still am not convinced Ings will outscore Armstrong/Broja (whoever nails the forward spot down) as he is crocked. If he stays fit he should but that is something of a task for him. This "they are on the way up" is something I heard their fans say a lot in the summer, they certainly don't look better than last season to me. They seem to have regressed massively.

I think we'll both finish between 12th and 16th with maybe 5 points between us at most. I rate us to finish higher though as we are better imo.

I think if a team is struggling and a player doesn't seem to be starting as much as fans want they over mythologise their skills as a stick to beat the manager with. As soon as they leave you see why they weren't starting and they are conveniently never mentioned again.

What does this even mean?

Based on what? We needed a striker to replace Ings and we needed an LB to replace Bertrand. After that, we didn't spend over £5m on anyone. What reasoning do you have to say "course they could afford one". Walcotts wages would be the same as the keepers wages, where does the transfer fee come from? Or the fact the keepers contract would be twice as long. Presumably by "golden bollocks" you mean JWP, selling him would have been stupid as all hell. You can believe what you want, but managers don't have the power to just "insist" on signings and then they happen. He plays him regularly as he has no-one else, he got a new contract because otherwise he has 0 keepers next summer. One needed to stay on. Also Ralph doesn't distribute contracts. The fact is, both our keepers are bad and despite what you might think, it is not the managers job to change that fact. The budget comes from the owner, the scouting comes from the scouting department, and the negotiating and buying is done by Semmens. I think a lot of your hate for Ralph is some strange belief that he does everything from personally funding the transfers, scouting the talent, all the way to cleaning St Mary's loos. If they run out of pies are you going to hold that over him too?

Nor were they starting a youth rightback who hadn't played senior football in years or a youth CM who had never played senior football (and subbing on a youth CB who'd never played senior football after the bullshit red card)

Agreed, they will probably come storming back with some good signings but I can't see it happening much before the beginning of february. Takes a little while to bed in players.

Yeah agreed, play kids if they are good, not if they are not. Salisu is like a month older than Tella, and he's my player of the season so far. Livramento is probably the best teenager in the league (since Greenwood turned 20 in october!) and he starts every game. If Valery and Jank were up to it they would have started a lot, they weren't so they didn't. Simple as that imo.

This may be a little outdated, they brought in £100m this summer from one player. Either way, I don't think they have a better squad or better first 11. Some of the money they spent was comical. Almost £40m on Buendia, £40m on Mings, almost £20m on Targett etc.

I mean, objectively untrue. Gerrard has won 4 games. We have won 5 this season including cups. In those 7 months are you including preseason friendlies? If not, it was physically impossible to win games for almost 3 of them, so a little disingenuous...

To be fair with those: 1) Valery got his chance and was wank as a fullback. He might be better as a wingback or RCB going forwards (doubt it) but that was just a case of giving him a chance and him not taking it 2) Obafemi was constantly injured, which really derailed him. Also, he also isn't great. He's really struggling with Swansea, having scored just one goal and secured one solitary start since the start of the season 3) Tella is a decent player, but he is still a little way off. He has to earn his spot, and it looks like he has for now (will see when Stu is fit again). He has raw talent but I don't think he is a nailed prem starter as yet. He needs a little fine tuning. 4) Jankewitz, in hindsight, probably also wasn't that great. He had a chance when basically everyone was injured and he blew it with an act of stupidity. There wasn't a perfect storm like that where everyone was out so he didn't get another chance. Apparently a bad attitude and has barely started for his new team, being benched for every champions league qualifier, every champions league game, and making only 3 sub appearances in the super league. Honestly, I guess the question is were the youngsters good enough, and the answer is no. We have the second youngest average 11 this season after arsenal so playing younger players is clearly something we do do.

We shall see. To be honest I think Villa have been quite fortunate. I know some people hate these stats but the expected points for this season (points if expected goals had happened) has us as the third most underperforming side (behind brentford and palace), underperforming by 4.7 points and Villa as the third most overperforming side by 3.2 points behind Chelsea and United. I expect teams to regress to the statistical mean a little tbh. Full table here if people are interested: https://understat.com/league/EPL Also a team who starts Ashley Young, Matt Targett, and Mings every week isn't one we should see as out of our league.

Ralph doesn't sign the deals, Semmens does. Theo was definitely an error, he probably thought that because it was a free transfer and only a two year deal it was a low risk signing. Definitely a bad one though. Nobodies perfect, our other signings this summer have been very good value for money imo (even Lyanco, I just wish we'd spent more and gotten better). Regarding Long, I think we thought we could loan him to the championship, he'd do really well, and we'd recoup a modest fee selling him. I don't know what Long is on but if we got Bournemouth to pay half of it and then we flogged him for £1m at the end it makes financial sense. Again, it was a poor choice, but not every choice is going to come off. The first team manager doesn't have the final say on transfers, everyone knows that. The budget is approved from above, and the signings are approved by the director of football. I think Les did cock up with Forster, and I think a lot of his mistakes still haunt us to this day. 3 years may seem like a while but contracts tend to be for 4-5 years so Les' impact won't truly be gone from the club for a little while yet. Also post Les but pre-Semmens wasn't much better tbh.

What? No, we'd refuse his request to spend £15m on a keeper. Because we don't have a pot to piss in. He can do what he wants with a playbook, that doesn't cost the club money. Regarding your edit, doubt it. We needed a good second choice CB and coughed up £4m. Any keeper we signed for pennies would be incredibly risky and could very easily completely flop and then we'd have another player sat on our wagebill blocking future signings. We need to spend real money if we want consistent quality, especially in goal.

So Ralph says "I want a new keeper" and they say "We can't afford a good one". Then what? Do his "balls" just produce the money? You are right, it is a reflection on the bloke in charge. The issue is, you don't seem to grasp who the "bloke in charge" of a football club is. It's the guy who signs the cheques. And that guy is looking to sell. Ralph isn't even the rung below him, that's Semmens. Signings are not on the manager, they don't control the budget, do the scouting, or make the signings. They ask for stuff, but that is that, and we have no idea what Ralph has asked for.

I don't think Ralph is in charge of the money we spend, tbf, that is the director of footballs job. Unfortunately, I wouldn't be surprised at all if we didn't sign someone. We needed a first choice CB in the summer having lost Vestergaard and we instead signed a 4th choice one, despite us having a load of left over money from sales. Gao is on his was out and until he goes I suspect we are not spending at all. And I think the playing (or not so) of Perraud is not necessarily a bad thing. We signed what we thought to be an incredibly promising back up rightback for insanely cheap and were intending to play him behind KWP I imagine. That player was so good (being nominated for prem player of the month a little while ago) that he had to play. Now we have KWP, one of our top 5 players, displaced so unfortunately for Perraud he took his spot. I imagine we fully intended for Perraud and KWP to be our pairing but no one expected Tino to be as good as he is. That's a good thing imo.

That and within the context of the quote he's not just saying "we need more goals", he's pointing out that we have made chances but haven't been clinical enough. Which is still a reasonably straightforward observation, but atleast gives some insight, especially since last season our chance creation was very poor and it has definitely improved.

Whereas I think Duckhunter is that awkward mix of dim, argumentative, and way over self confident that makes him fundamentally unpleasant to interact with. I also think his football wisdom boils down to "if team is bad, it's always the manager" or "he would be better if he were more of a bloke"

And the cycle begins again. People will watch Macca for a while, notice he is wank and clamour for Forster, Forster will be wank for a while (just long enough for people to forget how poor Macca was) and then clamour for McCarthy, rinse and repeat ad nauseum. The fact of the matter is: Macca is the worst shot stopper in the league, second worst distribution in the league, and decentish at claiming crosses (like midtable) Forster is the second worst shot stopper in the league (unless it is low to his sides then he is fucked), actually worst distribution in the league, and can't claim crosses nearly as well as he can't catch the ball Neither is good, whoever we had right now people would be crying for the other, and when we regularly switch like the fans ask for then they (correctly) criticise a lack of consistency. There is no right answer to the GK situation other than "spend all that money we made on Ings/Vest and didn't reinvest on someone actually half decent" but we didn't do that so here we are.

What "tactical analyst" persona? We are all analysing the tactics? McCarthy played because we don't have anyone better. Saying Ralph picked him so he is to blame is implying we had better options hidden away somewhere. We didn't. This is why you are so hard to take seriously. Your criticism of Ralph seems to be "I don't care if all the options were bad, he picked a bad one thus it's on him" which is the mentality of a child. Norwich one because our keeper is shit, our second keeper is shit, our third keeper is so shit he doesn't get past the first three or even get a chance when they are injured. Also, not that it would have helped with Norwich but unfortunately by the looks of things, our emergency loan keeper looks shit too. You crying "but why didn't he just pick a good keeper" is honestly such a stupid argument. Not as stupid as you signing off every message with "stop digging" like it is a catchphrase but I guess it's better to be known for a catchphrase than to be known for being a bit dim.

Managers aren't there to "take blame", they are there to put out the best team and coach them. He can't tell McCarthy not to play like a sunday league keeper. This has nothing to do with "spreadsheets", rewatch the norwich goals and tell me again that basically any keeper in the league would consider them both absolutely routine.